The Appraisal of Educational Psychologists: A very private affair

This paper presents the results of a survey into the use of appraisal in educational psychology services within Local Education Authorities in England and Wales. Based on the findings of the study, the current range of appraisal schemes in use within the educational psychology service are described. The way in which such schemes link with appraisal in the wider local authority context is considered, and an attempt is made to identify whether appraisal schemes used with educational psychologists have distinctive features and, if so, what those features are.     

Gender-inclusive technology materials for the primary school: A case study in curriculum development

This paper describes how an idea for technology education materials developed into a process for producing unique curriculum modules for teaching technology in a gender-inclusive way to primary children. Using a case-study format, the paper describes the interaction between participants, the sequential evolution of the materials themselves and the degree to which success was achieved in terms of the original goals. The study demonstrates how an awareness of gender bias needs to be a feature from the earliest stages of curriculum development, through to the trialling and modification stages. The curriculum materials were a product of effective cooperation between teachers, science educators and community representatives. They utilise a “process” approach to the teaching of technology and in this presentation, we demonstrate how this same approach is a useful framework for describing this particular curriculum development. Specializations: primary science and technology education, gender issues. Specializations: diagnosis of student learning and teaching for conceptual change, technology education, curriculum evaluation. Specializations: affective aspects of science and technology education, gender issues.     

Encouraging versatile thinking in algebra using the computer

In this article we formulate and analyse some of the obstacles to understanding the notion of a variable, and the use and meaning of algebraic notation, and report empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that an approach using the computer will be more successful in overcoming these obstacles. The computer approach is formulated within a wider framework ofversatile thinking in which global, holistic processing complements local, sequential processing. This is done through a combination of programming in BASIC, physical activities which simulate computer storage and manipulation of variables, and specific software which evaluates expressions in standard mathematical notation. The software is designed to enable the user to explore examples and non-examples of a concept, in this case equivalent and non-equivalent expressions. We call such a piece of software ageneric organizer because if offers examples and non-examples which may be seen not just in specific terms, but as typical, or generic, examples of the algebraic processes, assisting the pupil in the difficult task of abstracting the more general concept which they represent. Empirical evidence from several related studies shows that such an approach significantly improves the understanding of higher order concepts in algebra, and that any initial loss in manipulative facility through lack of practice is more than made up at a later stage.     

Newspapers in Education and Children's Writing

Emphasis upon authenticity in children's writing leads us to consider the possibilities in engaging children in producing authentic texts such as newspapers. In this article David Wray and Jane Medwell discuss their research into the effects of three approaches to this newspaper production, one of which involved the collaboration of a teacher with a worker from the Newspapers in Education scheme. The very positive outcomes of this partnership are stressed.     

Temporal processing and reading disability

The present investigation examined thehypothesis that early auditory temporalprocessing deficits cause later specificreading disability by impairing phonologicalprocessing (Farmer & Klein 1995; Tallal1980, 1984). Temporal processing ability atschool entry was examined using Tallal'sRepetition Test in a large unselected sample ofover 500 children followed over subsequentyears. Although our data confirmed the presenceof certain non-speech auditory processingdeficits in children later classified asspecific reading-disabled, many findings wereclearly at odds with a causal interpretation ofthis relationship. (1) Reading-disabled (RD)children were impaired at school entry on thesubtest with long interstimulus intervals(ISIs) but not the critical short-ISIsubtest. (2) RD children were not inferior toreading-age (RA) controls. (3) A subgroup of RDchildren with evidence of temporal deficitswere no less proficient on later phonologicalor reading measures than RD children with noevidence of early temporal impairment. (4)Although there was a reliable concurrentcorrelation between temporal deficits andphonological awareness at school entry(suggesting a possible common causeexplanation), early temporal deficits did notpredict later phonological impairment,pseudoword processing difficulties, or specificreading disability. On the other hand, earlytemporal deficits did predict later oralreceptive vocabulary and reading comprehensionweaknesses. These findings suggest thatauditory temporal deficits in dyslexics may beassociated with the same dysphasic-typesymptoms observed by Tallal and her colleaguesin specific language-impaired populations, butdo not cause the core phonological deficitsthat characterize dyslexic groups.