2004 - Volume 28, Number 1
Editor, David L. Hough, Missouri State University

Preface

Research in Middle Level Education Online, 28(1) includes five articles addressing topics that range from gaps in student achievement across ethnic groups to student perceptions of interdisciplinary teaching teams. If a common thread were to be identified among this array of studies, it could be support for the middle level philosophy and documentation of middle level "promising practice." Each study demonstrates how middle level programs and practices can help young adolescents learn at higher levels by engaging them in positive, teacher-led social interactions. While I refer to this positive spin-off as "serendipitous," it could be cast as goal attainment, because as middle level scholars will attest, the ultimate goal of each middle school component is to help young adolescents learn. What a "win–win" situation, when researchers find that attending to personal needs and capitalizing on the social nature of young adolescence as a separate developmental stage leads to improved student learning.

In "The Link Between Instructional Practice and the Racial Achievement Gap in Middle School," Harold Wenglinsky, Baruch College, examines data from the 15,000 eighth graders who took the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments in mathematics. Dr. Wenglinsky reports finding evidence that middle level schools can account for some differences in the gaps between African American, Latino, and White students' test scores. A Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) was used to examine the relationships between middle level instructional practices and student achievement in mathematics. In summary, the findings suggest that achievement gaps between African American young adolescents and other ethnic group young adolescents are smaller in some middle level schools than in others. While this study has several important limitations, it contributes to the documentation of gaps in mathematics between some ethnic groups of young adolescents in grade eight. The HLM used does not account for causal directions across the variables because the cross-sectional nature of the NAEP database does not contain uniform data from which comparisons can be drawn. Another limitation is that the researcher can only assume that instructional practices are having an effect on learning; the NAEP database does not include data pertaining to this. Despite these limitations, this study tackles an important issue and adds to the growing body of research on student achievement drawn from a randomized sample that utilizes controls, a directive of the current national call for more experimental designs in educational research.

The second article, "Professional Learning Communities, Leadership, and Student Learning," by Sue C. Thompson and Larry Gregg, University of Missouri, Kansas City, and John M. Niska, Rhode Island College, uses a mixed methods design to examine a number of questions regarding professional learning communities. Information was collected via teacher questionnaires, principal interviews, and teacher focus groups to examine the extent to which the teachers and their building principals view themselves as a "professional learning community." Systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning were the five "disciplines" used by the researchers to explore this phenomenon. Principals made mention of data-informed decision making, relationships, risk taking, and student learning organizations as components of their view of professional learning communities. Principals and teachers in each of the schools studied considered their school to be following Turning Points 2000 recommendations, and each viewed their school as a "learning organization." While it would, perhaps, be no surprise to find that a school's principal and teaching staff consider themselves to be a learning community, it is also important to learn the degree to which school personnel hold this opinion and how they characterize it.

Next, is an integrated literature review titled "Promoting Critical-Thinking Dispositions by Using Problem Solving in Middle School Mathematics," by Lars F. Leader, Valdosta State University and James A. Middleton, Arizona State University. Findings from the examination of existing research indicate that "ill-structured" mathematical problems can be used by teachers to "promote positive changes in students' thinking dispositions." This might be due to the "real-life" types of situations the students encounter in this approach as well as the activities-based type of instruction teachers must utilize to tackle the mathematical concepts contained therein. Students are apparently compelled to "emotionally invest and freely choose as they construct arguments and articulate a personal position on a problem." The authors conclude that ill-structured mathematical problems hold promise as a curricular and instructional approach to help young adolescents learn content by engaging them in critical thinking. This study of the literature adds much to the existing body of knowledge pertaining to active learning and a problems approach to help young adolescents learn content.

In the fourth article, "Literacy for Middle School Students: Challenges for Cultural Synthesis," by Mary F. Roe, Washington State University, the author assumes the role of a cultural synthesizer, a person who attempts to negotiate school and research cultures. In keeping with the expectations of that role, the author conducts a synthesis of existing literature to explore the question, "What does research suggest for middle level readers?" Tackling this question led to implications for the two roles a cultural synthesizer blends: researchers and practioners. The author concludes with a call for stronger attention to be given to the literacy learning of young adolescent middle level students and a greater degree of interplay between researcher and practioner agendas.

The fifth article, "Young Adolescent Voices: Student Perceptions of Interdisciplinary Teaming," by Susan J. Boyer and Penny A. Bishop, University of Vermont, examines young adolescents' perceptions of their teachers' interdisciplinary teaming. To describe, analyze and interpret the perceptions of 77 middle school aged children in 3 different schools, the researchers used qualitative methods. The information collected from students led them to conclude that when multi-year teams of teachers in middle level schools engage students in team governance and learning, these same students report a number of positive personal growth attributes. These include feeling like a trusted member of a community, the belief that they are self-directed and self-disciplined, and the perception that they had grown in confidence, independence, and tolerance with better leadership skills. In summary, the sense of belonging that students reported appears to have a number of other serendipitous positive outcomes that the researchers believe can be linked to high performing interdisciplinary, multi-year teaching teams that incorporate collaborative student-shared governance.

While each of these important studies addresses a different topic, and a variety of methodologies are used, a good deal of support for the middle level philosophy and documentation of middle level "best practice" is evident. I thank these authors for their contributions to the study of middle level education.

David Hough, Editor
December, 2004

ISSN 1084-8959