Developing a science teacher education course that supports student teachers’ thinking and teaching about the nature of science

This paper reports on part of an ongoing research project in England concerning the Nature of Science (NOS). The particular focus is on the initial thinking of the graduate scientists starting a one-year, Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) course and the way the course approaches adopted influence their views and understanding of NOS and their teaching. The research is set against a wealth of literature indicating that teachers find it difficult to teach curricula that emphasise NOS. Thus a key impetus for research in this area has been to look for ways that beginning teachers might be better prepared to face such challenges.

Sample

The paper draws on data from three cohorts of secondary PGCE students in a university–schools partnership, involving a total of 169 students.

Design and method

The research lies within a design research tradition. It has used mixed methods, involving written tasks, interviews and focus groups, with an iterative approach where the outcomes from one cohort have been used to inform course developments in successive years.

Results

The results from these cohorts suggest that, while the students starting the course have a less restricted view of NOS than indicated by some other studies, in most cases there is a lack of breadth and depth to their understanding. There is some evidence that the use of specific tasks focusing on NOS in university-based sessions may be helping to develop and deepen understanding. However, the impact of current approaches remains fairly limited and attempts to develop teaching practices often face considerable barriers in the school-based practicum.

Conclusions

Graduate science students’ understanding of NOS as they embark on the PGCE is not highly developed. Hence, the emphasis on aspects of NOS in the school curriculum presents a considerable challenge. This study suggests that there is a need to both further develop an explicit focus on NOS in university-based sessions and to develop closer relationships between schools and university faculty in seeking to support developments in classroom practice in this difficult area.     

Conceptualizing curriculum management in an effective secondary school: a Western Australian case study

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the linkages between management processes and the curriculum using an academically effective secondary school as a case study. The aims of the study are twofold. First, in view of the acknowledged importance governments and others place on the quality of school leadership and management on the one hand and curriculum, teaching and learning reforms on the other, there is a need for empirical data as to how school leaders and managers work to secure improvements in curriculum, teaching and learning. This study purports to provide such data. The second aim acknowledges the need to develop conceptual frameworks and data collection instruments as aids to better understanding of complex relationships within school organizations.two deputy principals do play an indirect and important part in promoting academic performance by reinforcing school values in a wide variety of ways. Third, curriculum management is the responsibility of senior teachers and there is tight linkage between both senior teachers and teachers and high quality teaching and learning. Finally, the loose linkage between departments, and also between departments and senior management, provides little opportunity for a school‐wide approach to curriculum matters. It is evident that a whole‐school curriculum management perspective is absent in this school.     

School composition,school culture and socioeconomic inequalities in young people's health: Multi‐level analysis of the Health Behaviour in School‐aged Children (HBSC) survey in Wales

Health inequalities emerge during childhood and youth, before widening in adulthood. Theorising, testing and interrupting the mechanisms through which inequalities are perpetuated and sustained is vital. Schools are viewed as settings through which inequality in young people's health may be addressed, but few studies examine the social processes via which institutional structures reproduce or mitigate health inequalities. Informed by Markham and Aveyard's theory of human functioning and school organisation, including their concept of institutional boundaries, critical theories of marketisation and the concept of micro‐political practices within schools, this paper presents analysis of student survey data (N = 9055) from 82 secondary schools in Wales. It examines the role of socioeconomic composition, social relationships at school and institutional priorities in mitigating or perpetuating health inequality. It finds that affluent schools were most unequal in terms of student health behaviours and subjective wellbeing. In relation to health behaviours, students from affluent families accrue a disproportionate benefit. For wellbeing, students from poorer families reported lower subjective wellbeing where attending more affluent schools. Student–staff relationships appear to be a key mechanism underpinning these effects: poor relationships with staff were predicted by a pupil's position within schools’ socioeconomic hierarchy and associated with worse health outcomes. That is, students from the poorest families reported better relationships with teachers where attending less affluent schools. Universal approaches engaging with these social processes are needed to reduce health inequalities.     

Changes in school through a long-term project of action research. Building bridges between school practice and Roma communities

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out within the framework of a long-term action-research project in schools in Barcelona, Spain, in which a large concentration of pupils come from diverse ethnic backgrounds and are at risk of social exclusion. Specifically, the introduction of the Fifth Dimension (5D) model into these schools is analysed here. 5D is an action-research programme partnership between universities and schools that has been developed by an international network of researchers and is based on a collaborative learning model, supported by information and communication technologies and by the university students themselves. This study focuses on the changes produced in school practices and in the role of teachers. Over a 4-year period, qualitative data were elicited from four primary school using linguistic methods, field notes, interviews and focus group with educators involved in the process. Cultural Historical Activity Theory was used as a framework for analysis of the coded data. The findings highlight the key elements for the change: consistency in the mediating devices (proposed tools and activities), reorientation of classroom interactions into forms of collaboration, the changing roles of the teachers to include design, observation and help, and the development of inter-institutional partnerships based on permanent negotiation.     

Tensions and challenges in China’s education policy borrowing

Abstract

Background: This article critically discusses the key tensions and challenges arising from the educational policy borrowing in China, through its current education reform. Focussing on the new curriculum reform (NCR), the paper highlights the interactions and conflicts between foreign and local ideologies and practices.

Sources of evidence: The main sources of evidence that form the basis of the analysis for this article were research data from an open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews conducted with 166 school principals, vice-principals and teachers from China between 2013 and 2015.

Main argument: It is argued that the NCR has borrowed selective ideas and practices from elsewhere, such as a school-based curriculum, student-centred pedagogy and formative assessment. It is further suggested that the borrowed policies are mediated and moderated by the ideological attitude of the Chinese educational stakeholders, stemming from the notion of ‘theory-ladenness’ within an exam-oriented paradigm.

Conclusions: The example of China illustrates the effects of an ideological attitude on educational policy borrowing that challenges the notion of universally appropriate ways of teaching, learning and reforming an educational system.     

An Overview of Evaluative Instrumentation for Virtual High Schools

Abstract

With an increasing prevalence of virtual high school programs in the United States, a better understanding of evaluative tools available for distance educators and administrators is needed. These evaluative tools would provide opportunities for assessment and a determination of success within virtual schools. This article seeks to provide an analysis and classification of instrumentation currently available. It addresses issues regarding the limited arsenal of assessments and evaluation instrumentation for virtual schools.     

Joined-up approaches to prevent school exclusion

Abstract

This article explores findings from a recent research project, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and contextualizes these in a discussion of some current thinking about inclusion and exclusion. Although the research found that it was possible to prevent disciplinary exclusion from school and that inter-agency working was central to this, nevertheless strategies for preventing disciplinary exclusion often meant that young people were no longer very fully included in the mainstream school curriculum. This has implications for how we think about and use the idea of inclusion in practice and raises questions about how we can include the most challenging young people into inclusion theory and practice. This research was carried out in Scotland, and the article also discusses some key differences in policy and practice from England.     

The relationship between design reflectivity and conceptions of informed design among high school students

ABSTRACT

Although reflection is a key behaviour of expert designers, it is often a challenging task for new designers. In addition, research on the reflectivity of student designers is limited. The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to identify the levels of reflectivity while designing, and (2) to study the relationship between reflectivity and conceptions of informed design. We collected data from high school students engaged in an engineering design project. We developed a coding protocol to score levels of reflectivity in student reflections at three levels (low, medium, and high), and used the conceptions of design test to assess changes in student understanding of design activities. Using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, we determined if students tended to select more ‘key’ design activities and fewer ‘distractors’ within each reflection group. We also performed McNemar’s tests to determine which specific design activities were important within each reflection group after the design project. The results show moderately reflective students had higher gains in understanding of informed design activities compared to those with high or low reflectivity. Results also indicate that different design activities became important for students within each of the three reflective groups. Implications from this research indicate that groups of students experience changing conceptions of design in different ways. An understanding of what students deem important while designing would better allow teachers to encourage behaviours that are like those of informed designers.     

‘Teachers are Afraid we are Stealing their Strength’: A Risk Society and Restorative Approaches in School

Abstract

This paper will discuss the introduction of Restorative Approaches (RA) in schools, contextualising this within a discussion of international concerns about school safety, (in)discipline and school violence. It will explore questions about the compatibility of RA with zero tolerance and positive/assertive discipline approaches and the use of disciplinary exclusion in a ‘risk society’.     

Engaging with Bourdieu’s theory of practice: an empirical tool for exploring school students’ technology practice

ABSTRACT

This article presents Bourdieu’s theory of practice as a tool for exploring school students’ technology practice in empirical research. The authors provide educational technology researchers with an accessible introduction to the theory of practice. They then detail the conceptual, methodological and analytic application of the theory of practice in two educational technology studies. The application of the theory in the two studies highlights the potential of the sociological framing for informing a robust critical research agenda and understanding the circumstances that can contribute to digital inequalities. Practically, knowledge gained through theoretically informed research is critical for researchers, governments, schools and teachers in working to overcome digital inequalities.     

Equity and social exclusion measures in EU lifelong learning policies

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to examine how EU lifelong learning policies are trying to reach the vulnerable by looking at what measures against social exclusion they offer and how equitable these measures are. It is a qualitative study that focuses on policy documents that form the European Union’s legal and political frameworks of reference in the lifelong learning area since 1992. The document analysis has been complemented by semi-structured interviews with EU lifelong learning experts. The findings show that early school leavers and migrants are the main target groups in the policies, leaving many other groups at risk of being excluded from learning opportunities. There is not enough attention to measures addressing wider social phenomena. There is also an overemphasis on basic skills which are understood in a very narrow way as literacy and numeracy when referring to the vulnerable. We argue that a greater variety of measures as well as better targeted measures are needed to address the multiple and complex needs of the vulnerable. Such measures would allow a broader understanding of lifelong learning where those that are hardest to reach are offered learning opportunities independent of their personal and social circumstances     

Exclusion from school and recognition of difference

ABSTRACT

There has been an overall decrease in exclusion rates and numbers in recent years across the UK. This change has often been heralded as evidence that national inclusion policies are ‘working’ and that schools themselves are becoming increasingly inclusive. This article examines findings from a recent study on school exclusion in Wales, noting that exclusion is falling here in line with UK wide trends. However, exclusion rates of children with special needs and others who face multiple disadvantages remain stubbornly high. Given these findings, and the evidence that this is the case across the UK, an important question arises about the broader relationship between school exclusion and inequality. This article seeks to address this question, and asks whether and to what extent the politics of recognition of difference, in Nancy Fraser's terms, can help explain the continuing over-representation of some groups of marginalised and vulnerable children in exclusion figures, despite this overall downward trend.     

The Role of School Exclusion Processes in the Re-Production of Social and Educational Disadvantage

ABSTRACT

English education policy has increasingly focused on the need to intervene in an intergenerational cycle of poverty and low attainment. The accompanying policy discourse has tended to emphasise the impact of family background on educational outcomes. However, as the capacity of parents to secure positive educational outcomes for their children is closely linked to the quality of their own education, low attainment is rather more closely connected to what happens in schools than this focus suggests. Pupils from groups known to be at increased risk of low attainment are also known to be at increased risk of involvement in the disciplinary processes of schools. This paper draws on the findings of a small-scale qualitative study to highlight some of the limitations in the educational provision accessed by Secondary age pupils involved in school exclusion processes. The assumptions and tensions at practice level that underpinned this provision are also discussed. In the conclusion it is argued that a much stronger focus on the learning of these pupils could improve their attainment and contribute to a reduction in social and educational inequalities in the future.     

School visits to zoos and museums: a missed educational opportunity?

Recent studies in exhibitions have begun to consider the cognitive content of the ‘dialogue’ between visitor and exhibit designer. Such studies have focused on the leisure visitor and not on organised school visits. The study reported here compares the conversational content of primary school and family visitors at the London Zoo and the Natural History Museum, London. The data show that there are common features to the children's interactions with animal exhibits and that the content of the conversations varies little between family groups and school groups both within an institution and between institutions. The lack of any marked distinction between school and family visitors strongly suggests that schools are failing to make effective use of the educational potential of zoos. Secondly, the findings of this study are important in pointing to the features of animal exhibits to which children, and their accompanying adults, attend. The data suggest that there is a gulf between the level of knowledge and understanding visitors bring to the exhibits and the message that the museums and zoos may wish to communicate. It is suggested that more successful education will only be achieved when museums and zoos give more credence to understanding what the visitor already does, or does not, know.     

Technology for all: turning a keyword into a school subject in post-war Sweden

The decades following the Second World War saw strong technological development and economic growth. They also saw ‘the advent of technology education’, a period of extensive curriculum development in this field. But what was done and why? In order to obtain a better understanding of the historical roots of technology education, in this study the mid-century school reforms in Sweden are examined and, more specifically, the birth of the new subject of Technology (Teknik) in compulsory schools. In this article, the political forces driving the introduction and shaping of this new subject are emphasised. In a time of rapid transformations of educational systems and labour markets, the term Teknik proved to be a useful concept for policy-makers and reform technocrats. However, the subject came to re-create the inequalities of the earlier differentiated school system, despite its presence within the framework of a school ‘for all’.     

Reformation of the Macedonian teacher education programme, 1999 – 2001

Background: In the last decade, much research attention has been paid to notions of leadership and the professional identity of school. It is widely agreed that school principals play a very important role in school improvement; international reports point to ‘school leadership’ as a key factor in education quality, and recent studies suggest that the leadership identity of principals is critical for achieving effective leadership in schools worldwide.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to conduct a thematic exploration of the literature relating to school principals and leadership identity.

Design and methods: A scoping review was carried out. Two major databases were searched for papers published on this topic in the last decade. Once we had established an overview of research on this subject, we conducted a thematic analysis to identify the topical focus of research.

Results: We found that the literature reflected an increasing and intensified interest in the topic of school leadership as the decade progressed. Furthermore, a range of emerging subtopics was identified. These included the relationship between school culture and professional identity in school principals; the influence of ethical and personal factors on the professional development of principals; the dilemmas of balancing education policies and personal experiences; and the relationships between gender identity, racial identity, professional experience/career, training and leadership identity.

Conclusions: Several key issues emerged from the studies included in this review, such as the importance of external and internal influences in the construction of the professional identity of school principals. Some of the research suggested that school leaders felt the need to develop a new professional identity. Overall, the study indicates that school leadership and its relationship with school improvement should remain an important focus for educational research investigation.