Parent perspectives on student IEP involvement

As key members of the Individualised Education Program (IEP) team and strong child advocates, parents play a critical role in special education. In this study, we sought to understand a crucial, yet underexamined, aspect of special education – parent perceptions regarding student participation in IEP development. Specifically, we asked parents how schools could better support student involvement in the IEP process, including IEP meetings. Participants included 646 parents of students with disabilities aged 5–21 years currently receiving special education services across the United States. Constant comparative analysis was used to code data. Qualitative coding revealed four major themes, including: (1) promoting an active student role, (2) supportive school staff, (3) making changes to IEP meetings and (4) considerations and concerns regarding student participation. Implications for practice and policy are discussed.     

Twelve Ways to Incorporate Strengths-Based Planning into the IEP Process

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act 2004 (IDEA) requires public schools to assure that parents of students with disabilities have the opportunity to participate in Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings. Strengths-based IEPs focus on student strengths and abilities, rather than weaknesses and disabilities, in preparing parents and teachers for the IEP meeting, presenting information at the meeting, and documenting the meeting in writing. As a special education administrator for more than 27 years, the author has experience in working with parents from the strengths-based perspective, including encouraging parents to participate in the IEP process. In 1994 the author, along with parents of students with disabilities, developed a checklist for parents and public school teachers that focused on the strengths-based approach and was intended to encourage parents to participate actively in IEP meetings. Twelve techniques for reducing conflict and encouraging parents to participate in the IEP planning process at the middle and high school level are presented and described.     

Student perceptions of teaching excellence: an analysis of student-led teaching award nomination data

This research explores student voice and student perceptions of teaching excellence in higher education, and authors suggest implications for student engagement and student/staff partnerships in teaching and learning. Edinburgh University Students’ Association facilitates the longest-running student-led teaching awards in the UK, receiving 2000–3000 open-ended student nominations annually which raise the profile of teaching and reward strong teachers. These extensive qualitative data were analysed using aspects of a grounded theory approach to investigate student perceptions of teaching excellence. This research identified four key themes of teaching excellence: (1) concerted, visible effort; (2) commitment to engaging students; (3) breaking down student-teacher barriers; (4) stability of support. This paper explores these themes with respect to theoretical work on teaching excellence and suggests that students’ perceptions of excellence in teaching and student support advance notions of ‘critical excellence’ and ‘moral excellence’.     

Teacher and student voices: a comparison between two perspectives to study integration processes in Italy

Student voice has become increasingly important in educational research at an international level. Research in Italy on school integration of students with disabilities has almost entirely left behind student voice. The very few researches based on student voice suggest that there is a mismatch between student and teacher voices when faced with the same situation. From a methodological outlook, the collection of data through students’ samples implies some difficulties related to the fact that the study regards children and young students. The present issue becomes even more demanding when children with disabilities are taken into consideration. The aim of this research is to demonstrate the mismatch between the data produced by the teachers and the data produced by the students of the same class. These data are the basis for a study on the importance of student voice in research on school integration. The research was carried out as a multiple case study. Nineteen classes with at least one student with disabilities were involved. The teachers filled in a questionnaire with closed questions about school integration, later compared with the students’ answers to the same questionnaire. A structured observation offered the opportunity to triangulate data thus adding new information on the reliability of the two points of view. The main results show that in all the classes there was at least one question with a significant difference between the students’ and the teachers’ answers; the triangulation of data through observation suggested that the students’ perception was as close to observation as their teachers.     

普通高中学生学业评价体系的重构

新课程的评价理念、结构特点和内容都和现行高中的学生学业评价不吻合,有必要重构普通高中学生学业评价体系。新的高中学生学业评价体系分模块水平和毕业水平两个层次、采用包括过程性评价与终结性评价两种方式,简称为2×2的评价体系。过程性评价的主要作用在于促进学生及时地进行反思和展示学生学习的过程。终结性评价可根据模块的内容和类型的不同,组织书面笔试或开放式、表现式的测试。     

中职学校学生社团的问题与对策研究

运用问卷调查、访谈等方法对天津市武清区中职学校学生社团的现状,特别是学生社团存在的问题和对策做了系统的分析和研究。针对武清区中职学校学生社团存在的问题提出宏观上分类指导,微观上细致深入,完善规章,健全制度,聘请优秀指导教师,加强学生社团的投资力度和加强对学生社团的激励保障等对策。     

Student perceptions of Thai university initiations

Recently there have been several sensational reports of serious consequences of freshmen initiation rites at Thai universities. The purpose of this study was to investigate Thai freshmen students' perceptions of the faculty initiation process. For this study, roughly 1,000 freshmen students took a pre-test during the first week of their initiation and a post-test after the initiations were complete. These tests were administered at 18 universities around Thailand during the first term of the 2007 academic year. The results of the survey suggest that initiations seem to have little effect on student perceptions of themselves, the activities, and their institutions. In conclusion, the university initiation process should be reviewed so that it can better focus on helping students get accustomed to life at the university.     

中专学生语文现状分析及对策

随着改革开放的不断深入和发展,如何使学校更好地适应市场的需求,已成为我们探索的目标。不断提高教育与管理水平,是教育者关注的课题。分析学生现状,采取相应对策,应成为我们探讨的课题。     

学校改进中的学生参与问题研究

学生参与学校改进具有重要的理论和实践意义,然而学生却往往成为学校改进的被动接受者.为了保证学生基本权利的实现,为了学校改进最终目标的达成,学生参与学校改进就成了不可忽视的问题.基于对学生参与学校改进原因的分析,本文探讨了学生参与学校改进的三种方式,即给学生赋权、在改进的不同阶段配合不同层次的学生参与、采用灵活多样的形式加强学生和成人之间的对话.     

Student teachers’ positionalities as knowers in school subject departments

Student teachers in England, mainly on one‐year courses, spend the majority of their time in schools. Secondary schools are primarily organised around subject departments, and these subgroups within schools have been shown to be significant for student outcomes and teachers’ experiences. However, research on school subject departments themselves is relatively limited, and developing better understandings of school subject departments is important for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and educational research more broadly. This paper draws on an ethnographic study of three secondary school geography departments to analyse student teachers’ positionalities as knowers within departments. Opportunities for professional discussions within departments are limited, and are often dominated by immediate practical concerns. A social‐realist concept of knowledge–knower structures is used to explore the kinds of knowers accepted as legitimate in these departments. A dichotomous view of teachers as knowers was found, being positioned as knowing or not‐knowing particular areas of subject knowledge. This binary view is argued to be related to the language of the Teachers’ Standards in England. Suggestions are made for improving student teachers’ positions as knowers within departments by planning opportunities to contribute their expertise, and for developing more expansive discourses around subject knowledge to enable all to maximise opportunities to learn from the rich mines of expertise held across ITE partnerships.     

Student perceptions of classroom feedback

Feedback to students has been identified as a key strategy in learning and teaching, but we know less about how feedback is understood by students. The purpose of this study is to gain more insight into lower secondary students’ perceptions of when and how they find classroom feedback useful. This article draws on data generated through individual interviews with 11 students representing four lower secondary schools (grades 8–10, aged 13–15) in Norway. Feedback types are identified from students’ perceptions, coded and indexed. A feedback typology is designed to provide a framework which can be used to reflect on useful classroom feedback based on lower secondary school students’ perceptions.     

Student perceptions of their learning and engagement in response to the use of a continuous e-assessment in an undergraduate module

Student engagement is an important issue in higher education, and is related to the quality of the student experience. Increasing student engagement is one way of enhancing quality at a higher education institution. An institution is able to influence student engagement in a number of ways, one being through curriculum design. The use of a low-stakes continuous weekly summative e-assessment had a positive influence on student engagement in an optional level 5 (second year) undergraduate geography module. Students considered their increased engagement was a direct consequence of this assessment method. It was also found that students thought they improved their learning, particularly their understanding, as a result of the continuous assessment. This study suggests that carefully designed assessments can be used to increase student engagement and learning, and, as a result, contribute to improving the quality of the overall student experience.     

Secondary SENCo leadership: a universal or specialist role?

In this qualitative study, James Oldham, assistant head of the Inclusion Advisory Service, Cambridge Education, and Julie Radford, senior lecturer in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, investigate the tension in the role of mainstream secondary school SENCos. A review of legislation and literature concerning SENCo leadership has suggested that divergent forces are acting on the role, and in‐depth interviews with SENCos in two local authorities were undertaken to gather data on this. It was found that SENCos consider leadership to be highly relevant to their role for reasons dominated by the team that they lead and the influence of more senior staff. Combined with little influence at a whole‐school, universal level, it is suggested that this finding is evidence of divergent forces in operation. The distribution of leadership in schools and pressures regarding the achievement of pupils with special educational needs are proposed as causes and this is presented in a model. Potential problems emanating from this tension are explored and solutions are proposed for future consideration in theory and policy.     

Inclusion: the role of special and mainstream schools

For children with special educational needs, seeds were sown for the move away from segregated settings to inclusion in mainstream settings following the 1978 Warnock Report. However, the ‘special versus mainstream school’ debate was re‐ignited in 2005 when Warnock recommended a more significant role for special schools than previously envisaged. Furthermore, an increase in special school placement has been reported, prompting this investigation of the role of special schools in the current climate of inclusion. Literature from Britain, Europe and New Zealand, including research that listens to ‘the voice of the child’, which compares experiences of children with special educational needs in special and mainstream schools, is reviewed. The findings give no clear indication that either setting leads to better outcomes. Tensions between the inclusion agenda and standards agenda are highlighted. It is concluded that special schools in reduced numbers are likely to remain a feature of the inclusive education system, with recommendations for the development of special–mainstream school partnership links. The quality of the setting, regardless of the type of setting, is emphasised, highlighting implications for staff training in special and mainstream schools. Further research comparing outcomes for children educated in different types of provision is recommended.     

Parental Involvement in School Policy‐Making

A positive school ethos is considered a key factor contributing to successful school improvement. Yet, despite its assumed educational influence, little is known about how ethos in schools is experienced by students. This study takes a fresh look at school ethos through the meanings which final year students attribute to their lived experience of secondary school. Implications for school improvement are considered.     

The inadequacy of individual educational program (IEP) goals for high school students with word-level reading difficulties

This investigation analyzed goals from the Individual Educational Programs (IEPs) of 54 high school students with diagnosed reading disabilities in basic skills (decoding and/or word identification). Results showed that for 73% of the students, the IEPs written when they were in high school failed to specify any objectives regarding their acute difficulties with basic skills. IEPs from earlier points in the students’ educations were also reviewed, as available. For 23 of the students, IEPs were present in the students’ files for three time points: elementary school (ES), middle school (MS), and high school (HS). Another 20 students from the sample of 54 had IEPs available for two time points (HS and either MS or ES). Comparisons with the IEPs from younger years showed a pattern of decline from ES to MS to HS in the percentage of IEPs that commented on or set goals pertaining to weaknesses in decoding. These findings suggest that basic skills deficits that persist into the upper grade levels are not being sufficiently targeted for remediation, and help explain why older students frequently fail to resolve their reading problems.     

Experiences and perceptions of physical education

This research has studied how children and young people, who are deemed by their school to have social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD), experience the National Curriculum of Physical Education (PE) in England. Research has previously highlighted the physical, social, affective and cognitive benefits of participation in PE. Furthermore, practical, physical and expressive creative experiences in education have been cited as being an important constituent when educating children with SEBD. However, research has yet to address the experiences of the child with SEBD alongside the ideological benefits of their participation in physical education. After a period of sensitisation to the field in a number of pilot schools, 24 weeks in total were spent immersed in the cultures of two mainstream schools in the west of England. After six weeks of local familiarisation, during which field notes and research diaries were kept, weekly interviews with each of six case study participants commenced. In this research, a PE environment afforded opportunities to spend time and build trust through co-participation in the negotiation of socially constructed roles in the subject. The six case study participants, whose experiences were explored, make reference to, amongst others: their affinity towards the physical nature of PE, and the perception of it being a subject allowing for freedoms not found elsewhere in the curriculum as well as one which cemented both the positive and negative social systems in relation to their relationships with peers. Inductive processes of analysis utilising constant comparison methods between data sources have generated data which show signs of both the idiosyncratic nature of multiple truths and some common ground in their experiences.     

Student perceptions of quality feedback in teacher education

Many reports have identified a perceived lack of quality in regard to assessment feedback in higher education contexts. One research study in 2007 on undergraduate university students found that less than half of the students (46%) collected their formative feedback, suggesting that from their perspective feedback clearly was not fulfilling the role it should. This is a study of 465 graduate students and 101 undergraduate students studying teacher education at a major Australian university. The study investigated what students perceived to be effective, quality feedback based upon their extensive higher education experiences. Students identified preferences in regard to form, detail and timing of assessment feedback. The data were collected by means of pen and paper survey and identified which strategies the students perceived to be the most effective, particularly within the context of large cohort teaching and written assessment formats. Findings agreed with research elsewhere regarding problems with assessment feedback quality and quantity, but students also provided clear indications of how realistic improvements could be made in terms of assessment feedback processes and strategies.     

New Zealand students' perceptions of parental involvement in learning and schooling

This study investigated the relation between multidimensional aspects of high school students' perceptions of their parental involvement and their achievement. It explored differences in socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicity, gender, and higher and lower achieving students, and a structural model was developed to further investigate these relations. A parental involvement questionnaire and measures of efficacy, liking and achievement in mathematics and reading were administered to a sample of 1,554 New Zealand high school students from 59 schools. In the view of students, there is support for parents to be talking to their children about learning and schooling and having high expectations of them and their future in learning, especially for lower achieving students. Students who claim that their parents are talking with their teachers or attending school meetings are more likely to have lower achievement. The implications from this study relate to developing student self-regulation for learning in home, providing more surface than deeper learning as homework, and assisting parents to learn the language of learning and schooling.     

Student perceptions of their autonomy at University

Learner autonomy is a primary learning outcome of Higher Education in many countries. However, empirical evaluation of how student autonomy progresses during undergraduate degrees is limited. We surveyed a total of 636 students’ self-perceived autonomy during a period of two academic years using the Autonomous Learning Scale. Our analysis suggests that students do not perceive themselves as being any more autonomous as they progress through University. Given the relativity of self-perception metrics, we suggest that our results evince a “red queen” effect. In essence, as course expectations increase with each year, each student’s self-perceived autonomy relative to their ideal remains constant; we term this the “moving goalpost” hypothesis. This article corroborates pedagogical literature suggesting that providing students with opportunities to act autonomously and develop confidence is key to developing graduates who have the independence that they need in order to be successful in the workplace.