Use and Evaluation of Web-based Professional Development Services Across Participant Levels of Support

When participating in a large-scale, web-based professional development program, to what degree do teachers participate? How useful do they find the program? To what degree do they feel supported in their efforts? What are the associations between participation, evaluation of services, and the level of service teachers receive? MyTeachingPartner provides several levels of support to teachers, and each participant’s involvement in the project varies in terms of assigned level, frequency of logging in to the site, and the time she spends on it. This paper compared key data sources, including web navigation logs and teacher survey responses, to describe the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of support, their specific project interactions, and the level of service they receive. We explored ways that a large-scale professional development project such as MTP can benefit from identifying and nurturing those elements that best foster teacher perceptions of support.     

The Catholic School Ethos: its effect on post‐16 student academic achievement

Recent concern with the academic performance of schools has led a number of local education authorities to develop systems for measuring the ‘added value’ that can be attributed to particular institutions in their control. An analysis of data published by one Midlands shire county on the performance of A level candidates in 1992 raised questions about the relative levels of academic achievement of pupils who remained within the Catholic school system compared to those who transferred to local authority institutions for their full‐time education after the age of 16. A small representative sample of students from a Catholic school who had transferred to a non‐Catholic sixth form college to take A level courses was interviewed. The students’ comments suggested they found significant differences in the college ethos compared to that of their previous Catholic school. Those findings together with the analysis or the available data from the local authority, raise issues that merit further detailed research.     

Outcomes of Home-Support Consultation on the Maintenance of Bicycle-Riding Skills for Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Bicycle riding is a functional motor skill that increases physical activity opportunities, social interaction, and independence. However, bicycle riding is difficult for youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to learn. This study examined the effectiveness of home-support consultation (HSC) on increasing the maintenance of independent bicycle riding following initial skill acquisition. Fifty-one youth with a confirmed ASD diagnosis learned to ride a two-wheeled bicycle during a training camp. Twenty-nine riders enrolled in a HSC intervention to promote distributed practice of the learned skill. The control cohort (N = 22) was exempt from the HSC intervention. One year following initial skill acquisition, 62.07% of the HSC cohort compared to 36.36% of the control cohort still reportedly displayed the skill. Within the HSC cohort, riders who reported at least 8 weeks of practice following acquisition on average maintained the skill. Implications of home consultation are discussed.     

New findings for concreteness and imagery effects in written composition

This experiment investigated the effects ofword concreteness and either imagery, verbal,or control strategy instructions on thecomposition of written definitions. Resultsrevealed significant effects of wordconcreteness on several quantity and qualityvariables, but no significant effect ofstrategy instructions or interaction betweenconcreteness and strategy instructions. Results of self-ratings of strategies actuallyused in composing revealed that a mentalimagery strategy was used with concrete wordsand a verbal strategy was used with abstractwords regardless of strategy instructions. Findings replicated the results of Tirre,Manelis and Leicht [(1979) Journal of ReadingBehavior 11, 99–106] in the production ofwritten composition on word relationships, andpartially replicated the results of Sadoski,Kealy, Goetz and Paivio [(1997) Journal of EducationalPsychology 89, 518–526] in the timedwritten production of word definitions. Results are interpreted from Dual Coding Theoryand levels of processing perspectives.     

Panopticism,play and the resistance of surveillance: case studies of the observation of student Internet use in UK schools

The introduction of Internet access into over 30,000 UK schools has led to the adoption of a variety of disciplinary policies, procedures and practices. Critically engaging with writings on panopticism, this paper explores the surveillance of student online activity. It is noted that Internet surveillance in schools includes control through physical observation and limited use of computer databases. For from being passive subjects of observation, some students actively resisted surveillance through physical concealment, virtual concealment and ‘sousveillance’. Noting that an often‐ignored feature of panopticism is entertainment, it is suggested that student resistance of Internet surveillance is best understood in terms of play and the desire to test authority.     

Confusion,contradiction and exclusion: the promotion of British values in the teaching of history in schools

This article discusses the challenges faced teaching the promotion of ‘British values’, especially for trainee teachers. The advancement of these ‘British values’ as set out by the Department for Education is confusing, contradictory, and appear to exclude a sizeable minority of pupils of minority backgrounds from the current historical narrative of Britain as delineated by the National Curriculum (2013). Moreover, there is little advice for new teachers on what these ‘values’ really mean or how they should be taught within schools, despite forming part of the standards required to achieve QTS. The author not only examines this confusion but provides the perspective of a former academic who has moved into secondary teaching, and their reaction to the teaching of History in schools and concerns regarding the History Curriculum.     

Templates,typologies and typifications: neoliberalism as keyword

ABSTRACT

Neoliberalism as a concept, ideology, or theoretical lens has emerged in the last couple of decades as a monolithic presence in education research, and the social sciences more broadly. We bring two aims to this Special Issue: to critique the rigour of neoliberalism as a theoretical framework utilised within education research; and second, to explore and propose an alternative to neoliberalism as a critical frame of analysis. This paper will postulate three-waves of neoliberalism, specifically ordo-liberalism, radical liberalism, and post-neoliberalism. We challenge ‘big-N’ neoliberalism; conceptualisations of neoliberalism as homogenous and monolithic; and, demonstrate how neoliberalism interacts with particular milieus of time and space. In reflection of Williams but also Foucault’s tracing of ‘discursive formations’, neoliberalism as a keyword points to a genealogy of power which requires further excavation. The notion of an assemblage, enabling mutations and contra configurations, may offer a way forward.     

Whatever it takes! Using a component theory approach with public secondary school principals ‘doing schooling differently’

Purpose: The research seeks to capture the ‘special character’ of schools as seen through the eyes of the Principal and to introduce alternative understandings of ideological praxis’ to challenge and unsettle the dominant ideology and logics of secondary schooling with consequent school design implications in South Australia.

Design/methodology/approach: Using an ideological framework based, the research focussed on the common shared understandings across each school pertaining to each ideology. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and analysed through interpretive and hermeneutic processes.

Findings: The findings show the tensions, subtleties and nuances of two dominant and competing ideologies: a dominant discourse of individual schooling purpose for student mobility and economic productivity and an emerging public purposes ideology of education for good citizenship, sustainable futures and the public good. The dominant neoliberal public policy ideology and the associated historical design logics of conventional schooling is challenged and reconstituted by the experience, expertise, courage, determination and moral purpose of the principals in this research.

Originality/value: This article opens specific ideological understandings held by the Principals that have moved all of the schools towards pedagogical excellence and a repurposing of their organisations for the students’ sake.     

The nature of peer sexual health communication among college students enrolled in a human sexuality course

Most young people go to their friends for information on sexuality-related topics, thus it is important to understand the context of these communications so that we may gather insight into sexual values and the underlying emotions and styles of communication. We conducted qualitative weekly surveys regarding discussion of sexual health topics among peers with students enrolled in an undergraduate human sexuality course. A four-stage inductive analysis process was utilized to examine a total number of 824 survey submissions from 102 college students who agreed to participate. Seven relevant common themes emerged: safer sex, sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy, feelings about sex, sexual acts, peer support, and peer communication norms. Some perspectives varied between males and females. Life events create opportunities for peers to discuss sexual health with each other. The connection between life events and peer sexual health communication has numerous implications for both research and education.