Parents’ beliefs about young children’s play and nature experiences in Danish and US contexts

Two studies were conducted in the US and Denmark to examine parents’ beliefs about the importance of play and nature experiences for early childhood development. Thirty parents in the US and 19 parents in Denmark completed semi-structured interviews with quantitative and qualitative elements. Although families in both contexts highly valued outdoor and nature experiences, parents in the Danish context provided a stronger rationale for taking children outdoors regardless of environmental conditions and affording them opportunities to explore freely and take risks. Parents in the US focused mainly on individual developmental benefits of play, whereas parents in Denmark also acknowledged the importance of spending time in nature for society and the environment. The findings provide evidence that sociocultural values and expectations influence parental beliefs and practices regarding outdoor and nature play, and have implications for young children’s play opportunities within and across cultural contexts.     

High-stakes teacher evaluation policy: US principals’ perspectives and variations in practice

Principals’ implementation of new teacher evaluation policies in a suburban and rural southeastern area of the United States was examined over a five-year period. This study reports findings on two of eleven interview questions examining changes in principals’ perceptions over time regarding policy concerns and benefits. Findings indicate while initially overwhelmed, principals eventually managed implementation time challenges and later focused on the benefits of evaluation. Secondly, principals quickly integrated the instructional rubric criteria into classroom observations and professional development work. Third, increasing doubts emerged regarding the inconsistent application of the rubric criteria, the inclusion of student test scores in teacher evaluation, and the calculation of teacher effectiveness ratings. The authors conclude that mandating rigorous evaluation policy will not sufficiently address teacher effectiveness and may complicate principals’ instructional leadership. They assert that policy-makers must consider the long-term effects of implementation before substantial teacher evaluation change results.     

Teachers’ attitudes about professional development in high-SES and low-SES communities

Practicing teachers in high-SES and low-SES communities completed a survey that assesses the strength of teachers’ support for professional development (PD), with the goal of determining the extent to which PD initiatives in low-SES communities face obstacles not evident in more affluent areas (N = 150). A multiple regression analysis was conducted on the factor scores produced by the survey, Teachers’ Attitudes about Professional Development (TAP). Support for PD was higher in high-SES communities than low-SES ones, and higher among elementary teachers than secondary teachers in both communities. To the extent that teachers’ attitudes about PD influence the effectiveness of PD initiatives, these attitudes present difficulties in low-SES communities beyond those evident in high-SES areas. Needed are professional-development models, and research that tests them, to determine how best to overcome obstacles that teachers’ attitudes likely cause in PD initiatives in low-SES communities.     

Iranian university students’ experiences of and attitudes towards alternatives in assessment

This study investigated the effect of assessment type (self vs. peer vs. teacher) on university students’ academic achievement and students’ attitudes toward them. In the main study, 82 undergraduate English-as-a-Foreign-Language students in four classes at three universities in Iran were randomly assigned into one of self-, peer- and teacher-assessment or control groups. A pre-test was designed to measure students’ initial knowledge in the subject Teaching Methods. Then experimental groups were subjected to one of the assessment types; however, the control group received no intervention. Thirty-eight students from experimental groups completed an attitude questionnaire. A similarly designed follow-up study was conducted with two classes of BA Chemistry students taking a General English course at Urmia University. The application of one-way analysis of covariance on the main study post-test data indicated differences in performances of all groups, with peer-assessment group performing the best. Quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated that both self- and peer-assessment, as well as the teacher-assessment group, had positive attitudes toward their assessment experiences. The application of one-way analysis of variance on replication study data showed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group on the post-test and that students in the former group had positive attitudes toward self-assessment.     

The constraints on school provision of post-primary physical education in Ireland: principals’ and teachers’ views and experiences

Dated and limited research relating to physical education in Ireland has reported that the subject is in crisis, unable to move forward until the fundamental resources of facilities, staffing and time for physical education are significantly improved. As part of a recent national physical education survey carried out in Ireland, data was collected from principals (n=417) and teachers (n=405) to inform discussion on the level of current infrastructure for physical education in post-primary schools. This paper investigates the areas of physical education facilities, time allocation and staffing, as a contribution to the debate on the way forward for physical education at post-primary level, illuminating both issues of policy and practice.     

Pre-service teachers’ and teacher-educators’ experiences and attitudes toward using social networking sites for collaborative learning

Extensive use of social networking sites by students and teachers makes educators and researchers to think whether they can be incorporated in instructional process to facilitate students’ learning. This survey-based study records and examines Pakistani pre-service teachers’ and teacher-educators’ current uses of Facebook, and their attitudes toward using Facebook for collaborative learning, and to see if there is a significant relationship between participants’ intensity of Facebook use and their attitude toward instructional use of Facebook. Results of the study indicated that pre-service teachers’ and teacher-educators’ motives for their current Facebook use are mainly limited for social purposes. Pre-service teachers’ use of Facebook is more intensified than the use of Facebook by teacher-educators. Further, pre-service teachers showed more positive attitudes toward using Facebook for collaborative learning than the attitudes of their faculty. Findings also indicated a positive relationship between participants’ Facebook intensity and their attitudes toward its use for collaborative learning.     

Whatever it takes! Using a component theory approach with public secondary school principals ‘doing schooling differently’

Purpose: The research seeks to capture the ‘special character’ of schools as seen through the eyes of the Principal and to introduce alternative understandings of ideological praxis’ to challenge and unsettle the dominant ideology and logics of secondary schooling with consequent school design implications in South Australia.

Design/methodology/approach: Using an ideological framework based, the research focussed on the common shared understandings across each school pertaining to each ideology. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and analysed through interpretive and hermeneutic processes.

Findings: The findings show the tensions, subtleties and nuances of two dominant and competing ideologies: a dominant discourse of individual schooling purpose for student mobility and economic productivity and an emerging public purposes ideology of education for good citizenship, sustainable futures and the public good. The dominant neoliberal public policy ideology and the associated historical design logics of conventional schooling is challenged and reconstituted by the experience, expertise, courage, determination and moral purpose of the principals in this research.

Originality/value: This article opens specific ideological understandings held by the Principals that have moved all of the schools towards pedagogical excellence and a repurposing of their organisations for the students’ sake.     

Pre‐service teachers’ preconceptions,misconceptions, and concerns about virtual schooling

Over the last decade, online distance education has become a common mode of study in most states in the USA, where it is known as virtual schooling (VS), but many people have misconceptions about it. Pre‐service teachers’ personal histories as students and their preconceptions, misconceptions, and concerns influence pre‐service teacher training experiences. A qualitative study of an introductory field experience course that included this new mode of schooling for the first time analyzed the personal journals and online discussion responses of 65 pre‐service teachers in the USA. Analysis identified that common misconceptions and concerns included career threat, viability of VS, academic dishonesty, reduced interaction, teacher feedback, and lack of rigor. The curriculum innovations in this innovative teacher preparation program were shown to address these misconceptions and concerns and facilitate understanding and acceptance of VS as an alternative form of education by many of these pre‐service teachers.     

How to Care about the students’ emotions and attitudes and promote their full development

According to the new course standards,The final goal of the language education is to promote all the students’full development.While giving English lessons,teachers should not just train their integrating skills but also care much for their feelings.In that case,students can be helped to build healthy and full peisonalities and good qualities.Both.teachers and students must try to create an active atmosphere in which they respect and understand each other and they’re also generous and cooperative.By this     

Feminism and ‘the schooling scandal’

In this paper I outline an approach towards policy analysis that takes governmentality as its point of theoretical orientation and begin to apply this approach to my research into the recently raised compulsory school‐leaving age in Western Australia. I aim to demonstrate the methodological potentials of this approach by giving examples of the thinking and practices that shape and condition the policy. I commence by situating the school‐leaving age policy within a broader field of reforms occurring under the general banner of neoliberalism and argue that the policy is primarily concerned with the conduct of students classified at ‘educational risk’, and with transforming these students to become more visible, participative and engaged in their schooling. By focusing on the policy rationalities and technologies, and drawing on Foucault’s notion of governmentality, I explore the forms of knowledge and practical strategies that are deployed in this policy field. I contend that this particular deployment narrowly constructs young people’s experiences of schooling in ways that do not allow for a broader debate about their declining school attendance and what should be done to address it     

Becoming a teacher: student teachers’ experiences and perceptions about teaching practice

In an attempt to build a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of the complexity, dynamics and idiosyncrasies involved in becoming a teacher, this study focussed on the experiences of 295 student teachers. Their feelings, cognitions and perceptions regarding teaching practice were analysed using the short version of the Inventory of Experiences and Perceptions of the Teaching Practice. Results emphasise some of the difficulties experienced during this period (e.g., stress, sense of weariness and ‘vulnerability’), as well the positive perceptions of these student teachers regarding their growing knowledge and skilfulness, as well as their sense of efficacy, flexibility and spontaneity in their performance and interactions. Their perception of their accomplishments in achieving reasonable levels of acceptance and recognition within the school community and their positive evaluation of the guidance and support provided by their supervisors are also emphasised. Differences were found – in terms of gender and graduate course background – in the way these student teachers experienced some aspects of teaching practice.     

The influence of trust in principals’ mentoring experiences across different career phases

The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of primary school principals about the influence of ‘trust’ in their mentoring experiences. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in the study. The Primary School Principals’ Mentoring Questionnaire previously developed by the researchers was applied to 1462 primary school principals. As a follow‐up study, focus groups were carried out with 50 school administrators at various career phases in order to gather more in‐depth data about the impact of ‘trust’ in the mentoring process. Results of the study showed that in different career phases, principals attached varied levels of importance to trust in the mentoring process.     

Leadership coaching: a multiple-case study of urban public charter school principals’ experiences

The purpose of our multi-case study was to understand the experiences of non-novice New York City and Washington, DC public charter school principals who had participated in leadership coaching as a component of their leadership development. Eight New York City and Washington DC public charter school principal cases were selected through purposeful sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, documents, and artifacts, which were analyzed, coded and grouped into three broader themes: the coaching process, the impact of coaching, and principal leader identity construction. The findings supported the following conclusions: (a) Participants’ experiences of coaching were inconsistent with the coaching literature; (b) The impact of coaching was shaped by perceived competencies of the coach and the structure of the coaching session; and (c) Participants’ leader identity construction was supported through the process of coaching.     

The dimensions and impact of informal science learning experiences on middle schoolers’ attitudes and abilities in science

Learners encounter science in a wide variety of contexts beyond the science classroom which collectively could be quite influential on student attitudes and abilities. But relatively little is known about the relative influence of different forms of informal science experiences, especially for the kinds of experiences that students typically access. We conduct factor and regression analyses on data collected from a large number of diverse public-school attending 6th and 8th graders drawn from two regions in the USA. Students completed a science reasoning measure and surveys of attitudes, previously completed informal science learning experiences, and demographic factors. Factor analyses identify four dimensions of informal science learning participation (in home, semiformal, nature, and museums). Regression analyses find a relative specificity of effects, with particular outcomes associated with a subset of the forms of informal science participation, highlighting the importance of controlling for correlated factors. There were also a few differences by grade level, with different experiences influencing the development of competency beliefs in science in early vs. late middle schoolers.     

Education with production in Zimbabwe: an evaluation of teachers’ and pupils’ attitudes and perceptions

The terms community development and lifelong learning have been in use for several decades and refer to different areas within the field of adult education. This paper sets out to explore the relationship between these two concepts. It examines the ways in which community development work contributes to the development of an overall system of lifelong education. Recent writing on the idea of the learning society points towards a more holistic view of education, which acknowledges learning in all its forms and venues and which values the many and varied ways in which people learn. The nature of this rapidly changing society demands that individuals and communities take up this challenge, so that they can play their part in shaping the future. This paper is based on research which was carried out in the early 1990s, under the auspices of the Community Research and Development Centre, by one of the authors (RM) as part of a DPhil study. It was constructed with a view to exploring the need for a more holistic, integrated approach to meeting the educational needs of those involved in adult education, community development and community regeneration in Belfast. The research set out to investigate the relationship between the various forms of learning, through an examination of organizations engaged in providing formal, non‐formal and informal adult learning opportunities in Belfast. The results confirm that traditional providers of adult education no longer hold a monopoly over learning and that there is an emerging sector of community and voluntary organizations engaged in providing learning opportunities for adults in their communities. There is some indication that whilst the relationship between traditional and non‐traditional providers is complex, the opportunities for learning which they offer are complementary. The voluntary and community sector emphasizes issue‐based and action‐oriented learning within a democratic, participative culture. Non‐formal providers often seek to support such groups, by providing more structured learning situations. Their programmes frequently offer an alternative adult education to that of the formal providers, who are more concerned with traditional ‘liberal adult education’. Whilst formal providers may try to be more community‐based, they are severely confined by their bureaucratic, hierarchic structure. Informal providers, however, also offer opportunities for more formal adult learning opportunities, through links with formal providers. The existence of this network suggests the basis for a system of lifelong education, which incorporates the range of adult learning opportunities.     

Co-teachers’ attitudes towards planning and instructional activities for students with disabilities

Co-teaching is considered a means for improving the inclusion of students with disabilities in mainstream classrooms. This research employs a mixed methods research approach to investigate teachers’ attitudes towards co-teaching practices for students with disabilities in Greek schools. In total, 400 co-teachers completed a survey questionnaire and 10 of them participated in semi-structured interviews, in which they reported co-teaching practices with regard to planning and evaluation activities, co-teaching models, content of teaching and instructional grouping arrangements. The participants stated that the time they spend to plan and evaluate together is insufficient and that they need more time to perform these activities. In addition, co-teachers were found to use their limited time to separate rather than to co-plan or evaluate co-teaching activities. They reported inconsistencies in the rating of co-teaching activities during planning and evaluation. Even though co-teachers approved a specific stance towards all models of co-teaching, they mainly noted that they implemented supportive co-teaching. Also, they stated that they modify the content of teaching for their students with disabilities, but they limit this practice to individual teaching in order to assist these students to overcome specific difficulties. Finally, co-teachers indicated that they prefer to teach the students with disabilities in mixed ability groups rather than to teach them individually out of the class. The results of this research support those of previous studies with regard to the planning needs of co-teachers and the prevalence of the supportive co-teaching model. In addition, our results inform the field about diverse approaches and inconsistencies in delivering the curriculum and the grouping arrangements for students with disabilities. We argue that professional development on the practical implementation of co-teaching and administrative support are necessary to enhance co-teachers’ activities towards the development of an inclusive culture.     

Exploring the complex and non-linear evolution of Chinese international students’ experiences in US colleges

This article contests the narrative of Chinese international students (internationals for short) as passive and problematic to reveal the complexity and fluidity of their experiences. Simultaneously, it troubles the overly linear approach of stage theory in understanding internationals’ adjustment. Following nine first- and nine second-year students in US colleges over a year and involving them in semi-structured interviews and journal prompts, this research examined how they evolved. Findings show that while participants grew on academic and personal fronts, their experiences remained multi-dimensional, with second years being less sanguine and reporting challenges different from first years. This article argues that seeing Chinese internationals’ evolution as an uneven ascent affords a more nuanced understanding compared to a U-shape stage theory as it recognizes that while internationals are evolving, new situations provide challenges which they learn to overcome. Consequently, Chinese internationals’ growth troubles the deficit discourse around them and departs from pre-existing research around postgraduates. Findings spell implications for how the college community should enhance transcultural understanding and how future research around internationals could develop.     

Connecting college and work: examining the relationship between students’ college employment experiences and their professional and career attitudes

This study examined the relationship between U.S. students’ employment experiences during college/university and their fourth-year professional career attitudes as defined by the Wabash National Study Professional Success Scale, including obtaining recognition from one’s colleagues for contributions to their field of expertise, having administrative responsibility for the work of others, working in a prestigious occupation, making a lot of money and becoming successful in a business of one’s own. This study considered three types of employment experiences (on-campus work; off-campus work; and completing an internship practicum, field experience, co-op or clinical assignment), as well as the number of hours spent engaged in on-campus and off-campus employment, and whether these measures of student employment were associated with students’ fourth-year professional career attitudes. Results suggest that on-campus work experiences, off-campus work experiences; and completing an internship practicum, field experience, co-op or clinical assignment, as well as the number of hours of employment during college have the potential to influence students’ fourth-year professional career attitudes.