Children’s writing of argumentative texts: Effects of indirect instruction

This study reports on grade 4 children’s (Ss) knowledge of constraints and characteristics of persuasive written requests (RQ).

1. All Ss wrote a first RQ asking money to improve their computer lab.
2. Experimental (E) and control (C) Ss evaluated 4 different RQ.
3. selected and ordered, out of 30 scrambled sentences, those appropriate for a “good” RQ.
4. A week later, E Ss had a collective “training discussion” on requests.
5. A week later, E and C Ss wrote a second RQ asking money for their science lab.

Results pertaining to different aspects of the produced RQ showed that the training did have some effects but both groups improved in their II RQ. The results were interpreted as suggesting that both groups actually learned what an appropriate request is by carefully evaluating the 4 requests and by constructing a request from a sentence list.     

Analysis of problem solving strategies on electricity problems in 12 to 13 year olds

Strategies implemented by 12–13 year olds to solve electricity problems are examined. Three factors account for observed strategies:

1. type of problem representation, itself dependent on the knowledge base;
2. cognitive personality dimensions;
3. form of problem statement.

Individual interviews were conducted. Each problem statement contained a perceptual ‘trap’ designed to induce contradictory responses. Strategies were coded for accuracy, latency, justification and control. Five types of problem solving strategies were observed:

1. a strategy based on misconceptions such as the vanishing current model;
2. a similar strategy but greater verbalization of doubt;
3. rush to use formulas;
4. sequential analysis of circuit;
5. application of principles learned in class.

Analysis shows that the target problems fell into two classes: problems that triggered automatic (canonical or calculatory) responses, and problems which were much more disruptive. The latter differentiated students who could handle contradictions and control their responses. Mention is also made of difficulties caused by the signified/signifier relationship.     

The school as a workplace: Extending democracy to schools

The author has a thorough knowledge of the educational scene in the USA. His critical analyses of the “modern” educational theories developed by J. Holt, H. Kohl, Ch. Silbermann, I. Illich and others, and of their — as yet unresearched — application to institutionalized learning and socialisation processes provide very informative insights into the on-going discussion on reform, even outside his own country. Stopsky points to four factors which have had a pronounced influence on the objectives, direction and progress of curriculum reform:

1. The student movement and the stimuli it generated in the civil rights movement and the relations with the “Third World”.
2. The subculture of youth, accompanying this protest movement and partly caused by its lack of success, with its typical phenomena of drug consumption and social disintegration.
3. The disappointment at the failure of the propagated educational reform to establish, e.g., equality of chances and improve the quality of life, and the effects of raising the standards of performance demanded of under-privileged pupils by means of drastic restrictions on admission and entrance examinations implying social selection for higher educational courses.
4. The development of “anti-curricula” in the form and content of “open” or neohumanist education. The favourable reports on experiments with these “pupil-centred” curricula in British schools created a fascinating response from teachers and pupils in the USA, but most colleges rejected the innovation as being anti-intellectual and decided in favour of a “competency based” or “performance based” curriculum.

In this future-oriented paper F. Stopsky attempts to free school from the odium of suffering individual oppression and the resulting fear of the pupils, and to turn it instead into a place where children and adults will work without repression.     

Fifth-graders’ ideas on bank functions and interest before and after a lesson on banking

Forty-three 5th graders participated in all phases of the study:

1. a pre-test to ascertain children’s concepts of deposits, loans, interest, etc.;
2. a classroom lesson;
3. a post-test two weeks after the lesson.

At pre-test almost none of the children realized how banks profit through the difference between loan and deposit interest. Approximately half the children did not connect deposits and loans, believing that deposit money is locked in a safe util it is returned to its owner. By post-test most children had progressed to speaking correctly about both kinds of interest and their relative amounts. The proportion of children showing progress was significantly higher in the subgroup who at pre-test had already connected deposit and loan. Incorrect ideas at pre-test on how the bank gets the money to pay its employees (e.g. revenue received from the local council, or obtained by “the boss” doing a second job) did not prevent the children from correctly answering at post-test. Such success following short training supports the hypothesis that, at 10 or 11 years of age, while children lack factual knowledge on banking there are no major cognitive obstacles to the understanding of its functioning once banking has been explicitly explained.     

Is it possible to measure the intuitive acceptance of a mathematical statement?

The main purpose of the present research was to check the possibility of measuring the feeling of “intuitive acceptance”, experienced by a subject when he offers an intuitive solution to a problem. It was postulated that two dimensions have to be considered and combined: The level of confidence and the degree of obviousness. Almost all the questions asked referred to the notion of infinity. The subjects were pupils belonging to grades 8 and 9. Three main categories of problematic situations have been identified:

1. Problems which got high percentages of correct solutions and high levels of intuitive acceptance.
2. Problems which got two types of contradictory solutions, each of them being accepted with moderate intuitiveness.
3. Problems which got low frequencies of correct solutions and high frequencies of typical incorrect solutions, the second category presenting higher levels of intuitive acceptance than the first (counter-intuitive problematic situations).

     

Measurement of instructional effectiveness

The problem of measuring instructional effectiveness was examined, and a rationale was offered for employing “student progress on relevant objectives” for this purpose. To assess such progress, it was suggested that instructor ratings of the importance of objectives be combined with student ratings of progress on these objectives. On the basis of this suggestion, data were collected from 708 undergraduate classes at Kansas State University. An analysis of these data resulted in the following conclusions:

1. Faculty members appeared to make reliable judgments of the relative importance of these objectives.
2. Student progress ratings were made with acceptable reliability when there were 20–25 raters. Reliability of the overall progress measure was satisfactory when only 10 raters were used.
3. Students used some discrimination in rating progress on various objectives, but their ratings were also noticeably subject to the halo effect.
4. An indirect test of the validity of class progress ratings yielded positive results.

The proposed method of evaluating instruction appears generally feasible and useful. Its application would provide a practical approach to judging teaching success. Such an approach is essential before investigations can be undertaken of how teaching might be improved.     

Contexts for writing,writing in context

The role of context variables is emphasized in recent research on writing, from which a great variety of meanings of the word ‘context’ emerges. The aim of this paper is to investigate some aspects of the identification of context variables in writing research by focusing on three main functions of context:

1. context as a condition for communication, i.e. the ground the writer creates in order to communicate with the reader
2. context as task environment, i.e. the situational variables (task objectives, motivational aspects, media, etc.) which can influence the writing process and/or product
3. context as an interactive framework, i.e. context as constituted by what people are doing, as well as by when and where they are doing it.

     

The preference of Asian overseas students for the United States: An examination of the context

Asian students in increasing numbers have over the postwar period decided to go overseas for tertiary education, and an increasing proportion of those overseas students have selected the United States as their place of study. Eight elements of the changing context of Asian-American relations are identified which influence the Asian preference for American higher education:

1. The improving Asian-American political links
2. The increased volume of Asian-American economic exchange
3. The sharp increase in Asian immigration to the United States
4. The increasing similarity in the structure and content of Asian and American educational systems
5. The absorptive capacity of American higher education
6. The quality of American higher education
7. The complementarity of Asian demand and American supply
8. The opportunities provided in American higher education to cover educational costs through part-time work

     

Planification a long terme du systeme pedagogique Hongrois

This study is concerned with the problem of perspective planning of education. First it considers the underlying conception of the educational system, indicating what are the essential factors in Hungary's national education. The authors then seek, by means of a systems theory conception to give this education a place in society, and in civilization — bearing in mind that national education is “a system of relative independence”. From here they go on to examine the patterns imposed by planning for perspective development. An important section examines planning as a process and considers it as an essential concomitant of the strategy of development in the following phases:

1. the politico-scientific process of formulating the conception.
2. the process of checking the continuing validity of the conception.
3. the decision-making process by which the conception is accepted.
4. the process of initiating and implementing the conception.

The thinking of practitioners of national education may come to regard planning as a permanent and continuing activity. A method of planning the process of continuing-development must be created on three levels, that of the great corporations concerned, that of regional directors, and that of experts in educational practice.     

Explorations in helplessness of higher education institutions in the third world

After independence, the Education Commission called for the creation of new institutions to undertake the task of higher education in technology, agriculture and management. Three models of higher education were imported. In the field of technology the “MIT model” was advocated by the Sarkar Committee. The five Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) were the results of this thinking. The “Land-grant University Model” provided the basis for development of agricultural universities. The “Business School Model” was instrumental in the creation of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) at Ahmedabad and Calcutta. In this article, we explore the implications of importing the “MIT model” in the case of IITs and venture some possible explanations of the feelings of institutional helplessness through in-depth data collected in one IIT. We believe that the “sorting” process implicit in the MIT and the Business school models, in particular, when imposed on the Indian socio-economic milieu has aggravated the isolation of the elites from the realities of the country as well as increased dependence on the West. This, has in turn, resulted in mediocrity and irrelevances even in these islands of intended excellence. The IIT experience serves to illustrate this argument. Our argument is developed through

1. understanding the phenomenon of sorting and how this distances the IIT graduate, in particular, from the rest of the engineering graduates, among others;
2. placing the argument in the perspective of transfer of intellectual technology from the West.

     

Tense alternation: a textual competence in construction. An analysis in three languages: German,Catalan, French

When and whay children change tense subsystem in a written text? 89 French and German pupils and 90 Catalan pupils aged 10, 12 and 14 produced each a fairy-tail, a short news item and a letter. The analysis of tense subsystem alternations in these texts reveals:

1. that the factors explaining alternations are the same in the observed languages
2. that in some cases, alternations are errors induced by the difficulty to master different enunciative levels in the text
3. that most alternations create sense effects in relation to text structure, but since very often no other linguistic unit reinforces the effect created, it may lead to some ambiguity for the receiver.

Nonetheless, the results show that alternation of tense subsystem can be seen as an emerging textual competence.     

Teaching teachers to teach ICT integration—T3

Based upon a nation wide campaign called Public Private Partnership—Schools in the Net (PPP-SiN) (Public Private Partnership—Schule im Netz (PPP-SiN), 2000) we were able to initiate an externally financed project of in-service teacher education. The paper describes the realization of this project. Reflections are given on why teachers hesitate to integrate ICT into their teaching. Media competencies are recognized to be key in this context. We reflect upon the following five questions:

1. How do we educate the right thing as well as educate the right way?
2. Which ambient conditions must be met?
3. Which preliminary actions have to be taken and implemented?
4. Which tools, methods and instruments do we need?
5. How do we make sure that the transfer of learned knowledge will take place to find its way into successful teaching?

     

Implementing the 1981 Education Act

This article examines factors affecting the development and implementation of Education Policy with special reference to the 1981 Education Act for England and Wales. Research is reported about professional practice and administrative behaviour in special education assessment. Six professional and administrative factors are identified which may affect the implementation of the new special education legislation:

1. The nature of the professional domain of special education assessment;
2. The emergence of competing definitions of special educational need and good practice;
3. The concern for professional and administrative accountability;
4. The concern for the rights of users of special education provision;
5. The politicisation of special education through the development of interest groups;
6. The market relations between supply and demand in special education provision.

     

Counselling approaches in Nigerian traditional communities

Guidance and counselling services, which were introduced to Nigeria in 1959, have recently undergone rapid growth. While the approaches of the formalized guidance services have been largely Western, traditional means of approaching an individual's problems have always existed within Nigerian communities. This article identifies areas of traditional counselling that might be used alongside those of the Western system. The special areas examined were those of mural guidance, vocational counselling, marriage counselling and emotional counselling. Findings include the following:

1. Every adult in the society who possesses relevant experience in any problem area is capable of playing the role of a counsellor at least for that particular problem.
2. An individual who is considered in need of guidance is invited into counselling.
3. The early knowledge that work is essential for every adult provides individuals with appropriate skills of choosing satisfying vocations.
4. Individuals proposing marriage undergo counselling.
5. Divination offers a reassuring approach to counselling situation.

     

A plan for the development of a conceptually-based mathematics curriculum for disadvantaged children I: Theoretical foundations

The purpose of this two-part article is to point the way towards more sophisticated educational technologies with specific reference to educating the disadvantaged. In Part I, after summarizing some of the current problems in educating the disadvantaged, a new theory of structural learning is proposed and relationships between this theory, educational technology, and curriculum development are made explicit. This conceptual framework then is used as a basis for planning curriculum development in education. Part II shows in more detail how this plan may be applied in the real world with special reference to three specific projects:

1. An efficient and self-instructional way to diagnose and teach the basic arithmetical skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
2. A systematic way of teaching children how to read critically based on a behavioral analysis of the process in terms of logical reasoning.
3. A plan for in-service teacher education which deals with mathematical processes (as opposed to content).

     

Focus folklore: Reflections of focus teachers on the SCI-TEC in-service project

In June 1988, the SA Minister of Education announced the allocation of $650,000 to boost science and technology in State primary schools. Subsequent allocations have raised funding for Phase 1 and 2 of this ‘SCI-TEC Project’ to over $1m. This level of funding for science and technology in primary schools is unprecedented in Australia. During 1989 the Independent Schools Board sponsored a pilot project along similar lines and in 1990 the Disadvantaged Schools Program of the Catholic Education Office followed suit. Although different structures have been provided, an interactive approach to in-service has been the underpinning for all three projects. This paper examines what has happened in each of these projects so far, and reviews the strategies used to:

1. develop interactive models of in-service education.
2. involve teachers as effective change agents in their schools
3. enhance the impact of focus teachers working in neighbouring schools
4. record the insights of all participants in the projects
5. maintain accountable procedures when using a model of in-service which rejects a ‘top-down’ approach.

     

Predicting faculty success in university graduate departments

This study tests a model of predicting faculty success in the different fields of chemistry, physics, sociology, and political science. The main hypotheses tested and confirmed are:

1. In a field with a low technological development, professional age is more important in predicting faculty success than in a field with a high technological development.
2. In a field with a high technological development, articles are more important in predicting faculty success than in a field with a low technological development.
3. In a field with a low technological development, books are more important in predicting faculty success than in a field with a high technological development.

These hypotheses are tested separately for the tenured and the nontenured faculty groups. The policy implications of this model in regard to the management of graduate departments have been discussed and explored.     

Structure des acquisitions relatives á la maîtrise de la langue française en fin de cours moyen. Analyse des données d’une enquête

A survey commissioned by the French Ministry of Education on mastery of the French language by the end of the elementary grades (11–12 years) was conducted on a sample of 4585 students. The data was used to compare the results obtained on tests of written French designed to measure level of acquisition with ministerial guideline objectives. Three types of analysis were performed, to attempt to define:

1. a pattern of results between grammatical exercises
2. a pattern of results between exercises about use of the French language in context
3. the relationships between grammatical acquisitions and use of language in context.

Two issues arise from this analysis: first, the problem of the relationships between the way the elementary school student analyses language through intuitive understanding of meaning vs rules of formal analysis; and second, the problem of transfer mechanisms which allow information learned in one language situation to be applied to new situations.