Are Environmental Professors Unbalanced? Evidence From the Field

Most outcomes assessment in higher education has focused on content knowledge or skills development; however, attitudinal change is also a legitimate focus of assessment. We use the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) to test whether courses designed to meet the same university environmental literacy requirement changed student environmental attitudes, and whether these changes resulted from instructor and/or course-content effects. We found student environmental attitudes did change significantly but in different directions depending upon who taught the course. The ability to measure such changes adds to the discussion in the environmental education community on the desired nature of attitudinal change and of the responsibilities of higher education instructors.     

Teacher stress and pupil behaviour explored through a rational-emotive behaviour therapy framework

Using the psychological framework of rational-emotive behaviour therapy, the principal aim of this study was to establish whether irrational beliefs, self-efficacy or pupil behaviour predicted teacher reports of stress. A secondary aim was to establish whether these variables, in addition to teachers’ verbal feedback to pupils in class, predicted on-task pupil behaviour. Participants consisted of 58 teachers from five secondary schools, who completed three self-report questionnaires examining teacher stress, self-efficacy and irrational beliefs. In addition, both teachers and pupils were systematically observed in class using a structured schedule. The results indicated that high self-reported irrational beliefs and low self-efficacy predicted high levels of teacher stress. In addition, high self-efficacy and low levels of negative comments directed at pupils’ social behaviour and academic work in the classroom predicted high levels of on-task pupil behaviour. The implications for supporting teachers in these areas are discussed.     

Longitudinal Relations Among Language Skills,Anger Expression,and Regulatory Strategies in Early Childhood

Researchers have suggested that as children's language skill develops in early childhood, it comes to help children regulate their emotions (Cole, Armstrong, & Pemberton, 2010; Kopp, 1989), but the pathways by which this occurs have not been studied empirically. In a longitudinal study of 120 children from 18 to 48 months of age, associations among child language skill, observed anger expression, and regulatory strategies during a delay task were examined. Toddlers with better language skill, and whose language skill increased more over time, appeared less angry at 48 months and their anger declined more over time. Two regulatory strategies, support seeking and distraction, explained a portion of the variance in the association between language skill and anger expression after toddlerhood.     

Evaluating the impact of early years educational reform in Wales to age seven: the potential use of the UK Millennium Cohort Study

Early years education has received considerable attention in recent years, particularly as a result of longitudinal studies that demonstrate the importance of the first few years in a child’s development and educational experience. In 2004, a new approach to early years education, the Foundation Phase, was introduced in Wales. This is a major flagship policy of the recently devolved Welsh Government, and marks a radical departure from the more assessment-driven competency-based approaches to early childhood education that existed prior to the Foundation Phase. Studying approximately 2000 children in Wales who are part of the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), all born in 2000–2001 we investigate the potential impact of the Foundation Phase pilot on a range of key academic and well-being outcome measures. Compared with other children, those attending a Foundation Phase pilot school tended to have lower scores in a number of academic assessments at age seven and lower subjective well-being, in terms of their attitudes to learning and well-being at school. We consider these surprising, yet concerning, results in the context of the methodological limitations to this analysis and propose how the MCS can be further used to substantiate these findings.     

The Use of ICT in Education: a survey of schools in Europe

The Survey of Schools: ICT in education commissioned in 2011 by the European Commission took place between January 2011 and November 2012, with data collection in autumn 2011. This article presents the main findings of the Survey based on over 190,000 questionnaire answers from students, teachers and head teachers in primary, lower and upper secondary schools randomly sampled. The article details the analytical framework design and the survey methodology implemented. It then presents the main ‘state of the art’ indicators that have been built, concerning ICT infrastructure and access to it, frequency of students' ICT based activities during lessons, level of teachers' and students' confidence in their digital competences, their opinion about using ICT for teaching and learning, and the school strategies to support ICT integration in teaching and learning. The article also presents the main findings of the exploratory part of the analysis, introducing the concepts of digitally supportive school, digitally confident and supportive teacher and digitally confident and supportive student, estimating their respective proportion at EU level on average and by country and investigating whether high percentage of digitally supportive schools include high percentages of digitally confident and positive teachers and students. A few recommendations for policy making at European, national, regional/local and institutional levels conclude the article.     

The impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK for doctoral and early career researchers

Higher Education - Doctoral researchers and early career researchers (ECRs) are crucial to producing scientific advancements and represent the future of academic leadership. Their research...     

Up or down and out? A systemic analysis of young people's educational pathways in the youth justice system in England and Wales

Many young people in the youth justice system in England and Wales are educationally marginalised and systemic barriers to their engagement with education persist. This article presents an analytical framework for understanding how education and youth justice practices shape young people's educational pathways during their time in the youth justice system with the aim of understanding the systemic dynamics that encourage or impede young people's engagement with education. It draws on data from a case study of 32 young people who were serving either a community or a custodial sentence under the supervision of one youth offending team in England and Wales. Using as analytical starting points Bourdieu's and Wacquant's conceptualisations of competing dynamics within the ‘bureaucratic field’ of state governance and Hodkinson's careership theory, this article discusses the interplay between exclusionary and inclusionary interests operating within and between the agencies of education and youth justice and the extent to which they play a role in sustaining young people's involvement in education or compounding their educational and social marginalisation.     

Regarding learning: Children’s drawings of learning in the classroom

This article explores drawings of learning in the classroom made by a class of 6 to 7-year-olds in a UK primary school. The drawings were analysed by considering the choices that children made in their drawings in terms of four themes: self and social relations in learning, the physical environment, learning activities, and learning and behaviour. These are discussed using five drawings as examples. A wide range of images was used by the children, although some drew common views of learning. The article warns against assuming that we know how a young person views their learning, or that a class of children share a common view of it. It is also suggested that talk about such drawings can make a contribution to a joint exploration of understandings of learning by teachers and children.     

Caddie woodlawn: A feminist case study

Caroline Zilboorg is an associate professor of English at Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio. She has just finished editingRichard Aldington and H.D.: The Early Years in Letters, 1918–1920 (forthcoming from the University of Indiana Press) and is currently working on a book-length study of H.D.