SOAP in practice: learning outcomes of a cross‐institutional innovation project conducted by teachers,student teachers,and teacher educators

This paper reports on a case study investigating learning outcomes at the individual and organisational level of a cross‐institutional innovation project based on the SOAP approach. SOAP integrates Schooling of teachers, Organisational development of schools, Action‐ and development‐oriented research, and Professional development of teachers. The innovation project was aimed at combining teachers, student teachers, and teacher educators in an alliance to design and develop new competence‐based vocational educational arrangements for pupils. An inductive qualitative analysis of 37 semi‐structured interviews among the participants revealed seven main categories of individual learning outcomes: attitudes, project design and management, collaboration, action theory, teaching practice, educational principles, and developments within secondary vocational education. Three main categories of organisational learning outcomes were identified: institution‐level learning, project‐level learning, and combining institution‐level and project‐level learning. A tension was identified between the participants’ individual interests in learning and personal development, and the need for organisational learning aimed at improving organisational processes.     

Teaching‐learning specialists' conceptions of their role in the design of distance learning packages

A phenomenographic study of the conceptions that teaching‐learning specialists working in distance education in Australian universities hold of their role in contributing to the development of distance education packages is described. The study identified eight conceptions labelled instructional editor, educational process consultant, instructional process consultant, transformer, critical reviewer (surrogate student), joint venturer, distance education development facilitator, and staff developer. The conception, distance education developer, differed from the other conceptions insofar as it reflected a greater concern with organisational as compared with teaching‐learning issues. The remaining conceptions were able to be distinguished, according to whether they indicated a macro level (structural) perspective or a micro level (process) perspective. The former included the educational process consultant and staff developer conceptions. The latter were able to be further distinguished according to whether they indicated an understanding of the learning package as dialogic text (critical reviewer) or as an instructional medium (instructional process consultant, instructional editor, joint venturer, and transformer). Finally, the four conceptions which reflected an understanding of the learning package as an instructional medium could be distinguished according to the way in which the teaching‐learning specialist saw his or her relationship with the subject specialist in terms of power.     

Relations Among Cultural Learning Beliefs,Self‐Regulated Learning,and Academic Achievement for Low‐Income Chinese American Adolescents

This mixed‐methods study of urban low‐income, English‐proficient Chinese American, second‐generation 15‐year‐olds (conducted in 2004; N = 32) examined the relation among the virtue model of learning communicated by parents and adolescents’ learning beliefs, self‐regulated learning (SRL) behaviors, and academic achievement. Analysis of in‐depth individual interviews revealed that for these adolescents, perceptions of family educational socialization predicted students’ endorsement of their culture's virtue‐oriented learning beliefs and that adolescents’ endorsement of these learning beliefs predicted their academic achievement. Importantly, adolescents’ reported that use of SRL strategies mediated the relationship between their endorsement of virtue‐oriented learning beliefs and their academic achievement. Findings are discussed in the context of further research linking cultural learning beliefs, SRL, and children's academic achievement.     

Reliability and agreement of student ratings of the classroom environment: A reanalysis of TIMSS data

In educational research, characteristics of the learning environment are generally assessed by asking students to evaluate features of their lessons. The student ratings produced by this simple and efficient research strategy can be analysed from two different perspectives. At the individual level, they represent the individual student’s perception of the learning environment. Scores aggregated to the classroom level reflect perceptions of the shared learning environment, corrected for individual idiosyncrasies. This second approach is often pursued in studies on teaching quality and effectiveness, where student-level ratings are aggregated to the class level to obtain general information about the learning environment. Although this strategy is widely applied in educational research, neither the reliability of aggregated student ratings nor the within-group agreement between the students in a class has been subject to much investigation. The present study introduces and discusses different procedures that have been proposed in the field of organisational psychology to assess the reliability and agreement of students’ ratings of their instruction. The application of the proposed indexes is demonstrated by a reanalysis of student ratings of mathematics instruction obtained in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (N = 2,064 students in 100 classes).

Improving curriculum development practices in a technical vocational community college: examining effects of a professional development arrangement for middle managers

Learning about curriculum development is critical for middle managers of technical vocational institutions in order to assume curriculum leadership in maintaining and enhancing the quality and relevance of their educational programs. This case study reports on the design and effects of a professional development arrangement (PDA), with such a focus, for 13 middle managers of a technical vocational community college in a developing country. The findings indicate that the middle managers appreciated the relevance of the PDA for curriculum development at the community college and gained substantial learning about systematic curriculum development. However, the middle managers' post-PDA curriculum development improvement efforts were minimal and characterised by individual initiatives, due to a lack of senior management support, unfavourable work conditions, and a high rate of middle manager attrition. The conclusion drawn is that for trained middle managers to lead systematic curriculum development practices, contextual and organisational barriers germane to technical vocational education in developing contexts need to be considered.     

Developing competence profiles for educators in environmental education organisations in the Netherlands

This qualitative study explores the meanings and possible merits of introducing competence profiles for enhancing professional development in the environmental education sector in the Netherlands. It presents the three most important environmental education jobs and their underlying competencies alongside their core professional challenges, as identified by environmental educators and experts in the Netherlands. The jobs are: education practitioner, programme leader, and organisational manager. The core professional challenges for the education practitioner entail: developing demand‐driven instructional programmes and spontaneous, ad‐hoc programmes, and addressing task and goal orientations. For the programme leader, they are acquisition of new projects, quality assurance, and project management; and for the organisational manager, they are human resource management, financial management, representing the organisation and showing its performance. The results of the study should inform educational institutions how to develop relevant programmes for future environmental educators, and for the professional development of environmental educators in environmental education organisations.     

The role of values in educational research: the case for reflexivity

Abstract This article explores the meanings involved in the development and implementation of learning and teaching policies in higher education through a single institution case study in an English university. It draws on interview data collected from middle manager‐academics, located in Schools, who are charged with implementing learning and teaching policies. Tensions and contradictions of practice emerged from a detailed analysis of the data identified through three closely related themes: centre/periphery, time and temporality, and disciplinary locations. The central theme, which frames the discussion of the other two, concerns relations between centre and periphery. The manager‐academics identify themselves with the interests of their colleagues within Schools and use their position to mediate between central pressures and practice on the ground. Rather than identifying with managerialist practices, they rely on projected ideals of collegiality in their relationships with School colleagues. At the core of these experiences are differing conceptions of time in the centre/periphery relationship. Different experiences of temporality, tempo, and timing are explored from the manager‐academics' perspective. There is considerable tension between time understood on the ground and the time‐scales of central learning and teaching initiatives. The final theme concerns the organising role of disciplinary identities in articulating meaning at the periphery. Innovations appear rooted in disciplinary practice and some tensions exist between these and perceptions of educational theory and development. The article suggests that these contradictions and tensions might be a source of strength to the institution rather than having negative effects. It concludes with some reflections on the importance of time to the development of educational theory.     

How elementary school students' motivation is connected to self-regulation

Empirical research reveals that students face difficulties engaging in learning and achieving their goals in a variety of learning contexts. To study effectively, students need to regulate their learning process. In spite of increased understanding of cognitive aspects of self-regulation, motivational aspects of regulation have not yet been thoroughly probed. This study investigates how motivation is connected to self-regulated learning when elementary school students (N = 32) study science in real classroom contexts using gStudy software. This was done by: (1) identifying students' situated motivation during the learning process, (2) analyzing how the students with different motivational approaches activated cognitive self-regulation in authentic learning situations across multiple learning episodes, and (3) complementing the understanding with the students' individual accounts of their motivation regulation during the learning process. The results show that there are qualitative differences in the self-regulation tactics used by the high- and low-motivation students as they study. Motivation is linked closely to active self-regulation.     

Eye tracking methodology for studying teacher learning: a review of the research

ABSTRACT

Eye tracking methodology offers insights into human attention, decision-making processes, and user behaviours. In the context of teacher learning, data generated from eye-tracking technology has the potential to provide important information about teachers’ behavioural patterns and cognitive processes that may or may not be occurring during learning experiences. This review analyses existing studies that use eye tracking methodology for studying teacher learning. The authors accessed three different databases (ERIC, PsycNet, and EBSCOHost) for their review. An iterative process of reviewing and coding the articles led to an in-depth review of 10 recently published articles. Emergent themes resulted from the in-depth review and include information processing, multimedia learning, learning tools and resources, and expert-novice knowledge construction. The reviewed articles also highlight how eye tracking can be used to determine teachers’ engagement with learning material, reading patterns, and sense-making strategies. Additional study characteristics, including context, data sources, eye tracking device and metrics were also reviewed. Results of this review shed light on how educational researchers can effectively use eye tracking methodology to investigate teacher learning at different career stages. This, in turn, can inform educational stakeholders about how to optimize learning opportunities and environments.     

The teacher as manager in continuing and professional education

This paper presents a model dealing with the teacher as manager of self‐directed and interactive learning programs and discusses the value of this model for educators working within continuing and professional education contexts. It provides a framework for the planning, implementation and evaluation of learning programs which promote self‐directed and interactive learning and comprises an outline of phases of learning programs and the roles of teachers (and learners) in these programs.

Major goals related to the process of continuing and professional education today include: promotion of the learners’ ability to work and interact effectively together, fostering their commitment to lifelong learning and development of their self‐directed learning skills. The model presented in this paper is a means of promoting the achievement of these goals. It emphasises the development of skills of independence, self‐direction, interaction, communication, leadership, group membership and conflict resolution. Such skills can be transferred to the workplace to enable adults to accomplish their tasks effectively, achieve their goals, work co‐operatively in teams as leaders and team members and take greater responsibility for their work and continued learning.     

Individual | collective dialectic of free‐choice learning in a community‐based mapping project

In this article we describe an instance of free‐choice learning in the context of an eelgrass mapping and stewardship project (the Project) that covers over 500 kilometers of coastline in British Columbia, Canada, and involves 20 volunteer groups. In this ethnographic case study we sought to (a) explicate the relationship between individual and collective learning in this free‐choice setting and (b) understand how a network of Project participants could both constitute a free‐choice learning setting and support such a setting. We articulate a dialectic relationship between individual and collective learning, which, unfortunately in our view, has not yet been explored in educational research. In this relation, collective learning fosters individual learning and vice versa, whereby individuals produce resources in action and as outcomes of their activities. These resources expand the action possibilities of the collective, and thus constitute learning. The stability of the network of Project participants, which brings about and supports collective and therefore individual learning, rests on the flexibility of the Project that enables local innovation and tailoring of mapping activities as well as access to expertise and tools produced by other groups and Project partners. The possibilities that arise in the Project for local people to participate in relevant ways constitute free‐choice learning settings.     

Guided Play: Where Curricular Goals Meet a Playful Pedagogy

Decades of research demonstrate that a strong curricular approach to preschool education is important for later developmental outcomes. Although these findings have often been used to support the implementation of educational programs based on direct instruction, we argue that guided play approaches can be equally effective at delivering content and are more developmentally appropriate in their focus on child‐centered exploration. Guided play lies midway between direct instruction and free play, presenting a learning goal, and scaffolding the environment while allowing children to maintain a large degree of control over their learning. The evidence suggests that such approaches often outperform direct‐instruction approaches in encouraging a variety of positive academic outcomes. We argue that guided play approaches are effective because they create learning situations that encourage children to become active and engaged partners in the learning process.     

Measures for inclusion: coping with the challenge of visual impairment and blindness in university undergraduate level language learning

This paper develops from previous research ( Orsini‐Jones et al., 2005 ) and reports on the experience of three students, two visually impaired and one blind, reading languages at Coventry University, on the adjustments made to meet their needs and on the challenges encountered on their learning journey both from their point of view and from the point of view of the staff involved. It focuses on three students' experience of their languages course and considers the challenges they met in each of their years of study. It concludes by evaluating these students' language learning journey at Coventry University, reporting on their feedback on their experience and on whether or not they feel that staff have successfully catered for their individual needs. It is argued here, as in the previous related work ( Orsini‐Jones, et al., 2005 ) that ‘there still exists some tension between the reasonable anticipatory adjustments that lecturers can put in place and the necessary ad hoc ones that will be needed for a disabled student with very specific needs’.     

Teaching time and organizational management skills to first year health science students: does training make a difference?

The present study reports on new research conducted to determine whether teaching time and organizational skills using a training package can improve these skills. The Abbreviated Time Management Indicator (ATMI) developed by Roberts et al. was used to assess time and organizational management skills. This scale consists of six dimensions, namely sense of purpose, meeting deadlines, mechanics of time management, propensity to plan, coping with temporal flow and effective organization. Participants in this study comprised first year health science students studying at the University of Sydney in their first semester. Four hundred and seventy‐eight students participated in a pre‐test (baseline) session after which they received information on their individual scores on each of the six dimensions of the scale together with average scores on each dimension for the total group (feedback). Of the original participants 122 completed the post‐test session, 5 weeks later. During the intervening period students were given a self‐directed training package which provided practical information on how to improve their skills on each of the dimensions contained in the scale. The results of the study indicated no significant improvement in time and organizational management skills. Possible reasons for the lack of improvement are discussed in terms of recent developments in teaching and learning contexts, together with suggestions for future research.     

Powerful learning environments? How university students differ in their response to instructional measures

This study aimed at measuring the effects of a university educational reform project on student learning, and individual differences in students' responses to similar instructional measures. The reforms mainly failed to influence reported learning strategies in the direction of more deep and self-regulated learning. One explanation for this could be that the instructional measures were not powerful enough to create more deep-level learning strategies. In a second study, a different explanation was explored. It was found that student groups with different learner characteristics tend to use instructional measures in different ways, such that they suit their own habits, ideas and preferences of learning well. This makes it quite clear that direct influence of instructional measures on learning processes does not take place. We explore suggestions for adapting instructional practice.     

Learning to teach writing through tutoring and journal writing

Structured reflection on practical teaching experiences may help pre‐service teachers to integrate their learning and analyze their actions to become more effective learners and teachers. This study reports on 12 pre‐service English as a second language (ESL) teachers’ individual tutoring of learners of English language writing. The data of the study are the writing journal entries that the pre‐service ESL teachers maintained during their tutoring experience. These journals had common elements: all were used by the pre‐service teachers to consider what funds of knowledge they bring to their teaching of ESL learners, to evaluate their roles as writers, learners and teachers and to reflect on the educational, social and cultural implications of teaching writing in English to speakers of other languages. This article describes ways in which both native and non‐native English speaking pre‐service teachers adapted their instruction to meet the particular needs of individual ESL writers and what they learned in the process. It provides insight regarding the value of using tutoring and reflection generally in teacher education and specifically in the preparation of teachers of ESL.     

The role of environment design in an educational Multi‐User Virtual Environment

This paper presents empirical results from an exploratory study conducted in an authentic educational situation with preservice education students enrolled in an undergraduate course, which was partially taught in Second Life. The study investigated the effect of environment design on presence, learning outcomes and the overall experience of the students. Two different educational virtual environments (a traditional university auditorium and an open‐air setting) were designed and presented to different groups of students (n = 51). Results indicate that students' experience from the educational activities, their attitudes toward the environment and the induced sense of presence are not affected by the design of the educational setting. Learning outcomes seem to be slightly better in virtual educational settings that replicate traditional educational settings. Experience shows that undergraduate university classes can be successfully taught in Second Life and such environments elicit satisfaction, positive experiences and attitudes and high levels of social presence from the participants. Course design in a Multi‐User Virtual Environment (MUVE) should take into account the time and training necessary for all students to become familiar with the virtual environment and possible time losses due to technical issues. This study could act as support to construct and test hypotheses regarding the role of educational setting design in teaching and learning in MUVEs.     

Principals in schools with a positive school culture

This study focuses on the profile of principals who seem to be able to shape the school culture to best encourage teaching and learning. Data from a representative sample of primary schools (N = 46) were collected through questionnaires for principals and for teachers (N = 700) and semi‐structured interviews with the principals. Functioning, well‐being and personal characteristics of the principal, structural and cultural characteristics of school, and organisational context are examined. Compared to their opposites, principals in schools with cultures stimulating professional development, combine (1) type A, achievement‐oriented behaviour, (2) transformational leadership, (3) a preference for tasks related to education matters and people management and (4) effective time management allowing them to devote most of their time to their preferred role and task component.     

Learning habits of students with special needs in short‐term vocational education programmes

This research examined some characteristics of the learning habits of students with special needs and those without them in programmes of short‐term vocational education in five areas: motivation, learning and learning techniques, emotional, social and the area of self‐evaluation. The research sample consisted of 140 students from different secondary schools. The Questionnaire on the Learning Habits of Adolescents was used for the purpose of the study. The differences between the means from individual learning habit scales, between the students with special needs or without them, were discovered by one‐way analysis of variance. Basic findings of empirical research emphasise that there exist statistically significant differences between the students with special needs and the students without special needs in four areas of learning habits. Among the findings causing concern in connection with learning habits, we would like to underscore the fact that students with special needs are perceived as less efficient at and less competent in coping with learning and work tasks. These students are not familiar with effective methods and strategies for successful learning, which leads to the feelings of frustration and helplessness in case of failure. In order to cultivate an effective and supportive educational environment for students with special needs, short‐term vocational schools should develop learning/teaching models that provide a potentially powerful alternative to traditionally directed teaching approaches.     

The relation between individual interest and knowledge acquisition

The objective of this study was to examine how individual interest and knowledge acquisition are causally related. Three hypotheses were tested using a cross‐lagged panel analysis (N = 186) and two quasi‐experimental studies (N = 68 and N = 108) involving students from schools in Singapore. The first hypothesis is the broadly shared standard assumption on the relation between individual interest and knowledge: the more an individual is interested in a topic, the more (s)he is willing to engage in learning. An alternative hypothesis assumes that individual interest is not the cause but the consequence of the process of learning: individual interest as an affective by‐product of learning. Finally, a third possibility is that interest and knowledge influence each other reciprocally. The results supported the affective‐by‐product hypothesis. Our findings seem at variance with commonly held conceptions that being interested guides knowledge attainment. The implications of these findings for interest research are discussed.