Students' Perceptions of Teacher Support Across the Transition from Primary to Secondary School

This study examines the degree to which students' perceptions of teacher support are related to school type (primary versus secondary). The sample included 7,205 students from years 5 to 7 in primary school and years 8 to 10 in secondary school. Previous research has concluded that perceptions of school change negatively when students move from primary to secondary school. However, this research has been criticized for not accounting for age‐related changes in students' perception of school. Results from this study show a linear downwards tendency for perceived teacher support, with no obvious abrupt change between primary and secondary school. Our findings do not, therefore, support the idea that the transition from primary to secondary school affects students' perception of teacher support in a negative way.     

The Civil Contract of Photography

A climate of political repression, formed by the Pitt Government in response to agitation by so‐called “radical” societies, surrounded debate on the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill of 1794. Pitt employed rhetorical tactics such as manipulating evidence and disparaging motives in order to secure passage of this repressive measure. Pitt's tactics appear unjustified in the light of available historical evidence.     

Holistic Media Education: An Assessment of the Effectiveness of a College Course in Media Literacy

The general purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a college course in media literacy. Specifically, the course took a holistic approach to media literacy and was designed to heighten college students' awareness of media structures, content, and impact, as well as to encourage students to become more critical/informed participants in the media environment. A pre-test, post-test, control group post-test only, quasi-experimental design was employed to assess the effectiveness of this approach to media literacy education. Overall, students' responses produced significant differences between the control group and the experimental groups' post-test scores on most (but not all) dependent measures. The implications of these results and suggestions for future research were discussed.     

The American faculty in an age of globalization: predictors of internationalization of research content and professional networks

A steady stream of studies on high-stakes tests such as University Entrance Examinations (UEEs) suggests that high-stakes tests reforms serve as the leverage for promoting quality of learning, standards of teaching, and credible forms of accountability. However, such remediation is often not as effective as hoped and success is not necessarily ensured. As reasons for such a failure were mostly studied after implementation or at completion phase of a reformed test, i.e., a-posteriori scrutinies, there remain theoretical and analytical gaps regarding policy/planning phase, i.e., a-priori explorations. To contribute toward ameliorating this problem, the present study, based on in-depth interviews with 14 policymakers and proponents of the UEEs reform, detailed their conceptualization of this change in terms of the underlying policies, prospects, and perspectives. The analysis came up with three major frameworks: ‘conceptual image of the intended impacts’, ‘paradigm shift from psychometrics traditions to edumetrics culture’, and ‘ulterior challenges of transition’. The analytic glance further provided corroborating links to two global perspectives on assessment: political and technological perspectives. The findings are suggestive that the technological challenges of the current change intersect with the policies that still envisage the same ‘selecting function’ for the UEE’s alternative. This would thwart the success rate of the ideals or desirable changes aimed by the ‘directing function’ of this reform. The a-priori planning analysis is, thus, noteworthy given that it becomes a terrain for examining the formulated policies and the intended practices, and for evidencing how policy influences and is influenced by the reals of practice.     

Unpacking child-centredness: A history of meanings

This paper examines the historical development of the term 'child-centred' in the discourse of early schooling in America. The discussion begins with the founder of the kindergarten, Friedrich Froebel, and traces the development of the kindergarten in the US until the 1930s. We explore how underlying meanings of the term child-centredness have changed - which were lost and which survived by tracing the educational and philosophical currents of each historical context. The term balances on many layers of complex and sometimes contradictory meanings that have been forged over the years by competing interest groups, each appropriating the term and, adding to and taking away from the existing meaning, moulding it to their own purposes. In the process, some underlying meanings were lost, others were added. Meanings were changed and then shared within and sometimes across groups. The term has masked complex and contradictory underlying assumptions about children and their learning and development that should be addressed.     

Chinese whispers? Investigating the consistency of the language of assessment between a distance education institution,its tutors and students

Ensuring the fairness of assessment is important in all areas of higher education. It is particularly so in distance education, where the communication around assessment and feedback is a principal method of supporting learning, and even more so when the students are at the entry point into higher education. This research explores the nature of the language used in explaining the purpose and process of assessment on an access programme at The Open University, UK, from the perspective of the module team, the tutors and the students. It takes a qualitative approach to examine the clarity and consistency of assessment tasks, assessment guidance and TMGs. Analysis revealed inconsistencies in the language used in relation to assessment, which has led to a revision of how assessment tasks and guidance are communicated to students and tutors.     

Student teachers in school practice: an analysis of learning opportunities

Abstract

Over the past decade, educational policy in Britain, as in other industrial nations, has been increasingly driven by the concern that higher education should serve the needs of the economy more effectively. The report Highly Qualified People: supply and demand reflects this concern and attempts to establish from employers Britain's likely requirement, in the 1990s, for such expensively educated labour. Though the report concluded that Britain needed more graduates over the next few years, closer scrutiny of its data suggests a very different conclusion ‐ not that Britain needs more graduates to prosper, but rather that Britain needs first to prosper before it is likely to want the graduates it already produces.

     

A quiet revolution – International influence,domestic elites and the transformation of higher technical education in Ireland 1959–72

The upgrading of higher technical education which began in the 1960s marked the most influential intervention by the Irish government in the third-level sector since the establishment of the independent Irish state. A series of reforming initiatives extended educational opportunity and transformed the status of technical education at higher level. International pressures undoubtedly proved influential in stimulating policy change. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) encouraged far-reaching reforms through its critical evaluation of educational facilities for technical training in Ireland. But educational reform was not imposed by international agencies on a reluctant corps of national politicians and officials. International influences dovetailed with changing attitudes toward technical education within the Irish political and official elite. Leading politicians and public officials showed an increasing awareness that the previous neglect of technical education was untenable in an era of economic development and educational expansion. It was a timely combination of international scrutiny and domestic political re-appraisal, which triggered a radical restructuring and expansion of higher technical education in Ireland.