On Explaining Change in School Subjects

Drawing on a recent empirical study of curriculum change in English secondary school mathematics, an attempt is made to develop a model for analysing how and why changes occur in the legitimacy of particular definitions of secondary school mathematics and science subjects. Specifically, the author seeks to articulate various insights from the work of Kuhn, Bucher & Strauss, Archer and Bhaskar in a manner which allows structural and interactional perspectives to be simultaneously brought to bear on the phenomenon of subject redefinition. Material from the empirical study is used, where appropriate, both to illustrate and support the arguments presented in favour of the model.     

Development and Validation of an Instrument for Assessing Distance Education Learning Environments in Higher Education: The Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES)

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a new learning environments instrument designed to aid investigators and practitioners in measuring and researching the psychosocial learning environment in post-secondary distance education. Using a three-stage approach, the Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES) was developed, field-tested with 680 distance education students, and then validated. The DELES has 34 items allocated to six scales: (1) Instructor Support; (2) Student Interaction and Collaboration; (3) Personal Relevance; (4) Authentic Learning; (5) Active Learning; and (6) Student Autonomy. An additional scale of Enjoyment was included in this study to explore associations between the psychosocial learning environment and student affective traits. Each learning environment item had a factor loading of at least 0.50 with its own scale, and less than 0.50 with all other scales. The alpha reliability coefficient for each scale ranged from 0.75 to 0.94. Simple correlations between Enjoyment and the DELES scales ranged from 0.12 to 0.31, with the scale of Personal Relevance having the strongest correlation with Enjoyment when all other scales were mutually controlled. The DELES, an online instrument that can be utilized by students at any location, eliminates data transfer errors and does not allow for non-responses, adding to the overall validity of the instrument. The development of DELES relied extensively on literature pertaining to high-quality distance education and expert content validation techniques. It treats distance learning as having a distinct social-psychological climate unlike those found in other post-secondary classroom environments.     

Learning Environment and its Association with Student Satisfaction Among Mathematics Students in Brunei Darussalam

This article reports a study of lower secondary mathematics classroom learning environment in Brunei Darussalam and its association with students' satisfaction with learning mathematics among a sample of 1565 students from 81 classes in 15 government secondary schools. Students' perceptions of the classroom learning environments were assessed with a version of the My Class Inventory (MCI) that had been modified for the Brunei context. The study revealed a satisfactory factor structure for a refined three-scale version of the MCI assessing cohesiveness, difficulty and competition. This finding is noteworthy because the factorial validity of the MCI has not previously been established in past research in other countries. Also each scale displayed satisfactory internal consistency reliability and discriminant validity and was able to differentiate between the perceptions of students in different classes. A one-way MANOVA revealed that students generally perceived a positive learning environment in mathematics classes. Also the study supported earlier research suggesting that boys and girls hold different perceptions of the same classroom learning environments. Relationships between student satisfaction and classroom environment were investigated using simple and multiple correlation analyses, using both the individual student and class mean as units of analysis. Associations between satisfaction and the learning environment were statistically significant both at student and class levels for most MCI scales. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Psychological health of doctoral candidates,study-related challenges and perceived performance

Psychological distress is prevalent in doctoral degree training and affects students' completion time. It is crucial to monitor the amount of distress experienced and understand the causes for it to inform the type of support most needed. This mixed method study explored challenges related to candidature, self-reported progress and measures of perceived and actual psychological distress with a convenience sample of 81 doctoral candidates in an Australian university. Using validated survey instruments, participants reported higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress than age-matched general population normative data. Additionally, those who self-reported being behind or exceeding their study schedule had significantly higher scores for depression, anxiety and stress than those who reported they were meeting schedule. Conversely, stage of candidature did not affect any of these attribute scores. The responses to open-ended questions about challenges associated with doctoral study were coded and explored with an existing typology. The most frequent challenge reported in doctoral study is related to the development of generic skills, followed by management of self, including motivation. Given that not all challenges could be included in the existing typology, we recommend expansion to the typology.     

Strange encounters on the road to lifelong learning: the European economic community meets permanent education in 1973

This paper examines policy formation on education in the European Economic Community during the early 1970s surrounding the 1973 report For a Community Policy on Education, known as the Janne Report. It examines Community policy-making processes that gave rise to the Janne Report. The text of the Janne Report is analysed with regard to permanent education, paid educational leave, and de-schooling as the fundamental principles for the harmonisation of educational policies. Reception of the Janne Report is examined in the context of expansion of the Community from the six original to nine Member States. The Community’s failure to engage in agreements on paid educational leave as envisaged in the Janne Report is discussed in relation to public debates in some Member States at the time.     

Post-primary school teachers’ knowledge and understanding of autism spectrum disorders

Current national policy in the Republic of Ireland advocates for the inclusion of students with learning difficulties in mainstream schools. With Asperger’s syndrome (AS) specifically, it is essential that teachers understand the syndrome and are well versed in appropriate approaches to effectively create an inclusive environment for these students in the mainstream classroom. This paper explores teacher knowledge and understanding of AS while also exploring what affects their confidence in educating students diagnosed with the syndrome. Data collection pre-dated changes to the DSM-V and as such AS is used throughout this paper. A survey was distributed nationally to a random sample of qualified post-primary school teachers. The findings revealed that teachers did not appear to possess an adequate level of knowledge and understanding in relation to the syndrome. Continued professional development programmes in the area appeared to have minimal effect, with those completing programmes scoring only marginally better than those who did not (2.85%). These findings are of concern if these teachers are then expected to foster an inclusive environment, particularly when a high proportion of teachers have previously taught a student diagnosed with the syndrome and their knowledge remains limited.     

Academic careers, patents, and productivity: industry experience as scientific and technical human capital

We examine career patterns within the industrial, academic, and governmental sectors and their relation to the publication and patent productivity of scientists and engineers working at university-based research centers in the United States. We hypothesize that among university scientists, intersectoral changes in jobs throughout the career provide access to new social networks and scientific and technical human capital, which will result in higher productivity. For this study, the curriculum vitae of 1200 research scientists and engineers were collected and coded. In addition, patent data were collected from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The overarching conclusion from our analysis is that the academic scientists’ and engineers’ research careers we studied are quite different than characterized in the research productivity literature that is a decade or more old. The wave of center creation activity that began in the early 1980s and continues today has resulted not only in greater ties between universities and industry, but also markedly different academic careers.     

Adaptation of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction for Elementary Grades

The secondary school version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) was adapted for the elementary school level and administered to 1 512 Singaporean students in 39 mathematics classes. The QTI is based on a two-dimensional model of influence (dominance-submission) and proximity (cooperation-opposition). Data supported each scale's internal consistency reliability, ability to predict student achievement, and ability to differentiate between the perceptions of students in different classrooms.     

Promoting Constructive Activities that Support Vicarious Learning During Computer-Based Instruction

This article explores several ways computer-based instruction can be designed to support constructive activities and promote deep-level comprehension during vicarious learning. Vicarious learning, discussed in the first section, refers to knowledge acquisition under conditions in which the learner is not the addressee and does not physically interact in any way with the source of the content to be mastered. The second section describes cognitive constructivism from the standpoint of schema theory and the work of Bartlett (1932). The next section describes four principles of curriculum design that support constructive processes during vicarious learning and reviews the process of self-explanation and how computer prompted self-explanation supports constructive activities. Research showing the important role that overhearing deep-level reasoning questions plays in supporting constructive activities and deep-level learning is also described. In the next section, vicarious learning supported by deep-level reasoning questions is contrasted with tutoring as one kind of interactive learning. In the final section, some conclusions are drawn, a few empirical issues are discussed, and two caveats are noted.