The Behavioural Approach to Teaching Secondary Aged Children (BATSAC): two behavioural evaluations of a training package for secondary school teachers in classroom behaviour management

The Behavioural Approach to Teaching Package (BATPACK) for training primary teachers in the necessary skills of classroom behaviour management was adapted for use with teachers in secondary schools. Drawing on further research carried out in secondary schools, a prototype version of BATSAC (Behavioural Approach to Teaching Secondary Aged Children) was designed and developed and was subsequently piloted in two independent, one‐shot studies. In the first study, carried out with nine staff of a mathematics department, teachers and their classes were observed before and after experiencing the six‐session package. Teachers’ use of disapproval decreased significantly and pupil on‐task behaviour increased significantly but teacher approval was not appreciably different following the course. In the second study, a modified version of BATSAC was employed with a group of 14 teachers and their classes in another secondary school and again teachers were observed before and after the course. In this study teacher approval increased, the use of disapproval decreased and pupil on‐task behaviour increased, all significantly. It is argued that pupil on‐task behaviour changes largely as a result of improvements in the ratio between teachers’ use of approval and disapproval.     

Unpacking the Treatment Contrast in the Head Start Impact Study: To What Extent Does Assignment to Treatment Affect Quality of Care?

Attending high-quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) is associated with higher cognitive and social-emotional skills, especially for children growing up in poverty, but access to high-quality ECCE is limited. This study capitalizes on the random assignment design of the Head Start Impact Study to better understand whether the randomized offer to attend Head Start, a free comprehensive child development program for low-income and at-risk children, raises the quality of ECCE in which children enroll. Multinomial logistic regression was used to isolate the intent-to-treat impacts of random assignment to Head Start on ECCE quality from impacts on enrollment in formal ECCE. Results indicate that children randomly assigned to receive Head Start (treatment), compared to children in the control group, were more likely to enroll in high-quality and, to a lesser extent, low-quality ECCE. Treatment impacts were largest at the high end of the quality distribution, were driven by increased enrollment in Head Start, and differed for 3- and 4-year-olds. These results highlight the important role of Head Start in providing high-quality ECCE for low-income children.     

Conservation,matching, and the variable-interval schedule

The conservation model was generalized to the variable-interval schedule by incorporating the concept of unscheduled instrumental responses, those which occur in the time before the next setup is due. Thirsty rats responded in constant-duration sessions on two 7-sec schedules that required one leverpress for 25 and 50 licks at a water tube and on a 14-sec 25-lick schedule. In accordance with the model, total licks decreased linearly as total presses increased, and the schedules facilitated leverpressing and suppressed licking relative to paired baseline levels of responding. While the matching model also gave a satisfactory fit to instrumental responding under the schedules, its two constants, representing asymptotic rate of responding and extraneous reinforcement, had anomalous values which led the model to predict that response rate would decrease as the rate of reinforcement increased, directly opposing its prediction for the constant-consumption experiments of its previous tests.     

Effective partnership? Perceptions of PGCE student teacher supervision

In England and Wales, Initial Teacher Education depends upon a legal and contractual partnership between schools and higher education institutions in which teacher mentors are often trained to support student teacher development. This paper investigates the much less formal kind of partnership model that has evolved in Scotland, using one university's PGCE (Secondary) programme as a case study. Our research shows that the partnership is based on goodwill and relationships built up over time between university and school staff. However, school staff generally have only a weak understanding of the overall direction of the PGCE programme and they are uncertain about how best to fulfil their role in placement supervision. Partly in consequence, students find it hard to integrate school and university experiences and the quality of placement is very uneven. We identify scope for the development of mentoring skills among teachers and argue that current developments in Scottish education mean that this is a propitious time to begin to strengthen the links between school and university components of PGCE programmes.

En Angleterre et au Pays de Galle, la formation initiale des professeurs repose sur un partenariat contractuel et juridique entre les écoles et les Instituts de formation, c'est‐à‐dire que des professeurs sont formés en tant que mentors pour veiller au bon développement des étudiants. Dans cet exposé nous allons étudier un modèle de partenariat beaucoup moins formel qui s'est développé en Ecosse, en nous basant sur le cas d'étude du programme du PGCE (professeurs du secondaire) d'une université. Nos recherches montrent que le partenariat est basé sur de la bonne volonté et sur des relations bâties au cours des années entre l'université et les enseignants en collège. Cependant en général ces derniers n'ont pas une vision très claire de la direction globale du programme du PGCE et ne savent pas quelle est la meilleure manière de remplir leur rôle de superviseur durant les stages. En partie pour cette raison, les étudiants ont des difficultés à faire le lien entre leur expérience au collège et leur expérience à l'université et la qualité des stages est donc très inégale. Nous constatons donc qu'il faut que les professeurs soient mieux formés à leur rôle de mentor et que—en raison des développements qui ont lieu à l'heure actuelle dans le domaine de l'éducation en Ecosse—le moment est propice pour commencer à créer des liens plus étroits entre les composants universitaires et les stages en collège des programmes du PGCE.

En Inglaterra y Gales, la Educación Inicial del Profesor depende de la asociación legal y contractual entre los colegios y los institutos de educación superior, por donde enseñan a los mentores de profesores a apoyar el desarrollo del profesor en prácticas. Este artículo examina el modelo de asociación mucho menos convencional que ha desarrollado en Escocia, utilizando el programa de PGCE (secundario) de una universidad como estudio de casos. Nuestras investigaciones demuestran que la asociación se funda en la buena voluntad y las buenas amistades que se hace durante cierto tiempo entre la universidad y el personal docente del colegio. Sin embargo, el personal docente del colegio tiene solamente una comprensión floja de la dirección global del programa PGCE, y no está seguro de lo que podría hacer por lo bueno para desempeñar su papel durante la supervisión de la colocación. En cierto modo por consiguiente, los estudiantes tienen dificultades para integrarse en las experiencias del colegio y de la universidad, y la calidad de la colocación es muy desigual. Identificamos el campo de aplicación para el desarrollo de destrezas de mentores entre los profesores, y sostenemos que el desarrollo actual en la educación escocesa significa que ahora es un período propicio para empezar a consolidar las conexiones que hay entre los componentes del colegio y de la universidad en el programa de PGCE.

In England und im Wales, Ausgangslehrerausbildung hängt nach einer zugelassenen und Vertragsteilhaberschaft zwischen Schulen und Ausbildunganstalten ab, in denen Lehrermentors häufig ausgebildet werden, um Kursteilnehmerlehrerentwicklung zu stützen. Dieses Papier forscht die viel weniger formale Art des Partnerschaftssmodells, das sich in Schottland entwickelt hat mit dem PGCE (Sekundär) Programm von einer Universität als Fallstudie. Unsere Forschung zeigt, daß diese Partnerschaft auf dem Wohlwollen und Verhältnissen basiert, die Überzeit zwischen Universität und Schulestab aufgebaut werden. Jedoch hat Schulestab im Allgemeinen nur ein schwaches Verständnis der gesamten Richtung des PGCE‐Programms und sie sind unsicher über, wie man gut ihre Rolle in der Plazierungsüberwachung erfüllt. Teils infolgedessen, finden Kursteilnehmer es hart, Schule zu integrieren und Hochschulerfahrungen und die Qualität der Plazierung ist‐sehr ungleich. Wir kennzeichnen Bereiche für die Entwicklung von mentoring Fähigkeiten unter Lehrern und argumentieren daß gegenwärtige Entwicklungen im schottischen Ausbildungsmittel, daß dieses eine günstige Zeit ist anzufangen, die Verbindungen zwischen Schule und Hochschulbestandteilen der PGCE‐Programme zu verstärken.     

Women and Mentoring in Collegiate Athletics

The number of women working and participating in intercollegiate athletics has steadily increased the past four decades. This has led for a need to develop women as leaders within collegiate athletics and one way of doing this is through mentoring. Mentoring provides guidance in regard to both the professional development and psychosocial support. In our research, we investigated mentoring within the college athletics environment by interviewing female athletic directors and female graduate assistants. Four themes emerged from the interviews: (a) importance of mentorship; (b) quality of mentorship; (c) availability, and (d) lack of female mentorship. Our research builds on the idea that mentorship is important and valued by both the mentor and protégé but the key is determining how to best connect the two groups. This would possibly lead to higher job satisfaction, higher employee retention, and more productive work environment.     

Using communication to manage uncertainty about cervical cancer screening guideline adherence among Appalachian women

Changes to the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations for cervical cancer preventive services have led to patient confusion, especially in medically underserved populations. We investigated how patient uncertainty concerning cervical cancer screening guidelines is appraised and managed through communication with healthcare providers by conducting in-depth, face-to-face interviews with 24 adult women between the ages of 24 and 65 (m?=?41, SD?=?14) living in Appalachia Kentucky. In general, participants expressed a high degree of uncertainty about the updated cervical cancer screening guidelines and appraised this uncertainty as both a danger and an opportunity. Communication with healthcare providers served both to exacerbate and to mitigate patient uncertainty. The study identifies how healthcare providers may use the change in USPSTF guidelines as a “teachable moment” to productively counsel patients on the importance of timely screening, the typical progression of certain types of high-risk HPV (human papillomavirus) infection to cervical cancer, and the importance of follow-up care.     

Knowledge typologies for professional learning: educators’ (re)generation of knowledge when learning open educational practice

Open education resources (OER) and accompanying open education practices (OEP), are changing the education landscape. For educators to take full advantage of the opportunities OER offer they must engage in learning activities to facilitate the extension and adaption of their practice. This paper forms part of a larger study exploring how adult educators learn from and through their engagement with OER in the contexts of their work. Following a quantitative investigation of the learning behaviours of 521 educators around OER use, follow up interviews were conducted with 30 participants. The interviews explore in greater detail the ways knowledge is being (re)generated and used by the educators as they learn new practices with and through OER. Six broad knowledge types were identified as supporting the expansion of practice. The data suggest educators not only require multiple types of knowledge, but also must be able to move fluidly among these different types of knowledge.     

AI in education: learner choice and fundamental rights

ABSTRACT

This article examines benefits and risks of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education in relation to fundamental human rights. The article is based on an EU scoping study [Berendt, B., A. Littlejohn, P. Kern, P. Mitros, X. Shacklock, and M. Blakemore. 2017. Big Data for Monitoring Educational Systems. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/94cb5fc8-473e-11e7-aea8-01aa75ed71a1/]. The study takes into account the potential for AI and ‘Big Data’ to provide more effective monitoring of the education system in real-time, but also considers the implications for fundamental human rights and freedoms of both teachers and learners. The analysis highlights a need to balance the benefits and risks as AI tools are developed, marketed and deployed. We conclude with a call to embed consideration of the benefits and risks of AI in education as technology tools into the development, marketing and deployment of these tools. There are questions around who – which body or organisation – should take responsibility for regulating AI in education, particularly since AI impacts not only data protection and privacy, but on fundamental rights in general. Given AI’s global impact, it should be regulated at a trans-national level, with a global organisation such as the UN taking on this role.     

The Benefits and Trajectory of Digital Editing-Based Media Literacy Among Girls

The societal thin-ideal for women is damaging to the body image of both adults and children. Women representing this thin-ideal in the media are now digitally edited (airbrushed/Photoshopped), creating unachievable goals. A growing body of literature has proposed media literacy training and investigation to help combat the damage of these images on body image. This study assessed the knowledge and impact of digital editing in four female age groups (i.e., 3rd grade, 7th grade, 11th grade, and college students) collected in the U.S. state of Ohio. A within-subjects experimental design both extended previous work on media literacy by examining body image pre- and postexposure to edited images and investigated digital editing knowledge reflection as an intervention on body image harm. The current study also assessed the digital editing knowledge of all participants, creating an age trajectory. College-age emerging adults’ body image decreased after exposure to digitally edited images. However, this decline in body image was smaller when engaging in digital editing reflection. On average, younger participants did not show a decrease in body image after exposure. Results also indicated that girls begin to learn about digital editing around 12 to 13 years of age.     

From the sidelines to the center: reconsidering the potential of the personal in archives

This article seeks to center the personal in archives, both theoretically and methodologically. After briefly reviewing how personal archives have been sidelined in archival theory and education programs, we suggest that whether a record is considered personal or not is best determined not based on who created it but rather on how it is activated. In two separate autoethnographic case studies, the authors activate institutional records that, for each of them, are intensely personal. In doing so, they demonstrate how centering the personal in this way might inform and impact archivists’ understanding of their responsibilities to those who create, are captured in and consult the records in our care.