Constructing the academic category of teacher educator in universities’ recruitment processes in Aotearoa,New Zealand

An examination of recruitment materials and interviews with personnel involved in the employment of teacher educators to positions in university-based New Zealand initial teacher education (ITE) courses reveals three constructions of teacher educator as academic worker: the professional expert, the dually qualified, and the traditional academic. However, this study’s analysis shows how these constructions allow universities to pursue a bifurcated approach for the employment of teacher educators, an approach that maintains binaries within teacher education and hinders development in the field. Furthermore, as the spectre of a major cultural shift in the provision of New Zealand ITE arises, the extent to which the professional expert and traditional academic constructions of teacher educator might serve the scope of work required of postgraduate ITE going forth is questioned.     

Training confident primary modern foreign language teachers in England: An investigation into preservice teachers’ perceptions of their subject knowledge

The National Languages Strategy, published in the UK in 2002 offers all primary school children an entitlement to learn a Modern Foreign Language (MFL) by 2010. The supply of adequately trained teachers is one of the key determinants of the success of this initiative. This paper presents findings from a study involving 18 teacher education institutions offering a primary MFL specialism, focusing particularly on the preservice teachers’ confidence in their own subject knowledge. A compulsory component of the specialism is a month of practicum abroad and this article explores the potential benefits and difficulties associated with this experience, as reported by the preservice teachers through questionnaires and focus groups.     

The Extent of Mismeasurement for Aberrant Examinees

The person-fit literature assumes that aberrant response patterns could be a sign of person mismeasurement, but this assumption has rarely, if ever, been empirically investigated before. We explore the validity of test responses and measures of 10-year-old examinees whose response patterns on a commercial standardized paper-and-pencil mathematics test were flagged as aberrant. Validity evidence was collected through postexamination reflective interviews with 31 of the 80 pupils flagged as aberrant and their teachers, and teacher assessment (TA) judgments for the whole examination cohort of 674 examinees. Analysis suggested that interview-adjusted scores were significantly better fitting than expected by chance, but only some adjustments suggest serious mismeasurement. In addition, disagreement between TA and test scores was significantly greater for aberrant examinees, and partially predicted the interview adjustments. We conclude that person misfit statistics when combined with TA might be a useful antidote to mismeasurement, and we discuss the implications for assessment research and practice.     

How do students integrate multiple texts? An investigation of top-down processing

European Journal of Psychology of Education - This study describes an in-depth investigation of students’ integration or connection formation across multiple texts. Students were asked to...     

Academic personality and the commodification of academic texts

This paper explores the nature of, and justification for, copyright in academic texts in the light of recent developments in information technology, in particular the growth of electronic publication on the internet. Copyright, like other forms of property, is best thought of as a cluster of rights. A distinction is drawn within this cluster between first order `control rights' and higher order `commodity rights'. It is argued that copyright in academic texts is founded on its role as a means to allow academics to fulfil their role responsibilities. While the possession and exercise by academics of commodity rights can be thus justified in the case of mechanical print-based publication, since this helps make possible the reproduction and dissemination of academic texts, they cannot be so justified in the case of electronic publication. There are nevertheless good reasons to retain various control rights.     

Measuring the attitudes of human service professionals toward deafness

The Attitudes to Deafness Scale is a 22-item measure of attitudes toward people who are deaf designed for use with human service professionals. Attitude statements were generated from personal accounts by deaf people in the literature and from a focus group in which deaf people discussed their experience of hearing people's attitudes toward them. A 60-item scale was administered to a group of 121 clinical and forensic psychologists during their training. Item analysis was conducted to select items that effectively distinguished participants with a positive attitude from those with a negative attitude toward deaf people. The scale may be used in any context where a professional group comes into contact with people who are deaf.     

Faculty Learning Matters: Organizational Conditions and Contexts that Shape Faculty Learning

This study explored the relationships between faculty scholarly learning, faculty teaching learning, institutional support, faculty demographics, disciplinary groups, working conditions, and career outcomes such as retention, productivity, satisfaction, and career agency. We found that the stronger the scholarly learning faculty members reported, the more institutional and unit support they perceived for learning, the more satisfied they were, the less likely they were to intend to leave their institution, and the more career agency they reported. Similarly, we found that faculty members who reported more learning related to teaching reported a decreased intent to leave the institution and increased career agency. We draw implications for the development of work environments that support scholarly and teaching learning.     

Mass Incarceration in California Counties: A Mechanism for Educational Inequality

Abstract

Although there is substantial evidence of the negative effects of being incarcerated or having a father imprisoned, there is little research on the spillover effects created by the concentration of incarceration within disadvantaged communities. This article addresses this limitation by investigating the association between mass incarceration and the educational outcomes of all Black and White children living in a community where many of its members were incarcerated across counties within California from 2009 to 2013.