University of Regina Open Journals
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Children as Levels: Early Understandings of Reading Development Conceptualized by Preservice Teachers
No full textThis qualitative study surfaced beliefs around reading instruction and reading development at the onset of an elementary literacy methods course. Prior understandings and knowledge around reading instruction and reading acquisition emerge through various experiences and have the potential to contradict notions presented by teacher educators. This inquiry explored prior beliefs held by five preservice teachers (PSTs) about the nature of reading and the teaching of reading, drawing on a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) of a pre-course survey. Results indicated that early understandings of reading development and pedagogy appear to rely on levelling systems for assessing and identifying students’ acquisition of reading skills, as well as organizing students into levels for instruction. Beliefs that reading development progresses through a levelled gradient are problematic for both teacher and student, shifting attention away from the complex nature of reading acquisition and the skills required to develop proficiency. While no generalizable statement can be made regarding PSTs’ most frequently held beliefs, this pilot study puts forward the idea that understanding PSTs’ prior beliefs is a critical part of teacher education. Intentional opportunities to unpack prior beliefs and understandings may offer insight for teacher educators to engage students in discourse and experience cognitive dissonance around inconsistencies, making space for learning and unlearning.
Keywords: preservice teachers, teacher education, levels, reading, reading assessmen
Analysis of Data Containing Outliers
No full textA strategy for accommodating outlying observations, as well as non-representative, suspect, missing, or otherwise troubling observations, is described. Each unusual observation is decomposed into the sum of two components. One component is the value implied by the trusted observations in the data set. The other component is the unusual part. In this way, the fitting of the data set can then proceed, and, additionally, a numerical value can be ascribed to the unusual part. The method offers not only an antidote for observations with irregular numerical values, which often have the power to contaminate and alter analyses, but also a measure of the magnitudes of the unusual components of those observations. Univariate data and ordered pairs in least-squares fitting are presented as examples
Loneliness and Belonging in Canadian Schools: A Knowledge Synthesis Study
No full textThis article reports on a knowledge synthesis study of three questions around Canadian K-12 students’ sense of loneliness and belonging: What are the lived experiences of Canadian students with loneliness and belonging? What factors contribute to students’ sense of loneliness and belonging in Canadian school contexts? What school educational practices and policies foster a sense of belonging in students in Canada? Utilizing a scoping review approach, the study synthesizes published knowledge on these three questions from scholarly peer-reviewedpublications and documents published by Canadian educational organizations, provincial governments, and school board associations.
Keywords: loneliness, belonging, well-being, students, K-12 schools, Canad
Theoretical Bayes Approach to the Parameter Estimation of Himanshu Distribution
No full textIn this paper, Himanshu distribution is considered for Bayesian analysis. The expressions for Bayes estimators of the parameter have been derived under squared error, precautionary, entropy, K-loss, Al-Bayyati’s loss, DeGroot and minimum expected loss functions by using beta prior
Standards, Accountability, and Provincial Testing: Shaping Homework and Teaching
No full textThis ethnographic case study, situated in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, examined the effects of full-scale provincial testing on families, its influences on homework, and familial accountability for teaching and learning. Data were drawn from family interviews, as well as letters and documents regarding homework. Teachers sensed a significant degree of pressure on student performance on province-wide tests. This sometimes resulted in narrowing of curricula in favour of more test-taking practice. Additionally, teachers sent home sample test items for students to practice with their families to increase test scores.
Keywords: homework, families, province-wide testing, teachin
“Self” in Self-Study: Alongside Stories as Indigenously Understood Inquiry
No full textAs part of our ethical responsibilities as scholar-practitioners and community members living as uninvited guests on Indigenous territories, we engaged in a collaborative inquiry to explore ways in which Indigenous pedagogies and worldviews extend understandings of self within self-study research. Over several years, we engaged in reflective conversations about our respective tensions, challenges, and successes in the effort to decolonize and Indigenize our pedagogies and research. These conversations moved us over time to a particular orientation as we shared our life stories as educators and women. We began by documenting our experiences and reflections at each meeting and shared in meaning making how our orientations shifted to ways of being in relation. The emerging synergies of our relationality led us to name our experiences “alongside stories,” in which we made meaning of the intersections and nuances between forms of self-study research and Indigenous Ways of Knowing. In sharing the alongside stories, we re-presented our collaborative understandings of inquiry as interweavings. These interweavings allowed us to explore how our knowledge and belief systems could be intertwined and disentwined to reveal resonances and particularities. Our exploration led us to reframe inquiry and self-study as Indigenously understood.
Keywords: Indigenous, self-study, research, decolonizing, inquiry, alongside storie
A Stochastic Model of Mixture Distribution Properties and its Applications
No full textIn this paper, specific statistical considerations are typically required in order to select the best model for fitting survival data. The new Mixture of Gompertz and Gamma Distribution (MGGD), which gets its name from the particular mixing of two distributions, Gompertz and Gamma, is proposed in this study. Also, the reliability analysis, statistical properties like stochastic ordering, moments, order statistics, and the estimation of parameters using the method of maximum likelihood estimation. Finally, an application of the goodness-of-fit criteria to a real cancer data set is shown. It is contrasted with the fit and demonstrates that the mixture of the Gompertz and gamma distributions has greater flexibility than the other distributions
