New Directions for School Effectiveness Research: Towards School Effectiveness Without Schools

School effectiveness research has made a number of valuable contributions to educational research over the past three decades. However, its validity is threatened by a number of evolutions that question the continuing centrality of its basic research object, the public school. Moves towards more flexible school organization such as networks of schools, a broader role for schools reconceptualized as community centers, the emergence of new providers outwith the public sector, the increasingly internationalised nature of research and moves towards greater use of distance learning and home schooling all mean that this focus may rapidly become outdated, potentially making school effectiveness research irrelevant.In this paper we will discuss the consequences of these evolutions for school effectiveness research and argue that, rather than lessening the need for effectiveness research, they increase the imperative for this type of research, as long as it is broadened to educational effectiveness in its broadest sense whether it takes place in the traditional public school or not, and is conducted in an empirical and open-minded way.     

Book Review: Luc Trouche,Ghislaine Gueudet, & Birgit Pepin (Eds.) (2019) The ‘resource’ approach to mathematics education

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Proving and refuting are fundamental aspects of mathematical practice that are intertwined in mathematical activity in which conjectures and proofs are often...     

Synthesizing antipodal chaotic waveforms

Chaotic waveforms are natural information carriers since a correspondence can be established between the symbolic dynamics of a chaotic oscillator and the symbols of a message. Message symbols can be efficiently encoded in a chaotic waveform by applying vanishingly small perturbations to an oscillator to guide its symbolic dynamics to follow a desired course. Recently, two chaotic hybrid dynamical systems were shown to have matched filters enabling robust reception of chaotic communication waveforms in the presence of noise. The first of these, the exact shift oscillator, produces waveforms with desirable properties similar to antipodal signaling, but a physical implementation may be difficult to control using small perturbations. The second oscillator, the exact folded-band oscillator, produces less optimal waveforms but is more easily controlled. Here we introduce a method for generating waveforms of the exact shift oscillator by summing waveforms from a bank of easily controlled exact folded-band oscillators. We show that any solution of the exact shift oscillator can be so constructed using only three folded-band oscillators. Thus, this scheme allows us to realize the advantages of both chaotic systems while overcoming their individual disadvantages, thereby enabling practical chaos communications.     

How persistent and general is the contextual interference effect?

The persistence and generality of the contextual interference (CI) effect was tested using a rapid sequential aiming task. Participants (N=48) practiced three movement patterns for three blocks of 18 trials under a blocked (BL) or random (RA) schedule. Movement patterns were displayed and KR provided throughout practice and testing. A 24-hr delayed knowledge of results (KR) retention test included three blocks of 18 trials, followed by a transfer test of a single new movement pattern. In contradiction of the CI effect, RA practice provided an advantage for RA retention only, not BL retention. Furthermore, group differences at transfer were not persistent. Hence, RA practice does not necessarily provide enhanced, context-free learning, but it is essential training for task switching. Overall the findings reveal limited persistence and generality of the CI effect.