Transitioning to the classroom: reflections of second‐career teachers during the induction year

In recent years teacher educators have witnessed an increase in the number of alternative pathways to university‐based teacher education for prospective teachers. One option is for second‐career teachers to enter post‐baccalaureate programs in education; however, the experiences of second‐career teachers are largely unexplored in the international literature. The purpose of this study was to investigate the teaching beliefs that post‐baccalaureate students brought into a graduate level teacher certification program, and the extent to which those beliefs persevered or changed during their first year of teaching. Written philosophy statements and semi‐structured interviews from the three participants were analyzed to identify emerging themes. Outcomes, presented in the form of vignettes, suggested that second‐career teachers experienced many of the same contextual pressures as baccalaureate teachers and struggled adapting to the teaching profession and implementing their stated teaching beliefs. Implications include continued research on second‐career teachers as they represent a distinct population entering the teaching profession.     

Walking on egg shells: the significance of socio‐cultural factors in the mentoring of primary school students

In this article I present evidence based on primary student teachers' accounts about the way in which socio‐cultural factors in placement schools affected the quality of their experiences. I examine the proposition that school culture has a significant impact upon performance, and that the strain of adjusting to school values and expectations can lead to stress and loss of confidence for a significant minority of students. I suggest that effective mentoring needs to take close account of students' socialisation into the school culture, as failure to do so may adversely influence their teaching effectiveness and well‐being.     

Analysing cognitive or non‐cognitive factors involved in the process of physics problem‐solving in an everyday context

Recently, the importance of an everyday context in physics learning, teaching, and problem‐solving has been emphasized. However, do students or physics educators really want to learn or teach physics problem‐solving in an everyday context? Are there not any obstructive factors to be considered in solving the everyday context physics problems? To obtain the answer to these questions, 93 high school students, 36 physics teachers, and nine university physics educators participated in this study. Using two types of physics problems—everyday contextual problems (E‐problems) and decontextualized problems (D‐problems)—it was found that even though there was no difference in the actual performance between E‐problems and D‐problems, subjects predicted that E‐problems were more difficult to solve. Subjects preferred E‐problems on a school physics test because they thought E‐problems were better problems. Based on the observations of students' problem‐solving processes and interviews with them, six factors were identified that could impede the successful solution of E‐problems. We also found that many physics teachers agreed that students should be able to cope with those factors; however, teachers' perceptions regarding the need for teaching those factors were low. Therefore, we suggested teacher reform through in‐service training courses to enhance skills for teaching problem‐solving in an everyday context.     

Exploring the utility of action research to investigate second‐language classrooms as complex systems

Action research is geared to changes for the better and has the potential to assist teachers to extend their teaching skills and develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their classroom and their learners. However, in the area of applied linguistics, the viability of action research has been seriously questioned. In this article, we argue that adopting a complexity‐theory perspective, which requires teachers to be dynamic and complex in their approach, helps in identifying action research as a suitable research tradition for investigating second‐language classrooms and in turn using it widely to invigorate the field of applied linguistics. Our argumentation is supported by the fundamental links between action research and complexity theory as an emerging paradigm in education. Although the case made in this article concerns second‐language classrooms, the conclusions reached may well apply to any classroom that shares some commonalities with second‐language classrooms.     

Field‐text process analysis: the Brown v. Board of Education ruling

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling remains a most prominent and influential event in one's perceptions of educational (in)equality. This research focuses on identity politics in education, paying special attention to whiteness as it manifests in a student‐centered university‐sponsored open‐forum public speaking event centering on the 50th anniversary of this landmark case. To this end, the authors develop and utilize the method of field‐text process analysis. By combining ethnography and rhetorical/textual criticism to form field‐text process analysis, they are able to scrutinize the process and event of the forum for the ways it both perpetuates and works against whiteness in its many manifestations.     

Joined up thinking? Evaluating the use of concept‐mapping to develop complex system learning

In the physical and natural sciences, the complexity of natural systems and their interactions is becoming better understood. With increased emphasis on learning about complex systems, students will be encountering concepts that are dynamic, ill‐structured and interconnected. Concept‐mapping is a method considered particularly valuable for enabling learning in subject areas that are complex or ill‐structured. Evaluations of concept‐mapping tend to reflect their many applications. Many evaluations that try to measure enhancements in learning use test scores or grade‐point averages as performance indicators, which provide little information on how cognitive processes have developed. In this study, a modification of the Biggs and Collis’ Structure of the Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy is applied to measure differences in the cognitive and structural complexity of learning outcomes between groups of students who participated in a concept‐mapping activity with those from a cohort that did not. The evaluation demonstrated that the intervention was effective in enabling the great majority of students to achieve better connectivity in thinking, though improvements in overall performance were less significant. Almost all students perceived the intervention to be of value to their learning.     

Child‐Rearing Inc.: On the perils of political paralysis Down Under

In his 2007 PESA keynote address, Paul Smeyers discussed the increasing regulation of child‐rearing through government intervention and the generation of ‘experts’, citing particular examples from Europe where cases of childhood obesity and parental neglect have stirred public opinion and political debate. In his paper (‘Child‐Rearing: On government intervention and the discourse of experts’, this issue), Smeyers touches on a number of tensions before concluding that child‐rearing qualifies as a practice in which liberal governments should be reluctant to intervene. In response, I draw on recent experiences in Australia and argue that certain tragic events of late are the result of an ethical, moral and social vacuum in which these tensions coalesce. While I agree with Smeyers that governments should be reluctant to ‘intervene’ in the private domain of the family, I argue that there is a difference between intervention and support. In concluding, I maintain that if certain Western liberal democracies did a more comprehensive job of supporting children and their families through active social investment in primary school education, then schools would be better equipped to deal with the challenges they now face.     

Education and the social order: re‐visioning the legacy of Brian Simon

The movement for the higher education of women in Ireland in the nineteenth century has traditionally been viewed as a Protestant initiative. Scholarship suggests that the Irish campaign developed along the same lines as the English movement, gaining from and growing out of the English advances. Leading Protestant schools for girls have been viewed as the driving force behind the concessions afforded Irish women. This paper challenges this assumption, suggesting that contemporaneous developments in Ireland were driven not by neighbouring reforms but by denominational tensions. The role played by the Catholic teaching orders during the nineteenth century cannot be overlooked. Although initially conservative in their approach to educational provision for girls, the Catholic teaching orders – the Dominican, Loreto and Ursuline orders in particular – were key players and stakeholders in women’s higher education in the latter half of the nineteenth century. This paper explores the objectives of the pioneers of Protestant and Catholic female education, examining the relative influence of the Church of Ireland and the Catholic Church. It explores the possibility that the movement for the higher education of Irish women found its impetus not in gender equality, but in denominational rivalry.     

Managing the expectations of non‐traditional students: a process of negotiation

In the past decade there has been a dramatic growth in UK student numbers. Widening participation policies are encouraging students from non‐traditional backgrounds to enter higher education. Southampton Institute has found that many non‐traditional students have had little preparation for academic life. These students often have unrealistic expectations of higher education, expectations that sometimes are at odds with a successful transition from secondary to higher education. In addition higher education institutions are often unaware of the way that higher education is perceived by non‐traditional students. This situation cannot remain unchecked and requires some form of discourse. In this paper, a framework used to model a reflective discourse between stakeholders (student, institution) is introduced, and a case study demonstrating the behaviour of an automated negotiation mechanism is presented.     

Self‐regulation of student epistemic thinking in science: the role of metacognitive prompts

The purpose of the present study is to examine the effectiveness of a metacognitive prompts intervention‐science (MPI‐S), which is based on the nature of science with 162 eighth‐grade science students. It was hypothesised that students exposed to the intervention will show higher levels of content knowledge and knowledge about the nature of science than students in a comparison group. Attempts were also made to determine what cognitive processes are triggered during the use of metacognitive prompts. Findings showed significant improvements in students’ content knowledge and nature of science. In addition, qualitative findings revealed that the experimental group made choices based on evidence in the inquiry unit whereas the comparison group made decisions based on authority. Educational implications for practice into the classroom are discussed.     

Strategies in testing for an invariant second‐order factor structure: A comparison of EQS and LISREL

Working from a common data base and hypothesized model, this article demonstrates and compares the EQS and LISREL strategies in the analysis of a second‐order factor model. Program similarities and differences are noted with respect to (a) preliminary analyses of the data, (b) treatment of data that are not multivariately normal, (c) assessment of overall model fit, (d) identification of parameter misspecification, (e) post hoc model‐fitting, and (f) tests for multi‐group invariance. Data comprise scores on the Beck Depression Inventory for 658 (boys, n = 337; girls, n = 321) nonclinical adolescents. Issues addressed should be of substantial interest to those unfamiliar with the two programs and/or the methodological procedures presented.     

The effect of language on the performance of second‐language students in science examinations

It has been established by previous researchers that changes in the wording of multiple‐choice examination questions can significantly affect pupil performance. In this study recent ‘home’ General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and ‘overseas’ General Certificate of Education (GCE) papers were examined for questions in which the language could be simplified, and modified questions were prepared. When performance on the original and modified forms of the questions was compared for a sample of British school pupils, no statistically significant difference emerged. When performance on the same questions was examined for a sample of pupils for whom English was the second (or third) language, there were significant differences in their performance on modified and unmodified versions of the questions.     

An exploratory study of argument in the jury decision‐making process

Different from most other group decision‐making contexts, courtroom jurors face two distinct layers of argument— arguments made during the trial and arguments made during deliberation. The juror often makes an individual decision prior to deliberation based on arguments heard in court and then, using that decision, creates arguments with the other jurors about “what really happened.” The researchers used Canary, Tanita‐Ratledge and Seibold's (1982) coding scheme to analyze arguments in 80 mock juries. The results revealed that jurors’ arguments were not complex; they used assertions and acknowledgments most frequently, followed by propositions, elaborations, and non‐related arguments. The conclusions suggest practical applications for attorneys as well as a model of argument in jury decision‐making.