Accounting for young children’s competence in educational research: New perspectives on research ethics

Educational researchers working with young children face ethical issues when researching the talk and interactions of young children. Issues around the competence of children to participate in research pose challenges to educational researchers and to the young participants and their families, within what are seen as increasingly risky and regulated research environments. This paper examines some of these issues in light of recent sociological perspectives that account for children as competent practitioners of their social worlds. Drawing on research investigating the governance of the lives of young children in Australia, we examine the rights of children to be both seen and heard as competent research participants. These sociological directions afford opportunities to reconsider the ethical issues around research with young children. Such an approach breaks new ground in early childhood education research.     

Too much freedom and autonomy in the enactment of assessment? Assessment in physical education in Ireland

This paper sets out to outline current discussions in Ireland around teachers being responsible for assessing their own students’ work, and the subsequent impact such a perspective is having (or not) on the delivery and assessment of physical education in Ireland. Our intention is to contribute to assessment considerations, while acknowledging the nuances of the Irish education context, and the positioning of physical education within such nuances. This discussion is particularly timely given the very recent endorsement for the introduction of the new Leaving Certificate Physical Education as a full optional subject. We begin by discussing more specifically assessment in Irish primary and post-primary schools, drawing attention to the limited Irish assessment-related research being conducted in both contexts. We then explore assessment developments related to Irish primary physical education and post-primary physical education and compare the extent to which such developments are limited in comparison to international assessment interests and practices in physical education. We conclude with suggestions related to studying (pre-service) teachers’ and students’ exposure to assessment in order to understand how we could alter the balance of assessment purposes and uses in Irish schools.     

Gender Effects in School Subject Preferences: a research note

Rankings of liking for nine curriculum subjects were obtained from 93 middle school pupils aged 11‐13 years, who also completed the Children's Sex Role Inventory. Statistically significant gender differences in the rankings of English and humanities were found, which were both preferred by girls, and for physical education (PE) and science, which were preferred by boys. Some statistically significant associations between subject rankings and sex typing measures also emerged. Higher rankings of music and humanities were associated with higher Femininity scores, while higher rankings for PE were associated with lower Femininity scores. The only significant association with Masculinity was for English, where higher rankings were associated with lower Masculinity. No significant associations with Masculinity or Femininity were found for science, a traditionally male‐stereotyped curriculum area. Associations found between the rankings of the different subjects indicated a tendency for pupils to prefer either more academic or more practical subjects, but there was no indication from the limited data available on their performance that this could be related to their academic ability. The implications of these preliminary findings for future investigations are discussed.     

ICT for adults with learning disabilities: an organisation-wide audit

Microcomputers have recognised value for people with learning disability (mental retardation) and their use has been a feature of many service settings since the 1980s. Recent technological advances, such as the modern and powerful personal computers with multimedia capability and the Internet, have, however, not yet been widely adopted in day and residential services. The implications of these developments for service planning and management are not fully understood. A survey of microcomputer use for adults with learning disability within The Home Farm Trust, a UK national organisation for people with learning disability was carried out in the light of a planned organisation-wide initiative to introduce modern information and communications technology (ICT) to service users. Results show that there had been a limited provision of computers within the organisation and that staffing and support for the introduction of new ICT were not fully in place. The findings are discussed in the light of research on the organisational requirements for effective ICT use. These requirements were built into the planning of a major initiative to equip the organisation with new ICT for its service users. Future research should lead to simple audit procedures to aid organisations develop effective ICT use.     

Relationships between students' meaningful learning orientation and their understanding of genetics topics

This study explored factors predicting the extent to which high school students (N = 140) acquired meaningful understanding of the biological topics of meiosis, the Punnett-square method, and the relationships between these topics. This study (a) examined mental modeling as a technique for measuring students' meaningful understanding of the topics, (b) measured students' predisposed, generalized tendency to learn meaningfully (meaningful learning orientation), (c) determined the extent to which students' meaningful learning orientation predicted meaningful understanding beyond that predicted by aptitude and achievement motivation, (d) experimentally tested two instructional treatments (relationships presented to students, relationships generated by students), (e) explored the relationships of meaningful learning orientation, prior knowledge, instructional treatment, and all interactions of these variables in predicting meaningful understanding. The results of correlations and multiple regressions indicated that meaningful learning orientation contributed to students' attainment of meaningful understanding independent of aptitude and achievement motivation. Meaningful learning orientation and prior knowledge interacted in unique ways for each topic to predict students' attainment of meaningful understanding. Instructional treatment had relatively little relationship to students' acquisition of meaningful understanding, except for learners midrange between meaningful and rote. These findings imply that a meaningful learning approach among students may be important, perhaps as much or more than aptitude and achievement motivation, for their acquisition of interrelated, meaningful understandings of science.     

Academic staff job change: Winning characteristics in organizational musical chairs

This study examined predictors of job change for academic staff administrators. Analyses of questionnaire data from 143 administrators who had been employed from 1971 through 1978 indicated that predictors of job mobility differ for diverse kinds of moves with two exceptions—age and gender. The four most important predictors for internal institutional change were age, mentor, president of a professional organization, and marital status (married). Planning to move, gender, and editorship, contributed most to external institutional change, whereas age, mentor, gender, and planning to move contributed most significantly to overall job change (adjustedR ²=.439).