Preface

The new publication year, 2015, is the 10th year of publication of the Middle Grades Research Journal. This year will complete a decade of cutting-edge scholarship on diverse topics that characterize research in the middle grades. Researchers interested in the middle grades explore a wide range of lenses including cognitive, developmental, and emotional questions, as well as the pedagogy and sociology surrounding those questions. From its inception under founding editor, David Hough, to the current editorial team, the journal has sought to publish research-based articles that present the highest quality scholarship and the most meaningful findings for the readership. We are grateful to the scholars, authors, reviewers, and editorial board members, who continue to contribute to the high caliber this journal strives to maintain.

Volume 10, Issue 1 is an “open call” issue, providing an interesting array of current research interests among the middle grades community. The issue starts with a review of research in three key journals that serve the middle grades, Middle Grades Research Journal (MGRJ), Research in Middle Level Education Online (RMLE), and Middle School Journal (MSJ). A team of researchers, led by Bogum Yoon and including Kathleen F. Malu, Mary Beth Schaefer, Cynthia Reyes, Kathleen Brinegar, conducted an in-depth analysis of the patterns within the themes, topics, theoretical frameworks, and research methods of these three journals between the years 2000 and 2013. This article provides a comprehensive summary of the focus of research in the middle grades during those years, the methods employed by researchers, and themes found across all three journals. The authors acknowledge that they have limited their explorations to the three key journals that specifically target middle grades. They explain also that their findings identify noticeable gaps in the research, especially regarding topics that relate to diversity, special populations, parents/community, student voices, and teacher beliefs/ practices. Nevertheless, the comprehensive effort that resulted in this article was monumental.

The second article in this issue focuses on teacher practice and beliefs, specifically among preservice teachers and the teaching of reading in the middle grades. Haverback and Mee investigated self-efficacy beliefs among middle level preservice teachers, both in general, as well as in the domain of reading. The participants in this study were enrolled in a state-mandated reading methods course and were engaged in student teaching over the course of a year. At three points during the year the researchers tested self-efficacy among these participants and found a significant increase in general and reading specific selfefficacy. Further, the qualitative reflection logs indicated that the preservice teachers grew in the depth of their understanding of teaching reading in the middle school. Given the evergrowing focus on increasing student literacy in the middle grades, this article provides some understanding of how teachers can enhance their own understanding of the task at hand.

Adolescent literacy is the theme of the next two articles in this issue. Each article had a specific focus, but they both underscored the importance of the use of literacy strategies in content-area classrooms in the middle grades and among special populations. In the third article in this issue, Hurst examined the effect teacher read-aloud had on adolescent learning in science and how the results varied according to individual reading ability. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative data for analysis from two treatment procedures of seventh- and eighth-grade students who participated in two consecutive units of study: one unit requiring students to read the science text silently and the second unit providing a teacher read-aloud of all text. Following standard experimental design, the classroom procedures, assignments, and related activities were exactly the same for both treatments. Student learning was measured with pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest concept map scores on each unit of study. The study was comprehensive. However, (spoiler alert!) a repeated measures analysis suggested that both teacher read-aloud and silent reading are appropriate strategies for student learning but the results do not support either method as superior over the other.

The next article sought to examine methodologies affecting a growing population across the middle grades landscape, English language learners. Graduate students Pacheco and David, with their mentor Robert T. Jimenez, explored the dynamics of literacy instruction among nonheritage speakers who are teachers of middle school English language learners in order to understand how teachers that do not share a heritage language with their students can leverage these languages in literacy instruction. Using a sociocultural perspective, they found that teachers drew on diverse pedagogical tools and participated in the activity in three ways: as learners, collaborators, or experts. Teachers who participated as learners were able to increase their understandings about students’ language and cultural background. Those teachers who participated as collaborators, drew students’ attention to the importance of negotiating and constructing meaning in texts. Finally, when teachers participated as experts, they scaffolded student participation by sharing strategies for comprehending challenging vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. The researchers then used their analysis to suggest how these can support English language learners’ literacy achievement under the Common Core State Standards.

The final two articles in this issue turn our attention to general pedagogy and the structures that affect the middle school population. Edwards explored the concept of active learning, a key recommendation of the Association for Middle Level Learning for maximizing the developmental readiness of students in the middle grades. This qualitative study examined middle level teachers who are able to implement active learning and multiple learning approaches within the standardized testing and accountability culture prevalent in today’s middle schools. Edwards sought to understand the barriers teachers face and how they overcome those barriers to implementation of active-learning strategies. She identified challenges in four key areas affecting instruction: the system, students, content, and finally within the teachers themselves. However, she also found that three key themes emerged from the data explaining the teachers’ ability to overcome these challenges: tenacity, student focused, and experimental.

Finally, Ellerbrock and her colleagues investigated how middle and high school educators can foster a developmentally responsive transition plans for students. This article reports the findings of a year-long qualitative multisite case study involving 23 participants (including 4 students, 4 middle school teachers, 13 high school teachers, 1 middle school principal, and 1 high school principal.) The researchers collected extensive data, including focus group interviews, individual interviews, observations, and the collection of transition related documents. Findings suggest that specific transition supports may foster a developmentally responsive transition to high school for students, but that perceptions among students and educators regarding the responsive nature of these supports differed. The researchers suggest that middle and high school educators explore ways to strategically implement transition supports that address procedural, social, and academic aspects, while attending to students’ basic and developmental needs and transition-related concerns. Students themselves must perceive these supports as meeting their needs and addressing their concerns in order to help students during this period of schooling. Ultimately and always, it seems, the efficacy of any reform on the behalf of students must consider the developmental needs of the students targeted by the reform. This is particularly true in the middle grades.

Readers will find that the articles contained in this issue address both compelling global and particular aspects of the research related to the complex populations in the middle grades. Taken individually and as a group these articles provide in- depth of analysis and interpretation that will enhance the reader’s understanding of this population and their teachers. The reader may also find relevance to one’s own research and practice or may, in fact, be encouraged to pursue further that research and practice. Indeed, then, the core purpose of research has been served: to shed light on important questions and to foster further research on those questions.