The use of multiple intelligences in criminal justice education

This research explores Gardner's (1983) theory of multiple intelligences (MI) as it relates to career choice among criminal justice majors. The identification of the predominate intelligences of criminal justice majors may help students identify what types of careers suit them best, based on their MI strengths and weaknesses. The data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire of the population of enrolled criminal justice majors during spring 2001. The results of chi-square analyses indicate that criminal justice majors are predominately intrapersonal. Additional findings suggest there are significant differences between career choice and predominate intelligences.     

Research and Teaching in the Science Department of the University of London Institute of Education

This study was designed (1) to analyse the relationship between the answer profile from multiple‐choice questions on stoichiometric problems and the students’ reasoning patterns and (2) to examine the effect for certain variables on the facility values of test items. The instruments used were mainly paper‐and‐pencil tests. The subjects were 6262 grammar school students from all parts of the Federal Republic of Germany. They were randomly assigned to the test items.

The results indicated that many students arrived at their answers by mixing up amount and reacting mass, or molar mass and reacting mass. It was also found that the variables ‘easy/hard calculations’, and ‘formula given/to be developed’ determined the facility values of test items.

From the results, it was possible to make recommendations to practising teachers as well as to examiners. Knowing students’ ideas, the teacher can think of how to make use of them before entering the classroom. A teaching unit may start off with easy problems leaving the more difficult ones for later. Examiners developing new tests on stoichiometry should consider two essential preconditions for the formulae of chemical compounds, used in the item: formulae of the type AB should be avoided and the molar masses of the elements involved must be clearly different.     

‘I know what you are about to enter’: lived experiences as the curricular foundation for teaching citizenship

ABSTRACT

This qualitative multiple case study documents how two African American women social studies teachers utilise their lived experiences as the curricular foundation for teaching differing notions of citizenship to African-American students. Particular events, experiences, and relationships helped shape their perception of their roles as teachers and how they approached crafting a curriculum that was representative of their lived experiences as well as those of their students and community. This study hopes to shed light on how experiences may be used as valuable sources of knowledge in creating a more inclusive curriculum that mirrors the diversity seen in classrooms.     

Teachers´ experiences of school choice from ´marginalised´ and ´privileged´ public schools in Oslo

ABSTRACT

Oslo introduced a combination of school choice, per capita funding, balanced management and accountability in their public schools. Recent studies point out that this has increased segregation. In this study, teachers have been interviewed about their experiences. Bernstein´s classification and framing tools have been used to analyse the consequences for schools and relations between schools and parents/students. ´Marginalised´ and ´privileged´ schools find themselves in negative and positive spirals when it comes to popularity. These spirals are classed, raced and, (in upper secondary school), also gendered. Since attracting the ´right´ students and avoiding getting the ´wrong´ ones is essential for both school categories, school choice creates a mutual interest between the school and privileged parents/students in fortifying the latter´s voice. Three findings are especially interesting: 1. Cream skimming occurs in undersubscribed schools in a strictly public-school context. 2. School choice affects internal priorities in marginalised schools so that segregation at the class level increases, thus the educational context may be more segregated than what is indicated by school level information. 3. School choice increases segregation in the local communities, as two schools near each other may have very different student compositions. Segregation is thus not only explained by segregated housing.     

The journey through college of seven gifted females: Influences on their career related decisions

Using a multiple‐case study design, this research explored influences on choice of major and career related decisions of seven gifted female students from the end of high school through college over a five‐year period. Major findings suggested that academic preparation opportunities that could limit ability to achieve prominence in chosen careers by limiting access to academic programs and institutions were disappearing for females; future orientation that included dual career marriage and family expectations were consistently expressed over time, and changes in choice of major and institution, as well as career indecision were experienced. Career guidance interventions may have facilitated the career decision making efforts of these gifted females and deficits in career development may be a major barrier to career attainment for gifted females.     

Student Perceptions of a Mathematics Major for Prospective Elementary Teachers with an Inquiry‐Based Philosophy

Abstract

In this paper we present data from one-on-one interviews conducted with students who have taken intermediate and advanced inquiry-based mathematics courses in a program that prepares future preK-8 teachers. Many of these students entered college with a fear of math, but then gained confidence from a required introductory math course and chose to pursue a major in Mathematics for Teaching. These interviews help explain their choice to pursue this major and their general experiences in IBL math classes. These insights were used to improve our program and may also help other mathematics instructors and programs that hope to implement an inquiry-based approach in their departments.     

The pursuit of excellence or the search for intimacy? The forced‐choice dilemma of gifted youth

Educators often fail to recognize that the intellectually gifted differ from their age peers in their social and emotional development as much as in their intellectual and academic characteristics. A dilemma peculiar to gifted youth arises through the interaction of the psychosocial drives towards intimacy and achievement, which complement each other in students of average ability, but which place the gifted student in a forced‐choice situation. If the gifted child chooses to satisfy the drive for excellence he or she must risk forfeiting the attainment of intimacy with age peers; if the choice is intimacy, the gifted may be forced into a pattern of systematic and deliberate underachievement to retain membership in the social group. Homogeneous grouping of gifted students is suggested as a partial solution to this dilemma.     

Choice-Based Segmentation As an Enrollment Management Tool

ABSTRACT

This article presents an approach to enrollment management based on target marketing strategies developed from a choice-based segmentation methodology. Students are classified into “switchable” or “non-switchable” segments based on their probability of selecting specific majors. A modified multinomial logit choice model is used to identify “switchable” students and provides insight into the attributes that influence their choice.     

Quality, Evolution, and Positional Change of University Students’ Argumentation Patterns About Organic Agriculture During an Argument–Critique–Argument Experience

The purpose of this study was to investigate the quality, evolution, and position of university students’ argumentation about organic agriculture over a 4-week argument–critique–argument e-learning experience embedded in a first year university biology course. The participants (N??=??43) were classified into three groups based on their epistemological views. Data collected from individual arguments, group deliberations, and individual critiques were coded and analyzed to establish the quality and evolution of argumentation. Results indicated significant improvement in the quality of their justifications between the first and second arguments. Post-hoc comparison of epistemological groups indicated that the more constructivist-oriented students had a greater significant evolution of their justifications than the more empiricist-oriented students, but there was no significant main effect for epistemological orientation. Qualitative analysis of the intervening critiques indicated that some students incorporated or used other students’ arguments or counter-arguments to change their position or to enhance the justification of their original position on organic agriculture, while others appeared to be locked into a confirmation-bias stance and search for evidence that supported their original position and disregarded contradictory evidence.     

PROBLEMATISING ‘STUDENT CHOICE’ IN CLASSROOMS

ABSTRACT

In recent decades children’s rights to exercise choice in educational settings have slowly gained currency. Children’s rights advocates highlight the role of choice in empowering children to become critical and productive citizens. However, in this paper, the role of choice in interactions between teachers and students is problematised. Using Foucault’s notion of governmentality, the paper explores 15 teachers’ use of choice in classrooms and considers how ‘student choice’ can, far from empowering children, be used as a way of reinforcing extant adult-child power relations. The paper argues that students are often responsibilised to exercise choice wisely in order that they find themselves in a position in which they can enjoy everyday classroom privileges disseminated by the educator. When used this in way, the strategy of affording students ‘choice’ can frame students’ transgressions as individual failings to conform. The paper concludes that practitioners who advocate children’s rights need to reflect on the relationship between notions of choice and institutional power relations in order to ensure choice is used in a way that leaves space for power relations to be challenged by the students being asked to ‘choose’.     

Utilizing Additional Measures of High School Academic Preparation to Support Students in their Math Self-Assessment

ABSTRACT

This study describes student behavior through the actual assessment and placement (A&P) process. It then uses an alternative A&P policy that utilizes an additional measure that assesses prior math preparedness alongside subtest choice. Utilizing data from a community college that allows its' students to choose the assessment subtest used to place them, we find a misalignment between students’ subtest choice and the highest math course they passed. After correcting for this misalignment through our alternative A&P criteria, we found that students experience increased access to higher levels of math while exhibiting similar success rates in their placed courses.     

Using climate change scenarios to assess high school students’ argumentation skills

Background: Many international science curriculum documents mandate that students should be able to participate in argument, debate and decision-making about contemporary science issues affecting society. Termed socioscientific issues, these topics provide students with opportunities to use their scientific knowledge to discuss, debate and defend their decisions and to evaluate the arguments of their peers.

Purpose: This study describes the development and trialling of scenarios based on the socioscientific issue of climate change. The scenarios required students to make and justify a decision and were designed to assess students’ argumentation skills.

Sample: A sample of 162 Year 10 students from five schools in Perth, Western Australia participated in this study.

Design and methods: Recent media articles were reviewed to identify relevant contexts for scenarios related to climate change that could be used to develop and assess students’ argumentation skills. In the first phase, students trialled scenarios about wind farms and hydrogen fuel buses using writing frames with scaffolding questions to generate as many reasons as possible to justify their decision. The responses were categorised into themes which were used to prepare a scoring rubric. In the second phase, students generated written arguments about the scenarios to support their decision. The arguments were analysed using both the scoring rubric developed from the first phase and Toulmin’s argumentation pattern of claim, data, backing, qualifier and rebuttal.

Results: Students’ responses to the scaffolded questions were categorised into themes of agriculture, economy, energy, environment, human impact and ethical factors. The themes of economy and the environment predominated with ethical justifications cited infrequently. An analysis of the arguments generated revealed a majority of students’ responses consisted of a claim and data with backings, qualifiers and rebuttals rarely provided.

Conclusions: Scenarios about climate change socioscientific issues can be used by teachers to both develop and assess students’ argumentation skills in classroom settings.     

Using assessment to support higher level learning: the multiple choice item development assignment

This paper describes the multiple choice item development assignment (MCIDA) that was developed to support both content and higher level learning. The MCIDA involves students in higher level learning by requiring them to develop multiple choice items, write justifications for both correct and incorrect answer options and determine the highest cognitive level that the item is testing. The article discusses the benefits and limitations of the scheme and presents data on the largely positive student reactions to the scheme. The development of the MCIDA also serves as an example for how traditional summatively oriented assessment procedures can be developed into tools that directly support student learning.     

Teaching teaching skills

Abstract

The paper examines concerns about the teaching profession as expressed by students in their teacher education program. Differences are analyzed between the concerns of entry‐level (second‐year) students and students in their student teaching (fifth) year. Items students chose as interview questions to ask a practicing teacher were used as measures of concerns. Using content analysis techniques, categories of concerns were developed. Findings indicate that entry‐level students were primarily concerned with their career choice and with the impact of the profession on their own lives. Fifth‐year students were more interested in technical classroom skills and in the impact they would have on their future students. Implications of these findings for teacher education programs are discussed.     

Categories in conflict: Combating the application of an intuitive conception of inheritance with category construction

The idea that characteristics acquired by an organism during its lifetime can be inherited by offspring and result in evolution is a substantial impediment to student understanding of evolution. In the current study, we performed a preliminary examination of how acquiring physical changes in a question prompt may differentially cue intuitive and scientific justifications of inheritance and evolution and how this varies based on how student learned the concept. Middle school students in a suburban northeastern district (N = 314) either learned about evolutionary change with a category construction task (with different levels of feedback support) or completed a worksheet. Three days later students responded to two free response scenarios (one where a physical change is acquired). Responses were coded based on student justifications for either science accuracy or intuitive nature. Specific reasons were coded by justification type with high inter-rater agreement (k > 0.93). Results showed that students were more likely to apply intuitive reasoning when a physical change was acquired (50%) than if the change was behavioral in nature (16%). Additionally, students who completed the category construction task provided significantly more scientifically accurate justifications about inheritance (M = 1.12) than control students (M = 0.47), and significantly less intuitive justifications (M = 0.67) than control (M = 1.13). Finally, category construction produced the most scientific reasoning when feedback was provided. Taken together, these results suggest that intuitive reasoning is differentially applied based on physical organismal changes, intuitive reasoning is less frequent when learning via category construction, and the category construction task is more effective for this population with the inclusion of feedback.     

Enhancing student engagement in student experience surveys: a mixed methods study

Background

Measuring the student experience is becoming increasingly important in higher education in the UK. Student experience surveys are used as indicators of quality and form the basis of rankings of higher education institutions. They are also used by them as tools to assist their quality enhancement initiatives. However, these surveys frequently suffer from low response rates, which can reduce the reliability and usefulness of their data. The UK Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) is a relatively new survey and suffers from a low response rate. As this survey is new, little is known about why students do not respond to it.

Purpose

This study aimed to explore the reasons why postgraduate students do not respond to the PTES.

Sample

Three hundred and fifty-five postgraduate taught students from four health faculties in one UK higher education institution completed an online survey. Of these, seven participated in one of two focus groups.

Design and methods

The online survey was completed both by students who completed the PTES in 2011 and those who did not. This provided us with cross-sectional data to compare both groups’ knowledge of PTES and their reasons for completing or not completing it. We used multivariate regression analysis to explore which variables were associated with response to PTES. We led two focus groups to explore the themes that emerged from the survey in more depth. This data was analysed by two researchers using thematic analysis.

Results

The cross-sectional data found that students who were not clear about the purpose of PTES were less likely to respond, independent of other potential predictor variables. Focus group data indicated that if postgraduate students felt a stronger connection to the university community they may be more likely to respond to PTES.

Conclusions

This study suggests that higher education institutions may wish to review their strategies for advertising student experience surveys to focus more on their purpose rather than their impact.     

Supporting students’ literacy development in the secondary school

Abstract

This paper highlights the importance of teaching all students in inclusive settings multiple literacies through their subject disciplines in the secondary school. After briefly discussing the responsibilities of the major stakeholders in the literacy process, the author provides examples of how strategies can be used to improve students’ literacy skills in the different subject disciplines.     

Modern foreign languages: decision-making,motivation and 14–19 schools

ABSTRACT

This article reports on an exploratory study comparing motivation and student choice in modern foreign language lessons in secondary schools (11–16 or 11–18) and schools for 14–19 year olds in England. The study uses data gathered from 634 Year 10 students (aged 14–15) and uses Self-Determination Theory to compare motivation amongst students in the two types of schools. It finds that student motivation differed significantly in each, with students in 14–19 schools displaying more autonomous motivation. Students in schools in this category were less likely to have been given a choice as to whether or not to take the subject than their peers, suggesting that they may feel autonomous in ways not governed by subject choice. Possible reasons for the differences in motivation in the two kinds of school are discussed and directions for future study proposed.     

Ethnicity,test anxiety and science achievement in Nigerian students

Abstract

This study investigated ethnic and gender differences in test anxiety and achievement test performances of Nigerian junior secondary school students. The sample consisted of 100 Ibibio, 100 Yoruba and 100 Tiv students randomly drawn from four rural schools in each ethnic zone. Each sample consisted of 50 male and 50 female students, between the ages of 11 and 16. Two research instruments, a test anxiety scale and an integrated science multiple‐choice test, were used, Multivariate analysis of variance indicated that: (i) there were significant ethnic and gender effects on the test anxiety and achievement test performance of the students; (ii) there was significant negative correlation between test anxiety and achievement test performances for the ethnic and gender groups of the students, except for the Yoruba female students who had insignificant negative correlation for the two variables. The significant negative correlation remained when the effects of gender and ethnicity were statistically controlled; (iii) test anxiety was affected by the inter‐active effects of gender and ethnicity; (iv) achievement test performance was affected by gender, ethnicity and test anxiety, and their interactive effects.     

Reading from print,laptop computer,and e-reader: Differences and similarities for college students’ learning

Abstract

Digital and print readings differ in their affordances. Past research supports a print advantage, but few studies have used within-subjects approaches or compared handheld devices and multiple reading genres. We compared college students’ reading of several excerpts on paper, a laptop, and an e-reader. Students read on all platforms, completed comprehension tasks, and answered questions on their perceptions and preferences. Results indicated that students’ learning experience with print was superior, with the laptop a close second. In contrast, students’ learning from and perceptions of the e-reader were lower. There was no interaction with reading genre. This research suggests that students’ preference for print remains strong. When digital materials are used, e-readers appear to be a less viable option for academics relative to laptops.