Scaling a Mountain — A study of the use,discrimination and generalisation of some mathematical concepts in a LOGO environment

The paper will describe pupils’ engagement in mathematical activity, in collaboration with a partner, in an exploratory LOGO programming environment. It will focus on how initial pupil conceptions become progressively more differentiated and generalised. An attempt will be made to describe levels at which pupils, in this particular context, tend to operate with respect to a range of mathematical concepts and processes embedded within the activity, and situations which have provoked ‘changes in level’ that is, where pupils have modified or reorientated their initial conceptions, extended their range of applicability or made new links or syntheses. The general role of conflict, both cognitive and socio cognitive will be considered together with the particular roles of teacher intervention, pupil discussion and computer interaction in both promoting the conflict and aiding in its resolution. Illustrations will also highlight the specificity of cognitive structures constructed within the activity and the crucial importance of the nature of pupil representation of the activity and its relation to the practices from which it emerged.     

Racist Harassment in the White Hinterlands: Minority ethnic children and parents' experiences of schooling in Northern Ireland

The present article explores the nature and extent of racist harassment in predominantly white areas. It is based on a case study of Northern Ireland, and draws on data from in-depth interviews with a total of 32 children and 43 parents chosen from the four largest minority ethnic groups in the region: Chinese, Irish Travellers, South Asians and Black Africans. The article demonstrates that racist harassment is a significant problem in schools in Northern Ireland and highlights the varied forms that it can take, from overt acts of physical and verbal abuse to more covert and subtle forms of teasing and 'friendly' banter. It also highlights the central role that schools play within this. More specifically, some schools were found to respond appropriately and effectively to incidents of racist harassment among their pupils. Other schools, however, through inactivity and/or responding inappropriately, were found to not only indirectly reinforce the racist harassment that was taking place, but at times to directly contribute to it. The article concludes by stressing the relevance and importance of schools developing effective strategies for dealing with racist harassment in predominantly white areas.     

Beyond synthesis: augmenting systematic review procedures with practical principles to optimise impact and uptake in educational policy and practice

ABSTRACT

Whilst systematic reviews, meta-analyses and other forms of synthesis are considered amongst the most valuable forms of research evidence, their limited impact on educational policy and practice has been criticised. In this article, we analyse why systematic reviews do not benefit users of evidence more consistently and suggest how review teams can optimise the impact of their work. We introduce the Beyond Synthesis Impact Chain (BSIC), an integrated framework of practical strategies for enhancing the impact of systematic reviews. Using examples from health professions education, we propose that review teams can optimise the impact of their work by employing strategies that (1) focus on practical problems and mindful planning in collaboration with users; (2) ensure reviews are relevant and syntheses reflexively account for users’ needs; and (3) couch reports in terms that resonate with users’ needs and increase access through targeted and strategic dissemination. We argue that combining practical principles with robust and transparent procedures can purposefully account for impact, and foster the uptake of review evidence in educational policy and practice. For systematic review teams, this paper offers strategies for enhancing the practical utility and potential impact of systematic reviews and other forms of synthesis.     

Oddity of visual patterns conceptualized by pigeons

Pigeons were trained to learn an instrumental oddity-from-sample discrimination involving visual forms. One group, the “few examples” group, dealt with 5 patterns in 40 different combinations. Another group, the “many examples” group, dealt with 20 patterns in 160 different combinations. After both groups had reached asymptotic performance and had learned to operate under partial reinforcement conditions, they were tested for transfer under extinction conditions with two different groups of 5 novel patterns, each in 40 combinations. All animals showed significant above chance transfer to both of these novel stimulus sets. Transfer performance with test stimuli of similar geometric design to training stimuli was better than performance with stimuli of markedly different design. The transfer performance of the “many examples” group was marginally better than that of the “few examples” group, even though the latter’s performance on the training stimuli was better throughout. It is concluded that pigeons can learn to employ an oddity concept and that this may be promoted by the use of many training exemplars. Furthermore, it is inferred that pigeons may normally use a mixture of strategies to solve oddity and identity problems.     

Effects of metacognitive and elaborative activity on cooperative learning and transfer

The effects of instructing pairs of students to engage in metacognitive activities (error correcting and key idea detection), elaborative activities (use of imagery, analogies, etc.), or neither during cooperative learning were examined for both initial cooperative learning and transfer to an individual learning task. The results suggest that metacognitive activity facilitates cooperative learning and elaborative activity facilitates transfer to individual learning. These findings have strong implications for the tailoring of cooperative learning strategies to instructional goals.     

Interpreting Reading Comprehension Test Results: Quantile Regression Shows that Explanatory Factors Can Vary with Performance Level

One of the most important findings to emerge from recent reading comprehension research is that there are large differences between tests in what they assess—specifically, the extent to which performance depends on word recognition versus listening comprehension skills. Because this research used ordinary least squares regression, it is not clear that the findings apply similarly to poor and good readers. The current study uses quantile regression to assess whether there might be differences within tests in the relative contributions of component skills as a function of performance level. There were 834 individuals (ages 8–18) who took 5 reading comprehension tests. Quantile regression showed that, for 3 of 5 tests, the contributions of word recognition and listening comprehension vary as a function of reading comprehension skill. These quantile differences hold across both younger and older readers. Our findings show that what skills a test assesses vary not only with the specific test used but also with how well the person performs.     

Living with children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder: parental and professional views

The number of children diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) is rising and is now thought to be as high as 1:100. While the debate about best treatment continues, the effects of having a child diagnosed with ASD on family life remain relatively unexplored. This article, by Karola Dillenburger of Queens University Belfast, Mickey Keenan of the University of Ulster, Alvin Doherty from the Health Service Executive Western Region, Tony Byrne of Parents' Education as Autism Therapists (PEAT) and Stephen Gallagher of the University of Ulster, sets out to adjust that balance. Drawing upon data from a comprehensive study of parental needs, these authors argue that parental and professional views do not always concur; that families make extraordinary sacrifices; that siblings are affected; and that parents are under tremendous stress. Parents argue that educational and social service supports are not efficient and that they are forced to rely largely on support from within the family or from friends. In particular, some important differences between parental and professional perceptions became apparent in relation to interventions based on Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). The authors of this article propose that these differences need to be taken seriously by teachers and other professionals as well as by policy-makers.