Growing and developing as a university researcher

While there is a substantial body of literature on academics’ development as teachers, investigation of their development as researchers post-PhD is rare. This study undertook an investigation of academics’ ways of understanding their own growth and development as a university researcher. Four qualitatively different ways of understanding research development emerged: (1) Becoming confident as a researcher; (2) Becoming recognised as a researcher; (3) Becoming more productive as a researcher; and (4) Becoming more sophisticated as a researcher. The first category of development was seen as most relevant to the early stages of an academic career, when doing a PhD or during one’s first academic appointment, but may also re-occur at later stages of a career during changes in research direction, etc. The last three categories are seen as relevant to all career stages, including more advanced stages as well as the early stages of a research career. Comparisons between academics’ ways of understanding their growth and development as a university researcher and as a university teacher are also presented.     

Inclusion Illusion: Questioning the Inclusiveness of Integrated Physical Education

ABSTRACT

Globally, integrated school placements as well as inclusion as an education philosophy have emerged as influential trends in education over the past 30 years. Although used interchangeably at times, inclusion and integration are distinct. Confusion about inclusion and integration can lead to mixed messages, which oftentimes affect the education of students with disabilities in school-based physical education. The purposes of this article are twofold. First, the author will provide a brief narrative to clarify the distinction between inclusion as a philosophy and integration as a placement. Second, the author will examine whether empirical data support integrated physical education placements as being inclusive. Existing literature examining the embodied perspectives of students with disabilities, as well as previously unpublished non-fiction reflections from one man with a visual impairment, are utilized to guide the conversation about whether integrated physical education settings are providing inclusive experiences.     

Preserving the Past: An Early Interview Improves Delayed Event Memory in Children With Intellectual Disabilities

The influence of an early interview on children's (N = 194) later recall of an experienced event was examined in children with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities (CWID; 7–12 years) and typically developing (TD) children matched for chronological (7–12 years) or mental (4–9 years) age. Children previously interviewed were more informative, more accurate, and less suggestible. CWID (mild) recalled as much information as TD mental age matches, and were as accurate as TD chronological age matches. CWID (moderate) recalled less than TD mental age matches but were as accurate. Interviewers should elicit CWID's recall as early as possible and consider developmental level and severity of impairments when evaluating eyewitness testimony.     

豫北地区猪源致病性大肠杆菌分离与鉴定

从豫北地区发病猪场采得144份仔猪黄、白痢检样，共分离出大肠杆菌63株，经血清学试验鉴定为O2 8株、O139 8株、O101 7株、O138 7株、O20 6株、O60 6株、O95株、O45 3株、O63 3株、O141 2株、O149 2株、O147 1株、O8 1株，另有4株未能定型，以O2，O139，O101，O138，O20，O60，O9等株血清型占优势。对不同分离株进行了药敏试验。本研究结果为豫北地区致病性猪大肠杆菌药物敏感性试验和多价灭活苗的制作提供了基础，对指导规模化养猪场大肠杆菌病综合防治模式的制定，对预防猪大肠杆菌病具有重要意义。     

College students’ conceptions of context-aware ubiquitous learning: A phenomenographic analysis

The purpose of this study was to explore students’ conceptions of context-aware ubiquitous learning (u-learning). The students participated in a u-learning exercise using PDAs equipped with RFID readers. The data were collected from individual interviews with each of the students by a trained researcher, and the responses of the interviewees were further analyzed using the phenomenographic method. The analysis revealed five categories of conceptions of u-learning, including “u-learning as the application of technology,” “u-learning as a platform for attaining information,” “u-learning as a timely guide,” “u-learning as increase of knowledge” and “u-learning as active learning.” There conceptions are viewed as a hierarchy, from less advanced to more sophisticated. An in-depth analysis of the students’ conceptions of learning indicated that students held multiple conceptions of u-learning. This study further suggests that inquiry practices (such as allowing open-ended exploration for the learning topic) should be addressed in u-learning activities, as these practices may foster more sophisticated conceptions of u-learning.     

Computer,craft, complexity,change: explorations into science teacher knowledge

In this article we review the notion of teacher knowledge from four metaphorical standpoints – teacher knowledge as computer, as craft, as complexity and as change. We employ each of these metaphors to examine and analyse the work of one teacher of science. We draw implications from our analysis for teacher education, teacher development and the study of teaching.     

The “Other White”: Mexican Americans and the Impotency of Whiteness in the Segregation and Desegregation of Texan Public Schools

This article analyzes the legal classification of Mexican Americans as “other white” as argued in a number of critical court cases that beginning in the 1930s up to the 1970s attempted to desegregate public schools in Texas. Since the Texas constitution declared school segregation as being only for “colored children,” Mexican Americans in their fight against de facto segregation sought to claim their legal classification as white. My objective is to further analyze these cases as presented in the literature in order to examine what the relationship between Mexican American whiteness as a legal category versus their “otherness” as a social category says about the vital role of public schools in reproducing, as well as creating, social, political, and economic marginalization.     

An analysis of flexible learning and flexibility over the last 40 years of Distance Education

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we report the major themes we identified in the literature surrounding flexible learning that has been published in Distance Education over the last 40 years. We identified six themes: the qualities of flexibility as affording “anytime, anyplace” learning; flexibility as pedagogy; liberatory or service-oriented aspects of flexibility; limitations of flexibility, especially in terms of technology, the constraints of time and space, as well as cultural differences; flexibility as a quality needed by instructors and instructional designers themselves; and critiques of flexibility as a concept. These themes suggest a complex understanding of flexibility, and one that could support future teaching and scholarly endeavours.     

Playful and mindful interactions in the recursive adaptations of the zone of proximal development: a critical complexity science approach

We discuss Konstantinos Alexakos, Jayson Jones and Victor Rodriguez’s hermeneutic study of formation and function of kinship-like relationships among inner city male students of color in a college physics classroom. From our Critical Complexity Science framework we first discuss the reading erlebnisse of students laughing at and with each other as something that immediately captured our attention in being transformative of the classroom. We continue by exploring their classroom and research experience as an emergent structure modifying their collective as well as their individual experiences. As we analyze both the classroom and the research space as a complex system, we reflect on the instructor/students interactions characterized by an asymmetrical “power” relationship. From our analysis we propose to consider the zone of proximal development as the constantly emerging and transforming person experience (erlebnisse and erfahrung).     

Balancing knowing and not-knowing: an exploration of doctoral candidates’ performance of researcher selves in the dissertation defence

This paper explores how 11 Canadian doctoral candidates performed as researchers in the final doctoral oral examination in handling questions that they identified as ‘difficult to answer’. Drawing from communities of practice theory, the study views the defence as an examination in which a novice researcher (the doctoral candidate) demonstrates knowing to a group of experienced researchers (the defence committee) in order to be approved of the membership of a scholarly community. The doctoral candidate’s researcher identity is considered as composed of three aspects: thinking about oneself as, performing as and being thought of as a researcher. It was found that many (41%) of the questions were difficult because of the questioners’ different perspectives on the dissertation; in answering them, the candidates balanced knowing and not-knowing by navigating across research areas/fields, methodological and epistemological borders. All the defences were successful, which indicate that these candidates were all thought of as competent researchers; yet, only those who thought about themselves as novice researchers felt satisfied with their performance.     

FROM INDIVIDUAL TO CORPORATE PRAXIS: A SYSTEMIC RE-IMAGINING OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

While praxis-oriented educational methodologies have become nearly normative in adult Christian religious education, an individualist framework still colors many of the approaches involved. Participants gather for reflection, but are sent individually for action in the world. Yet, the complexities of issues that Christians are called to address as agents of effective social transformation increasingly require models of communal or corporate praxis in which communities engage together in action as well as reflection. This article explores the systemic perspective and disciplines of learning organizations as a framework for reimagining the role of religious educator as a catalyst of true communal praxis in congregations.     

Viewing Mathematics Teachers’ Beliefs as Sensible Systems*

This article discusses theoretical assumptions either explicitly stated or implied in research on teachers’ beliefs. Such research often assumes teachers can easily articulate their beliefs and that there is a one-to-one correspondence between what teachers state and what researchers think those statements mean. Research conducted under this paradigm often reports inconsistencies between teachers’ beliefs and their actions. This article describes an alternative framework for conceptualizing teachers’ beliefs that views teachers as inherently sensible rather than inconsistent beings. Instead of viewing teachers’ beliefs as inconsistent, teachers’ abilities to articulate their beliefs as well as researchers’ interpretations of those beliefs are seen as problematic. Implications of such a view for research on teacher beliefs as well as for the practice of mathematics teacher education are discussed. This article is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation completed at the University of Georgia under the direction of Thomas J. Cooney. Parts of this article were presented at the 2004 meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Toronto, Canada).     

Imaginaries and problematisations: A heuristic lens in the age of artificial intelligence in education

This paper suggests that artificial intelligence in education (AIEd) can be fruitfully analysed as ‘policies frozen in silicon’. This means that they exist as both materialised and proposed problematisations (problem representations with corresponding solutions). As a theoretical and analytical response, this paper puts forward a heuristic lens that can provide insights into how AI technologies (or advocated AI technologies) function as proposed solutions to certain problematisations based on various imaginaries about how education and learning are best performed or supported. The combined reading of imaginaries and problematisations can thereby aid in our understanding of why and how visions of learning and education are framed in relation to AIEd developments. The overall ambition is to advance theoretical and analytical approaches towards an educational system which is (anticipated as) increasingly permeated by AI systems—systems that also support and implement, more or less, invisible models, standards and assessments of learning, as well as more grand visions of (technology-augmented) education in society.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Artificial intelligence in education (AIEd) is repeatedly presented as a solution for a range of educational ‘problems’.
• This means that such ‘solutions’ must also frame certain aspects as ‘problems’.
• Such problems and ‘solutions’ (problematisations) also exist within certain imaginaries of the present times and of the future, where these problematisations are presented as particularly significant and acute, and promoting specific anticipations of learning and ideals of education.

What this paper adds

• An exposition of problematisations in educational settings.
• An exposition of educational imaginaries.
• A heuristic lens for understanding the ‘present’ and ‘future’ in a particular imaginary as entangled in, and dependent on, a certain ‘past’.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• The approach presented in this paper provides a heuristic lens for examining how AI technologies (or advocated AI technologies) function as proposed solutions to problematisations based on imaginaries about how education and learning are best performed or supported.
• This aids our understanding of how and why certain visions of learning and education are framed in relation to AIEd developments (real or imagined).
• It also advances theoretical and analytical approaches towards an educational system, which is (anticipated as) increasingly permeated by AI systems—systems that also support and implement, more or less, invisible models, standards and assessments of learning, as well as more grand visions of (technology-augmented) education in society.

     

Malala: the story of a Muslim girl and a Muslim nation

ABSTRACT

In this article, we analyze the coverage of Malala in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to explore how these influential media sources characterize Islam and Pakistan to tell Malala’s story. Our discourse analysis reveals how these newspapers construct Malala’s status as a global icon as an embodiment of her subject position as a girl. This media discourse mobilizes Malala’s agency in relation to her potential as an individual whereas her vulnerability as a young girl is presented in reference to her Muslim heritage and culture. Malala’s image as a global icon, thus, is produced through approaching her as an agent in a culture where girls are vulnerable victims of patriarchy. Through focusing on this media discourse, this article argues that Malala’s image as a global icon of girls’ education has become a site to reinsert, rather than challenge, the dominant images about Islam and Muslim societies.     

La consistencia de las teorías sobre la naturaleza de la materia: una comparación entre las teorías científicas y las teorías implícitas

Resumen

Esta investigación analiza la consistencia de las teorías sobre la naturaleza de la materia mantenidas por adolescentes y adultos universitarios con diferente nivel de instrucción en química. Los sujetos resolvieron varias tareas escritas sobre conservación, movimiento intrínseco y discontinuidadde la materia. Se aplicaron tres criterios de análisis convergentes: análisis de clusters, índice de consistencia y análisis cualitativo de las teorías. Los resultados muestran que en las tareas de conservación de la materia las únicas teorías que proporcionan consistencia son las científicas. En cambio, en la comprensión del movimiento intrínseco y de la dis/continuidad de la materia es mayor la consistencia de las teorías implícitas. Además las teorías científicas, cuando se usan consistentemente, proporcionan mayor consistencia que las teorías implícitas. Las teorías implícitas más consistentes, en nuestro caso la naturaleza continua y estática de la materia, estarían profundamente arraigadas en nuestro funcionamiento cognitivo, en forma de teorías implícitas. Cuanto más consistente es una teoría más resistente es al cambio conceptual en la instrucción. La persistencia de las teorías implícitas estaría relacionada direct amente con su consistencia.     

Ubuntu,ukama, environment and moral education

This article outlines a moral education guided by African traditional values such as ubuntu and ukama. It argues that ubuntu is not by definition speciesist, as some have claimed, but that it has strong ecocentric leanings, that is, if ubuntu is understood as a concrete expression of ukama. In fact, ubuntu deconstructs the anthropocentric–ecocentric distinction which has characterised and continues to characterise debates in environmental theory/philosophy. To become more fully human does not mean caring only for the self and other human beings but also for the entire biophysical world. Some implications that this discussion has for moral education are explored, as well as some opportunities that post-apartheid curriculum frameworks offer for implementing a moral education guided by ubuntu.     

Giving a voice to traumatized youth—Experiences with Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

The efficacy of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) has been shown in several randomized controlled trials. However, to our knowledge no one has studied the TF-CBT model from a user's perspective. The objective of this study was to explore traumatized youths’ experiences of receiving TF-CBT. Thirty youths between 11 and 17 years old (M = 15, SD = 1.8) were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide after they had received TF-CBT as part of an effectiveness trial. The interviews were analyzed according to thematic analysis. The youths’ responses were grouped into four themes: (1) expectations, (2) experiences of talking to the therapist and sharing information, (3) experiences of trauma narrative work, and (4) experiences of change and change processes. Findings showed how an initial fear of talking about traumatic events and not knowing what to expect from therapy was reduced when the youth experienced the therapist as empathetic and knowledgeable. Talking to the therapist was experienced as positive because of the therapist's expertise, neutrality, empathy, and confidentiality. Talking about the trauma was perceived as difficult but also as most helpful. Learning skills for reducing stress was also perceived as helpful. Important change processes were described as resuming normal functioning and getting “back on track,”, or as acquiring new perspectives and “moving forward.” Because TF-CBT is recommended as a first line treatment for traumatized youth and treating posttraumatic stress may entail special challenges, understanding more about how youths experience this mode of treatment contributes to our knowledge base and may help us tailor interventions.     

The 'new' politics of education in Britain's changing times

The British Labour Party has continued to make progress on education, following two broad policy paths and adopting a pragmatic approach that does not attempt to force these to cross or converge. One path is that of the quasi market inherited from the previous Conservative administration; the other is characterised as 'intervention' to support those for whom the market remains almost entirely irrelevant. Some observers regard this dual approach as 'opportunism' and Labour's education policy as a 'betrayal' of principle, by which is meant the principle of 'equal opportunity'. Of course, that principle provides equal opportunity to fail as much as to succeed. Rather than leaving education to the market, Labour has focused on the needs of those most likely to be failed by the principle of 'equal' opportunity in a quasi market.     

高师化学实验教学应以学生可持续发展为本

人的可持续发展是教育的根本目的。基于此认识,文章从实验素养是高师化学专业学生可持续发展的基础;科学精神是高师化学专业学生可持续发展的前提;研究能力是高师化学专业学生可持续发展的关键;创新能力是高师化学专业学生可持续发展的核心;心理素质是高师化学专业学生可持续发展的保障五个方面探讨了高师化学实验教学培养学生可持续发展素养的问题。     

Research into the School as an Organization. I: A Presentation and Discussion of Research Literature with a Bearing on the School as an Organization

Berg, G. 1982. Research into the School as an Organization. I: A Presentation and Discussion of Research Literature with a Bearing on the School as an Organization. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 26, 95‐117. Only to a limited extent has the school as an organization been the subject of any really systematic research, whether on the part of educationalists, sociologists or general organizational theorists. In this article a number of research projects focusing on the school as an organization are described and discussed. Previous research in this field has been either functionalist or structuralist in approach. Nevertheless, certain concepts are common to the analyses of all the researchers referred to here: all describe the school as an organization in terms of professionalism and bureaucracy. We would add that the school can also be described as a coercive organization.