ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
A Large Sample Comparison of Grade Based Student Learning Outcomes in Online vs. Face-to-Face Courses
Author: Cavanaugh, Joseph K.
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Online Courses,Conventional Instruction,Comparative Analysis,Multiple Regression Analysis,College Students,Student Characteristics,Statistical Analysis,Grade Point Average,Grades (Scholastic),Interaction,Teaching Methods,Public Colleges,College Credits,Least Squares Statistics

Comparisons of grade based learning outcomes between online and face-to-face course formats have become essential because the number of online courses, online programs and institutional student enrollments have seen rapid growth in recent years. Overall, online education is largely viewed by education professionals as being equivalent to instruction conducted face-to-face. However, the research investigating student performance in online versus face-to-face courses has been mixed and is often hampered by small samples or a lack of demographic and academic controls. This study utilizes a dataset that includes over 5,000 courses taught by over 100 faculty members over a period of ten academic terms at a large, public, four-year university. The unique scale of the dataset facilitates macro level understanding of course formats at an institutional level. Multiple regression was used to account for student demographic and academic corollaries--factors known to bias course format selection and grade based outcomes--to generate a robust test for differences in grade based learning outcomes that could be attributed to course format. The final model identified a statistical difference between course formats that translated into a negligible difference of less than 0.07 GPA points on a 4 point scale. The primary influence on individual course grades was student GPA. Interestingly, a model based interaction between course type and student GPA indicated a cumulative effect whereby students with higher GPAs will perform even better in online courses (or alternatively, struggling students perform worse when taking courses in an online format compared to a face-to-face format). These results indicate that, given the large scale university level, multi course, and student framework of the current study, there is little to no difference in grade based student performance between instructional modes for courses where both modes are applicable.
Food Assistance Programs and Child Health
Author: Gundersen, Craig
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Food,Social Services,Lunch Programs,Breakfast Programs,Hunger,Poverty,Low Income Groups,Program Effectiveness,Child Health,Obesity,Eating Habits,Well Being,Federal Programs

Food assistance programs--including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps), the National School Lunch Program, and the School Breakfast Program--have been remarkably successful at their core mission: reducing food insecurity among low-income children. Moreover, writes Craig Gundersen, SNAP in particular has also been shown to reduce poverty, improve birth outcomes and children's health generally, and increase survival among low-weight infants. Thus these programs are a crucial component of the United States' social safety net for health. Recent years have seen proposals to alter these programs to achieve additional goals, such as reducing childhood obesity. Two popular ideas are to restrict what recipients can purchase with SNAP benefits and to change the composition of school meals, in an effort to change eating patterns. Gundersen shows that these proposed changes are unlikely to reduce childhood obesity yet are likely to have the unintended effect of damaging the programs' core mission by reducing participation and thus increasing food insecurity among children. On the other hand, Gundersen writes, policy makers could contemplate certain changes that would make food assistance programs even more effective. For example, lawmakers could revisit the SNAP benefit formula, which hasn't changed for decades, to make certain that aid is going to those who need it most. Similarly, the School Breakfast Program could be expanded to cover more children, and summer meal programs could reach more children when school isn't in session.
Web 2.0 Technologies and Building Online Learning Communities: Students' Perspectives
Author: Abdelmalak, Mariam Mousa Matta
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Web 2.0 Technologies,Student Attitudes,Student Journals,Reflection,Researchers,Instructional Effectiveness,Cooperative Learning,Discourse Communities,Computer Mediated Communication,Communities of Practice,Social Networks,Web Sites,Collaborative Writing,Action Research,Graduate Students

The purpose of this action research was to explore students' perspectives regarding using Web 2.0 technologies to develop a community of learners. The course described in this study was a fully online course in an Educational Learning Technologies master's program at a medium-sized university in the U.S. Southwest. A variety of Web 2.0 tools (Twitter, Google Docs, Skype, blogs, and wikis) were used throughout the course to enhance students' sense of community. The methods of data collection in this study included students' reflective journaling activities, the researcher's journal and field notes, and students' comments on each other's reflections. Students indicated that using Google Docs, wikis, blogs, and Twitter gave them a sense of a learning community while using Skype did not. Google Docs and wikis had the most impact on students' sense of a learning community in the course. Findings suggest that faculty interested in building learning communities in online environments need to use variety of Web 2.0 technologies in order to make students aware of those technologies' promise for supporting communication.
Student Satisfaction with Online Learning: Is It a Psychological Contract?
Author: Dziuban, Charles
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Student Attitudes,Online Courses,Scores,Learning Experience,Learner Engagement,Correlation,Evaluation Methods,Factor Analysis,Longitudinal Studies,Online Surveys,Reliability,Sampling,Statistical Analysis,College Students

The authors explore the possible relationship between student satisfaction with online learning and the theory of psychological contracts. The study incorporates latent trait models using the image analysis procedure and computation of Anderson and Rubin factors scores with contrasts for students who are satisfied, ambivalent, or dissatisfied with their online learning experiences. The findings identify three underlying satisfaction components: engaged learning, agency, and assessment. The factor score comparisons indicate that students in the general satisfaction categories characterize important differences in engaged learning and agency, but not assessment. These results lead the authors to hypothesize that predetermined, but unspecified expectations (i.e., psychological contracts) for online courses by both students and faculty members are important advance organizers for clarifying student satisfaction.
Child Health and Access to Medical Care
Author: Leininger, Lindsey
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Child Health,Access to Health Care,Public Policy,Supply and Demand,Health Insurance,Social Services,School Health Services,Federal Legislation,Barriers,Health Promotion,Incentives,Financial Support,Literature Reviews,Children,Adolescents,Costs,Preventive Medicine

It might seem strange to ask whether increasing access to medical care can improve children's health. Yet Lindsey Leininger and Helen Levy begin by pointing out that access to care plays a smaller role than we might think, and that many other factors, such as those discussed elsewhere in this issue, strongly influence children's health. Nonetheless, they find that, on the whole, policies to improve access indeed improve children's health, with the caveat that context plays a big role--medical care &quot;matters more at some times, or for some children, than others.&quot; Focusing on studies that can plausibly show a causal effect between policies to increase access and better health for children, and starting from an economic framework, they consider both the demand for and the supply of health care. On the demand side, they examine what happens when the government expands public insurance programs (such as Medicaid), or when parents are offered financial incentives to take their children to preventive appointments. On the supply side, they look at what happens when public insurance programs increase the payments that they offer to health-care providers, or when health-care providers are placed directly in schools where children spend their days. They also examine how the Affordable Care Act is likely to affect children's access to medical care. Leininger and Levy reach three main conclusions. First, despite tremendous progress in recent decades, not all children have insurance coverage, and immigrant children are especially vulnerable. Second, insurance coverage alone doesn't guarantee access to care, and insured children may still face barriers to getting the care they need. Finally, as this issue of &quot;Future of Children&quot; demonstrates, access to care is only one of the factors that policy makers should consider as they seek to make the nation's children healthier.
Introducing the Social Presence Model to Explore Online and Blended Learning Experiences
Author: Whiteside, Aimee L.
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Online Courses,Blended Learning,Graduate Study,Social Development,Case Studies,Interviews,Teacher Attitudes,Student Attitudes,Technology Integration,School Districts,Observation,Literacy,Learning Experience,Models,Program Descriptions,Masters Programs,Computer Software,Affective Behavior,Coding,Educational Technology,Administrator Attitudes,Elementary Secondary Education,Discourse Analysis,Communities of Practice,Teacher Participation,Social Theories,Knowledge Level,Educational Policy

This study explores the level of &quot;social presence&quot; or connectedness, in two iterations of a 13-month, graduate-level certificate program designed to help K-12 school leaders integrate technology in their districts. Vygotsky's Social Development Theory serves as the theoretical lens for this programmatic research. The methods include a case study approach for coding discussions for 16 online courses using the pre-established Social Presence coding scheme as well as conducting instructor and student interviews and collecting observation notes on over a dozen face-to-face courses. The results of this study suggest the need for further research and development on the Social Presence coding scheme. Additionally, this study unveiled the Social Presence Model, a working model that suggests social presence consists of the following five integrated elements: Affective Association, Community Cohesion, Instructor Involvement, Interaction Intensity, and Knowledge and Experience. Finally, this study also highlighted the importance of multiple data sources for researchers, the need for researchers to request access to participant data outside the formal learning environment, and the inherently unique challenges instructors face with multimodal literacy and social presence in blended learning programs.
Housing, Neighborhoods, and Children's Health
Author: Ellen, Ingrid Gould
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Housing,Neighborhoods,Obesity,Low Income,Injuries,Playgrounds,Child Health,Hazardous Materials,Public Policy,Exercise,Costs,Stress Variables,Community Characteristics,Financial Support,Role,Health Conditions

In theory, improving low-income families' housing and neighborhoods could also improve their children's health, through any number of mechanisms. For example, less exposure to environmental toxins could prevent diseases such as asthma; a safer, less violent neighborhood could improve health by reducing the chances of injury and death, and by easing the burden of stress; and a more walkable neighborhood with better playgrounds could encourage children to exercise, making them less likely to become obese. Yet although neighborhood improvement policies generally achieve their immediate goals- investments in playgrounds create playgrounds, for example-Ingrid Gould Ellen and Sherry Glied find that many of these policies don't show a strong effect on poor children's health. One problem is that neighborhood improvements may price low-income families out of the very neighborhoods that have been improved, as new amenities draw more affluent families, causing rents and home prices to rise. Policy makers, say Ellen and Glied, should carefully consider how neighborhood improvements may affect affordability, a calculus that is likely to favor policies with clear and substantial benefits for low-income children, such as those that reduce neighborhood violence. Housing subsidies can help families either cope with rising costs or move to more affluent neighborhoods. Unfortunately, demonstration programs that help families move to better neighborhoods have had only limited effects on children's health, possibly because such transitions can be stressful. And because subsidies go to relatively few low-income families, the presence of subsidies may itself drive up housing costs, placing an extra burden on the majority of families that don't receive them. Ellen and Glied suggest that policy makers consider whether granting smaller subsidies to more families would be a more effective way to use these funds.
Promoting Health in Early Childhood
Author: Rossin-Slater, Maya
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Health Promotion,Intervention,Socioeconomic Status,Young Children,Risk,Females,Pregnancy,Public Policy,Program Effectiveness,Cost Effectiveness,Early Childhood Education,Child Care,Child Health,Nutrition Instruction,Immunization Programs,Educational Quality,Birth,Mothers,Race,Ethnicity,Well Being,Prenatal Care,Family Planning,Leaves of Absence,Low Income,At Risk Persons

Children who are healthy early in life--from conception to age five--not only grow up to be healthier adults, they are also better educated, earn more, and contribute more to the economy. The United States lags behind other advanced countries in early childhood health, threatening both the health of future generations and the nation's long-term economic viability. Moreover, unhealthy childhoods are not evenly distributed. An accounting of early childhood health in the United States reveals stark inequalities along racial/ethnic and socioeconomic lines. Because of the strong connection between early health and adult outcomes, early childhood offers a critical window to improve disadvantaged children's life chances through evidence-based interventions and thereby to reduce inequality. Restricting her review to studies that can plausibly show causation, Maya Rossin-Slater examines the evidence behind a variety of programs and policies that target any of three groups: women at risk of getting pregnant, pregnant women, or children through age five. She finds that some programs and policies have failed to show consistent results. But the good news is that others are quite effective at improving early childhood health. The most successful include the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), universal immunization, and high-quality, center-based early childhood care and education. Economic analyses reveal that these programs' benefits outweigh their costs, suggesting that public spending to support them is more than justified.
Children's Health in a Legal Framework
Author: Huntington, Clare
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Child Health,Legal Responsibility,Health Promotion,Parent Responsibility,Parent Rights,Decision Making,Medical Services,Child Welfare,Government Role,Public Policy,Child Rearing,Children,Adolescents,Policy Formation,Well Being,Age Differences,Sex Education,Court Litigation,Juvenile Justice

The U.S. legal system gives parents the authority and responsibility to make decisions about their children's health care, and favors parental rights over society's collective responsibility to provide for children's welfare. Neither the federal government nor state governments have an affirmative obligation to protect and promote children's health, nor do children have a right to such protection. In this sense, write Clare Huntington and Elizabeth Scott, policies to promote child health in this country, such as those discussed elsewhere in this issue, are optional. Our libertarian legal framework grants parents broad authority to raise their children as they see fit. Parents can refuse recommended medical treatment for their children, and when they do so, courts respond with deference, particularly when parents' objections are based on religious beliefs. Parental authority has its limits, however. For example, the government can intervene to protect children's welfare in cases of medical neglect or when the child's life is in danger. Additionally, the law sometimes limits parental authority over older children. For example, teenagers may be able to refuse some treatments, such as psychiatric hospitalization, over their parents' objections. Older minors may also have access to treatments such as family planning services without their parents' consent. Because the government has no positive obligation to promote children's health, write Huntington and Scott, children's health programs are often underfunded and vulnerable to political pressure. Programs are also more likely to focus on responding to family crises than on helping parents raise healthy children. In this environment, policy makers, researchers, and advocates must build political support by showing that investments in children's health not only benefit children but also promote social welfare.
Bilingual Latino Students Learn Science for Fun While Developing Language and Cognition: Biophilia at a La Clase Mágica Site
Author: Arreguín-Anderson, María G.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Hispanic American Students,Bilingual Students,Science Instruction,Elementary School Students,Mexican Americans,College School Cooperation,After School Programs,College Faculty,Undergraduate Students,School Community Programs,Interdisciplinary Approach,Second Language Learning,Language Skills,Thinking Skills,Active Learning,Qualitative Research,Bilingual Education,Notetaking,Student Projects,Biology

In this article, the author suggests that children's natural inclination to explore nature, or biophilia, can be explored as a factor that encourages both cognitive engagement and language development. The author summarizes the types of scientific inquiries that bilingual elementary students and their university partners engaged in when guided to design their own projects at a predominantly Mexican-American school. Children inquiries took place at a &quot;La Clase Mágica&quot; site, an after school program in which university undergraduates, faculty, bilingual children, and the community come together with the purpose of learning and exploring technology through interdisciplinary methodologies. The findings indicate that children overwhelmingly chose living organisms and life-like processes as the focus of their inquiries. The author presents the work of an exemplary dyad to illustrate how children engaged in scientific inquiry while developing language and complex thinking.
Teaching English as a &quot;Second Language&quot; in Kenya and the United States: Convergences and Divergences
Author: Roy-Campbell, Zaline M.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English (Second Language),Second Language Instruction,Second Language Learning,Comparative Education,Foreign Countries,Native Language,Official Languages,Language of Instruction,Language Proficiency,Secondary School Students,English for Academic Purposes,Instructional Materials,Learning Experience,Literacy Education,Teaching Methods,Language Tests,Course Content,Course Descriptions,Standards,Language Skills

English is spoken in five countries as the native language and in numerous other countries as an official language and the language of instruction. In countries where English is the native language, it is taught to speakers of other languages as an additional language to enable them to participate in all domains of life of that country. In many countries where it is an official language and language of instruction, which includes former British colonies in Africa and Asia, students tend to use English in specific domains, particularly school, as most communication outside of school is in the local languages. These are two contrasting contexts for enhancing English language skills. In both settings there are concerns about students' difficulties in developing adequate English proficiency to successfully learn content through that language. Focusing on the United States and Kenya, this article considers the similarities and differences in the content of English language instruction for secondary schools, in both environments and the types of challenges students encounter in the learning of English. This article broadens the understanding of what it means to teach English language for academic purposes and provides a framework for creating and evaluating teaching and learning materials for speakers of other languages who are learning through the medium of English.
The Meaning of Roots: How A Migrant Farmworker Student Developed a Bilingual-Bicultural Identity through Change
Author: Danzak, Robin L.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Migrant Workers,Agricultural Laborers,Immigrants,Poverty,Disadvantaged,Qualitative Research,Interviews,Barriers,Bilingualism,Biculturalism,Self Concept,Spanish,American Indian Languages,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Case Studies,Adolescents,High School Graduates,Acculturation,Parent Attitudes,Academic Aspiration,Language Attitudes

Thousands of children and teens labor as migrant farmworkers across the United States. These youngsters, many who are immigrants, face challenges in completing their education and breaking the cycle of agricultural work. Such barriers are influenced by geographic instability, poverty, and sociocultural marginalization. Beyond these factors, and the focus of this article, is the challenge of bilingual-bicultural identity negotiation experienced by young farmworkers in and out of the educational context. This question is explored through the case study of Manuel (a pseudonym), a teen farmworker in Florida. Manuel emigrated from Mexico at the age of 12, and is a speaker of Spanish, Otomi (an indigenous language), and English. Although he recently completed high school, he struggled to adjust to life in the U.S. and acquire English. Manuel provided interviews and autobiographical writing in 2008, when he was age 14 (grade 8), and again in 2012, when he was 18 (grade 11). His parents, also migrant farmworkers, contributed an interview in 2012. A qualitative, thematic analysis was applied to the data. Themes that emerged included: resistance and acceptance of personal and cultural-linguistic change, the need to &quot;acostumbrarse&quot; (get used to it) with respect to these changes, the desire to &quot;salir adelante&quot; (get ahead) and the pathways to do so (e.g., finish school, learn English), and Manuel's developing bilingualism and his shifting attitudes towards it. Overall, Manuel's story offers deep insights into the realities in which the bilingual-bicultural social identity of a migrant farmworker student develops and interacts in and out of school settings.