What textbooks offer and what teachers teach: an analysis of the Dutch reading comprehension curriculum.

In the Netherlands, the quality of the reading curriculum is currently under debate because of disappointing results on national and international assessments of students' reading skills and motivation. In a mixed-method study, we analyzed the content of Dutch textbooks for reading comprehension instruction (i.e., the implemented curriculum) and teachers' evaluation and use of these books (i.e., the enacted curriculum). A materials analysis of reading comprehension lessons (N = 80) in eight textbooks for grades 4 and 5 was complemented with semi-structured teacher interviews (N = 29) and lesson observations (N = 11), with a focus on the quality of reading strategy and text structure instruction in the curriculum. Main findings are (1) a lack of alignment between lesson goals, theory, and assignments, (2) a strong focus on practicing strategies, (3) limited declarative knowledge about strategies and text structure, (4) little opportunities for self-regulated strategy application. The teachers that were interviewed mention similar problems, but still hardly deviate from the textbook's content and pedagogical guidelines. We make recommendations to improve the quality of the curriculum. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11145-021-10244-4.

Poor understanding of allergen labelling by allergic and non-allergic consumers.

BACKGROUND: Understanding consumers' interpretation of allergy information is crucial for effective food safety policies. We evaluated consumer understanding of allergy information on foods in controlled, experimental studies. METHOD: Using 18 packaged foods, we evaluated consumer understanding of information about allergens in two experiments: First, a comparison of foods with no stated allergen versus allergen as a stated ingredient versus a precautionary allergen label (PAL); second, a comparison of three common variants of PAL. In each experiment, consumers with and without self-reported food allergy were asked to estimate the risk of allergic reaction and to rate the comprehensibility of the allergen information. In the second experiment, consumers were also asked which form of PAL they preferred. RESULTS: Risk of reaction was assessed as high and low for foods with the allergen stated as ingredient, or without any mention of allergen. However, risk assessment for PAL varied and was judged as higher by non-allergic than allergic participants (82% vs. 58%, p < .001). Understanding of risk associated with PAL also varied by health literacy (p < .001). Both allergic and non-allergic consumers judged all forms of allergy information to be unclear, especially products with no allergy information for non-allergic consumers. Products with a 'Produced in a Factory' PAL were perceived as less risky than 'May contain' or 'Traces of' PALs (p < .001), less than 40% of participants judged PAL information to be comprehensible, and participants preferred 'May contain' over the other PALs. CONCLUSION: Both allergic and non-allergic consumers find allergen information difficult to interpret on packaged foods and misunderstand PAL, incorrectly distinguishing different risk levels for different PAL wording. Clearer allergy information guidelines are called for, and the use of only one PAL wording is recommended.

Experimental studies to improve the reliability and validity of regulatory judgments on health care in the Netherlands: a randomized controlled trial and before and after case study.

RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: We examined the effect of two interventions on both the reliability and validity of regulatory judgments: adjusting the regulatory instrument and attending a consensus meeting. METHOD: We adjusted the regulatory instrument. With a randomized controlled trial (RCT) we examined the effect of the adjustments we made to the instrument. In the consensus meeting inspectors discussed cases and had to reach consensus about the order of the cases. We used a before and after case study to assess the effect of the consensus meeting. We compared the judgments assigned in the RCT with the unadjusted instrument with the judgments assigned with the unadjusted instrument after the consensus meeting. Moreover we explored the effect of increasing the number of inspectors per regulatory visit based on the estimates of the two interventions. RESULTS: The consensus meeting improved the agreement between inspectors; the variance between inspectors was smallest (0.03) and the reliability coefficient was highest (0.59). Validity is assessed by examining the relation between the assigned judgments and the corporate standard and expressed by a correlation coefficient. This coefficient was highest after the consensus meeting (0.48). Adjustment of the instrument did not increase reliability and validity coefficients. CONCLUSIONS: Participating in a consensus meeting improved reliability and validity. Increasing the number of inspectors resulted in both higher reliability and validity values. Organizing consensus meetings and increasing the number of inspectors per regulatory visit seem to be valuable interventions for improving regulatory judgments.

The effect of observational learning on students' performance, processes, and motivation in two creative domains.

BACKGROUND: Previous research has shown that observation can be effective for learning in various domains, for example, argumentative writing and mathematics. The question in this paper is whether observational learning can also be beneficial when learning to perform creative tasks in visual and verbal arts. AIMS: We hypothesized that observation has a positive effect on performance, process, and motivation. We expected similarity in competence between the model and the observer to influence the effectiveness of observation. Sample. A total of 131 Dutch students (10(th) grade, 15 years old) participated. METHOD: Two experiments were carried out (one for visual and one for verbal arts). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions; two observational learning conditions and a control condition (learning by practising). The observational learning conditions differed in instructional focus (on the weaker or the more competent model of a pair to be observed). RESULTS: We found positive effects of observation on creative products, creative processes, and motivation in the visual domain. In the verbal domain, observation seemed to affect the creative process, but not the other variables. The model similarity hypothesis was not confirmed. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that observation may foster learning in creative domains, especially in the visual arts.

The influence of input on connective acquisition: a growth curve analysis of English because and German weil.

The current study used growth curve analysis to study the role of input during the acquisition of the English causal connective because and its German counterpart weil. The corpora of five German and five English children and their adult caretakers (age range 0;10-4;3) were analyzed for the amount as well as for the type of connective use - imitated, elicited, and independent. The growth curves showed that children's elicited use developed faster than their independent use; imitations were rare. Adult connective input was not found to function as a scaffold of children's connective use. Rather, the adult why/warum-questions played an important role in the acquisition of because and weil. In turn, children also used why/warum-questions to elicit causal responses from their caretakers, which shows that children were responsible for a great part of their own input.

Reducing interrater variability and improving health care: a meta-analytical review.

OBJECTIVES: In the scientific literature about reliability, the main approach to increasing reliability seems to involve increasing the number of observers and improving the instrument used. Other aspects for improving reliability - like the training of raters - seem to receive less notice. It is worth asking whether this technical approach could be complemented by training the user of the instrument. A systematic meta-analytical review of the research literature was performed to answer this question and examine the effectiveness of planned interventions for improving interrater reliability of health care professionals. METHOD: The databases of PubMed (MEDLINE), Embase, Omega and PsycINFO were searched. The inclusion criteria were met by 57 studies. Details extracted from the studies included the study design, the number of observers and the number of observed cases, the intervention, the type of instrument (whether or not it was highly technical), and statistical information about the agreement before and after the intervention. Interventions were categorized into three groups: training of professionals, improving the diagnostic instrument and a combination of training and improving the instrument. A meta-analysis was performed by means of linear regression. RESULTS: The interventions were arranged according to their effectiveness in improving the diagnostic instrument (mean change: ß = 0.13), training combined with improving the instrument (mean change: ß = 0.10) and training (mean change: ß = 0.09). CONCLUSION: On average, although all types of interventions are effective, improving the diagnostic instrument seems to be the most effective. Especially when highly technical instruments were concerned, improvement proved to be very effective (ß = 0.52). Because instrumental variables constitute a major source of error, improving the instrument is an important approach. However, this review offers solid arguments that can complement the literature and practice, with a focus on training the user of the instrument.

Evaluating instruments for regulation of health care in the Netherlands.

OBJECTIVES: Reliable and valid judgments are necessary for regulatory authorities to merit confidence from care institutions and society and preserve authority. Moreover, limited reliability and validity of regulatory judgments increase the risk of limited improvement of the quality of health care. The goal of the study is to obtain insight in (dis) advantages of different regulatory instruments for regulation of health care. METHOD: In this study, the reliability and validity of judgments generated by a lightly structured and highly structured regulatory instrument used by the Dutch Health Care Inspectorate are compared. RESULTS: Results indicate that the lightly structured instrument causes a large variety in discussed topics in regulatory visits: indicators pointing out potential risks in care are not always part of these discussions, by which incentives to improve care remain unjustly undone. Both types of instruments show variations in the meaning of judgments, indicating validity problems. CONCLUSION: The results of our study suggest that regulation of health care requires thorough appraisal of instruments. Several requirements are identified: first, an instrument that justifies the complexity of care with an accompanying explicit set of standards is necessary. Second, commitment of inspectors to the instrument is essential. And third, training of inspectors is indispensable.

The effects of adapting a writing course to students' writing strategies.

BACKGROUND: When writing a text, students are required to do several things simultaneously. They have to plan, translate and review, which involve demanding cognitive processes. In order to handle this complexity, writers need to develop a writing strategy. The two most well-defined writing strategies that have been identified, are those of a planning strategy and a revising strategy. AIMS: To establish whether students will be more competent in managing the complexity of writing when writing instruction is adapted to their habitual writing strategy, thus resulting in better texts. SAMPLE: 113 high school students (10th grade). METHOD: Students were randomly assigned to either the planning or the revising condition. To identify writing strategies, students completed a questionnaire concerning their planning and revising tendencies. To measure the level of writing skill, students' texts written during pre-test and post-test were analysed. RESULTS: The effect of instruction based on a planning strategy interacted with the level of planning or revising strategy: the greater the use of such a strategy, the larger the effect on writing skill. In contrast, the effect of instruction based on a revising writing strategy did not interact with the level of planning or revising strategy. Results imply that students with strong tendencies to plan or revise profited from writing instruction based on a planning strategy, while students with a low tendency to plan or revise profited more from instruction based on a revising strategy. CONCLUSION: Adapting writing instruction to students' level of writing strategy, is an effective approach for learning to write.

Stability and discriminative power of the Young Schema-Questionnaire in a Dutch clinical versus non-clinical population.

In this study the temporal stability and general discriminative and classifying ability of the Young Schema-Questionnaire (YSQ) was examined in a clinical and non-clinical sample. To be able to cross-validate on the variables, two parallel subtests, drawn from the YSQ item pool, were utilized. Results suggest adequate rank order stability. However, mean scores tended to drop systematically over time, most likely caused by transient error. Therefore, to assess progress in therapy, the alternate utilization of the parallel parts is advised. Findings from discriminant analysis suggest high sensitivity of the YSQ and its subscales in predicting the presence or absence of psychopathology.

Teachers' task demands, students' test expectations, and actual test content.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies on instructional importance show that individual students and their teachers differ in the topics that they consider important in the context of an upcoming teacher-made test. AIMS: This study aimed to examine whether such differences between students' test expectations and teachers' intended task demands can be explained by the actual test content. SAMPLES: Participants were history teachers (N=19) and their 11th-grade students (N=388). METHOD: Teachers and students rated the importance of text sections that would be tested in the near future. By means of multilevel analysis, ratings were compared with the occurrence of sections in the tests. RESULTS: Although teachers considered a majority of sections as important and tested only a minority of the sections, their tests still included sections rated as unimportant. The number of such discrepancies, however, was relatively small. Sections the teachers rated important had a much higher probability of being included in the test than sections rated unimportant. For students, a similar but lower degree of correspondence between ratings and test content was found. Interestingly, for sections that teachers considered important, students more often gave a higher rating when these sections appeared in the test than when they did not. The same holds for sections that teachers considered unimportant. CONCLUSIONS: For both teachers and students there is a limited correspondence between perceived task demands and test content. Furthermore, students' perceptions of task demands show a compensation for some of the differences between their teachers' intended task demands and the test demands.

The dimensionality of speaking and writing: a multilevel factor analysis of situational, task and school effects.

BACKGROUND: This article addresses the question whether communication apprehension (CA) should be regarded as a unidimensional or alternatively as a multidimensional construct. The answer is not only interesting from a theoretical point of view. There might also be practical implications for the treatment of CA. If CA were to appear to be unidimensional and a student's level of CA were to be the same across situations and tasks, there would be no need to tailor the treatment to particular speaking situations or specific writing problems. If, however, CA appeared to be multi-dimensional and a student might have a variety of different levels and types of CA, one type of treatment might be more effective for one student than for another one. AIM: To examine the effects of situational, task and school effects on speaking and writing apprehension. SAMPLE: Use was made of the dataset of the 1987-1988 National Assessment of Language Performance in the Netherlands. The nationally representative sample consisted of 1448 students from 184 secondary schools; 52% of the students were boys and 48% were girls; the mean age of the students was 15 years 6 months. METHOD: Speaking and writing apprehension were measured by means of self-report measures in grade 9. Multilevel factor analysis (MLFA) was used to determine the dimensionality of the measurement of speaking and writing apprehension. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: First, all seven speaking situations and three out of four writing problems could be distinguished empirically. Speaking and writing apprehension are clearly multidimensional constructs that depend on the speaking situation and the writing task. Second, correlations between speaking and writing apprehension were rather low. Speaking and writing apprehension seem to represent skill-specific constructs, which cannot be considered as equivalent forms of communication apprehension. Third, differences between schools in the level of speaking and writing apprehension were very small compared to measurements of speaking and writing performance.