Assessing the counselling needs of high school students in Kenya

The Student Counselling Needs Scale (SCNS) was administered to 867 participants recruited from high schools in Kenya. The data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis yielding five factors: human relationships, career development, self development, social values, and learning skills were assessed. The findings highlighted the importance of using assessment instruments to identify students’ counselling needs in Kenya.     

A comparison of the health knowledge of hearing-impaired and hearing high school students

A health knowledge questionnaire was administered to 139 hearing and 66 hearing-impaired high school students from 12 to 18 years of age. The level of health knowledge of the normally-hearing students was found to be superior to that of hearing-impaired students at all ages but appeared not to improve with increasing school grade. In contrast, the health knowledge of the hearing-impaired students increased markedly from Grade 8 to Grade 12, so that by Grade 12 they were achieving only marginally below their hearing grade mates. Some of this apparent increase in health knowledge probably was due to the fact that only academically able hearing-impaired students continue at school in Australia after Grade 10. Deficits in the health knowledge of hearing-impaired students were distributed uniformly over all areas investigated.     

Assessing the needs of training on inclusive education for public school administrators

This study assessed the needs of urban school leaders for special education preparation in a large public school district in the USA in order to assist the school administrators with improving their knowledge and skills for providing appropriate services to students with disabilities and their families to support inclusive education. The needs survey was created based on the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC 2009) standards for school administrators in the USA and the literature in special education. The validity and reliability of the instrument were verified. The needs assessment measures 10 aspects regarding special education knowledge and skills as indicated by 10 factors in the exploratory factor analysis. Quantitative data analyses on a sample of 289 participants revealed that there were significant differences in the needs of training in special education knowledge based on the school administrators’ backgrounds. The current research supports the call for the professional development and inclusive education for school leaders. The findings of the current study indicated that school leaders wanted the knowledge to make them more successful in serving students with disabilities to answer the call for inclusive education.     

Implementation and evaluation of computer-aided Mandarin phonemes training system for hearing-impaired students

A computer‐aided Mandarin phonemes training (CAMPT) system was developed and evaluated for training hearing‐impaired students in their pronunciation of Mandarin phonemes. Deaf or hearing‐impaired people have difficulty hearing their own voice, hence most of them cannot learn how to speak. Phonemes are the basis for learning to read and speak in Mandarin. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to use voice‐recognition techniques to develop a Mandarin phoneme training system for the self‐training of hearing‐impaired people. The system analyses the spoken Mandarin phoneme of a hearing‐impaired person, compares it with the phonemes database, and shows the results on the computer monitor. Our CAMPT system helps hearing‐impaired people pronounce Mandarin phonemes, and the system automatically gives the learner a percentage score for each phoneme. In other words, learners can receive instant feedback from the system. Experiments conducted among high school students diagnosed with hearing impairment revealed that our system can help students learn the Mandarin phonemes with a neural net recognition algorithm for different users. After five months, most learners can pronounce 95% of the phonemes correctly.     

Educational and occupational aspirations of rural high school students

The authors are with the Department of Counseling, University of North Dakota.     

The competencies needed for teaching hearing-impaired students. A comparison of elementary and secondary school teacher perceptions

Many hearing-impaired students demonstrate difficulty in academically measuring up to their hearing peers. The deficiencies become especially obvious during their secondary school years. This study surveyed a national sample of elementary and secondary level teachers of the hearing impaired to compare their perceptions of the competencies needed to work with hearing-impaired students. The results suggest that teachers at both levels believe that some skills are fundamental for all teachers of the hearing-impaired, regardless of the age level of the students. However, the data also suggest there are some important differences. Concerns about state certification procedures and current practices in teacher training programs are discussed.     

The center for global futures: Meeting the needs of gifted students in a laboratory school

The curriculum at the Center focuses on the exploration of alternative futures from a global perspective and provides differentiated experiences for the gifted through a comprehensive program which extends beyond local efforts.     

Application of Bourdieuian theory to the inclusion of students with learning/physical challenges in multicultural school settings

Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has contributed much to the way the field of sociology understands the social rules and structures that guide human interaction and self‐understanding. Bourdieu’s work has also been applied to education, and disability issues. In this paper Bourdieu’s social theory is presented and applied to the notion of inclusion in a multicultural school. This Bourdieuian perspective is applied to the literature surrounding the development of a theory of inclusion in multicultural schools. Questions and implications suggest further research into the relationship between cultural and disability issues in inclusion.     

Inclusive school leadership: Examining the experiences of Canadian school principals in supporting students with special education needs

As school systems strive to support students with special education needs in inclusive schools, there has been a persistent lack of scholarly literature that addresses the ways in which school principals are engaged in this process. This article is a response to this gap and aims to examine the question: What types of experiences do school principals identify as formational in their support of students with special education needs and fostering inclusive schools? Based on the analysis of data collected from 285 school principals from six provinces in Canada, four key themes are identified including: relationships, modelling behaviours, communication and principal isolation and lack of preparation. These themes are examined with consideration for how to support principals’ professional leadership in fostering inclusive schools. As a result, this article’s significance is in its examination of the experiences of principals and how these influence their leadership practice for supporting students with special education needs and fostering inclusive schools.     

Attitudes of school role groups toward learning needs of gifted students

The cognitive approach to creativity emphasizes the processes involved in producing effective novelty, as well as the control mechanisms that regulate novelty production, and the structures that result. Merely novel structures display surprisingness and incongruity, to be sure, but they must also be meaningful and practicable to be effective. There are no special processes or control mechanisms unique to the production of effective novelty, but metasystematic operations are particularly favorable for it. Effective novelty can be produced at lower levels of cognitive development, but children's creativity is likely to differ qualitatively from that of adults. Although the cognitive approach takes little account of motivation, personality, or the social environment, it provides an operationizable definition of some aspects of creativity, and offers insights into what needs to be fostered to promote it.