Teachers as Inquiry Learners

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

The forensic science needs of law enforcement applicants and recruits: A survey of Michigan law enforcement agencies

Many colleges and universities offer forensic science courses ranging from a single introductory class to majors. Previous research has not addressed how valuable these courses are to undergraduate criminal justice students who aspire to enter the law enforcement field. A random sample of law enforcement agencies in Michigan were surveyed. Seventy-eight percent of respondents agreed that knowledge of forensic science was important and 46% preferred that applicants have a forensic science background prior to hiring. The knowledge areas deemed most important were interviewing techniques, crime scene documentation, evidence collection, and latent fingerprint analysis.     

Setting up school partnerships: some insights from Birmingham's Collegiate Academies

This article explores the key issues or dilemmas secondary schools face when considering collaborating to form a school partnership, in particular a Collegiate Academy. The methodology is an evaluation based on interviews with 15 headteachers and other key staff from three Collegiate Academies in Birmingham during the autumn of 2005. Seven key issues are identified – size, coordination, focus, needs, success, funding and dissemination – that schools need to work through and resolve if their partnership is to be successful. An analysis of the interconnections among the seven issues shows three underlying themes: the first relates to the organisation of the Collegiate Academies; the second concerns the work of the collegiate-based Advanced Skills Teachers; and the third encompasses sustainability and securing the long-term future of the Collegiate Academies. School partnerships are increasingly seen by government as the key to school improvement and so the findings from this preliminary study have potential benefits, particularly in the initial phase of setting up such partnerships.     

Recommendations for Preparing and Scoring Constructed-Response Items: What the Experts Say

We determined the recommendations for preparing and scoring constructed-response (CR) test items in 25 sources (textbooks and chapters) on educational and psychological measurement. The project was similar to Haladyna's (2004) Haladyna, T. M. 2004. Developing and validating multiple-choice test items , 3rd, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] analysis for multiple-choice items. We identified 12 recommendations for preparing CR items given by multiple sources, with 4 of these given by at least half of the sources; and 13 recommendations for scoring CR items given by multiple sources, with 5 given by at least half of the sources. Many recommendations received minority support or were unique to individual sources. Research is needed both on the effect of the recommendations for measurement properties and the extent to which the recommendations are adopted in practice.     

Continuity of School Effects: A Longitudinal Analysis of Primary and Secondary School Effects on GCSE Performance

Multilevel analyses of students' GCSE examination results (taken at age 16) are used to investigate both primary and secondary school effects on students' total performance scores and the issue of continuity of schools' effects over time. Follow‐up data for the Inner London Education Authority's Junior School Project sample, including attainment at secondary transfer (age 11) and at GCSE and details concerning students' background characteristics are analysed.

Significant school effects at both primary and secondary level and small but significant continuing effects of primary schools on later GCSE attainment are identified. The theoretical and practical significance of the results are discussed.     

The appraisal and management of uncertainty: Implications for information-retrieval systems

Uncertainty is an important idea in information-retrieval (IR) research, but the concept has yet to be fully elaborated and explored. Common assumptions about uncertainty are (a) that it is a negative (anxiety-producing) state and (b) that it will be reduced through information search and retrieval. Research in the domain of uncertainty in illness, however, has demonstrated that uncertainty is a complex phenomenon that shares a complicated relationship with information. Past research on people living with HIV and individuals who have tested positive for genetic risk for different illnesses has revealed that information and the reduction of uncertainty can, in fact, produce anxiety, and that maintaining uncertainty can be associated with optimism and hope. We review the theory of communication and uncertainty management and offer nine principles based on that theoretical work that can be used to influence IR system design. The principles reflect a view of uncertainty as a multi-faceted and dynamic experience, one subject to ongoing appraisal and management efforts that include interaction with and use of information in a variety of forms.     

Library Student Employee Expertise: Strategies for Maximizing Your Student Employee Contributions to the Library

The University of Baltimore Library was recently renovated. Part of the design in the newly renovated space was having one single service point, that we call the Information Desk. This desk serves as the public facing portal for what was previously three public facing service points to services by three separate departments, Academic Success, Access Services and Reference & Instruction.

This article describes in depth how our Information Desk Leadership Team encouraged and used our library student employees’ expertise and knowledge in the formation of policy and procedure manual, training documents, reference tools and resume lines for use at a single service point.     

Tackling a lingering infirmity: On the nature and warrant of action research in education

The BERA initiative on promoting Close-to-Practice (CtP) research raises new challenges for action research, particularly as uncertainties about the standing and rigour of action research were expressed in the report of the education panel for the 2015 Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the United Kingdom. The work of tackling these challenges is essential in advancing CtP research, and it discloses, in turn, new possibilities. In this paper we review some pioneering developments in action research and analyse the difficulties it has experienced in securing parity of standing with other forms of research. We argue that action research is more than, and sometimes other than, a social science. We seek to show that if action research is to be recognised by credentials that are its own, and judged by criteria that are proper to it, not only does it lose any lower standing. Rather, it becomes a major pathway, with deep roots in the critical traditions of Western practical philosophy, through which the defining purposes of education itself, as a distinctive human practice, are ascertained and affirmed, pursued and appraised.