Measuring Teachers' Repertoire of Teaching Methods

This research note reports an attempt to develop a measure of higher education teachers' repertoire of teaching methods. It summarises: ? the rationale for wanting such a measure; ? the stages of development of the inventory; ? data from the use of the inventory with 141 teachers; ? relationships between TMI scale scores and scale scores on two other instruments: the ATI and SEEQ; ? problems with the inventory and proposals for the development of an alternative way of measuring repertoire.     

Dialogue and reciprocity in an international teaching practicum

Many teacher education institutions across the world are now initiating and supporting international teaching practicums to better prepare their teaching graduates to teach for diversity. Recently, some of these practicums have embedded service-learning structures and discourses to further encourage pre-service teachers (PSTs) to think beyond their self-interests towards larger ethical and educational questions. This paper employs narrative-based inquiry methods to explore the lived experiences of three co-leaders of an international teaching practicum in South Africa for Australian PSTs underpinned by dialogic service-learning principles. Using Bakhtinian dialogic theory, the authors generate alternative interpretations of reflective narratives they have written, in order to examine the concepts of dialogue and reciprocity in their lived experience of this teaching practicum. The authors conclude that reciprocity and dialogue are indeed valuable discourses for critically researching international teaching practicums with service-learning dimensions, but counsel against romanticising either of these.     

Effective compiler error message enhancement for novice programming students

Programming is an essential skill that many computing students are expected to master. However, programming can be difficult to learn. Successfully interpreting compiler error messages (CEMs) is crucial for correcting errors and progressing toward success in programming. Yet these messages are often difficult to understand and pose a barrier to progress for many novices, with struggling students often exhibiting high frequencies of errors, particularly repeated errors. This paper presents a control/intervention study on the effectiveness of enhancing Java CEMs. Results show that the intervention group experienced reductions in the number of overall errors, errors per student, and several repeated error metrics. These results are important as the effectiveness of CEM enhancement has been recently debated. Further, generalizing these results should be possible at least in part, as the control group is shown to be comparable to those in several studies using Java and other languages.     

Marital Adjustment, Parental Disagreements about Child Rearing, and Behavior Problems in Boys: Increasing the Specificity of the Marital Assessment

2 studies were conducted to illustrate how measuring a specific aspect of marriage, namely, child-rearing disagreements, provides a better understanding of the link between marriage and boys' behavior. In Study 1, 200 mothers of 3-year-old boys completed unstandardized measures of marital functioning and child behavior. An index of child-rearing disagreements: (1) correlated with a greater variety of behavior problems than nonchild disagreements, and (2) improved upon the prediction of behavior problems after accounting for nonchild disagreements as well as after accounting for boys' exposure to marital conflict. In Study 2, 87 mothers with 4-6-year-old sons completed the index of child-rearing disagreements used in Study 1 as well as standard measures of marital functioning and child behavior. Child-rearing disagreements: (1) predicted a greater variety of behavior problems than global marital adjustment, and (2) improved upon the prediction of internalizing problems after controlling for global marital adjustment as well as after controlling for boys' exposure to marital conflict.     

The career development of black and white South African university students

This study investigates the possible influence of gender and culture on the career maturity and study and work role salience of South African students. Responses to the Life Role Inventory and Career Development Questionnaire of 260 first-year university students (137 white, 123 black) were analyzed. Culture was found to have a significant effect on both career maturity and study and work role salience while gender had no significant effect. Results are related to previous findings from international and South African literature. Implications for counselling are discussed.Paper presented at the International Round Table for the Advancement of Counselling Conference, held at the University of Oporto, Oporto, Portugal, 2–5 April 1991.     

An Ecosystemic Approach to Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties in Schools

The ecosystemic approach offers a new perspective on emotional and behavioural difficulties in schools by offering a particular analysis of the interactional patterns observable in social systems. The authors describe the origins of this approach in the realm of family therapy and the field of general system theory, and demonstrate its application to emotional and behavioural difficulties in schools through a survey of relevant literature and the presentation of case study material.     

Thirteen-month-olds rely on shared labels and shape similarity for inductive inferences

This study examined the influence of shape similarity and labels on 13-month-olds' inductive inferences. In 3 experiments, 123 infants were presented with novel target objects with or without a nonvisible property, followed by test objects that varied in shape similarity. When objects were not labeled, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high-similarity objects (Experiment 1). When objects were labeled with the same noun, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high- and low-similarity objects (Experiment 2). Finally, when objects were labeled with different nouns, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high-similarity objects (Experiment 3). Thus, infants who are beginning to acquire productive language rely on shared shape similarity and shared names to guide their inductive inferences.     

Neurocognitive function and joint attention ability in young children with autism spectrum disorder versus developmental delay

Studies have shown that young children with autism are not impaired on prefrontal tasks relative to what would be expected for their mental age, raising questions about the executive dysfunction hypothesis of autism. These studies did not include ventromedial prefrontal tasks, however. The present study examined whether young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are impaired on ventromedial prefrontal tasks, and whether performance on such tasks is correlated with a core autism symptom, joint attention ability. Seventy-two 3- to 4-year-old children with ASD, 34 3- to 4-year-old developmentally delayed children, and 39 12- to 46-month-old typically developing children, matched on mental age, were administered ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal tasks and joint attention tasks. Children with ASD performed similarly to comparison groups on all executive function tasks, indicating that at this early age, there is no autism-specific pattern of executive dysfunction. Ventromedial, but not dorsolateral, prefrontal task performance was strongly correlated with joint attention ability, however. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is hypothesized to play a role in the development of joint attention and possibly some aspects of the autistic syndrome.     

Industry into teaching: an alternative model

Teacher shortages have encouraged initiatives to tailor training programs to meet the demand in both past, current and future contexts. Such programs have been streamlined to ensure a rapid response to shortages, in addition to also drawing participants from non‐traditional groups as a source of potential educators. More broadly in teacher education, recent developments have explored online and other forms of distance education, problem‐solving methodologies and increased site‐based workplace learning opportunities. The Accelerated Teacher Training Program (ATTP) currently offered at Charles Sturt University is based on an innovative model which combines together aspects of best practices to deliver an effective and quality course. This program was developed in response to the NSW Department of Education and Training’s (DET) need to meet the demand for more Technology and Applied Studies (TAS) teachers. This paper will look at the issue of teacher supply and demand and discuss the design, context and implementation of the ATTP, with a special focus on the professional practice and problem‐solving elements of the course.