The teacher's role and approaches in a knowledge society

This article is about changes in teaching and learning. It is argued that a pluralist approach, stressing differences in qualities and problems is favourable. The paper is based on a research project regarding changing conditions for teachers and professional identity in the Danish upper‐secondary school. Both theoretical and empirical points from the research project concerning teaching and learning in an area of reform are presented. The main purpose is to develop reflections on various approaches to method and learning styles in relationship to teacher and student roles.     

Learning strategies and the learner's approach to a problem solving task

Summary In this paper data were presented about the differences in performance of several learners on a problem solving task. The nature of these differences was explored in terms of the learners' strategies and approach to the task. It was argued that the pattern of strategy application should be interpreted in relation to the way in which the learner engaged in the task. Furthermore, the pattern of strategy application was found to be most meaningful when interpreted within the framework of the learners' approach to the task. Success on the task appeared to be more strongly linked to the learners' approach than to the strategiesper se. This paper has provided further insight into what is meant by a deep and surface approach to a task. Evidence has been presented which shows that the learners' approach may be implemented in practice in different ways. It is hoped that the paper will stimulate many questions relating to learning on other tasks and in different contexts. For example, do learners have a characteristic learning approach? Does their approach vary according to the task or context? What factors influence the learning approach which is adopted? What implications does the notion of approach to learning have for classroom teaching?     

Relationships between learning approaches and outcomes of students studying a first-year biology topic on-campus and by distance

This study investigates the relationship between learning approach and outcome for distance and on-campus first-year biology students. It uses a topic-specific version of the Study Process Questionnaire, recent articulations of the Structure of Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) model and individual interviews. Deep approaches were related to better quality SOLO categories of learning outcomes, but many students appeared to adopt a mix of surface and deep approaches to learning, or used little of either, and demonstrated poor quality learning outcomes. A strong approach/outcome relationship was not evident for the younger on-campus cohort. It is argued that these results highlight the need to look beyond learning approaches towards more multidimensional and integrative perspectives of student learning.     

Self-Esteem And The Confidence To Fail

This paper takes a sideways look at the controversial topic of educational assessment, raising the question: what place should the success/failure distinction have in an effective and humane educational system? Though the experience of failure may undermine the self‐esteem that is conducive to learning, its possibility is clearly important educationally. Instead of asking whether teachers should be truthful about children’s achievements or dishonestly promote their self‐esteem, we need to recognise a certain logical indeterminacy about what young children can do. Given this, it is reasonable to presume in favour of many of their capacities rather than against them, for this is how children develop the confidence to act. This includes the confidence to fail as well as the confidence to succeed. It is argued that both are crucial for learning.     

Workplace changes and workplace learning: advantages of an educational micro perspective

This paper analyses two perspectives, a macro and a micro perspective, on changes in the workplace in relation to workplace learning. It critically evaluates what kind of phenomena both perspectives can account for. Research from a macro perspective focuses on changes in economy or on organisational change. It helps to explore the role of lifelong learning and workplace learning in society as well as to define required competences in different professions. Research from a micro perspective focuses on individual reactions to changes in one’s own workplace. It helps to explain how changes in daily work affect knowledge and skills on the individual or group level. It is argued that the micro perspectives is advantageous if educational goals are pursued which aim at fostering workplace learning and competence development. Examples for empirical research are provided which illustrate the potential of a micro perspective on workplace changes and workplace learning.     

Learning from instruction: the case of mathematics

Starting from a brief analysis of adaptive competence in mathematics, this article describes a series of research-based characteristics of the kind of learning processes that should be elicited in students to facilitate and support in them the progressive acquisition of such competence. Four major characteristics are discussed in some detail: learning is constructive, self-regulated, situated or contextual, and collaborative. A rather new approach to transfer of learning is then presented in which transfer is conceived as the preparation for future learning. Throughout the article it is argued that, notwithstanding the progress made in research on learning from instruction, numerous and complex issues and problems remain for continued inquiry.     

What works,for whom,and in what circumstances? Towards a critical realist understanding of learning in international and comparative education

The article explores the potential for a critical realist approach to researching learning in international and comparative education (ICE) with a particular focus on the emerging post-2015 education and development agenda. It provides a critique of existing empiricist and interpretivist approaches to researching learning. It is suggested that whilst both have strengths, they are based on an ontologically reductionist view of learning with implications for research, policy and practice. As a ‘third’ research approach critical realism has the potential to build on the strengths whilst avoiding the pitfalls of both empiricism and interpretivism. Such an approach it is argued needs to start from an ontologically inclusive and laminated view of learning. Further, it is suggested that comparative research should focus on the development of theories of learning that are able to explain the natural and social structures and causal mechanisms that give rise to and inhibit learning at different scales and levels and in different contexts. The development of theory ought to embrace epistemological pluralism drawing critically on, cross-cultural, inter-disciplinary and mixed methods enquiry and making use of abductive and retroductive forms of inference. In this way it is argued it becomes possible to move beyond the dominant ‘what works’ agenda favoured by empiricists to critically consider what works, for who and under what circumstances.     

Resource use and academic performance among first year psychology students

Multiple questionnaires completed over the semester by 514 students enrolled in a first year psychology course reveal that no single pattern of reliance on print, online, or in-person resources guarantees a high mark. Analyses of the reported and measured frequency of use of various resources correlated against students’, performance on both individual assessments and their final marks suggests that students employ a range of strategies in their use of class resources. They tend to rely on their textbooks, Web-based lecture notes, and online quizzes, but their final marks are more strongly determined by their university entrance scores than by their resource use strategy, their sex, or whether or not English is their first language. The data suggest that students adapt their learning strategies to the resources available, with an apparent emphasis on learning what will be assessed rather than exploring for understanding. Importantly, the results argue that investment in development of educational technologies – and students’, use of educational technologies – must be informed by empirical data concerning its impact on the efficiency and quality of learning.     

Spectrum Approach to Mentoring: an evidence-based approach to mentoring for academics working in higher education

Anecdotal and empirical evidence indicates that mentoring can be a successful strategy for supporting professional learning, yet limited literature exists on approaches to mentoring designed specifically for academics working in higher education. The aim of this study was to create an approach to mentoring tailored to the needs of academics and underpinned by evidence from the literature. Participatory action research was chosen as the methodology for the project as this enabled a process of inquiry to be embedded within academic practice. The outcome was the development of the Spectrum Approach to Mentoring (SAM). This three-step approach is goal orientated, and encompasses mentoring relationships that may be ongoing and sustained over time through to those that are short-term and aligned with a particular task or focus. SAM provides a suite of resources that can be used by academics to promote valuable opportunities for professional learning through the initiation of mentoring relationships.     

Teacher Educators: hidden professionals?

The pace of change in today's society means that there is an ongoing need for teachers to learn, have new knowledge and use new pedagogical approaches to meet the needs of their pupils. For many teachers, this requires redefining their identity as teachers and what ‘teaching’ means in 21st century learning environments. These changes also require teachers to be supported in learning to ‘teach’ in different ways that are relevant to their own individual needs and to the contexts in which they work throughout their career. In this article, it is argued that a more integrated and collaborative approach to teacher education is needed with better understanding of those who take up the roles of teacher educator across a teacher's career. With a particular emphasis on ‘teacher educators’ working in school to support teachers' career-long professional learning it is argued that currently many do not recognise themselves as teacher educators nor are they recognised by those they work with as teacher educators. Drawing on an empirical study carried out with mentors in schools in Scotland, it is suggested that these teacher educators may be ‘unrecognised’ and remain ‘hidden professionals’ because of the identities they construct for themselves, the values and priorities that they or others attach to their roles or because of the institutional structures and cultures in which they work. It is concluded that it will be difficult to recognise and value these ‘hidden teacher educators’ and the distinctive contribution they can make to teachers' career-long professional learning without further clarification by them and others of the roles and responsibilities they hold.     

The Learning Community and Emotional Learning in a University-based Training of Counsellors and Psychotherapists

This paper is the first stage in a larger international comparative project, coordinated through the International Association of Counselling, on policy determinants in the education of counsellors. It arose in part out of an interest in the cultural determinants of what is taken as evidence. As a first stage for the project, a case study approach is used that asks what are the important features of the therapeutic learning experience provided by programmes in different countries, and how have these come about. The first example is a 4-year MSc programme in Counselling and Psychotherapy in the United Kingdom, with the focus on the intended therapeutic learning experience. It is argued that much of the emerging dominant training model of today is unbalanced, with too great an emphasis on CBT and short-term cost-effectiveness, rather than on the provision of a sound understanding based on learning from lived experience. There is concern at the extent to which depths of thinking and feeling are brushed aside, and with this a focus on the relationship and understanding of people’s experiences. The authors provide an analysis of their chosen training model through locating it historically in trends within European philosophy. The paper concludes by considering the appropriateness of Eurocentric approaches for other cultures.     

From the editor

It is argued that much of the ineffectiveness of schools in producing change is due to the educational psychologists’ moral relativity, identified with an “industrial psychologist”; model. Such relativity can result in defining educational aims in terms of “social adjustment,”; an approach that is said to have no empirical basis, or in terms of a “bag of virtues,”; an approach that is said to suffer from lack of agreement on what the virtues should be. A developmental‐philosophic strategy for defining aims of education is proposed as a solution. In this approach, the assumption is made that each later stage of moral development reflects a more adequate equilibration with the environment, and it therefore follows that what is at later stages is what ought to be. The universality of moral stages is documented and the stimulation of moral development in school and prison settings through a cognitive conflict procedure is illustrated.     

Advantages of studying processes in educational research

It is argued that learning and instruction could be conceptualized from a process-analytic perspective. Important questions from the field of learning and instruction are presented which can be answered using our approach of process analyses. A classification system of process concepts and methods is given. One main advantage of this kind of process research is the possibility to study trajectories of learning over time. It also allows the performing of intraindividual analyses. A number of empirical examples are presented which demonstrate the advantages of our approach to performing process analyses. The examples regarding individual trajectories deal with evaluation data of a training program to enhance self-regulated learning. In the discussion, limitations of the approach are described in reference to alternative ways of analyzing processes.     

The Mass Psychology of Classroom Discourse

In a majority of cases observed in classrooms over the last several decades, what has gone by the name “discussion” is not discussion, but rather an interaction better known as recitation. If one sees this phenomenon as a problem, then an aspect of its resolution must be theoretical (as opposed to empirical or pedagogical): What series of conceptual terms might we adopt such that recitation does not pass for discussion? Such a theoretical response would have to address internal and external, or subjective and intersubjective, phenomena to describe what it means to participate in an interaction like discussion or recitation. Next the theory would have to explain the differences between interactions such as discussion and recitation in robust terms. Finally, these robust differences would have to prevent the “mistaking” of discussion for recitation, and vice versa. David Backer sets out to accomplish these three goals in the following essay. The theory he builds relies on a distinction between two psychological‐affective states: dehiscence and melancholia. Backer argues that recitation forms a mass through melancholic introjection of a single object, while discussion forms a group that dehiscently introjects no particular object at all. The chief finding of this essay is that viewing discussion and recitation through the mass‐psychological lens offers a new way to examine what kind of relations of influence and power form during classroom discourse and, specifically, the political significance of those discourses.     

Wird die Pluralität in der Erziehungswissenschaft aufgekündigt?

This paper discusses whether research following PISA might constrain the plurality of empirical and theoretical approaches in empirical educational research. The significance of plurality in the field of science is reviewed initially; followed by the paper’s central thesis. It is argued that qualitative and new quantitative empirical educational research seldom considers each other in key areas of the field, e.?g. investigations on educational inequality. Though, ‘dimming out’ perspective-wise is marked rather a distinct feature of new quantitative educational research. Using the example of research on selection-based learning environments, students’ habitus and the family’s role in educational inequality, it is shown how a reflected linkage of both perspectives and mutual reception can be substantially beneficial to the findings of both paradigms.     

论语言环境与语言的学习

首先，本文阐明了母语与外语之间的区别，指出其区别是由于不同的语言环境造成的。其次，在主体部分文章论述了母语的习得与学习同外语的习得与学习环境的不同，导致地以下三个方面的不同：1，习得与学习的目的不同；2，习得与学习的心理活动不同；3，习得与学习的过程不同。第三方面的不同充分证明了语言环境对于语言学习的重要性。从而得出结论：一个语言教师应尽可能多地为学生创造学习动用语言的环境，并提出几点针对性措施。     

Ethical Considerations of Quality in Higher Education

In a paper presented at last year's conference, the author argued that there were at least six definitions implied in contemporary discussions of quality in higher education. The paper suggested that, by accepting quality as a measure of expectation, it was possible to place quality issues at the heart of the formulation of corporate strategy for institutions of higher education. It also argued that the linking of quality with funding mechanisms would be a procedure fraught with both conceptual and practical difficulties. In this paper, it is argued that the current position in the UK, with regard to quality issues, is demonstrating the predicted conceptual confusion and is generating practical consequences which can be catastrophic for the future of the higher education sector. It is proposed that this situation has its roots in a disregard of the ethical considerations involved in the determination of the appropriate concept of quality and its implementation in both national strategy and corporate policy. There are many approaches to the problems of ethics, but for these purposes the simple distinction between the ‘Guardian’ and ‘Trader’ syndromes is sufficient. The former identifies those ethical standards which are appropriate to protective, governmental behaviour whilst the latter concerns standards of behaviour in commerce. Whilst there are common elements, there are also codes of behaviour within each syndrome which are irreconcilable. The paper argues that the proper understanding of quality issues in higher education must be related to the choice of ethical standard, whilst the confusion which currently exists is caused by a reluctance to face up to that choice. It is clear that quality issues can never be ‘value free’: what is less evident is that quality can never be ‘amoral’.     

Focusing on presentation instead of representation: perspectives on representational and non-representational language-games for educational history and theory

Debates in science seem to depend on referential language-games, but in other senses they do not. This article addresses non-representational theory. It is a branch of newer approaches to cultural geography that strive to get a handle on spatial relationships not by representing them, but rather by presenting them. In this case, present connotes spatial and temporal proximity and availability. In non-representational theories, there are no longer signs or symbols that represent concepts or realities. Furthermore, non-representational theories also dissolve distinctions between the speakable and the unspeakable, and they erase distinctions among pictures, models, displays or depictions and reality. The article outlines briefly the stance of the historian Ankersmit, who distinguishes presentation from representation in history and the consequences for the truth-value of what is argued for. Finally, insights from representational and non-representational positions are offered as they relate generally to educational research.