Implementing Research‐Based Instruction to Prevent Reading Problems Among Low‐Income Students: Is Earlier Better?

It is currently considered imperative to introduce reading instruction as early as possible. This proposition was tested by assigning groups of kindergarteners (N = 256) to two conditions differing in their emphasis on prevention. In the first, teacher‐implemented research‐based interventions were implemented during kindergarten and first grade. In the second, only the first‐grade intervention was implemented. Analyses were conducted separately for students not at risk, at low risk, and at high risk of reading problems. In the short term, the kindergarten intervention was highly effective for both low‐risk and high‐risk students, but it is only for the latter group that early gains translated into better reading skills at the end of first grade. Not‐at‐risk students did not benefit from the early introduction of reading instruction.     

Voices of disaffection: disengaged and disruptive youths or agents of change and self‐empowerment?

This article presents findings from research conducted into school disaffection in the north of England. Bourdieu's concept of capital is utilised to explore the perspectives of 14‐ to 16‐year‐old girls undertaking vocational learning as a strategy for re‐engagement. Data emanate from semi‐structured interviews in which social and linguistic capital in school is identified as a privileged feature of a select few. Thus, within the field of education, capital facilitates student empowerment, whereupon the lack of such can lead to marginalisation, disaffection and, subsequently, disengagement. However, voice is presented as a powerful mechanism for challenging the existing inequities of compulsory schooling in England by validating unacknowledged capital, recognising agency, and thus facilitating the self‐empowerment of disaffected young people. Schools are encouraged to rethink their political stance to consider the potentially detrimental impact of a discourse that validates the dominant sociocultural capital and empowers only those students whose individual dispositions align with institutional practices.     

The Dynamics of Metaphors: Class‐Inclusion or Comparison?

In current literature, metaphor is treated as either an instance of implicit comparison or as a nonliteral class‐inclusion statement. I will argue that, contrary to these positions, the notions of comparison and class‐inclusion are not mutually exclusive in character but rather complementary cognitive concepts which entail one another. While initially using the semantic distinction between literal and figurative language, I will argue in the course of this article that metaphor is a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language and that it reflects linguistic pragmatics rather than semantics. The most prominent reasons for resorting to the extraordinary use of language may be found in education, where metaphor serves a heuristic function in the interaction between teacher and student, and in scientific activities, when researchers have at their disposal only a restricted dictionary to describe new phenomena. Executive function, flashbulb memory, and the firing of neurons are examples from cognitive psychology and neuroscience that denominate phenomena that might otherwise not have been adequately expressed. I will conclude that metaphors are both comparisons as well as class‐inclusion statements and that these tropes fulfill not only a heuristic but also an epistemic function in as much as they render comprehensible the acquisition of radically new knowledge.     

Scientific Research: Commodities or Commons?

Truth is for sale today, some critics claim. The increased commodification of science corrupts it, scientific fraud is rampant and the age-old trust in science is shattered. This cynical view, although gaining in prominence, does not explain very well the surprising motivation and integrity that is still central to the scientific life. Although scientific knowledge becomes more and more treated as a commodity or as a product that is for sale, a central part of academic scientific practice is still organized according to different principles. In this paper, I critically analyze alternative models for understanding the organization of knowledge, such as the idea of the scientific commons and the gift economy of science. After weighing the diverse positive and negative aspects of free market economies of science and gift economies of science, a commons structured as a gift economy seems best suited to preserve and take advantage of the specific character of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, commons and gift economies promote the rich social texture that is important for supporting central norms of science. Some of these basic norms might break down if the gift character of science is lost. To conclude, I consider the possibility and desirability of hybrid economies of academic science, which combine aspects of gift economies and free market economies. The aim of this paper is to gain a better understanding of these deeper structural challenges faced by science policy. Such theoretical reflections should eventually assist us in formulating new policy guidelines.     

Research and Teaching Revisited: a pre-Humboldtian or post-Humboldtian phenomenon? The cases of France and the UK

The evidence about the relationship between research and teaching at the level of doctoral education is far from conclusive. The focus of this study is to examine how teaching and research are related at doctoral level, especially when students' voices are heard, in two contrasting higher education systems — France and the UK. Models from Schimank and Winnes, and Clark were used to analyse the contrasting research and teaching configurations at institutional level in France and the UK. France has a Pre-Humboltian system of research and teaching, whilst the UK has a Post-Humboltian one. Two empirical studies were then drawn on: to measure teaching, a questionnaire composed of two major dimensions of research training experiences, supervision and research environment, was distributed to full-time doctoral students in Economics & Management and Chemistry in France and was compared to a survey carried out earlier in Education and Chemistry in the UK. To measure research, the result of the CNRS (National Centre of Scientific Research) research classification in France was used. In the UK, the corresponding measurement, RAE score (Research Assessment Exercise) was adopted. Strikingly similar findings were found in the two countries. First, there is little relationship between the departmental research performance and the quality of doctoral education as experienced by PhD students in either country. Next, this lack of significant relationship is found across all three disciplines. Thirdly, more consistent results were observed in France than in the UK. There is in-depth discussion with regard to these findings.     

Language and Marginalization-a Research on Language Problems of Migrant Workers in Beijing

With migrant workers pouring out into cities together with their family,their problems become more and more prominent.By means of field study,the paper investigated the language problems and social problems of migrant workers,and confirmed the hypothesis that language problems cause migrant workers marginalized in the mainstream of the society.     

Research Subjects,Participants or Co-researchers? Extending the Involvement of Students in Art and Design Research

Art education has a range of purposes. Art is said to support students to explore, interpret, ask critical questions, communicate and realise ideas, experiment, take risks, collaborate, tell stories and/or engage in social and political actions. In this paper, we consider whether educational researchers have the same capacious view of students’ potential and capacities for involvement. We bring the results of a Rapid Evidence Review (RER) of the benefits of arts education into conversation with the literatures on student voice and participation. We outline the ways in which student voice and participation are discussed, then move to the results of the RER. We conclude with a discussion of the opportunities for art education researchers to develop research practices that are inclusive of students.     

Research and development work: developing teachers as researchers or just teachers?

This article focuses on the theoretical frame of action research and the teacher as researcher, working through a Norwegian Research Council‐funded project in a school that explored learning strategies for pupils’ subject and social development. Action research is here called research and development (R&D) work as the term envisages that research and development are being conducted at the same time. Additionally, the term reflects the fact that the research is conducted within the framework of activity theory and Engeström’s expansive learning circle in which work is termed R&D. The article describes the possibilities and challenges for both teachers and researchers cooperating in R&D projects. Reflection on observed teaching are presented as a central activity in development work, covering the form and content of reflective dialogues; quotations from teachers are provided to show how the teachers experienced observation and reflection. The article discusses whether teachers become researchers, or whether they only develop in their role as teachers. The close cooperation between teachers and researchers in this work is also presented as a model for further education for teachers in‐service and for the training of teacher students.     

Cliff or Step? Posture‐Specific Learning at the Edge of a Drop‐Off

Infants require locomotor experience to behave adaptively at a drop‐off. However, different experimental paradigms (visual cliff and actual gaps and slopes) have generated conflicting findings regarding what infants learn and the specificity of their learning. An actual, adjustable drop‐off apparatus was used to investigate whether learning to distinguish a step from a cliff transfers from crawling to walking. Experienced 12‐month‐old crawlers (n = 16) refused to crawl over risky drop‐offs but novice 12‐month‐old walkers (n = 17) stepped repeatedly over the edge. Experienced 18‐month‐old walkers (n = 18) refused to walk over risky drop‐offs but descended using alternative methods. These findings suggest that infants do not acquire generalized responses like fear or wariness of heights. Rather, infants learn to perceive affordances for the experienced action.     

Do Human‐Figure Drawings of Children and Adolescents Mirror their Cognitive Style and Self‐Esteem?

The investigation probed relationships among human‐figure drawing, field‐dependent‐independent cognitive style and self‐esteem of 10–15 year olds. It also attempted to predict human‐figure drawing scores of participants based on their field‐dependence‐independence and self‐esteem. Area, stratified and multi‐stage random sampling were used to select a sample of 600 10–15 year olds residing in Kolkata city, India. The sample comprised three age‐based strata: 10 and 11 year olds; 12 and 13 year olds; and 14 and 15 year olds. Each stratum comprised 100 girls and 100 boys. Participants’ actual age‐ranges were 10 years 1 month – 11 years 10 months (first stratum); 12 years 4 months – 13 years 10 months (second stratum); and 14 years 3 months – 15 years 9 months (third stratum). Goodenough‐Harris Drawing Test, Group Embedded Figures Test and Coopersmith Inventory were administered for assessing participants’ human‐figure drawing, field‐dependence‐independence and self‐esteem respectively. Results revealed significant positive relations among pertinent variables. Participants’ human‐figure drawing scores could be significantly predicted by their field‐dependence‐independence and self‐esteem.     

Do high scores on the Adolescent‐School Problems and Immaturity Scales of the MMPI‐A have implications for cognitive performance as measured by the WISC‐III?

High scores on the Adolescent‐School Problems (A‐Sch) content scale and the Immaturity (IMM) supplementary scale of the MMPI‐A have been associated with poor school performance and possible learning disabilities (Archer, 1997). The aim of the present study was to determine whether these scales were associated with cognitive performance as measured by the WISC‐III. Subjects completed the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition (WISC‐III) and the MMPI‐A. Their scores for the WISC‐III sub‐tests and SCAD were calculated. The A‐Sch content and the IMM supplementary scales were extracted from the MMPI‐A. The results indicated that A‐Sch was associated with lower WISC‐III scores in males and predicted poorer performance in Full Scale IQ (FIQ), Verbal IQ (VIQ), Information, and Arithmetic. For females however, there was little evidence to suggest a relationship between A‐Sch and cognitive performance. The association between IMM and the WISC‐III sub‐tests was found to be a result of its correlation with A‐Sch. The implications of these findings, in particular, those involving gender differences, were discussed. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The Effects of University–Industry Relationships and Academic Research On Scientific Performance: Synergy or Substitution?

This paper evaluates whether university–industry relationships (UIR) and academic research activities have complementary effects on the scientific production of university lecturers. The analysis is based on a case study of two Spanish universities. We find that the effects of R&D contracts with industry, and academic research activity on scientific production are synergistic, but only when the R&D contracts account for a low percentage of a lecturer’s total funding. This suggests that the positive effect of UIR on a lecturer’s scientific production comes fundamentally from the capacity to provide complementary resources (cognitive, technical, and/or financial) for research activities. If lecturers are not involved in research and dedicate most their time to the development of activities related to UIR, their scientific production will be negatively affected.     

Felt or False Smiles? Volitional Regulation of Emotional Expression in 4‐, 6‐, and 8‐Year‐Old Children

The development of volitional emotion regulation of expression was examined with a modified disappointing gift paradigm and strategy for coding children's expressions. Forty‐nine boys and 49 girls aged 4, 6, and 8 were motivated to volitionally deceive an observer by false smiling, regardless of whether they received an attractive, unattractive, or no gift. Ten naïve observers watched children's videotaped behavior in random order and judged the quality of emotion and type of gift. This impression analysis indicated that children's competence to volitionally regulate their expressions increased with age. In addition, this ability was positively associated with children's emotion understanding of how to differentiate between emotion and expression. Unexpectedly, girls did not display a superior volitional regulation of expression than boys.     

The mentoring dilemma: guidance and/or direction?

Abstract

How effective is your mentoring programme? How does the nature of a mentoring programme influence outcomes? By looking beneath the process and practice, an examination, analysis and classification of the nature of current real‐life mentoring practice is made and a template for the identification of your own project is presented.     

Teacher Efficacy Research 1998–2009: Signs of Progress or Unfulfilled Promise?

This review investigates the state of teacher self- and collective efficacy research conducted from 1998 to 2009. Two hundred and eighteen empirical articles published in 1998–2009 were examined for key characteristics and compared to research published in the previous 12 years (i.e., 1986–1997). Results from the review show increases in overall teacher efficacy research, methodological diversity, domain specificity, internationalization, and focus on collective efficacy. Continuing problem areas were a lack of attention to the sources of teacher efficacy, continued measurement and conceptual problems, a lack of evidence for the links between teacher efficacy and student outcomes, and uncertain relevance of teacher efficacy research to educational practice. An outline of directions for future teacher efficacy research is provided.