Posts Tagged: Research

4-H Study of PYD articles

The July 2010 issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence included several studies using data from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development, for which California has contributed data. These articles include:

 

* Overview on the measurement of thriving (Lerner, von Eye, Lerner, Lewan-Bizan, & Bowers)

* Confirmatory factor analysis of the 5 C's model (Bowers, Li, Kiely, Brittian & Lerner)

* Active and engaged citizenship (Zaff, Boyd, Li, Lerner & Lerner)

* Trajectories of positive and negative behaviors (Lewan-Bizan, Lynch, Fay, Schmid, & McPherran)

* Self regulation in middle adolescence (Gestsdottir, Bowers, von Eye, Napolitano & Lerner)

* Neighborhood assets & self regulation (Urban, Lewan-Bizan & Lerner)

* Assets and academic competence (Li, Lerner & Lerner)

* Missing data methods (Jelicic, Phelps & Lerner)

* Invited commentaries (Floyd and Porter)

* Book review of The Good Teen by Richard Lerner

Call for research briefs

Texas A&M's Sequor Youth Development Initiative has issued a Call for Research Briefs aimed at practitioners, to provide them with applicable summaries of youth development research. Examples of their research briefs are located at http://www.ydi.tamu.edu/briefs-and-reports

Research briefs should be 1000-1400 words in length. Authors of accepted briefs will receive a $250 honorarium.

For a copy of the call and its template for research briefs, email me (keheck@ucdavis.edu) or Peter Witt at Texas A&M (pwitt@tamu.edu). If you are interested in writing a brief, please contact Peter Witt.

Best practices and evaluating evaluations

The August issue of the journal Family Relations includes an article for practitioners on "best practice" reports. Many best practices summaries may be based on evaluations that could be flawed; the evidence suggesting that a practice is a "best practice" could be weak. Even a randomized sample, a relative rarity in evaluation research but often considered the gold standard, may result in findings which are not ultimately applicable to the real world of programming. The article's author, Jonathan Olson of Penn State-Altoona, suggests considering the evaluations as well as the population used in the evaluation, as well as considering the source of the program and evaluation, to decide whether the results will be applicable to the population under consideration for programming.

Synthesis of research on inquiry

An article in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of Research in Science Teaching synthesizes findings on inquiry based instruction in science outcomes for youth.

"Various findings across 138 analyzed studies indicate a clear, positive trend favoring inquiry-based instructional practices, particularly instruction that emphasizes student active thinking and drawing conclusions from data. Teaching strategies that actively engage students in the learning process through scientific investigations are more likely to increase conceptual understanding than are strategies that rely on more passive techniques, which are often necessary in the current standardized-assessment laden educational environment."

Here is a link to the article and accessible PDF.

Citation: Minner, D.D., Levy, A.J., & Century, J. (2010). Inquiry-based science instruction - what is it and does it matter? Results from a research synthesis, years 1984 to 2002. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 47(4), 474-496.

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