Transitions to becoming a teacher on an initial teacher education and training programme

This article is based on research with a group of one‐year Postgraduate Certificate in Education secondary trainee teachers during their initial teacher education and training in England. It considers tensions between trainees’ prior experiences and conceptions of teaching and their training programme. In doing so, it seeks to examine how a trainee’s dispositions as revealed through practice in various contexts are reflective of Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’. Associated with this, the paper also examines how particular forms of pre‐existing cultural capital and manifestations of biographical identity also pre‐dispose trainees to form affinities and disaffinities within particular fields. Lacanian concepts of the symbolic, imaginary and real are used to help explain how trainee teachers articulate resonance and dissonance during their field experiences, particularly in relation to ontological concerns of securing a professional stable sense of self.     

Congruence between mother and handicapped child's view of the child's sense of adjustment

The responses of 22 physically handicapped children to selected items of the Piers‐Harris Self Concept Scale for Children were compared with their mothers’ responses to equivalent items of the Personality Inventory for Children. The direction of the responses, whether children were more or less positive in self‐evaluation than mothers perceived them to. be, was analyzed with respect to sex of child, type of school attended, and diagnosis of handicap (cerebral palsy or spina bifida). Only diagnosis of handicap was significantly related to the tendency for children to be either less or more positive in response to the items than their mothers, with cerebral palsy children more positive and spina bifida children consistently less positive in direction. Possible explanations are considered, with particular reference to the children's views regarding peer relationships.     

Individual and Contextual Differences in the Approaches to Learning of Australian Secondary School Students

Data, based on responses of 1274 Australia secondary school students, are reported which link the student's learning motives and strategies to both personological and school environment factors and learning outcomes. The results indicate substantial positive relationships between the students’ level of self‐esteem and their perceptions of the learning environment as enjoyable and worthwhile with both deep and achieving approaches to learning. Students with more versatile learning strategies are also likely to be the more successful academically.     

Academic attachment: Predicting students' affective reactions to the university

In attempting to develop a predictive model of student attachment to the university, this research concentrates on four variable sets: perceptions of university goals, perceptions of university academic climate, perceptions of university academic environment, and feelings of academic alienation. Using a sample of 460 university students, multiple discriminant analytic results indicate that of these four variable sets, perceptions of the academic climate and feelings of academic alienation exert more influence on students' attachment to the university than do perceptions of university goals and perceptions of the academic environment. These findings are discussed within the context of a model of the university student operating very much as a democratic citizen in the university political system.     

Domains and Levels of Pedagogical Innovation in Schools Using ICT: Ten Innovative Schools in Israel

The study reported here is based on the results of two international studies: IEA's Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES) Module 2, focusing on innovative pedagogical practices at the classroom level, and OECD/CERI Case Studies of ICT and Organizational Innovation, focusing on ICT related innovations at the school system level. In the paper we analyze the data collected in ten innovative schools in Israel which have incorporated ICT in unique ways and have succeeded in devising innovative classroom pedagogies and school system changes. The major research questions addressed are: (a) What levels of innovation were observed in the participant schools, and in which domains? (b) How does the level of innovation in the various domains vary among and within schools? (c) What correlation patterns among levels of innovation in the various domains can be identified? The results of ten comprehensive case studies of exemplary schools in Israel were analyzed by mean of the innovation analysis schema developed by us for characterizing ICT-based educational innovations.     

Course withdrawals: A probit model and policy recommendations

Withdrawals from college courses prior to the assignment of grades, but after the add-drop period, are analyzed. In a probit model student withdrawals appear to occur randomly with notable exceptions. The more experience a student has in college, the more likely it is that he or she will withdraw from any given course. Students who have withdrawn from courses in the past tend to withdraw again. Student motivation measures are related to the withdrawal decision. Physical and mental disabilities affect withdrawals only in certain courses while athletes are no more likely to withdraw from courses than nonathletes. Finally, there appear to be economies of scale in teaching: The more students an instructor teaches in other courses, the less likely it is that students will withdraw from the course under consideration. The number of students enrolled in the course, however, is not significantly related to withdrawals.     

The interaction of student and program variables for the purpose of developing a model for predicting graduation from graduate programs over a 10-year period

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there is some factor or set of factors which will predict the probability of graduation from doctoral programs. This study concentrated on two areas: (a) the factors available to the selection committee when the students apply for admission into graduate programs, and (b) those factors emerging after admission, resulting from the students' meeting program-imposed requirements for graduation. Data were collected from the file of each student admitted to the doctoral program in Educational Administration. The results of the study indicated that program variables are more important than admission variables in predicting graduation. and the technique of Path Analysis is highly recommended to study the problem of student progression through graduate departments.     

Modeling Zero-Inflated and Overdispersed Count Data: An Empirical Study of School Suspensions

The purpose of this article is to develop a statistical model that best explains variability in the number of school days suspended. Number of school days suspended is a count variable that may be zero-inflated and overdispersed relative to a Poisson model. Four models were examined: Poisson, negative binomial, Poisson hurdle, and negative binomial hurdle. Additionally, the probability of a student being suspended for at least 1 day was modeled using a binomial logistic regression model. Of the count models considered, the negative binomial hurdle model had the best fit. Modeling the probability of a student being suspended for at least 1 day using a binomial logistic regression model with interactions fit both the training and test data and had adequate fit. Findings here suggest that both the negative binomial hurdle and the binomial logistic regression models should be considered when modeling school suspensions.     

Measuring the quality of e‐learning

This paper shows how concept mapping can be used to measure the quality of e‐learning. Six volunteers (all of them 3rd‐year medical students) took part in a programme of e‐learning designed to teach the principles of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Their understanding of MRI was measured before and after the course by the use of concept mapping. The quality of change in individuals' maps was assessed using criteria developed to distinguish between meaningful and rote‐learning outcomes. Student maps were also scored for evidence of conceptual richness and understanding. Finally, each map was compared directly with the content of the electronic teaching material. The results show that many of the student misconceptions were put right in the course of their learning but that many of the key concepts introduced in the teaching were ignored (or sometimes learnt by rote) by the students. This was because the teaching material locked these new ideas in structures and terminology that precluded meaning‐making among non‐experts. Our data suggest that students' prior knowledge is a key determinant of meaningful learning. We suggest that this must be acknowledged if the design and use of electronic teaching material is also to be meaningful. Ultimately, measures of student learning are the only authentic indicators of the quality of teaching through technology.     

EDUCATION, MARKETS AND THE PEDAGOGY OF PERSONALISATION

ABSTRACT:  The marketisation of education in England began in the 1980s. It was facilitated by national testing (which gave objective and comparable information to parents), and by the New Public Management (which introduced a posteriori funding and competition among providers). Now a new complementary phase of marketisation is being introduced: personalisation, whose intellectual provenance is in marketing theory. Conceptually, personalisation is imprecise; practically, at this stage, its intended effects within schools may amount to no more than a new legitimatory rhetoric which leaves pedagogy and the curriculum little changed.