Malaysian and Australian children’s representations and explanations of numeracy problems

Two developments have contributed to the convergence of views about the benefits of real-life and inquiry-based pedagogies in mathematics learning. First, the mathematics teaching community is increasingly focused on the learning of mathematics that involves the transfer of prior knowledge to novel problem-solving situations, a key element in recent characterizations of the notion of Numeracy. Second, research about human cognition in domain-specific learning suggests that problem-solving activity provides better contexts in which to observe the construction of creative connections of disparate information. The question is how can we examine the above cognitive processes, as these are played out in Numeracy contexts? (Tan, Educ Res Policy Pract 6:101–114, 2007) identified dialogue and inquiry as important themes of the psychology that girds problem-based learning. In this report, we take up Tan’s suggestion that research needs to make learner’s cognition more visible by immersing a cohort of Malaysian and Australian students in arithmetic word problems. Students were required to explain and justify their solutions. The frameworks of dialogue representation and schema guided our analyses that focused on students’ readings, explanations, representations and reflections about a given set of problem contexts. Results showed that both the groups experienced difficulty in representing far-transfer numeracy problems. However, Australian children tended to develop longer and more varied explanations in comparison to their Malaysian counterparts. Potential implications for classroom practices, policy-making and future research directions are explored.     

Shopping :Men’s and Women’s

“M en say they hate to shop,”says Zhukin,C ity U niversity of N ewY ork Sociology (社会学) professor. “Y et w hen you ask them deeperquestions,it turns out that they like to shop.M en generally like to shopfor books, m usic and hardw are. But ifyou ask them aboutthe shoppingthey do for books or m usic, they ll say, ‘W ell, thats not shopping.Thats research.’”In other words,what m en and w om en call “buying things”and howthey com plete thattask are different.W om en will wander thr…     

It’s special and it’s specific: understanding the early childhood education experiences and expectations of young Indigenous Australian children and their parents

Whilst early childhood education is regarded as important for young Indigenous Australians and it has been a feature of policy since the 1960s, it does not receive the same attention as compulsory schooling for Indigenous Australian students. A serious lack of large-scale research contributes to the devaluing of early childhood education for young Indigenous Australians by some stakeholders such as governments, academics and research, but not for the main stakeholders, namely young Indigenous Australian children and their parents. This paper aims to address this by drawing on large-scale qualitative and quantitative data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children. First, it will analyse data pertaining to the experiences of Indigenous Australian children to uncover what they believe to be special about their early childhood education. Second, it will analyse data pertaining to the specific choices made by their parents regarding their early childhood education. The paper concludes by discussing the role of research in strengthening areas within Indigenous Australian early childhood education and identifying areas where it is valued to the same level as compulsory schooling.     

Nature study,Aborigines and the Australian kindergarten: lessons from Martha Simpson’s Australian Programme based on the Life and Customs of the Australian Black

This article examines an experimental kindergarten programme Work in the Kindergarten: An Australian Programme based on the Life and Customs of the Australian Black developed by Martha Simpson in early twentieth-century Australia. Here Simpson adapted international Revisionist Froebelian approaches to cultural epoch theory and nature study in an Australian context. Accepting that human development recapitulates, Simpson posited that Aboriginal culture could serve as stimulus for age-appropriate and improving child-centred activities. Local contingencies, including histories of violent cross-racial encounter, complicated an attempt by kindergartener Helen Beaumont to apply the programme in the Sydney slum suburb of Leichhardt. These contingencies are documented and analysed.     

Welcome and exclusion: an analysis of The Australian newspaper’s coverage of international students

For countries such as Australia exporting education is recognised as an important contributor to the nation’s economy. The embodiment of this export industry in Australia is the presence of international students in tertiary institutions across the country. Despite their considerable contribution to social, political, cultural and economic life, there have been recent examples of violence, exploitation and discrimination against international students in Australia. To understand how international students are both welcomed and excluded from Australian life, we use critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyse news reports published in an Australian national newspaper from 2009 to 2011. Following van Dijk (Ideology: a multidisciplinary approach, Sage, Thousand Oaks, 1998) we view newspapers as ideological institutions that mobilise discursive power to polarise public opinion to support their ideological agenda(s). In the case of international students we use CDA to show how media discourses construct international students in ways that commodify their participation in higher education and marginalise them as the excluded ‘other’ in Australian society. Our conceptual and analytical approach has broader implications for national higher education policy and international student experience by exposing the social inequalities that accompany globalised international education.     

A comparative study of perceptions of overseas consulting ‘effectiveness’ ‐Australian providers and Asian and Pacific clients

This study sought to compare the perceptions of Australian consultants, involved in a three year assignment in the South Pacific of the essential knowledge, attitudes and attributes, and skills needed for ‘effective’ consulting, with those of the client group and a third group of Asian and Pacific consumers and providers of consulting services. This latter group consisted of executive members, sub‐regional coordinators and program facilitators of the Asia South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education.

A two‐round questionnaire was employed to enable them to provide qualitative data on the knowledge, qualities and skills required of ‘effective’ consultants and then to rank order these items, and others obtained from an extensive literature search, to guide project managers and cross‐cultural trainers in the recruitment and preparation of consultants for effective outcomes. These guidelines seemed particularly urgent in the light of the 80% early return rate (premature return of consultants before project completion) at a cost of two billion dollars per annum (in the USA) and the evidence that fewer than one‐in‐three consultants receive cross‐cultural preparation before their departure and are generally recruited on the basis of strong success records at home.

The major findings that emerge are that there are statistically significant differences between the three groups as to the most important ‘competencies’ required for successful overseas consulting; that ‘cultural sensitivity’ is the most important attribute; ‘interpersonal’ and ‘teaching’ skills the most important skills, after ‘technical expertise'; that the composite ‘Mentikit’ effective consultant yielded by the literatureis quite different from that constructed from the survey responses; and that ‘home country success’ is unimportant compared with other traits and skills with major implications for culture‐general and culture‐specificcross‐cultural selection and training.     

Italian students’ performance and regional decomposition

Educational Research for Policy and Practice - We relate students’ math scores in the OECD-PISA test to school characteristics. The average math score for Italian students has been increasing...     

‘Revisiting’ the South Pacific approaches to learning: a confirmatory factor analysis study

There has been substantial research evidence concerning the learning approaches of students in Western and non‐Western contexts. Nonetheless, it has been a decade since research in the South Pacific was conducted on the learning approaches of tertiary students. The present research examined the learning approaches of Fijian and other Pacific Islands students enrolling in a professional‐based education course at the University of the South Pacific. Biggs’ (1987 Biggs, J. 1987. Student approaches to learning and studying, Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.  [Google Scholar]) Study Process Questionnaire was revised to suit the social and cultural contexts before it was distributed among 159 undergraduate students. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis did not support the theoretical framework of a three‐factor model (Biggs, 1987 Biggs, J. 1987. Student approaches to learning and studying, Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.  [Google Scholar]) and, instead, indicated the existence of a two first‐factor model, emphasising two major types of learning approach – reproducing and meaning (Richardson, 1994 Richardson, J.T.E. 1994. Cultural specificity of approaches to studying in higher education. Higher Education, 27: 449–468. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]). The study’s findings suggest that educators should ensure that assessment and other teaching learning components are aligned constructively to promote the appropriate approach of learning.     

Women’s education associations: the role of the Central Association of Irish Schoolmistresses and the Woman’s Education Association,Boston in advancing the cause for women’s admission to Trinity College Dublin and Harvard University

ABSTRACT

Examining the historiography of women’s education, the issue which dominates is understandably that of access. Access, or lack thereof, is a transnational construct which forms an over-arching framework through which the issue of historical gender equality in higher education can be interpreted and interrogated. Each of the seminal texts which examines the historiography of women’s higher education uses access as a lens. While it is important to examine access in the historiography of women’s education, a focus on access can obscure an interrogation of agency and particularly the role of social and intellectual networks in advancing key strategic objectives such as access. Against the backdrop of the higher education movements in both Ireland and the United States, this article examines the role of the Central Association of Irish Schoolmistresses (CAISM) in securing access for women to Trinity College Dublin and the concomitant role of the Woman’s Education Association, Boston (WEA) in securing Harvard degrees for women. Chronicling the activities of the associations, both compensatory and innovative, it interrogates how the women at the centre of the associations straddled a conservative/progressive agenda in order to incrementally open up the privileges of a patriarchal space to women.     

Gleaning Meaning from Case Studies in International Comparison: teachers’ experiences of reform in Russia and South Africa

This paper considers how case study approaches may be used cross‐nationally. It outlines five key stages in the process of conducting case study research and of learning from it: selection, verification, cumulation, generalisation, and application. The research used to illustrate these principles is a study of teachers’ experiences of changes in education in post‐communist Russia and post‐apartheid South Africa.     

Governing teachers’ work and learning through data: Australian insights

This article reveals the multiple ways in which data are constituted as a vehicle for governing teachers’ work and learning. Drawing on the concept of governance, including in relation to the sociology of numbers, and data from one school in Queensland, Australia, the research reveals how teachers’ work and learning were constituted through practices of: establishing specific ‘targets’, including various ‘audacious goals’ for school and national testing; focusing upon ‘aligning’ all forms of school, regional and national data collected within the school; and participating in various ‘data conversations’ about specific students with senior members of staff. While the research reveals how teachers found such practices beneficial for improving their practice with students, it also shows how this learning was always and everywhere framed within a broader discourse of data, and how this data-centric focus came to constitute what was valued about their work and learning, and that of their students.     

Integrative ethical education: Narvaez’s project and Xunzi’s insight

In the early 2000s, some scholars suggested integrative ethical education as an approach to reconcile the gap between cognitive-development education, based on rule ethics, and traditional character-ethics education, inspired by character ethics in Western ethical education. Darcia Narvaez also tried to establish a comprehensive and systematic model. Nonetheless, she has indicated four questions that need further research. This paper aims to respond to Narvaez’s project and its questions from the angle of Xunzi’s ritual education. It argues that Xunzi’s thought may provide some insights for Narvaez’s approach. To present this, it begins its discussion with an introduction of the main ideas of Xunzi’s thought. Later, it tries to show the insights from certain notions and elements, such as Junzi, reasoned judgment, of Xunzi’s ritual education for Narvaez’s project of integrative ethical education. Some relevant questions are also discussed.     

A Comparative Study of Of Studies and Wang Zuoliang’s Translated Version

Of Studies is an important one in The Essays of Francis Bacon, of which words are concise and refining, reasoning is profound and logic. Wang Zuoliang’s translated version is so efficient and smooth with classical Chinese style that it perfectly reveals the original text, turning out to be the best version among all the translation of Of Studies. This thesis compares Of Studies and Wang Zuoliang’s translated version to analyze their linguistic feature in terms of diction, sentence and figures of speech.     

Summer’s End and Sad Goodbyes: Children’s Picturebooks About Death and Dying

This article explores children’s picturebooks about death and grieving by considering both psychological and literary aspects. Two questions frame this analysis: How can picturebooks, particularly written for young children, support children’s grief when someone dies? How do the illustrations and text of picture books express and convey the aesthetic and emotional experience of loss? Using both psychological research on children’s grief reactions and literary analysis of picturebooks, this paper reviews picturebooks that have been published on the topic of death from 2001 to 2011 and then closely analyzes three books that span a range of topics and approaches to death. Findings indicate that children’s picturebooks convey important psychological and cultural issues through text and illustrations. Furthermore, understanding some of the psychological and literary features of children’s picturebooks that address death and grieving can help educators to provide support and understanding for children when they experience loss.     

A Comparative Study of Of Studies and Wang Zuoliang’s Translated Version

Of Studies is an important one in The Essays of Francis Bacon, of which words are concise and refining, reasoning is profound and logic. Wang Zuoliang’s translated version is so efficient and smooth wi...