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What the results showed:
Teachers attending the Other 3Rs training in comparison to teachers in a mnemonics training:
- expressed greater perceived self-efficacy in their ability to influence children’s learning, even in the context of countervailing forces
- had greater confidence than teachers in the comparison condition in their ability to help children use reasoning skills to solve problems, to become more resilient learners, and to be more socially responsible.
- had greater beliefs than teachers in the comparison condition that resilience
can be taught.
Students
- Students of the Other 3Rs teachers had higher scores in self-efficacy than the children in the mnemonics group, though for both groups self-efficacy scores dropped from pre to post.
In considering these findings, perhaps participating in the Other 3Rs training served as a buffer against the trend for a decrease in self-efficacy for 3rd graders. Third grade is a swing year, where the expectations of students change. Instead of learning to read you are expected to read to learn. Students also shift from printing to cursive. The importance of testing is introduced and emphasized for the first time. Another plausible explanation for the drop in self-efficacy was the timing of the 2nd survey administration, which occurred right after testing. Further studies will explore this interesting outcome.
- There were no significant group differences for students of the Other 3Rs and mnemonics on either reading or math scores on the Maryland School Assessment (MSA) test. The unit of analysis was percentage of grade proficient for the entire grade, which is not a very sensitive unit of analysis (but was all that we had available from the school district). Additionally, not all the students in the grade participated in the study.
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About the Other 3Rs
Project
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Monitor Articles on The Other 3 Rs |
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