Critical incidents as formative influences on the work of educational researchers: understanding an insider perspective through narrative enquiry

Drawing on insights from phenomenological sociology and various strands of socio-cultural theory, this paper reports the findings of a qualitative investigation into critical incidents as formative influences in the research orientation and research cultivation of 22 academics working in research-intensive university education departments. The study first outlines the context in which educational research has taken place, focusing on evidence of tension and conflict associated with differences in epistemological and professional orientation. The research findings indicate two ideal-type categories of educational research professional: the ‘intellectual-academic’, motivated primarily by the intellectual virtue of research excellence and accountability to the academic community; and the ‘humanistic-professional’, motivated by service to the wider community. It is concluded that a synergy of both orientations is necessary in producing quality research that is both rigorous and meaningful to a constituency of stakeholders extending beyond the immediate interests of academe.     

Whose Right Is It Anyway? Familiarity with Workers’ Rights Among Older Adults,Family Caregivers,and Migrant Live-In Home Care Workers: Implications for Policy and Practice

Live-in home care provided to older adults blurs the boundaries between private and professional, personal and public matters, and working hours versus off-duty time. As a result, live-in home care workers are at risk for exploitation. The present study examines the extent to which older adults, family members, and migrant live-in care workers are familiar with the rights of migrant live-in care workers. A random stratified sample of adults over the age of 70 who receive home care services was conducted. Overall, 338 migrant live-in care workers, 224 older adults, and 442 family members were interviewed and asked about their knowledge regarding 10 basic migrant live-in workers’ rights. Moderate levels of knowledge regarding migrant live-in care workers’ rights were found. On average, older adults were aware of 4.22 workers’ rights (out of a possible number of 10 rights), whereas family members and migrant live-in care workers were aware of 7.77 and 7.34 rights, respectively. No more than 4% of older adults, 18% of family members, and 10% of migrant live-in care workers were aware of all 10 workers’ rights. It seems that whereas some rights regarding social benefits were well acknowledged, core issues related to the job and to the status of migrant care workers remain unclear. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Teacher education students using TPACK in science: a case study

Teacher education is in the grip of change. Due to the new Australian Curriculum, no longer is it possible to plan and implement lessons without considering the inclusion of Information and Communication Technologies. Simply knowing about the latest technology gadgets is not enough. Information literacy is essential in today’s information-rich learning and working environment. Students and teachers must be able to engage with diverse learning technologies efficiently and effectively in the search for the “right information” at the “right time” for the “right purpose”. Key information literacy and inquiry skills have been recognised as vital learning goals by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority and the International Society for Technology in Education and are thus critical in science teacher education. This paper examines the overlap of technology, pedagogy and science content in the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework and its affordances for science educators, at the intersection between technology knowledge, science pedagogy (information literacy and inquiry) and science content knowledge. Following an introduction of the TPACK framework for science education, the paper reports the research findings, which illustrate that 90% of pre-service teachers thought the experimental unit improved their understanding of the inquiry process, 88% reported more confidence in their understanding of science concepts and 94% of students reported an increase in their knowledge and confidence of Web 2.0 tools in supporting scientific inquiry in science. The implications of this study are that the online inquiry improved students’ knowledge and confidence in the skills and processes associated with inquiry and in science concepts.     

Using art to assess environmental education outcomes

Construction of developmentally appropriate tools for assessing the environmental attitudes and awareness of young learners has proven to be challenging. Art-based assessments that encourage creativity and accommodate different modes of expression may be a particularly useful complement to conventional tools (e.g. surveys), but their efficacy and feasibility across diverse contexts has not been adequately explored. To examine the potential utility of integrating art into evaluations of environmental education outcomes, we adapted an existing drawing prompt and corresponding grading rubric to assess the environmental attitudes and awareness of children (ages 6–12) at summer camps in Athens, GA, USA (n = 285). We then compared children’s drawings with scores on a more typical survey instrument that measured similar outcomes, the Children Environmental Perception’s Scale. Results showed that a drawing prompt was a practical and unique learner-centered tool for measuring distinct components of environmental attitudes and awareness. Findings also revealed different response patterns across the two instruments, highlighting the value of using multiple approaches (e.g. art-based and survey-based) to assess cognitive and affective aspects of children’s environmental orientations.     

Teacher Satisfaction and Turnover in Charter Schools: Examining the Variations and Possibilities for Collective Bargaining in State Laws

Charter schools see as many as one in four teachers leave annually, and recent evidence attributes much of this turnover to provisions affected by collective bargaining processes and state laws such as salary, benefits, job security, and working hours. There have been many recent efforts to improve teacher voice in charter schools (Kahlenberg & Potter, 2014), including engaging in some form of collective bargaining, but we know little about the possibilities dictated by state laws. Therefore, this article describes the possibilities and variations for collective bargaining by state and for different charter types (e.g., conversion vs. newly created charters), as well as laws that have the potential to improve teacher satisfaction in charter schools. Ideally, state laws and the collective bargaining process should provide the appropriate balance between flexibility for charter school leaders, teacher voice, and protections for teachers.     

Role of maturity timing in selection procedures and in the specialisation of playing positions in youth basketball

This study investigated the role of maturity timing in selection procedures and in the specialisation of playing positions in youth male basketball. Forty-three talented Dutch players (14.66 ± 1.09 years) participated in this study. Maturity timing (age at peak height velocity), anthropometric, physiological, and technical characteristics were measured. Maturity timing and height of the basketball players were compared with a matched Dutch population. One-sample t-tests showed that basketball players were taller and experienced their peak height velocity at an earlier age compared to their peers, which indicates the relation between maturity timing and selection procedures. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed that guards experienced their peak height velocity at a later age compared to forwards and centres (P < .01). In addition, positional differences were found for height, sitting height, leg length, body mass, lean body mass, sprint, lower body explosive strength, and dribble (P < .05). Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) (age and age at peak height velocity as covariate) showed only a significant difference regarding the technical characteristic dribbling (P < .05). Coaches and trainers should be aware of the inter-individual differences between boys related to their maturity timing. Since technical characteristics appeared to be least influenced by maturity timing, it is recommended to focus more on technical characteristics rather than anthropometric and physiological characteristics.     

Beyond SumBasic: Task-focused summarization with sentence simplification and lexical expansion

In recent years, there has been increased interest in topic-focused multi-document summarization. In this task, automatic summaries are produced in response to a specific information request, or topic, stated by the user. The system we have designed to accomplish this task comprises four main components: a generic extractive summarization system, a topic-focusing component, sentence simplification, and lexical expansion of topic words. This paper details each of these components, together with experiments designed to quantify their individual contributions. We include an analysis of our results on two large datasets commonly used to evaluate task-focused summarization, the DUC2005 and DUC2006 datasets, using automatic metrics. Additionally, we include an analysis of our results on the DUC2006 task according to human evaluation metrics. In the human evaluation of system summaries compared to human summaries, i.e., the Pyramid method, our system ranked first out of 22 systems in terms of overall mean Pyramid score; and in the human evaluation of summary responsiveness to the topic, our system ranked third out of 35 systems.