Teachers’ Perceptions of Appraiser–Appraisee Relationships

Teacher appraisal procedures may lead to formative (teacher development and improvement of teaching) and summative (managerial decision) outcomes. Elementary school teachers in Hong Kong (N=527) responded to survey items on formative outcomes, summative outcomes, perceived purposes of appraisal, overall effectiveness of appraisal, and summative purposes such as promotion and dismissal of staff. Principal components analysis and confirmatory factor analysis yielded the two a priori outcome factors, each of which was significantly correlated with perceived overall effectiveness of appraisal. Analysis of variance found that senior teachers appraised by the school principal (SP) perceived that appraisal had formative purposes and this perception was stronger than for those teachers appraised by senior staff (TS). Teachers in the TS group did not perceive the importance of the promotion purpose as did the other groups. Teachers appraised by the principal (TP) perceived that appraisal had dismissal purposes whereas teachers in the TS group did not. Although the three groups did not differ in their perceptions of formative outcomes, summative outcomes, or overall effectiveness of teacher appraisal, the appraiser-appraisee combination did make a significant difference in teacher perceptions of the purposes and appropriateness of the appraisal.     

Promoting Language and Literacy Development through Parent-Child Reading in Hong Kong Preschoolers

Eighty-six Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten children were pretested on the Preschool and Primary Chinese Literacy Scale (PPCLS) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Third Edition (PPVT-III), and assigned randomly within schools to 1 of 3 conditions, dialogic reading, typical reading and control. After an 8- week intervention, the children were posttested. Results indicated a significant main group effect for performance on both the PPCLS and the PPVT-III, with children in the dialogic reading group benefiting significantly from the intervention. These results indicate that early literacy-related activities in the home have strong and direct effects on both children's literacy growth and language development in Chinese. The success of the dialogic reading technique in this study contributes to the goal of raising global literacy standards and educational achievement.     

Discriminative stimuli that follow the absence of reinforcement are preferred by pigeons over those that follow reinforcement

Clement, Feltus, Kaiser, and Zentall (2000) found that when pigeons have to work to obtain a discriminative stimulus that is followed by reinforcement, they prefer a discriminative stimulus that requires greater effort over one that requires less effort. The authors suggested that such a preference results from the greater change in hedonic value that occurs between the more aversive event and the onset of the stimulus that signals reinforcement, a contrast effect. It was hypothesized that any stimulus that follows a relatively more aversive event would be preferred over a stimulus that follows a relatively less aversive event. In the present experiment, the authors tested the counterintuitive prediction of that theory, that pigeons should prefer a discriminative stimulus that follows the absence of reinforcement over a discriminative stimulus that follows reinforcement. Results supported the theory.     

Model based learning as a key research area for science education

A framework is presented for thinking about cognitive factors involved in model construction in the classroom that can help us organize the research problems in this area and the articles in this issue. The framework connects concepts such as: expert consensus model, target model, intermediate models, preconceptions, learning processes, and natural reasoning skills. By connecting and elaborating on these major areas, the articles in this issue have succeeded in moving us another step toward having a theory of conceptual change that can provide guidance to teachers in the form of instructional principles. Taken together, the articles remind us that individual cognition, while not the only factor in learning, is a central determining feature of learning. However, we must work to further develop the present partial theory of conceptual change to fill in the missing cognitive core of the present shell.     

Use of a computer simulation to develop mental simulations for understanding relative motion concepts

Think aloud interview protocols from three high school post-physics students who interacted with a relative motion computer simulation presented in a predict-observe-explain format are analysed. Evidence is presented for: qualitative and quantitative difficulties with apparently simple one-dimensional relative motion problems; students' spontaneous visualization of relative motion problems; the visualizations facilitating solution of these problems; and students' memory of the on-line simulation used as a framework for visualization of post-test problems solved off-line. Instances of successful and unsuccessful mapping of remembered simulation features onto target problems are presented. Evidence from hand motions and other indicators suggesting that the subjects were using dynamic imagery in mental simulations during the treatment and post-test is presented. On the basis of these observations, it is hypothesized that for successful students, dissonance between their incorrect predictions and simulations displayed by the computer initiated the construction of new ways of thinking about relative motion, and that the memory of certain simulations acted as an analogue 'framework for visualization' of target problems solved off-line after the intervention. In such cases we find that interaction with a computer simulation on-line can facilitate a student's appropriate mental simulations off-line in related target problems. Implications for design and use of educational computer simulations are discussed.     

Parent–child reading in English as a second language: Effects on language and literacy development of Chinese kindergarteners

This study investigated the effects of dialogic parent–child reading in English on 51 Hong Kong kindergarteners learning English as a second language. Children were pre‐tested on nonverbal IQ, reading interest and receptive vocabulary, word reading and phonological awareness in both Chinese and English. They were then assigned randomly to one of three conditions involving different levels of parent–child interactions: dialogic reading (DR), typical reading (TR) or control. Though inter‐group comparisons showed nonsignificant interaction effects across time among the three groups, intra‐group gains across the 12‐week intervention suggested that parent–child reading could enhance English word reading skills, while dialogic reading could promote phonological awareness in both Chinese and English. These results highlight the potential benefits of English parent–child reading and dialogic reading on children learning English as a second language, and the possibility of linguistic transfer from parent–child reading in English as a second language to Chinese as a first language.     

One Educational Technology Colleague’s Journey from Dotcom Leadership to University E-Learning Systems Leadership: Merging Design Principles, Systemic Change and Leadership Thinking

This paper describes my journey from instructional technology professional and doctoral student to instructional technology leader and tenure-track faculty member. I reflect on 15 years of application, in government, industry, and higher education, of what I learned in the classroom from some of the giants of the field (Wager, Morgan, Kaufman, Dick, Keller, Harless, Reiser, Driscoll). With the continuing proliferation of technology throughout all levels of higher education, systems thinking and the instructional systems design (ISD) process is highly relevant and germane. Its application, however, must be done with care as many people do not understand it and it is applied within a complex, imperfect social and organizational cultural context that requires compromise, consensus building, patience, and a willingness to proceed slowly. The growing role of technology in organizations, and especially e-Learning in education, has increased the need for systems thinking and systemic change in order to manage rapid change. This is my story.     

Moving outdoors: further explorations of ‘child-initiated’ learning in the outdoor environment

This article reports on a study in which eight Foundation Phase teachers were supported in exploring Reggio-inspired projects in the outdoor environments of their settings. The study found that the teachers did adopt more child-initiated/centred approaches although it is maintained that in part this was related to the outdoor context in which the explorations took place. However, supporting such approaches was not easy for the teachers while many did not make regular use of their outdoor spaces. It appeared that ‘real work’ was seen to take place within classrooms and was focused on the learning of subject content.