Developing plausible explanations rooted in theory and supported by evidence is a challenge for comparative higher education studies. The purpose of this article is to consider how comparative studies in higher education might develop accounts that allow the research community to enhance explanatory power. Higher education studies can advance explanations about what is happening and why, as well as interpret the meaning of occurrences by drawing broadly on realist scholarly traditions. Rather than prioritising a methodology, the field should prioritise essential questions and address them with all appropriate empirical tools. Avenues for explanatory research include bounded case studies, multi‐method investigations into specific phenomena, mechanism‐based approaches and macro‐social analysis. 相似文献
Though the political advertising literature has documented the effects of political advertising on political attitudes and voting behavior, less attention has been paid to the role of political advertising in stimulating information search. This study seeks to examine the impact of political advertising on real world information seeking using CMAG data from the Wisconsin Ad Project combined with Google Trends search data. Results suggest that increased advertising volume is associated with increased online information seeking. Additionally, this study tests the feasibility of using Google Trends search data as a proxy measure of political information seeking. 相似文献
Background: Physical education teacher education (PETE) programmes have been identified as a critical platform to encourage the exploration of alternative teaching approaches by pre-service teachers. However, the socio-cultural constraint of acculturation or past physical education and sporting experiences results in the maintenance of the status quo of a teacher-driven, reproductive paradigm. Previous studies have reported successfully overcoming the powerful influence of acculturation, resulting in a change in PETE students' custodial teaching beliefs and receptiveness to alternative teaching approaches. However, to date, limited information has been reported about how PETE students' acculturation shaped their receptiveness to an alternative teaching approach. This is particularly the case for PETE recruits identified in the literature as most resistant to change.
Purpose: To explore the features and experiences of an alternative games teaching approach that appealed to PETE recruits identified as most resistant to change, requiring a specific sample of PETE recruits with strong, custodial, traditional physical education teaching beliefs, and whom are high-achieving sporting products of this traditional culture. The alternative teaching approach explored in this study is the constraints-led approach (CLA), which is similar operationally to Teaching Games for Understanding, but distinguished by a neurobiological theoretical framework (nonlinear pedagogy) that informs learning design.
Participants and setting: A purposive sample of 10 Australian PETE students was recruited for the study. All participants initially had strong, custodial, traditional physical education teaching beliefs, and were successful sporting products of this teaching approach. After experiencing the CLA as learners during a games unit, participants demonstrated receptiveness to the alternative pedagogy.
Data collection and analysis: Semi-structured interviews and written reflections were sources of data collection. Each participant was interviewed separately, once prior to participation in the games unit to explore their positive physical education experiences, and then again after participation to explore the specific games unit learning experiences that influenced their receptiveness to the alternative pedagogy. Participants completed written reflections about their personal experiences after selected practical sessions. Data were qualitatively analysed using grounded theory.
Findings: Thorough examination of the data resulted in establishment of two prominent themes related to the appeal of the CLA for the participants: (i) psychomotor (effective in developing skill) and (ii) inclusivity (included students of varying skill level). The efficacy of the CLA in skill development was clearly an important mediator of receptiveness for highly successful products of a traditional culture. This significant finding could be explained by three key factors: the acculturation of the participants, the motor learning theory underpinning the alternative pedagogy and the unit learning design and delivery. The inclusive nature of the CLA provided a solution to the problem of exclusion, which also made the approach attractive to participants.
Conclusions: PETE educators could consider these findings when introducing an alternative pedagogy aimed at challenging PETE recruits' custodial, traditional teaching beliefs. To mediate receptiveness, it is important that the learning theory underpinning the alternative approach is operationalised in a research-informed pedagogical learning design that facilitates students' perceptions of the effectiveness of the approach through experiencing and or observing it working. 相似文献
In late 2013 a new curriculum for Civics and Citizenship education was published by the Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority for use in Australian schools. In line with previous curricular initiatives concerning education for citizenship in Australia a key rationale behind the new subject is the education of “active citizens”. Research evidence over the last 25 years paints a mixed picture regarding the extent to which the translation of policy intent has been successfully implemented within Australian schools. Exploring the new subject of Civics and Citizenship in Australia in the context of previous initiatives and existing research evidence, we explore the contested and complex nature of active citizenship around three key issues – the scope and form of action that constitutes citizenship in one’s communities, how young people themselves conceptualize and experience participation, the potential that active citizenship opportunities are interpreted as being synonymous with the use of active teaching and learning methods. On this basis we argue that the new curriculum provides some optimism for those committed to education for citizenship in Australian schools, but that this optimism needs to be tempered with a degree of caution. 相似文献
First sex marks a significant transition for most adolescents, yet teens often report that it was unplanned. Seventy-four college students participated in exploratory focus groups about their first sex. Although initially asked whether their first sex was spontaneous or planned, many participants revealed evidence of forethought or anticipation, signifying a third option, anticipation. This study suggests that the development and timing of sexual health messages should build on the apparent, albeit often unacknowledged, planning and thought that accompany the transition to first sex. Specifically, during the time immediately preceding first sex, young people might be particularly open to such messages. 相似文献
For more than 30 years, the thinking and writing of Jerome W. Berryman has made a significant and unique contribution to the religious education of children and adults in faith-based contexts. Claiming to be influenced primarily by the work of Maria Montessori, his writings reveal the purpose of religious education to be teaching children the art of using the Christian language system to play at the edges of knowing and being so as to creatively discern meaning and purpose in life. However, a close examination of his many journal articles and books reveal some anomalies in his approach to religious education when compared with the Montessori Method, in particular his focus on play as opposed to work, as well as creativity and the creative process, as opposed to Montessori’s grounding of the imagination in reality. These anomalies, explored in this paper, raise questions about the extent to which Berryman is, in fact, a true Montessorian. 相似文献