Explaining attendance through the brand community triad: Integrating network theory and team identification

In this study, the authors empirically test a model of sport behaviour that integrates both team identification and a network theory approach to understand attendance at intercollegiate ice hockey games. Grounded within the brand community triad, ego network data were collected among attendees to measure the fan-to-fan connections that constitute the horizontal relationships of brand community participants. Additionally, a multidimensional team identification measure was used to illustrate the vertical relationship between individual and team. Both measures were included in a structural equation model to test how both fan-to-fan and fan-team relationships explain attendance. The results from the model support the salience of both dimensions of the brand community triad, suggesting that understanding sport fan behaviour necessitates including both psychological and structural elements of behaviour. Future suggestions for extending the study of sport fans through structural networks are discussed.     

Impressions of ICOTS II

The following short contributions are from people who attended the Second International Conference on Teaching Statistics held in Victoria, August 1986     

A review of research on teachers’ use of student data: from the perspective of school leadership

Despite the increased worldwide acknowledgment of the importance of teachers’ use of formative and/or summative assessment data to improve teaching and learning, empirical research on its impacts on student learning is sparse. Even more so is the lack of studies on the best ways for school leaders to develop teachers’ capacity. Teachers generally have low efficacy in using student data to inform their day-to-day instructions. Teachers lack the basic skills to understand, interpret, and analyze data, develop instructional strategies based on data, and implement research-based instructional strategies in classrooms to address the weaknesses reflected from data analysis results. Any gap in this chain of instructional actions would lead to ineffective teaching and learning in classrooms. This study synthesizes research located from on-line databases on teachers’ data use conducted in the last 14 years and examines the nature, impacts, and shapers of teachers’ use of student formative and/or summative assessment data to improve teaching and learning. This review provides a much-needed guide to school leaders and policy makers in the USA, as well to other jurisdictions that want to make evidence-based decisions in the hopes of improving student learning and teachers’ capacity in data use.     

The policy cycle and vernacular globalization: a case study of the creation of Vietnam National University—Hochiminh City

This article examines the policy cycle and vernacular globalization in the context of higher education reform in Vietnam. Through an analysis of the development of the Vietnam National University—Hochiminh City as part of the post‐1986 reconstruction of Vietnamese higher education, the article considers the complex interrelationship between globalized policy discourses, national interests and history in Vietnam, and the specific politics of policy implementation within one institution. Vietnam National University—Hochiminh City was created through an amalgamation of a number of smaller universities, and against the backdrop of social and economic restructuring aimed at promoting industrialization and a market orientation within socialist governance. The article reveals the dynamic tension between these local and global influences on higher education policy and practice, and more specifically, the dilemmas associated with top‐down policy implementation when a new organization consists of older organizations with powerful provenance and reputations. In so doing the article demonstrates the necessity to globalize policy theory.     

Year 12 students’ attainment of scientific investigation skills

One of the main goals of science education is the development of scientific investigation skills (Bryce & Robertson, 1985; Woolnough & Allsop, 1985). This paper describes a practical test instrument developed to assess students’ attainment of skills associated with problem analysis and planning experiments, collecting information, organizing and interpreting information, and concluding. During administration of the test, students verbalized their thoughts as they worked on the task and their performance was videotaped for analysis. Preliminary results reveal important areas of student weakness and lead to recommendations for curriculum reform. Specializations: Science teacher education, development of problem-solving expertise, concept development and conceptual change, assessment of laboratory work. Specializations: Chemistry education, concept development and conceptual change, role of laboratory work.     

Doing time in the sociology of education

Abstract

This article is both an editorial introduction for this special issue and a distinctive contribution in its own right. The article seeks to extend a dynamic and multiple conception of time to the sociology of education to think beyond the clock time associated with modernity and industrialisation. This need is illustrated through an account and critique of E.P. Thompson’s canonical account of clock time. The article argues that this construction of clock time implicitly frames most work in the sociology of education. The concept of ‘timespace’ offers a way to go beyond both clock time and the current ‘spatial turn’ in the sociology of education that prioritises space over time. It is shown how computerisation also ushers in a new temporality, which works simultaneously with clock time and perhaps presages the move from a disciplinary to control society. The article accepts that there are multiple and dynamic temporalities and correlatively supports a working together of historical and sociological imaginations towards a sociology of education that acknowledges and works with multiple temporalities, empirically, methodologically, theoretically and in research writing.     

International comparative studies in teaching and teacher education

This review of eight papers published in Teaching and Teacher Education over the past twenty years shows how the profession has been impacted by the forces of globalisation. The impact varies in different contexts, according to local factors. The review looks at papers that use explicit international comparisons as a means to bring local contextual characteristics into sharp relief, and discusses the values and pitfalls of this approach. The review concludes by suggesting a possible future agenda for international comparisons, one that seeks answers to the domestic challenges of the Millennium Development Goals and Education for All by looking for solutions overseas. However, international appropriation needs to remain highly sensitive to the cultural context of implementation.