Performance pay for teachers: Determinants and consequences

Theory and evidence on performance-related pay for teaching remain inconclusive. Teachers will respond to rewards, but an appropriate reward structure may not be devised because education is a collaborative endeavor. Here we test three hypotheses: performance-related pay among teachers is more likely to be observed when there are evident indicators of team production; teachers receiving performance pay will earn more in total than otherwise equal teachers without performance pay; and teachers receiving performance pay should have higher job satisfaction. We use the Schools and Staffing Survey (2000) to test each hypothesis. Team production does strongly predict performance-related pay, and that such pay does boost earnings, but that job satisfaction is lower for those who receive such pay awards.     

The effect of delayed feedback on infant learning reexamined.

The study reexamines the effect of delayed reinforcement upon contingency behavior in 6- to 8-month-old infants and attempts to account for the temporal discrepancy between span of integration and contingency memory. A modified delayed-reinforcement scheduling procedure enabled a previous methodological criticism to be discounted. The findings confirmed that whereas infants revealed reliable acquisition under immediate reinforcement, a 3-sec delay (whether reset or nonreset) precluded response acquisition, as did 6-sec and 10-sec delay of reinforcement. The findings are interpreted in terms of an informational-load hypothesis which relates short-term memory to the integration and/or segregation of multimodal input.     

‘Powerful knowledge’ curriculum theories and the case of physics

A stream of debate (including a previous special issue of this journal (25(1) 2014)) has made claims not just for ‘bringing knowledge back in’ as the framing underpinning of the school curriculum, but that subjects associated with disciplinary and disciplined knowledge forms have a particular power and that these characteristics are important to preserve in curriculum frameworks. This paper draws on a major Australian research project studying school and university physics in the context of these arguments to revisit the issue of the ‘discipline’ of physics and the curriculum logics for physics. Given that disciplines are social in origin and changing and expanding over time, can school curriculum be logically derived from the discipline to which they relate? Are questions about student engagement only questions about pedagogy and not curriculum? Does a focus on disciplinary knowledge mean that the role of school in forming identities and values is avoidable as a significant feature of what the curriculum does? The findings from the project are used both to illustrate and test these questions, and to challenge some over-simple assumptions about the verticality of this form of knowledge for education purposes.     

Searching a biomedical bibliographic database from Bulgaria: the ABS database

BACKGROUND: The University of Sofia, Bulgaria, disseminates local biomedical literature (1994 to present) through a free online database, ABS. OBJECTIVES: Our objectives were to systematically search ABS, identify citations to controlled trials and discover what proportion of these studies are to be found on medline. METHODS: We searched using Bulgarian and English phrases; manually selected citations of controlled trials and sought these citations on medline. Results: Using the two languages, we found a total of 628 unique citations, 47 of which seem to be relevant controlled trials (precision 7.48%, 13% of ABS citations were found on medline). The trials in ABS commonly focused on evaluation of care for people with cardiovascular or urological problems. DISCUSSION: ABS is another source of easily accessed trials not readily available elsewhere.     

Searching the Polish Medical Bibliography (Polska Bibliografia Lekarska) for trials

Background: The Polish Medical Bibliography (Polska Bibliografia Lekarska) contains 350 000 records dating from 1979. These records from the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health care systems and preclinical sciences are from nearly 300 biomedical journals published in Poland. Methods: We systematically searched the Polish Medical Bibliography Part II (1996–2006) CD‐ROM (July 2006) using both English and Polish phrases for randomized trials, manually checked results and, for the trials identified in this way, sought these on medline and embase . Results: Systematic searching identified records of 680 randomized trials from all areas of health care. Nearly 40% of these were not found on either medline or embase . Conclusions: The Polish Medical Bibliography should be of interest to health care information specialists concerned with comprehensive searches for trials.     

Defining the Australian mechanical engineer

The attribute focus in engineering education now adopted by the engineering education accrediting bodies of the US, UK and Australia is based on meeting the assumed needs of professional practice. It is associated with an increasing expectation by employers of work-ready graduates rather than relying on subsequent work-based learning and experience to develop many of the essential professional practice attributes. Yet the scope of the mechanical engineering profession is broad and views of practitioners contributing to debate on attribute requirements are largely influenced by their own often unique professional formation.

In addition, the formative development of the profession in Australia has been significantly influenced by 19th and 20th century UK and US practices, although historically the industrial profile of Australia has been strikingly different. An analysis of current industry distribution of Australian, UK and US mechanical engineers presented in this paper shows continuing, although less marked, differences.

To develop a clearer perception of the profession in Australia, its educational formation, and operational environment, this paper provides a concise study of the formative development of the profession, and presents a breakdown of the industry sectors in which they are currently employed. The effects of momentous global changes in engineering employment and formation over recent decades are also discussed.

Recent changes in engineering employment have included major structural changes to organisations, accelerating technical and educational developments and mounting societal expectations making it imperative that attributes be attuned to the new engineering paradigm as increasing demands are placed on our graduates.

This paper provides an essential foundation for ongoing debate and analysis of attribute needs related to this broadly based engineering discipline. Although presented from an Australian perspective, many issues discussed are applicable worldwide.