An examination of the preparation and practice of grades 7–12 mathematics teachers from the Shandong Province in China

This paper presents the findings of a study that examined the preparation and teaching practice of ten teachers of grades 7–12 from the Shandong province in China. This study revealed that a multi-dimensional training system has been developed to help the teachers gradually build up their knowledge base for teaching. The findings of this study indicated that the prospective teacher education emphasized a deep understanding of advanced mathematics, while the teacher professional development provided meaningful and effective ongoing activities for the enhancement of teaching skills. The teacher professional development appears to be an essential supplement to the prospective teacher education for improving teachers’ performance and developing teaching expertise.     

Crosscutting concepts and achievement: Is a sense of size and scale related to achievement in science and mathematics?

This study examined the relationship between students' (N = 229) concepts of size and scale and students' achievement in science and mathematics over a 3-year period. Size and scale are considered one of the big ideas in science that permeates disparate science and mathematics content areas, yet little is known about the relationship between students' conceptualization of size and scale and students' achievement in science and mathematics. The study used a modified panel longitudinal design to follow the same class of students over a 3-year period. The goal was to explore whether understandings of size and scale are related to achievement in mathematics and science. Results indicated a strong positive significant relationship existed between students' understanding of size and scale and students' science achievement in grades 5 and 8. There was a positive significant relationship between students' concepts of size and scale and students' mathematics achievement in grades 5, 6, 7, and 8. An examination of the relationships is included as well as a discussion of the integration of crosscutting concepts into science and mathematics instruction as a way to support deep learning.     

An analysis of first year engineering students’ satisfaction with a support distance learning program in mathematics

An online support distance-learning program in Mathematics was developed to aid first year engineering students for their transition from the secondary to the tertiary education in order to reinforce deficiencies they may have in mathematical knowledge. The aim of the present study is to examine, firstly, to what extent the attendance of such a program helped students to familiarize themselves with distance learning programs. In addition, the students’ satisfaction with the material of the program was examined as well as their attitudes towards a conventional support learning program in Mathematics. The structure and part of the material developed is presented in detail. The basic methodological tool was an appropriately structured questionnaire. The results indicate that students responded positively to the program, which was a basic way of acquainting themselves with distance learning, and were satisfied with the material. The students’ attitudes towards a conventional program was found to be related to their prior experience in distance learning programs. Statistical analysis of the research data yielded 4 basic factors related to the students’ beliefs regarding the support online learning program in Mathematics. These factors were student’s development and progress, satisfaction with the parts of the online support program, their attitudes towards a conventional program while being in the online support program and their familiarization with online distance education. These factors as well as the targeted identification of the students’ needs should be taken under consideration while designing and implementing support online distance learning programs in Mathematics.     

Associations between teacher–child relationships and children's writing in kindergarten and first grade

When children experience conflict in relationships with their teachers during early education, they perform more poorly on measures of language development and overall academic competence. Whereas children who have close relationships with teachers, often perform better on these measures. A close teacher–child relationship may be important for children learning to write, given the complex and personal nature of writing. Yet, scholars have not examined associations between teacher–child relationship quality and children's early success in writing. The current study examined associations between quality of the teacher–child relationship (defined as teachers’ perceptions of closeness and conflict and children's feelings about teachers) and children's writing quality in kindergarten and first grade. Children's receptive language was also investigated as a moderator of these associations. Results indicated teacher–child conflict was significantly associated with children's writing quality, after accounting for grade level, initial reading status, and type of instruction. Findings of the study have important implications for future research and practice. Attention to the importance of conflict in teacher–child relationships and its’ influence on children's literacy learning and development should be included in future research studies.     

Moderating effects of executive functions and the teacher–child relationship on the development of mathematics ability in kindergarten

Academic preparedness, executive function abilities, and positive relationships with teachers have each been shown to be uniquely important for school readiness and success in the early elementary grades. Few studies, however, have examined the joint influence of these readiness variables on early school outcomes. Using data from a prospective longitudinal sample of 1292 children and families in predominantly low-income and rural communities, we found that executive function at child age 48 months and a higher quality relationship with the kindergarten teacher each uniquely moderated the effect of math ability in preschool on math ability at the end of kindergarten. This effect was seen for math ability as measured by the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS-K) mathematics assessment battery but not the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement Applied Problems subtest. For children with lower math ability in preschool as assessed by the ECLS-K Math battery, higher executive function abilities and a more positive relationship with the kindergarten teacher were each associated with a higher than expected level of math ability in kindergarten. Conversely, lowest levels of math ability in kindergarten were observed among children with low math ability in preschool and poor executive function or a less positive relationship with the kindergarten teacher.     

Health and wellbeing and wider achievement: An analysis of teachers’ practices and learners’ experiences in Scottish secondary schools

There is a heightened policy expectation in Scotland that a greater curriculum emphasis on health and wellbeing (HWB) will positively contribute to learners’ reflections on their wider achievements. However, in terms of policy enactment, relatively little is known on the interrelationship between HWB and learners’ wider achievements. To address this limitation, data was gathered from four secondary schools in East central Scotland via an online survey, eight learner group interviews and eight teacher interviews. Findings indicated that learners’ grasp of how HWB connects with their broader achievements was generally vague and imprecise. Despite many areas of positive self-reporting learners’ progress was hampered by their lack of confidence in speaking in front of others and modest sense of school belonging. In addition, the practice gains anticipated through making HWB a more central feature of all learners’ broad general education were constrained by teachers’ variable level of engagement with their new roles and responsibilities, and by logistical problems in recording learners’ achievements. Further research which collects more extensive data on the weaknesses identified and on understanding learners’ HWB experiences better would contribute to a more insightful analysis of how schools enact policy and record achievement.     

Inequality of opportunity for educational achievement in Latin America: Evidence from PISA 2006–2009

We evaluate how far away six Latin American countries stand from a normative goal of equality of opportunity for educational achievement in PISA 2006–2009. We work with alternative characterizations of types: gender, school type (public or private), parental education, and their combinations. Following Checchi–Peragine's (2010) non-parametric method, we find that inequality of opportunity for educational achievement in Latin America ranges from less than 1% to up to 25%, depending on the year, the country, the subject and the specification of circumstances. These magnitudes are substantial with respect to what is found in comparator countries. Parental education and school type prove to be important sources of inequality of opportunity, contrary to gender. By means of sensitivity analyses, while most results show small to moderate variation in terms of magnitudes, in ordinal terms (rankings) they remain quite stable. Brazil stands out as the most opportunity-unequal country of the sample.     

Factors affecting intention to leave in the first,second and third year of university studies: a semester‐by‐semester investigation

As most research into attrition and retention has focused on attrition during the first year of studies, we know little about the relationship between students’ experience of subsequent years and their decisions to withdraw from university. This paper addresses this gap in research by examining the relationship between students’ intention to withdraw from studies and their experience of university in each of the three years of Business degree studies. This empirical research indicates that the factors affecting intention to withdraw are differentiated not only by year but also by semester of study.     

Relationships between epistemic beliefs and achievement goals: developmental trends over grades 5–11

Examining how students’ epistemic beliefs (EB) influence their cognition is central to EB research. Recently, the relation between students’ EB and their motivation has gained attention. In the present study, we investigate the development of the relationship between students’ EB and their achievement goals (AG) over grades 5–11. Previous studies on this topic are limited, in both number and range, and have produced inconsistent results. We performed a cross-sectional study, ranging over grades 5–11, and a 3-year longitudinal study (n = 1230 and 323, respectively). Data on students’ EB and AG were collected via questionnaires. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported a two-factor goal model (Mastery and Performance goals) and a structure of students’ EB comprising Certainty, Source, Development, and Justification. For each grade, students’ CFA scores on the respective goals were regressed on their scores on the EB dimensions by orthogonal projection to latent structures analysis. Although results indicated a weak relation between students’ EB and AG, trends in the cross-sectional data were largely replicated in the longitudinal study. Though naïve EB were in general associated with performance goals and sophisticated EB with mastery goals, the transition to upper secondary school was associated with changes in the relationship between students’ EB and AG. We discuss how the commonly used formulations of EB items may affect their ability to measure the naïve-sophisticated continuum, in turn affecting the predictive roles of EB dimensions.

     

Reciprocal relations between adolescents’ self-concepts of ability and achievement emotions in mathematics and literacy

This longitudinal study examined cross-lagged relations of self-concepts of ability and achievement emotions (i.e., enjoyment, boredom, anxiety) in two central school subjects (i.e., mathematics and literacy). Adolescents (N = 848) reported their achievement emotions and self-concepts of ability four times during Grades 6 and 7. The pattern of results was different for mathematics and literacy subjects. For mathematics the results of random intercept cross-lagged panel models showed a positive reciprocal relationship between self-concepts of ability and enjoyment and a negative reciprocal relationship between self-concept and anxiety. Lower self-concepts of ability in mathematics also predicted higher boredom in mathematics but not vice versa. For literacy, in turn, self-concept of ability did not predict any of the achievement emotions and emotions did not predict literacy self-concept of ability. The results suggest that achievement emotions act as sources as well as consequences of adolescents’ self-concepts of ability, particularly in mathematics.     

Teachers’ use of PowerPoint in kindergarten: An empirical investigation in China

Nowadays, with the rapid progress of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the integration of ICTs in education has attracted more and more attention of educators and researchers. However, there are different situations between developed and less-developed nations both in ICT application and in ICT research. PowerPoint is a readily available and most popular tool for teaching in some less-developed countries. Under this particular circumstance, it is not an outdated issue to explore teachers’ use of PowerPoint in teaching. Thus, this paper systematically looked at teachers’ PowerPoint use in the setting of Chinese kindergartens. Specifically, four questions were explored: (i) the status of PowerPoint-related infrastructures in the kindergartens; (ii) teachers’ use of PowerPoint in teaching; (iii) teachers’ design, competences and training related to PowerPoint; (iv) teachers’ perceptions and attitudes toward PowerPoint in teaching. A sample of 62 kindergarten teachers was investigated with a self-created questionnaire. Finally, it was found that the kindergartens had been well equipped with PowerPoint-related equipments; teachers frequently implemented teaching activities with PowerPoint and in an intelligent manner; the majority of teachers had positive perceptions and attitudes toward PowerPoint’s general effects, but there was an imbalance of perceptions and attitudes toward children’ emotional-social aspects and children’s cognitive aspects. Besides, the influencing factors of the availability and access to PowerPoint equipments in kindergartens, PowerPoint’s location, teachers’ using years of PowerPoint, teachers’ knowledge and skills, teachers’ training were also emphasized by this study.     

Chinese Australians’ Chineseness and their mathematics achievement: the role of habitus

Large-scale international comparative studies and cross-ethnic studies have revealed that Chinese students, living either in China or overseas, consistently outperform their counterparts in mathematics. Empirical research has discussed psychological, educational, and cultural reasons behind Chinese students’ better mathematics performance. However, there is scant sociological investigation of this phenomenon. The current mixed methods study aims to make a contribution in this regard. The study conceptualises Chineseness through Bourdieu’s sociological notion of habitus and considers this habitus of Chineseness generating, but not determining, mechanism that underpins commitment to mathematics learning. The study firstly analyses the responses of 230 Chinese Australian participants to a set of questionnaire items. Results indicate that the habitus of Chineseness significantly mediates the relationship between participants’ commitment to mathematics learning and their mathematics achievement. The study then reports on the interviews with five participants to add nuances and dynamics to the mediating role of habitus of Chineseness. The study complements the existing literature by providing sociological insight into the better mathematics achievement of Chinese students.     

School effects on Chilean children’s achievement growth in language and mathematics: An accelerated growth curve model

This study investigates school effects on primary school students’ language and mathematics achievement trajectories in Chile, a context of particular interest given its large between-school variability in educational outcomes. The sample features an accelerated longitudinal design (3 time points, 4 cohorts) together spanning Grades 3 to 8 (n = 19,704 students in 156 schools). The magnitudes of school effects on students’ growth trajectories were found to be sizeable (generally larger than school effects in Western industrialised countries) and moderately consistent across school subjects. School composition effects on student achievement status were found for both school subjects. However, there was no evidence of composition effects on student achievement growth. The study provides new evidence on the size and nature of school effects in a developing country context based on state-of-the-art methods (i.e., accelerated longitudinal and growth curve models).     

Prior mathematics achievement,cognitive appraisals and anxiety as predictors of Finnish students’ later mathematics performance and career orientation

The aim of this two‐year longitudinal study was to investigate the role and impact of prior mathematics performance, cognitive appraisals and mathematics‐specific, affective anxiety in determining later mathematics achievement and future career orientation among Finnish adolescents. The basic ideas of the control‐value theory, assumed to be culturally universal, and previous controversial results regarding the relationship between mathematics anxiety and mathematics achievement were tested in the Finnish cultural context with a longitudinal design. The key premise of the control‐value theory is that control and value appraisals are significant determinants of both activity and outcome achievement emotions. Our results suggest that mathematics anxiety, a prospective outcome emotion, is determined by outcome expectancies (success or failure) and outcome value (the importance of performing well). They also suggest that anxiety as a negative affective emotion is a problem not only for those who perform poorly but probably also for certain pupils across all achievement levels. Compared with the performance level and with the boys, the girls exhibited inaccurately low outcome expectancies in mathematics. These low expectancies connected to the negative value of failure are a potential cause for their higher anxiety level. The educational implications of the findings are discussed.     

Who is granted authority in the mathematics classroom? An analysis of the observed and perceived distribution of authority

The article deals with the way in which authority was established and interpreted by teachers and students in two Flemish sixth-grade mathematics classrooms. Problem-solving lessons during a seven-month observation period were analysed regarding three aspects of teacher–student interactions that explicitly or implicitly reflect who bears mathematical authority: (1) to whom were students allowed to ask for help; (2) who was allowed to answer students’ mathematics-related questions; and (3) who was allowed to evaluate students’ responses. For each of these aspects, we were interested whether authority was ascribed only to the teacher or whether authority was distributed more broadly, with students being considered accountable for their own and other’s learning process. Interviews with teachers and students were conducted to investigate the meaning that participants gave to the practices in which they were involved.     

Students’ perceptions of mathematics classroom learning environments: measurement and associations with achievement

In this study, we measured students’ perceptions of mathematics classroom learning environment and investigated their associations with students’ achievement. The Mathematics-Related Constructivist-Oriented Classroom Learning Environment Survey (MCOLES) was developed with seven dimensions and 56 items, using theories surrounding classroom learning environment. For a sample of 423 grade 10 students from five schools in India, we validated the MCOLES by exploratory factor analysis and then by confirmatory factor analysis, which suggested the exclusion of 11 items and yielded an 11-factor solution. For achievement on a topic taught, mainly medium correlations emerged with the learning environment factors, suggesting practical implications for classroom teaching. This study is methodologically significant in proposing and validating the new MCOLES for measuring classroom learning environments in secondary-school mathematics.

     

Risk and Protective Factors for Homophobic Bullying in Schools: An Application of the Social–Ecological Framework

Homophobic bullying is a serious concern for students, parents, teachers, and school officials. This article reviews evidence on the status of this problem and how it may be addressed in a multilevel and multidisciplinary manner growing out of a social–ecological perspective on homophobic bullying as a social phenomenon. The ecological framework developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner (1977, 1979) is applied to organize this effort, which includes micro-, exo-, and macro-systems in which behavior and development are embedded. The inherent fluidity of experience postulated by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological approach offers hope that as practices and policy to promote diversity move forward, they will reshape the social ecology of sexual minority youth.     

Pupils’ perceptions of grades: a narrative analysis of stories about getting graded for the first time

The starting point for this article is changes in the Swedish assessment system which stated that pupils are to receive grade reports in school year 6 (12–13 years old) during the academic year 2012–2013. Since the 1970s, compulsory school pupils have received their first grade reports in grade 7 and/or 8. The issue here is to present pupils’ narratives about the possible future significance of grade reports in school year 6. Pupils were interviewed about their experiences of getting their first grade reports, and a narrative analysis was conducted. More specifically, we investigated pupils’ conceptions of themselves as pupils and of their future possibilities, as described in their stories of getting their first grade report. The findings show that pupils perceive grades in year 6 differently, showing both adaption and resistance to the new grading discourse. Our conclusion concerns pupils’ learning and well-being when national assessment policies are changed.     

The impact of time while boarding on students’ academic achievement and social emotional competence: A propensity score matching analysis

This study aimed to determine the impact of consecutive boarding days on boarding school students’ academic achievement and social emotional competence. Data were collected from 6638 students in rural western China. Results showed that, in general, a break every 2–3 weeks had positive impacts, while a break every 4 weeks or more had negative effects on school boarders. More specifically, scheduled breaks that occur once a week, or more frequently, had more positive impacts on primary school boarders, and a scheduled break every 2–3 weeks had more benefits for junior middle school boarders. Additionally, taking a break every 2–3 weeks had more positive effects on both left-behind children and those commuting daily between home and school, but it played more positive role in the former. Therefore, for boarding school managers and policy makers, more attention should be paid to boarding schedules.     

The gifted rating scales—preschool/kindergarten form: An analysis of the standardization sample based on age,gender, and race

This study reports on an analysis of the standardization sample of a rating scale designed to assist in identification of gifted students. The Gifted Rating Scales—Preschool/Kindergarten Form (GRS‐P) is based on a multidimensional model of giftedness designed for preschool and kindergarten students. Results provide support for: the internal structure of the scale; no age differences across the 3‐year age span 4:0‐6:11; gender differences on only one of the five scales; artistic talent; and small but statistically significant race/ethnicity differences with Asian Americans rated, on average, 1.5 scale‐score points higher than whites and Native Americans and 7 points higher than African American and Hispanic students. The present findings provide support for the GRS‐P as a valid screening test for giftedness.