Ethical dilemmas and practical problems for the practitioner researcher

This paper explores the ethical dilemmas and problems encountered when undertaking an action research study in my own school. The study was designed to evaluate a contentious part of a new midwifery programme as it was being implemented. A range of potentially problematic issues are discussed from the practitioner researcher perspective. Some of these problems were anticipated but others had not been addressed and had to be responded to as they arose, More careful thought at the planning stage about the potential effects on others, as well as action-in-reflection are presented as important considerations for other practitioners contemplating action research in their own place of work.     

Ethical dilemmas in teaching and nursing: the Israeli case

This article explores a cross‐occupational approach for dealing with ethical dilemmas by comparing teaching and nursing. Findings indicate more shared patterns of ethical dilemmas (such as caring for needs for others versus following formal codes) than dilemmas specific to teaching (e.g., advancing universal values versus advancing knowledge) or nursing (e.g., patient modesty versus hospital policy). The large number of shared dilemmas suggests that results can be applied to a curriculum devoted to ethical dilemmas in high schools and universities in order to better prepare students to handle them. Formal discussions of these dilemmas can help define the roles of these occupations, thereby improving their status.     

Barker's ecology of disadvantage and educational equity: issues of redistribution and recognition

As Barker notes, the link between disadvantage and poor educational attainments is an enduring one. Educational policy over the last 40 years or so has tended to respond to educational inequality in predominately one of two ways – attempts to raise standards across the system as a whole and attempts to redistribute resources to families, schools and neighbourhoods in mainly poor urban contexts to help improve educational outcomes. Over time these later compensatory educational policies and interventions have become known as area-based initiatives (ABIs). This article categorises and documents these important initiatives and provides evidence of impact. The key finding is that although there have been improvements in attainments linked to these interventions, there continues to be an enduring link between disadvantage and educational outcomes. In an attempt to conceptualise why this is the case, this article utilises Barker's ecological macro, meso and micro perspective on educational disadvantage and Fraser's social justice ideas of redistribution and recognition.     

Teachers’ critical incidents: Ethical dilemmas in teaching practice

The aim of this study is to explore ethical dilemmas in critical incidents and the emerged responses that these incidents elicit. Most teachers try to suppress these incidences because of the unpleasant feelings they evoke. Fifty teachers participated in the study. A three-stage coding process derived from grounded theory was utilized. A taxonomy of critical incidents by means of the ATLAS.ti 5.0 revealed a multifaceted model of ethical dilemmas, among them clashing with rules, standards, or norms in school, as well as a multitude of derived responses. The results encourage the development of educational programmes based on teachers’ critical incidents.     

Vocational training as an educational and development strategy: Conceptual and practical issues

This paper looks at issues that have recently emerged in the field of vocational education and job training—issues that seem to hold in balance the key concerns of efficiency, on the one hand, and social equity on the other. The extent to which each of these concepts is pursued, in discussion and in actual practice, seems to relate, to some measure, to the differences existing in the socio-economic levels and in the demographic tendencies between developed and developing countries.     

论大学英语教学中的实用化问题

随着英语教学的普及,大学越来越重视英语的实用性并且针对于社会的实际需要来培养人才,设立各个方面的实用性英语,像商务英语,计算机英语,机械英语等。但是尽管这样学生进入社会后还是不能很好的应用英语。本文从大学英语教学实用化的角度来进行分析。     

Educational discourse in film: The history of chinese educational documentaries

As presented in documentary form, the discourse of the last one hundred years of modern Chinese education is very different from its written counterpart. Documentary discourse provides a perspective on education as realized and understood through the lens. On screen, evolving thoughts on Chinese education have been reconstructed. This article reviews and explores developments in the history of educational documentary in China. The value of the audio-visual method of expressing the essence of education is pursued. The meaning of this evidence is thus restored.     

Assessment and special educational needs: teachers' dilemmas

Martyn Rouse, Lecturer in Special Education, and Richard Agbenu, a former research student, in the University of Cambridge School of Education, consider teachers' assessments of special educational needs in the light of the massive changes introduced during the last decade. They describe the teachers' understanding of the nature and purpose of assessment and examine how judgements about children's learning needs are being made.     

Meeting the challenge of educational disadvantage: a case-study

The author, a primary school headteacher and poet, offers some personal and practical advice for developing the use and joy in poetry within the classroom. He selects, as a form of case study, ideas and examples from his own school and from his work in other LEAs. The article also provides an extremely useful list of resources for teachers which will enable them to support their teaching of poetry and language skills.     

Ethical issues in online educational research: protecting privacy,establishing authenticity in email interviewing

Educational researchers have a responsibility to ensure that in whatever research paradigm they work, the research that is conducted is done so within an ‘ethic of respect’ to those who participate. This implies a number of responsibilities on the part of the researcher that include ensuring trust, dignity, privacy, confidentiality and anonymity. When research uses the Internet as the medium of investigation, these ethical responsibilities become more complex for the educational researcher. This paper discusses such complexities by examining the ethical dilemmas of using the Internet as a site for qualitative research. It will draw on two educational studies that used email interviewing, and will specifically focus on two ethical challenges the researchers faced when using this method: protecting participants’ privacy and anonymity, and establishing authenticity in online environments, including the way in which ownership of online research conversations and identities are experienced and expressed. In discussing such dilemmas, the paper concludes by questioning whether these issues can be addressed in an effort to construct the unattainable but pursue the utopian: fully ethical educational research.     

Implementing process-based instruction in regular university teaching: Conceptual,methodological and practical issues

This paper reports an experimental field study aimed at examining whether a process-oriented form of instruction (combining program planning and interactive teaching) which produced outstanding results when implemented by a tutor/researcher (see Volet, 1991) could be used successfully by regular university tutors given detailed guidelines but minimal training. A second aim of the study was to establish the respective contribution of the two sub-components of the instructional package. The results of the study were inconclusive and raise a number of conceptual, methodological and practical issues. As in the initial study, experimental students were more satisfied with their learning and for those who had the choice, more inclined to undertake further studies in computing but the intervention did not affect students’ achievement. The results of the study are discussed in relation to the earlier work, and suggestions are made for bridging the gap between educational research and educational practice in higher education.     

教育技术专业实践教学资源管理方案研究

在教育技术专业实践类课程教学的过程中产生了大量的教学资源,然而目前对于这些资源的管理普遍存在问题,使得这些资源没有得到充分的利用.针对这一问题,设计开发了教育技术资源管理系统,实现对教育技术专业实践教学资源的信息化管理,为教学提供了一个丰富的教育技术资源库,以期提升优质教学资源的开发和利用,促进了教育技术专业实践教学的改革,提升了学生的动手实践能力.     

The role of families and pre-school in educational disadvantage

In the first volume of the Oxford Review of Education Jerome Bruner (1975) showed how the upbringing of the very young is influenced by poverty, and how different kinds of upbringing shape human development. He called the paper ‘Poverty and childhood’ and baldly stated ‘With respect to virtually any criterion of equal opportunity and equal access to opportunity, the children of the poor ... are plainly not getting as much schooling, or getting as much from their schooling as their middle-class age mates’ (p. 43). Since Bruner’s seminal paper, the developmental sciences have exploded. New insights from neuroscience, genetics and cognitive psychology have provided accounts of the developing architecture of the brain, the course of linguistic and cognitive development, and more recently the development of resilience. Most of these insights focus on the development of the child, but usually from research in the laboratory or in the context of the family. However, there is also a new literature on ways that environments outside the home can support or hinder the child’s development. This paper will attempt to integrate findings from the developmental sciences with educational research on pre-school education. The first half of the paper extends Bruner’s arguments through a discussion of possible mechanisms that underlie the link between poverty and under-achievement, especially the capacity to plan ahead. The second half of the paper focuses on the role of the ‘enabling environment’ of the pre-school in supporting the kinds of early ‘executive functions’ that will later underpin educational achievement. The paper concludes with recent findings from the ‘Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education’ research (EPPSE; Sylva, Melhuish, Sammons, Siraj, & Taggart, 2014) on the educational pathways of nearly 3000 English children. The findings show that high quality pre-school provided the foundation for academic learning, but the newest research shows that it also nurtured self-regulation and the executive skills needed in planning ahead.     

Peripheral Voices: Parental involvement,social class,and educational disadvantage

This paper presents the views of working-class parents on home-school links. Group interviews with parents of pupils in a primary school in the disadvantaged areas scheme in the Republic of Ireland suggest that parental involvement in school is limited to the giving and receiving of information, restricted consultation, and engagement in some supplemental responsibilities. Although parents were interested, informed and concerned regarding their children's education, they felt excluded from participation in decision-making about school management and organisation, about matters that affected them personally and financially, and about their children's progress. We suggest that heterogeneity in working-class voice merits further research; that the gendered nature of parent-school links needs further refinement to take account of being a primary carer; and that hearing working-class parents' voices can increase understanding of how parent groupings occupy spaces that are relatively peripheral or proximal to the school site and to their children's experiences of schooling.     

Ethnicity: the experience of socio‐economic disadvantage and educational attainment

The analysis concerns the way in which socio‐economic disadvantage affects the educational performance of children from different ethnic groups. Nationally representative data was provided by the 10 year follow‐up survey of the Child Health and Education Study. The effects of nine indicators of socio‐economic disadvantage on the intelligence, and reading test scores of United Kingdom, West Indian and Asian children were investigated. Differences were found between these groups of children in terms of the relationships between the disadvantage indicators and the test scores. The most striking result was the lack of sensitivity of the West Indian children's test scores to socio‐economic conditions. Attention was focused on this phenomenon, the analysis being repeated using United Kingdom and Asian children who had been matched with the West Indian children on the basis of intelligence. Again it was found that, unlike Asian and United Kingdom children, the test scores of West Indian children did not show any statistically significant relationships between the nine criteria of socio‐economic disadvantage. Subsequent analyses indicated a relationship between mother's social class and also mother's age and reading attainment in West Indian children. Various methods of explaining these results are discussed. It is suggested that further research should be pursued which investigates first whether different measures of socio‐economic disadvantage are relevant to West Indians, and secondly whether other non‐socioeconomic dimensions of disadvantage may help to explain the unique position of West Indian children.