Teacher education and LEA perspectives on disruptive behaviour: initial teacher training

From an examination of documents obtained from forty‐nine local education authorities (LEAs), a research suggested as useful by a project on disruptive behaviour (Lawrence, Steed & Young, 1978), an account was obtained of the expectations of LEAs as to how initial teacher training, programmes should introduce teachers to the skills required for coping with disruptive behaviour. This paper reports the findings derived from these LEA documents and examines their implications for initial teacher training.

LEAs are asking colleges to provide factual information about facilities, discussion of major related concepts and training in observational skills, and in a problem solving approach. These requirements are modest and feasible, but require staff who are up‐to‐date vis‐a‐vis disruptive behaviour.     

Values education and holistic learning: Updated research perspectives

The article introduces the special issue by exploring international research findings that identify certain forms of values education constituting an effective catalyst for good practice pedagogy and, in turn, contributing to holistic learning. It refers firstly to research that justifies and explains how values education works to enhance positive student effects across the full range of developmental measures, personal, emotional, social, moral, spiritual and intellectual. It then focuses on international evidence that underpins the central theme of the special issue, so providing updated samples of the theoretical and empirical research that both explains and demonstrates the impact of values education on holistic learning.     

Teachers’ perspectives on mathematics education research reports

Practicing teachers’ perspectives on a set of mathematics education research reports are described. Data were gathered through email messages, group discussions, and questionnaires. Teachers identified positive influences of research on practice aligned with some of the strands of proficient mathematics teaching identified by Kilpatrick, Swafford, and Findell [2001. Adding it up: Helping children learn mathematics. Washington, DC: National Academy Press]. Teachers also gave negative critiques of the ability of research to influence practice aligned with Kennedy's [1997. The connection between research and practice. Educational Researcher, 26 (7), 4–12.] discussion of historical factors underlying the gap between educational research and practice. The variety of perspectives documented provides some empirical ground for informing actions in the areas of teacher education and research.     

New perspectives on teacher education in Kuwait

Pre‐service teacher education in England has been essentially school‐based since 1992. The article offers a critique of this design from the perspective of a practitioner and researcher working in one of its most influential schemes. The fundamental problem described concerns an impoverished understanding of experience that underpins how beginning teachers are intended to learn in schools. The problem is not one of evaluating experience as adequate in terms of exemplary practices, but about the capacity within the teacher education system for critically examining the meaning of experience in order to develop professional knowledge. The article suggests that the ontological and epistemological dimensions of experience need to be brought into a dialogue if the potential of experiential learning for pre‐service teachers is to be realised.     

Land education: Indigenous,post-colonial,and decolonizing perspectives on place and environmental education research

This editorial introduces a special issue of Environmental Education Research titled ‘Land education: Indigenous, post-colonial, and decolonizing perspectives on place and environmental education research.’ The editorial begins with an overview of each of the nine articles in the issue and their contributions to land and environmental education, before outlining features of land education in more detail. ‘Key considerations’ of land education are discussed, including: Land and settler colonialism, Land and Indigenous cosmologies, Land and Indigenous agency and resistance, and The significance of naming. The editorial engages the question ‘Why land education?’ by drawing distinctions between land education and current forms of place-based education. It closes with a discussion of modes and methods of land education research.     

International large-scale assessments in education: Insider research perspectives

International Review of Education -     

New challenges for higher education: global and Asia-Pacific perspectives

With rapid socio-economic changes, twenty-first century higher education is facing major challenges to its governance systems, curriculum, mission focus, external relations, research, and financing. A theoretical framework to analyze these post-massification challenges is suggested, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region as well as global issues. Five main topic areas provide the basis for the theoretical framework: massification, privatization, accountability and governance, internationalization, and ranking and world-class universities. Some discussion of the possible effects of the financial crisis that commenced in 2008 is provided.     

当代美国高等教育研究理念

当代美国高等教育研究理念主要包括“学术资本主义”、“学术资本主义与新经济”、“大学的企业性”、“全球一体化与社区学院”、“知识和金钱对研究型大学的影响”和“大学的组织转型”等。这些理念对高等教育实践具有解释作用,对决策人员具有参考、引导作用,对高等教育行政管理人员具有指导作用。这些理念的应用有一定限度。     

Competency-based training and beyond: action research and reflective practice in vocational education and training

This article [1] analyses data from a national research project evaluating the contribution of competency-based training (CBT) to outcomes in vocational education and training (VET) in Australia. In the light of this analysis, it is argued that practitioners have an important and developing role as practitioner-researchers in industry settings, engaging in reflective practice and, indeed, in forms of action research. Moreover, it is argued that CBT provides opportunities for practitioners to develop and incorporate different models of education and training, often alongside the ‘standard’ CBT model for the benefit of trainees and the enterprises in which they work. Some implications for VET policy, practice and practitioner education are explored.     

Integral methodological pluralism in science education research: valuing multiple perspectives

This article examines the multiple methodologies used in educational research and proposes a model that includes all of them as contributing to understanding educational contexts and research from multiple perspectives. The model, based on integral theory (Wilber in a theory of everything. Shambhala, Boston, 2000) values all forms of research as true, but partial. Consideration of objective (exterior) forms of research and data and subjective (interior) forms of research and data are further divided into individual and collective domains. Taking this categorization system one step further reveals eight indigenous perspectives that form a framework for considering research methodologies. Each perspective has unique questions, data sources, methods and quality criteria designed to reveal what is “true” from that view. As science educators who guide our students’ research, this framework offers a useful guide to explain differences in types of research, the purpose and validity of each. It allows professional science educators to appreciate multiple forms of research while maintaining rigorous quality criteria. Use of this framework can also help avoid problems of imposing quality criteria of one methodology on research data and questions gathered using another methodology. This model is explored using the second author’s dissertation research. Finally a decision chart is provided to use with those who are starting inquiries to guide their thinking and choice of appropriate methodologies to use when conducting research.     

New perspectives in gaze sensitivity research

Attending to where others are looking is thought to be of great adaptive benefit for animals when avoiding predators and interacting with group members. Many animals have been reported to respond to the gaze of others, by co-orienting their gaze with group members (gaze following) and/or responding fearfully to the gaze of predators or competitors (i.e., gaze aversion). Much of the literature has focused on the cognitive underpinnings of gaze sensitivity, namely whether animals have an understanding of the attention and visual perspectives in others. Yet there remain several unanswered questions regarding how animals learn to follow or avoid gaze and how experience may influence their behavioral responses. Many studies on the ontogeny of gaze sensitivity have shed light on how and when gaze abilities emerge and change across development, indicating the necessity to explore gaze sensitivity when animals are exposed to additional information from their environment as adults. Gaze aversion may be dependent upon experience and proximity to different predator types, other cues of predation risk, and the salience of gaze cues. Gaze following in the context of information transfer within social groups may also be dependent upon experience with group-members; therefore we propose novel means to explore the degree to which animals respond to gaze in a flexible manner, namely by inhibiting or enhancing gaze following responses. We hope this review will stimulate gaze sensitivity research to expand beyond the narrow scope of investigating underlying cognitive mechanisms, and to explore how gaze cues may function to communicate information other than attention.     

教育功能研究的取向和视角分析

通过对教育功能不同学派和观点的梳理 ,可以将教育功能研究分为两种不同的取向和视角 :深究式向度和穷举式向度。对这两种向度的分析表明 ,教育功能研究上的宏大叙事缺乏对不同社会和文化背景下的教育现象的阐释力 ,也不能很好地与处在不同政治、经济、文化形态下的教育实践相契合