How do primary education trainee teachers perceive educational psychology?

Educational Psychology makes a significant contribution to the development of skills to research the effectivity of teacher practices in class. However, there is little agreement on what educational psychology concepts are most relevant for teacher training. This paper reports on trainee teachers’ self-perceived mastery of, and attributed importance to, the syllabus content of the Learning & Development module taken as part of the BA Primary Education programme at a university in Barcelona (Spain). Data were collected through a questionnaire answered by all the participants (N = 561) and a focused interview conducted with a representative sample (n = 24). Results showed that students attributed greater importance to syllabus topics related to socio-emotional development and teaching roles in the classroom. Theoretical topics, such as conceptual frameworks for development and learning, were less rated. Students reported deficient mastery of the syllabus topics and significant gaps between attributed importance and self-perceived mastery of contents were confirmed. Implications of our study results for teaching psychology to primary school pre-service teachers are discussed.     

How do teachers in Ireland and England conceptualise dyslexia?

This paper presents the findings of a comparative study using data from questionnaire surveys carried out in England (n=57) and Ireland (n=72). The researchers examine how teachers and teaching assistants who are currently teaching pupils with dyslexia in primary schools describe dyslexia and what may have influenced their conceptualisation. The paper examines teachers' responses both in terms of how they view their pupils presenting difficulties in the classroom, and how far they link these to underlying differences in cognitive processing. The researchers suggest ways in which this might influence their teaching in terms of methodology. Findings have been mapped to the Morton and Frith causal modelling framework. The implications of these findings for the training and support of teachers are discussed in the light of recent national initiatives to improve the teaching of dyslexic pupils in both countries.     

How do STEM-interested students pursue multiple interests in their higher educational choice?

Interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has lately received attention in research due to a gap between the number of STEM students and the needs of the labour market. As interest seems to be one of the most important factors in deciding what to study, we focus in the present study on how STEM-interested students weigh multiple interests in making educational choices. A questionnaire with both open-ended and closed-ended items was administered to 91 STEM-interested students enrolled in a STEM programme of a Dutch University for secondary school students. Results indicate that students find it important that a study programme allows them to pursue multiple interests. Some students pursued multiple interests by choosing to enrol in two programmes at the same time. Most students chose one programme that enabled them to combine multiple interests. Combinations of pursued interests were dependent on the disciplinary range of interests of students. Students who were interested in diverse domains combined interests in an educational programme across academic and non-academic domains, whilst students who were mainly interested in STEM combined only STEM-focused interests. Together these findings stress the importance of taking a multiple interest perspective on interest development and educational choice.     

How do teachers coordinate their work? A framing approach

Since the 1970s, schools have been characterized as loosely coupled systems, meaning that the teachers’ work is weakly coordinated at the local level. Nonetheless, few studies have focused on the local variations of coordination modes, their sources and their nature. In this article, the process of local coordination of the teachers’ work is analyzed, using a sociocognitive approach. A longitudinal study of the framing process conducted during two years in one school is presented, in order to capture the parallel evolution of the teachers’ cognitive structures and the school’s social structures. The results show that: (1) the framing process is at the heart of political games, meaning that the local definition of teaching and its conditions represent an important issue for the teachers; and that (2) the cognitive structures that emerge from the framing process appear to some extent to be decoupled from the teachers’ actual practices, contributing only partially to the local process of the teachers’ work coordination.     

How do teachers promote their students' lifelong learning in class? Development and first application of the LLL Interview

Lifelong learning's (LLL) cornerstones are laid at school. Especially teachers' behaviour is central. As of yet, there is no instrument to measure teachers' efforts in promoting aspects associated with LLL within their students. We present a new interview to measure teachers' competence concerning this matter. To illustrate possible results, we interviewed N = 40 teachers. While teachers did very well in arousing interest in a new topic, they did worse in supporting students while planning. The LLL Interview is a promising new instrument that allows for identifying which aspects related to LLL need more attention.     

How do preservice teachers perceive ‘environment’ and its relevance to their area of teaching?

The environment is not only an ecological entity distinct from people but a cultural, social, and political construct. Understanding how learners conceptualize ‘environment’ may contribute to more effective environmental education (EE). This study investigated, in a paired pre–post design, 215 students’ understandings of ‘environment’ and perceptions of its relevance to their teaching area, at the onset and toward the end of their studies in teacher-education colleges in Israel. While student teachers, regardless of their major, acknowledged the importance of EE to their future function as teachers, they do not demonstrate an adequate understanding of the concept environment: humans are not viewed as part of the environment nor is the environment understood as a complex web of interactions among people, man-made systems and natural ecosystems. The fact that toward the end of studies, student teachers’ understandings of environment remained essentially basic indicates the necessity to reorient teacher-education programs toward EE. The various ways in which students perceived the relevance of environment to their teaching area are the starting points for this change.     

How do teachers interpret and transform entrepreneurship education?

During the last decade, entrepreneurship education has become a central curricular topic in many locations in the world. In Sweden, entrepreneurship education was implemented in the curriculum for the first time in 2011, as something that should be included in all upper secondary school programmes. In this article, we focus on one of these programmes, the handicraft programme, investigating how entrepreneurship education is formulated in the latest curriculum and how teachers understand and transform such content in their teaching. Drawing on Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing, we illustrate how entrepreneurship education in the Swedish curriculum has a ‘dual definition’, representing very different framing and classification, but still clearly belongs in a ‘market relevance’ discourse. This is expressed through the way in which the concept is transformed by teachers in their teaching. We also find that entrepreneurship education has low legitimacy among teachers, particularly when it is classified weakly. The weak framing and classification, taken together with the low legitimacy among teachers, are likely to lead to very different transformations of entrepreneurship education in different educational contexts. In the long run, this could have a negative effect on the equivalence of teaching at upper secondary school.     

How do teachers perceive cheating students? Beliefs about cues to deception and detection accuracy in the educational field

The present study explores how well teacher trainees can detect liars. Moreover, a new method was applied to investigate beliefs that teacher trainees hold about liars. The results indicate that, overall, teacher trainees were not better than chance in detecting true and invented stories. Generally, participants reported to have used only a few cues for their credibility judgment, where most of these self-reported cues are stereotypical and invalid deception cues (e.g., gaze aversion). Further analyses with a Brunswikian lens model showed that the self-reported cues were good predictors of their credibility judgment but only poorly predictive for the objective truth/lie status of the statement. Practical implications of the results are discussed.     

Pre-service teachers’ experiences of ICT in daily life and in educational contexts and their proto-technological pedagogical knowledge

Many pre-service teachers are members of the net generation and are expected to be familiar with different ICTs, yet several studies have indicated that they are not necessarily able to use them for teaching and learning. The notion of teachers’ technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) is central to this concern. In this study we use the responses of 146 pre-service teachers to open-ended questions about the experiences and knowledge of ICT and pedagogy they brought with them when they entered university teacher training. The data were analysed qualitatively with content analysis based on an integrative framework generated from a number of theoretical perspectives. Derived categories and subcategories were used to construct a framework for ‘proto-TPK’ as a basis for establishing a starting point for the coordinated development of TPK with students in their university training and early careers.     

How do teachers support their students on the autism spectrum in Australian primary schools?

This study investigated the supports and modifications made available to students on the autism spectrum in Australian schools. Teachers rated the importance of several factors in determining the grades of their students and reported on the frequency of student engagement with a range of instructional materials. Eighty‐seven teachers identified the modifications, accommodations and additional assistance provide to primary school students on the autism spectrum. Teachers also compared the frequency of class engagement and methods of evaluating outcomes for students with and without autism. A range of modifications and adjustments were implemented to support students on the spectrum. There were no significant differences in the frequency of instructional material use of students on the autism spectrum compared to their classmates. However, teachers did report differences in their methods of determining the grades of their students with and without autism. This is an important first step in understanding the experiences of teachers who are educating students on the autism spectrum in Australian schools. The findings reveal that teachers are working to support the diverse learning needs of their students on the autism spectrum. Further investigation of the factors that are driving teachers’ use of school‐based supports is warranted.     

How do Dutch secondary teachers and students conceive the purpose of assessment?

How teachers and students deal with assessment practices is largely influenced by the conceptions they hold about the purpose of assessment. This means that, given the current plea for a paradigm shift from Assessment of Learning to Assessment for Leaning with a balance between the formative and summative purposes of assessment, the study of teachers’ and students’ conceptions of the purpose of assessment is of the utmost relevance. In this study Dutch secondary school teachers’ (n = 351) and students’ (n = 712) conceptions of the purpose of assessment were measured using a translation of the teachers’ conceptions of assessment questionnaire and a translated and shortened version of the students’ conceptions of assessment questionnaire. Maximum Likelihood factor analyses resulted in four teacher and five student conceptions of the purpose of assessment. The results indicate that the teachers in our sample did not distinguish between formative and summative purposes of assessment. They did discern classroom assessment (formative as well as summative) from school accountability. In addition, they conceive assessment as being of bad (in terms of measurement errors) or good quality. In contrast with the teachers, students do make a distinction between the formative and summative purpose of assessment. They also refer to school accountability and the affects that assessment triggers in them as further purposes of assessment.     

How do teachers perceive environmental responsibility?

Environmental responsibility can be collective or individual. In environmental education, private-sphere responsibility is often promoted. However, emphasising individual pro-environmental behaviour may cause problems, such as feelings of guilt and powerlessness, a focus on ineffective activities, and gendered responsibility. In this article, I discuss the perceptions of 13 environmentally minded Finnish teachers concerning environmental responsibility. Results suggest that the individualisation of environmental responsibility may limit educational possibilities at school. Although the interviewees are well aware of significant environmental behaviours, they perceive their pupils’ range of action possibilities as narrow. Based on the results, I suggest that collective responsibility be promoted in environmental education, and practitioners should develop easy options for youth participation.     

How do teachers evaluate their parent communication competence? Latent profiles and relationships to workplace behaviors

Parent-teacher communication competence, frequency of exchange on parent-related issues with colleagues and time spent working with parents were measured with questionnaires in a sample of 677 German mathematics teachers. A latent class analysis revealed four groups of teachers: 24% showed high, 36% showed medium and 16% showed lower levels of communication competence with balanced profiles. A fourth profile (24%) showed a strong focus on pragmatic problem solving in communication with parents. The profiles differed in the extent of their exchange with colleagues on parent-related issues. No relationships were found regarding the time spent talking to parents.     

Trainee teachers’ experiences of classroom feedback practices and their motivation to learn

While different theoretical frameworks have been proposed to characterise the nature of feedback and the conditions under which feedback contributes to student learning, few empirical studies have examined the usefulness of these theoretical frameworks to understand student feedback experiences in classrooms particularly in a pre-service context. This article explores what classroom feedback practices trainee teachers experience, and how their feedback experiences relate to their learning motivation. The paper presents the results of questionnaire surveys conducted with 276 pre-service ESL trainee teachers in a BEd English education programme. The study found that trainee teachers in this study experienced predominantly activity-based feedback and teacher evaluation feedback, while peer/self feedback and longitudinal-development feedback were relatively infrequently used in the classroom. However, peer/self feedback and longitudinal-development feedback appeared to be most powerful in predicting positive motivational processes, followed by activity-based feedback and teacher evaluation feedback.     

How can we explain the differences and similarities between China and Japan in terms of their performance in attracting inward FDI?

<正>Introduction China has rapidly been an outstanding FDI destination since the early 1990s(Eichengreen&Tong,2005).After 1992,China has attracted more than 2,000 projects from 400 leading global companies listed in Fortune(Bulcke et al.,2003,1),which makes China the world’s second biggest recipient of foreign direct investment(Zhang,2005,293),as well as the largest one among all the developing countries in the world(Cheung&Lin,2004,25).By contrast,the situation in Japan shows a totally different     

How do educational systems regulate the teaching profession and teachers’ work? A typological approach to institutional foundations and models of regulation

This cross-national study contributes to the comparative literature on institutional variations in the regulation of the teaching profession by developing a theoretical typology articulated around teacher education, labor market regulation, and the division of labor. Drawing on Freidson’s work on professionalism in the field of sociology of professions, our typology highlights four models of regulation – the ‘market’, the ‘rules’, the ‘training’, and the ‘professional skills’ models. We discuss how these models, embedded in a bureaucratic, market-oriented or professional approach, shape the regulation of the teaching profession and teachers’ work in different contexts.     

How do teachers learn in the workplace? An examination of teacher learning activities

In this study, two data collection instruments were used to examine how Dutch secondary school teachers learn in the workplace. Firstly, they completed a questionnaire on their preferences for learning activities on two occasions. Secondly, during the intermediate period, they reported learning experiences in digital logs. Results of both instruments indicate that teachers often learn by critical individual reflection and by involving colleagues in particular challenging or problematic situations. An additional finding concerns the reporting of sequences of learning activities in the digital logs which is clearly different from the focus on single learning activities as found in most literature and as used in the questionnaire. Furthermore, the digital logs provided a fine‐tuning of the concepts of ‘involvement of colleagues’ and ‘experimentation’ in relation to teacher learning. The study concludes with a critical reflection on both data collection instruments. Finally, implications for future research on how teachers learn are discussed.     

What if teachers learn in the classroom?

This study focuses on exploring teacher learning in terms of teachers’ professional agency embedded in the classroom. Teachers’ sense of professional agency is related to perceiving instruction as a bidirectional process, use of students as a resource for professional learning and continuous reflection on teaching practices. Accordingly, the capacity to cross the boundaries in teacher learning contributes active professional agency and, consequently to work-related well-being. Hence, the interrelations between teachers’ sense of professional agency and the burnout they experienced were also analysed. Altogether 2310 Finnish comprehensive school teachers, including primary, subject and special education teachers, completed the study survey. The results indicated that active professional agency, promoting both learning and well-being, requires not just reflecting and adapting but also efforts to learn at work. Moreover this requires not just self-directed and active professional practice but also learning at the boundaries and creating new professional knowledge together with students and colleagues.     

How do teachers reason about their practice? Representing the epistemic nature of teachers’ practical knowledge

The present study focused on the epistemology of teachers’ practical knowledge by addressing the following research question: how do teachers attempt to reason about their practices and their practical knowledge? The results indicated that teachers supported their practical knowledge claims using the “practical argument”. Within this conceptual framework, they relied on contextual grounds that call for the fact that something should or should not be “done”, rather than something is “true” or “false”. Contextual grounds, then, were found to be backed up by two significant types of warrants: moral ethos, and “what works” notion. Depending on what kind warrants they used, teachers’ practical knowledge was interpreted to be based on two different epistemic statuses: “practicable” knowledge and “praxial” knowledge.