The relationship between writers’ perceptions and their performance on a field-specific writing test

Writing performance is greatly affected by task-related elements such as topic familiarity, difficulty, task-type, and subject matter of the prompt, which are perceived differently by each individual writer. Yet, little has been reported on the direct relationship between writers’ perceptions of a prompt and their actual performance on the prompt. The present study explored possible associations between students’ perceptions of a writing prompt and their actual writing performance on a field-specific (FS) English for academic purposes (EAP) writing test, compared to those on a general-topic test. Each of the 124 students produced two writing samples, one on an assigned regular topic and the other on one chosen from the four FS prompts. The writers also responded to a survey of their perceptions of the FS prompts and the FS test in general. The subjects’ performances on the two tests were compared across the four prompt subgroups, and analyzed against their survey responses. It was found that students’ performances were not statistically different on the two different tests or across the prompts chosen on the FS EAP writing test. Further analysis revealed that student subgroups varied in their perceptions of the degree of prompt familiarity. Based on the results, future research implications are proposed for EAP testing and L2 writing research.     

Urban educators’ perceptions of culturally relevant pedagogy and school reform mandates

In this article, we examine urban teachers’ perceptions of school reform models (SRMs) and culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP). In particular, we examined how urban educators altered mandated reform models in the best interests of their culturally and linguistically diverse students. We discuss data from a phenomenological study, which included in-depth interviews and a focus group with seven urban African-American educators. We explore three facets of the intersection of culturally relevant pedagogy and mandated school reforms: (1) Teachers’ use of CRP to empower urban students; (2) Teachers’ beliefs that SRMs hurt African American students more than help them; (3) Teachers’ adaptations of SRMs with culturally relevant practices. Finally, this article explores the implications for practice and policy when culturally relevant teachers struggle to utilize CRP in the implementation of SRMs.     

Stakeholders’ perceptions of IELTS as an entry requirement for higher education in the UK

This project explores stakeholders’ perceptions of the role of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) in the admissions processes of UK higher education (HE) institutions. The term ‘stakeholders’ here refers to HE academic and administrative staff responsible for the acceptance of students whose first language is not English onto academic programmes in UK HE institutions. It draws on two pieces of empirical study: a large-scale questionnaire survey of those responsible for admissions decisions in a range of HE institutions in the pre- and post-1992 sectors, and a smaller scale interview-based qualitative study of a subset of these participants. The empirical data gathered offers insights into the processes of standard-setting in various contexts, highlights tensions between standard-setting and a growing economic imperative to recruit, and identifies a niche for development opportunities in raising stakeholders’ awareness of the content and process of IELTS to enhance the quality of decision-making in this area. The study offers a number of recommendations for the designers/producers of IELTS and for HE institutions, and also highlights a number of directions for further complementary research.     

Prospective teachers’ perceptions on different aspects of portfolio

This qualitative–case study examined how portfolio and portfolio assessment were perceived by prospective teachers. The participants were 23 prospective teachers from seven different teaching areas from a Turkish university. A semi-structured individual interview was conducted. The interview schedule included 15 open-ended questions. The main results emerged from content analysis were that prospective teachers perceived portfolio as a learning and an assessment tool. Further, they believed that portfolio was complementary rather than an alternative assessment method to traditional assessment procedures.     

Structural relationship between learners’ perceptions of a test,learning practices,and learning outcomes: A study on the washback mechanism of a high-stakes test

The study aimed to explore the washback mechanism on learning by investigating the structural relationship between learners’ perceptions of a test, learning practices, and learning outcomes via structural equation modeling. The participants in this study included 3105 Chinese senior high school students. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling were used in the analyses of the data. This study found that learners’ perceptions of test validity, impact, and importance affected their learning practices in different ways and to different degrees. The research results also showed that four types of English learning practices had significant, positive, but differential effects on learning outcomes. The effect size was partly associated with the frequency of engagement with each learning practice. Based on the findings, some implications and suggestions were drawn for learners, teachers, test designers, and test authorities.     

Consensus or dissensus? Stakeholders’ views on the role of play in learning

Across cultures and eras, children have engaged in play as part of the process of growing and maturing into adulthood. Play has been recognized as an effective form of pedagogy to promote learning in the early years. However, beliefs about what play is and how it should be practiced vary across Hong Kong and in other countries. Because Chinese culture places a heavy emphasis on academic achievement, a play-based curriculum has not been widely implemented in the region. Through classroom observations and interviews with key stakeholders in early childhood education, namely parents, teachers, and principals, this study reveals the complexity of views on this matter and uncovers the root cause of the difficulties in supporting play in the Hong Kong kindergartens. These findings may help promote the play-based curriculum in Hong Kong and other countries where play is in crisis.     

Pre-service teachers’ perceptions on TPACK development after designing educational games

This qualitative case study aimed to investigate Early Childhood Education (ECE) pre-service teachers’ perception of development in their technological, pedagogical, content knowledge (TPACK) after designing educational computer games for young children. Participants included 21 ECE pre-service teachers enrolled in the course Instructional Technology and Material Design. The data were collected through focus group interviews, observations, and journals. The results indicated a perceived improvement in TPACK. Moreover, participants described initial difficulty designing educational computer games since they had limited technological knowledge (TK), design knowledge (DK), or experience designing educational computer games (TPACK). However, during the game design, specific TPACK was disseminated, and participants reported increased abilities in using technology and designing computer games for educational purposes.     

Teachers’ perceptions on technology-assisted mathematics teaching and the interactive activities

Education and Information Technologies - The methods and techniques used by teachers have an important place on the basis of many students’ negative perspectives and failures towards...     

Contextualising change through a common strategy: Lecturers’ perceptions and key role in supporting academic reform

European universities are currently going through a process of change in order to meet the common goals set for higher education by the European Commission. They are revising their educational models to adjust them to the guidelines of the “Bologna Process” and are devising an institutional strategy for its implementation. In practical terms, this means aligning former national degrees and diplomas to standard European Bachelor and Masters degrees and PhD doctorates, by creating acknowledged professional qualification benchmarks that also include adjusted course lengths and contents. This process, in the end, mostly affects academic staff members who have a fundamental role to play in carrying out the pedagogical reforms on the teaching front. Besides presenting a commentary on the institutional approach of one particular technical university in Spain, the purpose of this paper is to propose, from the authors’ point of view as lecturers, a strategy which has the potential to create a favourable atmosphere for carrying out such a reform. The article’s main objective is to highlight a series of action points which may serve to reinforce and advance the main institutional strategy by relying on the powerful influence of its academic staff members.     

The effect of Twitter posts on students’ perceptions of instructor credibility

Greater numbers of instructors are turning to social networking sites to communicate with students. This study examined whether posting social, scholarly, or a combination of social and scholarly information to Twitter has an impact on the perceived credibility of the instructor. Participants were assigned to one of three groups: a group that viewed social tweets, one that viewed scholarly tweets, and one that viewed a combination of social and scholarly tweets. Participants were then asked questions about the instructor’s perceived credibility. Results show that participants who viewed only the social tweets rated the instructor significantly higher in perceived credibility than the group that viewed only the scholarly tweets. No other significant differences were found among the groups. These results have implications for both teaching and learning, as there is an established link between perceived instructor credibility and positive learning outcomes.     

The role of students’ employability perceptions on Portuguese higher education choices

In a context where mass higher education has eroded the job security once guaranteed by higher qualifications, students are more likely to view higher education as an ‘investment’ which should yield return in terms of their employability. The aim of this study is to understand whether Portuguese students consider employability as the main reason to choose to enrol in higher education, to choose a specific programme and to choose a specific higher education institution. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 60 first-year students, from universities and polytechnics, both public and private, and from three first-cycle study programmes (Arts, Pharmacy and Computer Engineering). The analysis is based on a qualitative study exploring Portuguese students’ perceptions underlying their higher education choices. Findings suggest that the majority of the students interviewed considered employability as the major reason to enrol in higher education, although its importance was largely undervalued in the choice of study programme and of institution.     

Teacher educators’ research practices: an explorative study of teacher educators’ perceptions on research

Research conducted by teacher educators is considered important for their professional development, their actual teaching practice and their body of knowledge. However, for many teacher educators in Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) in the Netherlands, research is a new challenge. A survey was conducted among 508 such teacher educators exploring their perceptions towards research. They were questioned about the aims of research within a UAS, their perceived capabilities to conduct research and their need for support. Subsequently, 10 teacher educators were interviewed to elaborate on the findings and to gain further insight. Research is considered vital for their professional development, and their development is seen as an important means to improve the quality of the curriculum for teacher education. Teacher educators emphasise the need for communities of inquiry in which they can collaborate on research, improve their skills, develop a shared language and contribute to the body of knowledge in teacher education.     

Stakeholders’ views of South Korea’s higher education internationalization policy

The study investigated the stakeholders’ perceptions of South Korea’s higher education internationalization policy. Based on the research framework that defines four policy values—propriety, effectiveness, diversity, and engagement, the convergence model was employed with a concurrent mixed method sampling strategy to analyze the stakeholders’ perceptions. According to the findings, the stakeholders perceived that the government’s internationalization policy to date has contributed to the international competitiveness of Korean universities by and large in a quantitative manner. Their views however signaled that the government should consider the quality and identity of Korean higher education institutions when designing and implementing internationalization policy. Based on the implications that the findings have in the policy context, this study suggested two points for future policy research into Korean higher education internationalization: (1) develop a glonacal definition of world-classness for Korean universities and (2) build up a mixture model of centralization and decentralization for the government-university relations, which encourages internal self-governance of Korean universities.     

An exploratory study on singaporean secondary school students’ perceptions of choral learning

This paper explores 122 secondary school students’ perceptions of the choral learning environment. A survey questionnaire was developed taking into consideration the responses of a pilot study in which students were requested to list what they liked and disliked about the choir. The participants rated their degree of agreement on a five-point scale on psychosocial and other perspectives of choral learning. Three research questions were posed: (1) What are Singaporean secondary school students’ perceptions of choral learning? (2) Are there any gender differences in their perceptions of choral learning? (3) Are there any across school differences in their perceptions of choral learning? The findings of the study were discussed from the perspective of Singapore’s education and learning environment research.     

The influence of traditional beliefs on Vietnamese college lecturers’ perceptions of face

In an East Asian context heavily influenced by Confucian ideas on principles for living and behaving, ‘face’ plays a significant role in Vietnamese people’s thinking and behaviour. In the context of education, Vietnamese teachers’ concerns of saving face in classrooms have been implicitly taken for granted but not yet seriously examined in academic research. The paper addresses this gap in the research literature by presenting the results of interviews with 15 lecturers in a Vietnamese Teacher Training College. It is argued that the concepts of face and saving face are significant to the participants and their ideas of saving face are largely influenced by traditional Confucian standards in education. In particular, teachers are believed to save face by upholding the belief that they represent an unquestionable source of knowledge, maintaining a ‘noble distant image’ in relations with their students, and receiving respectful behaviours from their students. These beliefs could be one source of resistance to educational reforms regarding interactive pedagogies in Vietnamese higher education. It is argued that teachers’ concerns of saving face in Vietnamese classrooms deserve more attention from educational planners and researchers.     

The impact of prospective teachers’ perceived competence on subsequent perceptions as schoolteachers

This longitudinal study examines connections between 110 teachers’ perceived professional competence acquired during professional preparation and later perceptions as schoolteachers in Norway. The results indicate that theoretical understanding plays an important role in schoolteachers’ professional competence development and that prospective and practising schoolteachers do not tend to perceive themselves as either good theorists or good practitioners. Furthermore, the results contradict research arguing that the teacher education programme has limited effect. Instead, the results indicate that the level of perceived competence acquired during professional preparation in the general teacher training programme is of major importance for perceived mastery of teaching as a schoolteacher. In addition, the results also underscore the importance of experiencing continuing mastery of teaching requirements for supporting perceptions of teaching specific self-efficacy over time. This finding again supports previous research that has emphasised the importance of supporting teaching specific self-efficacy during both the period of teacher education of prospective teachers and the induction period of newly qualified teachers.     

School’s out: a comprehensive follow-up study on parents’ perceptions of their child’s school

This longitudinal study set out to examine the changes that took place in parents’ evaluations of their child’s school in the course of the child’s complete 9-year-long compulsory education. Over the follow-up period, academically educated and vocationally educated mothers and fathers (N = 326) were asked to indicate their degree of satisfaction with aspects of their child’s school every 2 years. It was found that the level of parental satisfaction was fairly high at the start, that the general decreasing trend was gradual rather than abrupt, and that the proportion of dissatisfied parents remained low and stable. A pattern of differences emerged to suggest that the parents’ perceptions were structured by their social-psychological distance from the school as measured by their social positions; for instance, the vocationally educated parents, fathers in particular, displayed less satisfaction than the academically educated ones.     

Chinese TEFL teachers’ perceptions about research and influences on their research endeavours

English has always occupied a key position in China’s education. The quality of English education depends largely on the quality of the English teaching force. Improving the overall quality of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) teachers entails advancing both their teaching and research competence. This study, with its focus on Chinese TEFL teachers working in a higher education institution, was set up in a context where Chinese higher education colleges are being transformed into universities and research is becoming a crucial aspect of all teachers’ work. This small-scale case study investigated a group of Chinese TEFL teachers’ perceptions about research and their individual and workplace characteristics that influenced their research endeavours. The findings revealed that Chinese TEFL teachers recognised the significance of research for teaching, professional growth and career advancement. However, lack of individual characteristics such as research and disciplinary knowledge, confidence in research and intrinsic motivation impeded their research efforts. Their institution and departments seemed to encourage research; yet, more specific financial and academic support to start and sustain their research endeavours is required. This study’s findings provide implications for both individual teachers and their institutions to engage TEFL teachers more actively in research.     

What influences teachers’ commitment to a lifelong professional development programme? Reflections on teachers’ perceptions

This article reflects on the implementation of lifelong professional development for teachers in Taiwan based on our analysis and understanding of the participation of elementary and secondary school teachers in the Teacher Professional Development and Evaluation (TPDE) programme. This qualitative account is established based on 34 in-depth teacher reports, which provided insight into the dynamics of teacher involvement in the programme and aided our investigation of whether this programme supports or inhibits continuous, lifelong professional development. Analysis of the data revealed two main factors influencing teachers’ commitment to the programme: self-direction and resource supportability. Based on the findings, we propose and argue that the teacher lifeworld-based approach, which raises awareness of and considers teachers’ own specific situations and purposes, be used as an alternative or supplement to the knowledge- and practice-based professional development approaches advocated in the literature to ensure the attainment of authentic outcomes. Finally, we identify the implications of this policy for teachers’ lifelong and authentic professional growth by suggesting how these programmes might best be put into practice.