Conceptions of literacy in primary and secondary school teachers

Recently, teachers have been described as lacking an organised and consistent understanding of how children acquire literacy. Arguments about falling standards have been aired in the media, and links drawn between methods currently in favour in UK schools, and an apparent failure of children to acquire ‘basic skills'. Proposals have now been made by the Department for Education which give greater prominence to more structured, skill-based primary teaching which, it is claimed, will raise standards and better prepare children to meet the demands they face as they move into secondary school. This study analyses teachers’ conceptual maps of literacy teaching as the preliminary phase of a research programme aimed at describing and enhancing pupils’ functional use of literacy across the curriculum. The analysis is based on a four-quadrant model of adult-child proximation. Using a questionnaire format, important similarities and contrasts were found between the views of primary and secondary teachers. However, the study does reveal that teachers have complex models of literacy which underpin their work and do not adhere to simplistic, uni-dimensional methods.     

The Riddle of Sustainable Development and the Role of Environmental Education

This paper is largely concerned with exploring the meaning of sustainable development from two perspectives, the economic and the ethical. The economic perspective raises questions such as: what kind of development is to be sustained? Is it economic growth? Quality of life? Ecosystem integrity? The ethical perspective considers questions such as: what should be the criteria for ‘progress'? What is our moral obligation to future generations? The paper argues that education for sustainability programmes ought to acknowledge and address these questions. If they do not, then, given the complexity and volatility of late 20th century global society, the current stress on education playing a major role in achieving sustainability (IUCN, UNEP & WWF, 1991) may be unduly naïve and under‐theorised. Finally, I contend that the goals of environmental education need to be reconceptualised, continually and reflexively, in response to the globalisation of industrial risks.     

Fragile knowledge of angle in turtle geometry

This paper describes an investigation into how the use of Logo affects children's basic knowledge of angle. It shows that teachers should not assume that unstructured use of Logo with a minimum of teacher intervention will have a beneficial effect on children's knowledge of angle and how it is measured. It appears to be the case that children make erroneous adjustments to their conceptual knowledge of angle in order to accommodate the results of an acquired procedural interaction with the computer.     

A comparative study of students' and their teacher's perceptions of laboratory work in secondary schools

This article reports on a study of student and teacher perceptions of the purpose and effectiveness of laboratory work in science at the Year 10 level of secondary school. The main focus of the study was a comparison between the perceptions of one class of students and their teacher at each of six different schools with regard to the aims, regularity, conduct and assessment of laboratory work. The study identified a number of areas of mismatch between students and their teachers. The findings of the study will be of use to teachers in developing and improving their science curriculum, particularly with regard to laboratory work.     

A validation framework for science learning progression research

This article provides a validation framework for research on the development and use of science Learning Progressions (LPs). The framework describes how evidence from various sources can be used to establish an interpretive argument and a validity argument at five stages of LP research—development, scoring, generalisation, extrapolation, and use. The interpretation argument contains the interpretation (i.e. the LP and conclusions about students’ proficiency generated based on the LP) and the use of the LP. The validity argument specifies how the evidence from various sources supports the interpretation and the use of the LP. Examples from our prior and current research are used to illustrate the validation activities and analyses that can be conducted at each of the five stages. When conducting an LP study, researchers may use one or more validation activities or analyses that are theoretically necessary and practically applicable in their specific research contexts.     

Levels of Analysis in Higher Education Research

Tertiary Education and Management - This article examines the levels of analysis adopted in higher education research, using a database of 567 articles published in 15 leading higher education...     

The Re-Location of Higher Education

The recent expansion in participation in higher education in England also has a locational dimension, though this is usually overlooked. Three periods of expansion in university numbers may be identified during the twentieth century—in the 1900s, in the 1950s and 1960s, and most, recently, in the 1990s—interspersed by periods of stasis. Colleges of higher education and of further education also currently have an important role in localising study opportunities. The processes behind this expansion have involved both academic drift, the tendency for institutions to aspire to higher status, and 'academic expurgation', their tendency to drop lower level work. While the periodic creation of new universities has grabbed attention, much of the'background'growth in student numbers between times has been part-time. The distribution of higher education study opportunities across the country remains, however, very uneven, with the rural counties on the northern, eastern, western and south-western peripheries of the country poorly provided for.     

Students' preferences for discipline practices in schools

Data on pupils' perceptions of the classroom discipline techniques of “good” teachers are compared for Australian, U.S., and Norwegian pupils. The results indicate remarkable similarity in the pupils' preferences.