Educational research and reform: Some implications for the professional identity of early years teachers

Abstract

This paper examines the way in which recent criticisms of the work of primary school teachers in Britain, most notably those entailed in and following the publication of the so‐called ‘Three Wise Men's Report’, have attempted to redefine the professional identity of early years teachers. The paper objects to the manner in which their critiques have been formulated and calls upon educational researchers to adopt a less reverential attitude to government proposals for the reform of primary education in general and early years schooling in particular.     

Some lessons for educational researchers: Repositioning research in education and education in research

This paper is a reflection on the current policy moment in educational research in Australia in the context of globalisation. Set against a consideration of the emergent structure of feeling, the paper draws on three case studies of research to draw out some lessons for educational researchers and the research community. The argument is put that the dangerous ‘we’ of AARE needs to support increased funding for education and for educational research and, for the latter, to support a range of funding sources, types of research, methodologies and dissemination approaches. Increasingly there are pressures upon such eclecticism because of governmental attempts to ‘instrumentalise’ relationships between educational research and practitioner needs as perceived by governments. While such research is necessary, there is also a need within a democratic polity for research framed by agendas set by researchers that critiques government-directed developments. The paper argues there is a complex relationship amongst researchers and educational policy and pedagogical practitioners and as such the concept of ‘impact’ as applied to educational research requires substantial theorising. Contemporary research policy has tended to inhibit the dissemination of academic research to educational practitioners, while educational policy has tended, inappropriately in the argument of the paper, to construct teachers as the mere recipients of policy and research done elsewhere.     

Gender issues in action research: implications for adult education

Gender equality is a widely recognized value. Still, on the practical level, it is not easy to achieve true gender equality. Gender has proved to be a complicated issue both for research and practice. Gender change projects trying to make changes in detected disadvantages have repeatedly run into a problem: it is difficult to put gender issues on the agenda and it is difficult to keep them there. With three case examples, this article addresses the question of why it is difficult to approach gender issues in change projects and what conditions make this less difficult. It deals with the potential of action research of making a contribution to gender issues and emphasizes that change projects need a concept of gender which includes the relevant aspects of social structure and social process. In conclusion, the article presents implications for adult education, especially the challenge of developing concepts of empowerment and agency to comply with the postmodern condition and the challenge of creating spaces for interpretation and action.     

Brain Research,Learning and Emotions: implications for education research,policy and practice1

Recent advancements in neuroscience heighten its relevance to education. Newly developed imaging technologies enable scientists to peer into the working brain for the first time, providing powerful insights into how we learn. Research reveals that the brain is not a stable and isolated entity, but a dynamic system that is keenly responsive to experience. This work underscores the crucial role of education in shaping the brain's abilities. Brain research provides scientific evidence that emotion is fundamental to learning. Neuroscience also gives insights into how we learn language, literacy and mathematics that can inform the design of the national/state curriculum and teacher training.     

Patterns of Service Delivery in Educational Psychology Services: Some implications for practice

This article describes research into models of service delivery for Educational Psychology Services in England and Wales. Questionnaires completed by Principal Educational Psychologists (PEPs) during 1998 reveal trends in the way we commonly engage with schools. In particular, aspects of practice associated with consultancy models of service delivery are explored and the extent to which they are employed is examined. Some links with other organisational artefacts, such as supervision and appraisal, are also discussed. The research provides an illuminative study of current service delivery practice and suggests some conclusions about the way we deliver services to schools, the cultures within EP Services and the frameworks we draw upon to inform our practice.     

Collaborative writing in engineering: Perspectives from research and implications for undergraduate education

In engineering, like in many other disciplines, collaborative writing (CW) has been identified as a central practice in both the academy and industry. A number of studies have shown that both students and professionals in this field write most discipline-specific genres collaboratively. Despite its centrality, CW in engineering is still an under-researched area with very few empirical studies on how it happens as situated practice. This article reports on a study that used a variety of data sets as its empirical base to examine CW in four schools of the faculty of engineering at a university in the UK. It also reports on the views of CW in the workplace that lecturers involved in industry hold. The article aims at contributing to the understanding of CW in engineering by identifying its role, nature and dynamics. It also examines pedagogical implications resulting from the study with a view to making a contribution to developments in writing in engineering education. The article finishes by making a number of recommendations for future research.     

Toward an Ontology of Practices in Educational Administration: Theoretical implications for research and practice

Abstract

In this article, we argue for a study of educational administration centered on an ontology of practices. This is an initial proposal for thinking about and conceptualizing practices in educational administration. To do this, first, we explore how practices are constituted and how they configure the social realities of practitioners. Second, we explore what an ontology of practices has to offer for our understanding of organizations. Third, we examine how an ontology of practices might inform our understandings of leadership in educational organizations, and we conclude by exploring some implications of an ontology of practices for the study of educational administration.     

The chaos theory story: Explorations of implications for education research

This article explores some implications for education research of the story of the development and acceptance of Chaos Theory as told inChaos: Making a New Science by James Gleik. The following are considered: 1) Issues in observation — what and whose perspective(s); 2) Explanatory power and the issue of simplification vs detail; 3) Problems in prediction and generalisation; 4) Collection and interpretation of data to reveal and explain order vs disorder; regularities vs irregularities; 5) Discipline specialisation vs multidisciplinel cross-discipline approach; and 6) Support for research process can often result in more enlightenment than support for research products in the safe, predictable and publishable. These issues are not new, but the Chaos Theory story highlights the importance of revisiting and noting them, especially in the current climate of valuing ‘efficient’, ‘productive’, ‘relevant’, ‘useful’ and ‘acceptable’ research.     

Total quality management: Some implications for the management of distance education

Total quality management, which was initially developed as a strategic option for manufacturing industries, means adopting a philosophy of continuous improvement and of putting the customer first. However, the concept is now being widely and successfully implemented in service industries. If translated into educational terms, the philosophy is consistent with a learner‐centred approach and the pursuit of excellence, and offers a constructive and positive method for dealing with the changes occurring in the education sector. This paper examines the concept of total quality management and explores possible implications of distance education institutions adopting the approach.     

Undergraduate non-completion in England: Some implications for the higher education system and its institutions

Conclusion Non-completion is of considerable significance to any government which is concerned to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of its national system of higher education. The study reported here shows that non-completion in England is costly. Non-completion has complex causes, some of which can be addressed by institutions and some on a supra-institutional basis: some causes are related to situations which are beyond the powers of institutions or systems to resolve. The difficulty of attributing causes of non-completion makes the non-completion rate problematic as a performance indicator. The incorporation of non-completion data into funding methodology would be likely to have pernicious side-effects, but scrutiny of institutional efforts to deal with non-completion may be a more effective approach to the reduction of non-completion.     

Basic research in speech and lateralization of language: Some implications for reading disability

Basic research in speech and the lateralization of language is shown to illuminate the problems of reading and some of its disabilities. First, it is pointed out how speech, or language for the ear, differs markedly from reading, or language for the eye. Though the sounds of speech are a very complex code and the optical shapes of written language are a simple cipher or alphabet on the phonemes, we all perceive speech easily but read only with difficulty. Perceiving speech is easy because, as members of the human race, we all have access to a special physiological apparatus that decodes the complex speech signal and recovers the segmentation of the linguistic message. Reading is hard because the phonemic segmentation, which is automatic and intuitive in the case of speech, must be made fully conscious and explicit. The syllabic method supplemented by phonics (used with certain reservations) is suggested for remediation of segmentation problems. Second, it is posited that since the sounds of speech are processed differently from non-speech sounds, the two should not be diagnosed and remediated interchangeably. Third, it is shown that the relationships among cerebral lateralization for language, handedness and poor reading can now be studied more meaningfully because of the recent development of new techniques. A truism often heard in the opening lecture of graduate classes in education is that we have few answers to the problems that beset us, only questions. In the field of reading, the difficulty may be owing at least in part to our impatient attempts to find immediate solutions for the teacher and the student in the classroom, and our consequent neglect of basic research. I should like to suggest today how knowledge of basic research in related disciplines may lead to clues for improving beginning reading instruction and the lot of the disabled reader—if only by affording us a deeper understanding of the reading process. Paper based on a talk given at the Twenty-first Annual Conference of The Orton Society, Washington, D.C., November 14, 1970.