FOR RELEASE: Friday, April 13, 2007
College Well Represented at Meeting of Educational Researchers
Nearly a dozen members of the faculty and staff and doctoral students from the College of Education and Health Professions presented research at the annual meeting April 9-13 of the American Educational Research Association in Chicago.
Some of the College of Education and Health Professions professors, staff and students partnered with colleagues from other colleges at the University of Arkansas and elsewhere in the nation on their research.
The international professional organization was founded in 1916 with the primary goal of advancing educational research and its practical application. Its 25,000 members are educators, administrators, directors of research, people working with testing or evaluation in federal, state and local agencies, counselors, evaluators, graduate students and behavioral scientists. The broad range of disciplines represented by the membership includes education, psychology, statistics, sociology, history, economics, philosophy, anthropology and political science.
Sean Mulvenon, professor of educational statistics and holder of the George M. and Boyce W. Billingsley Chair for Educational Research and Policy Studies, addressed graduate students at the invitation of the National Council on Measurement in Education, a professional organization holding its annual meeting in conjunction with that of AERA. His address focused on the roles of statisticians, testing and evaluation professionals in the No Child Left Behind Act and in the creation of national standards. Mulvenon is currently working in Washington as senior adviser to the deputy secretary of education.
He also presented a paper titled "Grade Inflation in Higher Education: Does an 'A' Grade Still Mean Excellent?" that grew from his service on a University of Arkansas Faculty Senate Task Force on Grades. Michael Miller, professor of higher education; Dan Ferritor, vice president for academic affairs for the UA system, and Jon Johnson, associate professor in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, are co-authors of the paper.
Ronna Turner, associate professor of educational statistics and research methods, presented a paper that reports on the evaluation of the fifth year of a university and public school partnership that has the potential to be a model for improving science and math education in the schools. The program, "K-12, I Do Science" or KIDS, has earned a second round of funding from the National Science Foundation with an eye toward institutionalizing the program.
Co-authors of the evaluation presentation are Jennifer Killian, a graduate student in educational research and policy studies; Greg Salamo, Distinguished Professor of physics and co-director of the Center for Semiconductor Physics in Nanostructures; Paul Calleja, assistant professor in kinesiology, and Morgan Ware, program director of the KIDS program. Turner and Calleja are faculty in the College of Education and Health Professions; Salamo and Ware are in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
Kathleen Collins, assistant professor of special education, presented a paper examining the role of hope in cooperative learning. When Collins and colleagues in Florida and New York compared scores of the graduate students on a Hope Scale to successful completion of group assignments, they found that a sense of hope played an important role in predicting performance.
Denise Airola, director of training and development for the UA National Office for Research on Measurement and Evaluation Systems, presented "A Statewide Analysis of the Impact of Reading First on Economically Disadvantaged Students Using an Early Learning Indicator."
Joshua Barnett, a Distinguished Doctoral Fellow and senior graduate research assistant in the department of education reform, took part in a roundtable discussion titled "How Much Money is Enough? Arkansas Superintendents' Paradoxical Views on Recent School Reforms." Barnett is studying this year in New Zealand on a Rotary Ambassadorial Research Scholarship.
Several graduate assistants and employees of NORMES presented papers:
. Crystal Beshears presented "Arkansas Best Practices: Implications for School Improvement" with Calli A. Holaway-Johnson. Beshears also presented "Technology and Social Studies: Teacher Integration of Technology and Student Achievement." Both papers were co-authored by Mulvenon and Charles Stegman, professor of educational statistics.
. Ashley Creek presented a paper titled "A Critical Discourse Analysis of Gender Bias in Abstinence-Only and Comprehensive Sex Education Curricula."
. Karen Morton presented "Highly Qualified Teachers and Teacher Examination Passing Scores."
Gary Ritter, who holds an endowed chair in education policy, participated in an interactive symposium on the "State of the States and Provinces 2007."
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Contact:
Heidi Stambuck, director of communications
College of Education and Health Professions
(479) 575-3138, stambuck@uark.edu