Interactive Television (ITV) Instructor Behaviors: Implications of Frequency and Importance

Two hundred students majoring in education responded to the Validation of Effective Behaviors of Distance Instructors Inventory (McKenzie, Kirby, & Mims, 1997). The 41 items measured two dimensions: frequency and importance of effective behaviors in delivering distance instruction. A two-way within-subjects ANOVA was conducted. Of the 41 items, 14 were rated higher in importance than in frequency. The 14 items were then analyzed using Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation, which yielded two factors: Effective Learning Methods and Student Guidance. This study suggests that the behaviors of Interactive Television (ITV) instructors may be lacking in these two important factors.     

Metaphorical images of schooling: beliefs about teaching and learning among prospective teachers from the United States displaying different motivational profiles

This study focused on investigating the types of schooling beliefs (teaching and learning) expressed through metaphorical images by prospective teachers (PTs) from the United States. Participants (N = 215) rated 10 schooling metaphors illustrating the student–school–teacher relationships (i.e. Passenger–Bus–Driver; Student is a passenger, School is a bus and Teacher is a driver). Two main factors, a student-centred and a teacher-centred approach described the key schooling beliefs of PTs. Additionally, differences in PTs’ schooling beliefs across typologies/clusters of PTs were found. Further, qualitative data from interviews illustrated how each cluster specifically expressed their instructional views.     

The Role of Humor in Learning Physics: a Study of Undergraduate Students

We all know that they do it, but what do students laugh about when learning science together? Although research has shown that students do use humor when they learn science, the role of humor in science education has received little attention. In this study, undergraduate students’ laughter during collaborative work in physics has been investigated. In order to do this, a framework inspired by conversation analysis has been used. Empirical data was drawn from two video-recorded sessions in which first-year engineering students solved physics problems together. The analysis revealed that the students’ use of humor was almost exclusively related to physics. Five themes identified summarize the role of humor in the group discussions: Something is obvious, Something is difficult, Something said might be wrong, Something is absurd, and Something said is not within informal norms.This study shows that humor may contribute not only to a good working atmosphere and thereby to the students’ learning but also how humor interrelates with both disciplinary culture of physics and its epistemology. The students do not only create and re-create humor that facilitates their social interactions, but through humor they constitute local norms of science and engage with the disciplinary discourse.     

German children's comprehension of word order and case marking in causative sentences

Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate whether German children are able to use the grammatical cues of word order and word endings (case markers) to identify agents and patients in a causative sentence and whether they weigh these two cues differently across development. Two-year-olds correctly understood only sentences with both cues supporting each other—the prototypical form. Five-year-olds were able to use word order by itself but not case markers. Only 7-year-olds behaved like adults by relying on case markers over word order when the two cues conflicted. These findings suggest that prototypical instances of linguistic constructions with redundant grammatical marking play a special role in early acquisition, and only later do children isolate and weigh individual grammatical cues appropriately.     

Le contrat didactique: un cadre interprétatif pour comprendre les savoirs manifestés par les elèves en mathématique

This article describes the dynamic inherant in the didactic relation involving the teacher, the pupil and knowledge. Its purpose is to demonstrate the pertinance of analysing pupils’ actualizations of knowledge using the concept of «didactic contracts». In order to specify the nature of didactic contract, this concept is compared to the notion of exerimental contract between an experimenter, a subject and scholastic knowledge. This analysis draws on empirical examples from experimental situations organized either in the classroom (where the pupils are placed in the familiar situation of written tests) or outside the classrom (where each pupil is placed in a face-to-face relation with an experimenter). The actualizations of knowledge elaborated by pupils when they are asked to resolve an elementary written addition problem are therefore dealt with in the cognitive and social dimensions inherant in these situations of questioning.     

Research, practice and theory in didactics of mathematics: Towards dialogue between different fields

Acknowledging the complex relationships which the field of didactics of mathematics has with other research fields (e.g. mathematics, educational sciences, epistemology, history,psychology, semiotics, sociology, cognitive science), the authors analyze in this paper some cases of fruitful and some of failed dialogue between experts of the different fields. They discuss the results of these dialogues, drawing on research studies carried out by the authors, within the paradigm of the Italian research in Mathematics Education.     

Is accreditation ‘on the right track’? The views of Portuguese academics

In many countries, quality assurance systems rely on study programme accreditation. As with all quality assurance mechanisms, accreditation should also be continuously improved in order to maintain its relevance as a promoter of study programme quality. A way to move accreditation forward is by taking into account academics’ views, interests and needs about the process, since their support for it is paramount for its success and effectiveness. This paper analyses Portuguese academics’ knowledge and views on accreditation with the aim of understanding if the process is being supported and is on the right route for being effective. It is based on the analysis of 1484 academics’ answers to a questionnaire distributed in 16 higher education institutions. This analysis reveals a moderately positive attitude of academics towards accreditation, reflected in an only moderate knowledge of the process as well as in a mild agreement with its characteristics and implementation features. This suggests that there is room for improvement to bring this quality assurance mechanism closer to academics’ expectations and needs and therefore to improve accreditation’s effectiveness.

     

Differential supervision and cognitive structure effects on empathy and counseling effectiveness

The present study investigated the effects of didactic and experiential supervision procedures on the judged counseling effectiveness of high and low cognitive complexity counselor trainees. Subjects in the two supervision groups (N=16) were trained in attending, questioning, and reflection of feeling over three sessions. Training consisted of exposure to videotaped counseling models, discussion of the model's behavior with the supervisor, videotaped role playing of therapy, and discussion of the therapy with the supervisor. Training was exactly the same for both groups except for supervision. A control group (N=8) did not receive any training. All subjects, including controls, were pre- and post-tested for counseling effectiveness as measured by judged tape ratings on the 25-item Counselor Effectiveness Scale and four scales designed to assess affective, exploratory, listening, and honest labeling responses.High complex subjects responsed more favorably to the didactic supervision significantly outperforming both the high complex controls and the low complex didactic subjects on four of the five dependent measures, whereas high and low complex subjects did not respond differentially to the experiential supervision. The results were discussed in terms of fitting the complexity of the students to the supervision approach in selecting students for counseling programs.This paper was presented at the International Round Table for the Advancement of Counselling, Thessaloniki, Greece, April 1980, and was based partly on the senior author's doctoral disser tation (University of Maine, 1978).