The Middle Grades Research Journal is pleased to feature four very fine studies in this issue – three of which focus on “predictability.” All four studies chosen for publication reflect considerable expertise in a variety of fields, and each was conducted by teams of educational researchers. The continually growing trend of multiple researchers and authors working together is, perhaps, indicative of an ever expanding need to bring multiple talents to bear on pressing educational issues. During our semi-annual MGRJ Editorial Board meeting on April 14, 2009, at the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting in San Diego, we will discuss the development of a position paper in support of multiple researcher/multiple author approaches to the conduct and dissemination of educational research. I thank all fifteen authors who contributed to the four studies published herein.
Kenneth M. Tyler and Christina M. Boelter from the University of Kentucky, along with A. Wade Boykin, Howard University, used middle grades students’ reported academic engagement and selfefficacy scores from a sample of 271 students and their language arts teachers’ perceptions of educational value discontinuity to examine whether those perceptions are “predictive of the psychological antecedents of academic performance.” Data from the hierarchical regression approach used in this study indicate that “educational value discontinuity [is] a significant predictor of middle school students’ sense of academic self-efficacy and also their behavioral engagement in class.”
In another study examining the power of predictability, Zan Gao and Maria Newton from the University of Utah, and Russell L. Carson, Louisiana State University study middle grades students’ motivation and levels of physical activity. Three hundred and five subjects completed questionnaires designed to assess self-efficacy and task values relating to fitness issues and then completed a number of different physical tests to measure cardiovascular fitness and muscularity. Results from the regression approach used here suggest “that students’ self-efficacy, perceptions of importance, interest, and usefulness toward fitness made significant contribution to the prediction of their physical activity levels in class.”
In our third study, six researchers worked together to examine the degree to which Oregon middle school teachers’ perceptions and practices in the No Child Left Behind era are compatible. Using a mixed methods design, William L. Greene, Southern Oregon University, Micki M. Caskey, Portland State University, P. Maureen Musser, Willamette University, Linda L. Samek, George Fox University, Jay Casbon, Oregon State University, and Marilyn Olson, University of Oregon, found that the 162 Oregon teacher respondents to a 45-item questionnaire responded differently to Federal mandates as well as to their own beliefs about teaching. This study does a terrific job of identifying these differences and demonstrating how “academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, and cultural equity” as envisioned by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform might very well be the framework around which positive whole school improvement can and should be effected, especially in a NCLB era.
Our featured “anchor” article in this issue is the third predictive study published herein -- this one examining the “relationship between adolescent attitudes towards conflict and their attitudes toward drug and alcohol involvement.” Jill H. Lohmeier, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Vicki L. Schmitt, University of Alabama, and Bruce B. Frey, University of Kansas, used longitudinal data from the Communities that Care Survey collected over a five-year period to study this phenomenon. Two scaled score constructs were developed: the Conflict Attitude Scale and the Drug Attitude Index. Regression results utilizing data from 11,419 students in grades 7, 8, 10, and 12 indicate that the “Conflict Attitude Scale scores were predictive of Drug Attitude Index Scores.” Policy implications that can and should be derived from this very important study hold enormous potential.
Again, the MGRJ Editorial Board and I thank all the researchers and contributing authors who made this issue possible. Each manuscript submitted for consideration of publication in MGRJ was examined and rated by three different members of our Review Board. The four studies published in this issue were chosen from more than two dozen currently under review. MGRJ is the only “hard” copy research journal currently in existence that publishes studies addressing middle grades issues, and it is perhaps the most rigorous referred middle grades publication in existence today. As always, I take this opportunity to thank our MGRJ Editorial & Review Board for their expertise in helping us maintain the highest quality publication possible.
Dr. David Hough, Editor-In-Chief
December 2008
