Coloured overlays and their benefit for reading

Children in mainstream schools compared text on white paper with identical text covered in turn by each of ten differently‐coloured plastic overlays. More than 50% reported improved perception with one or more colours, and were given the best colour to use. About half used the overlays for more than three months and their reading speed increased when the overlays were used. In Study I children were examined twice using different methods and examiners. 47% chose the same colour on both occasions, and showed the greatest improvement in reading fluency, reliable at retest. In Study II children were issued with a random colour, and the greatest improvements in reading speed occurred when the random colour was the same as that previously chosen. Phonological reading strategies were not related to visual symptoms, or the benefit from overlays. Across individuals, reading speed varied by a factor of more than three, for good and poor readers. Study III provided estimates of the prevalence of improvements based on a sample of 426 children from 12 schools: 5% of children read more than 25% faster with a coloured overlay.     

A Dual Inheritance: The Politics of Educational Reform and PhDs in Art and Design

This paper examines the changing relationship of art practice to academic research in higher education since 1960. Whereas art practice was often conceived of as divorced from any notion of academic or theoretical work in the post 1960 art school, by the 1990s the ground had changed to such a degree that it was possible to pursue doctoral study in art practice. This emergence of practice‐based PhDs can be considered as part of a larger shift in art education and its acceptance of theory.     

Pedagogy for partisanship: research training for Black graduate students in the Black intellectual tradition

Current and former students of two professors in a southern research university and a community educator, all participants in an African-centered research collaborative/apprenticeship, describe what and how we study together and our struggle to use our knowledge and research in service to our community. We uplift the works of key Pan-African/Black/Africana Studies/Nile Valley scholars to illustrate the African epistemic foundation of our collaborative/apprenticeship. We describe how we utilized the methodology of narrative inquiry to explore our experiences as participants in the HeKA (Heritage Knowledge in Action) research collaborative and how HeKA has provided ways of knowing and being centered in our culture and heritage. We present our findings, which include some of the dilemmas of Black doctoral students and emerging scholars engaged in HeKA and how this collaborative/apprenticeship serves as an emancipatory praxis to enable the next generation to realize their goals of partisan research and pedagogy in higher education.     

The development of children at familial risk for dyslexia: Birth to early school age

Children at risk for familial dyslexia (n = 107) and their controls (n = 93) have been followed from birth to school entry in the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal study of Dyslexia (JLD) on developmental factors linked to reading and dyslexia. At the point of school entry, the majority of the at-risk children displayed decoding ability that fell at least 1 SD below the mean of the control group. Measures of speech processing were the earliest indices to show both group differences in infancy and also significant predictive associations with reading acquisition. A number of measures of language, including phonological and morphological skill collected repeatedly from age three, revealed group differences and predictive correlations. Both the group differences and the predictive associations to later language and reading ability strengthened as a function of increasing age. The predictions, however, tend to be stronger and the spectrum of significant correlations wider in the at-risk group. These results are crucial to early identification and intervention of dyslexia in at-risk children.     

Student Learning in Higher Education

There has been relatively little systematic experimental investigation of individual differences in student learning. The findings of mainstream laboratory‐based research are of limited value, though they are generally consistent with the results of surveys of student performance. Nevertheless, it has been possible to demonstrate qualitative and commensurable variation among individual students in both the outcome of learning and the process of learning, and in both formal experimental tasks and in normal academic studies. There has been limited success in attempts to manipulate cognitive processing by varying the anticipated form of assessment or by inducing variations in motivational factors. However, there are radical effects of matching the instructional procedures to the subjects’ cognitive approaches. More recent research has demonstrated considerable variation within individual subjects across different learning situations. Current discussion concerns the consistency, variability, and flexibility of individual learners, the identification of causal relationships, the validity of introspective reports and the adequacy of traditional research methodology.     

Rhymes and phonemes in the common unit task: replications and implications for beginning reading

Theorists and practitioners in the field of reading development are currently debating the importance of rhymes and phonemes in beginning reading. In a recent study, Duncan, Seymour and Hill (1997) provided evidence that explicit or meta- awareness of sound is closely linked to reading strategy. Meta-awareness was measured by asking beginning readers to identify the ‘common unit’ shared by two spoken words. Results showed that meta-awareness of phonemes emerged prior to meta-awareness of rhyme, and that reading strategy followed a similar small-to-large progression. This study reports on a replication of the ‘common unit’ task which includes modifications to the original procedure (randomisation of conditions, increased practice, removal of positional references from instructions). The results confirm the pattern observed in the original study. Beginning readers learning by a mixed method can identify shared phonemes but not shared rimes in the common unit task. The implications of this and similar replications are discussed.     

Motives,attitudes and approaches to studying in distance education

This study investigated the relationships between demographic characteristics, motives and attitudes to studying, self-reported study behaviour and measures of outcome. Students taking courses by distance learning received a postal survey containing a short form of the Motivated Strategies and Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) and the Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory (RASI). Path analysis was used to assess the causal relationships among 395 students’ age, gender and prior qualifications, their scores on the MSLQ and the RASI and their marks. Evidence was obtained for the causal efficacy of most of the paths among the main components. In particular, the causal link between variations in students’ motives and attitudes and variations in their study behaviour is bidirectional.     

‘What drives students’ affective commitment towards their university?’

How can universities build ongoing, committed relationships with students, able to withstand the financial and emotional challenges of studying in higher education? The research proposes that students’ ongoing attachment to their university, based on positive feelings towards the university, is an important aspect of the student experience. This ongoing attachment is conceptualised here as students’ affective commitment towards their institution. Using an online survey-method and a research sample comprising undergraduate students studying in the UK, this research identifies three factors which drive students’ affective commitment towards their institution. These factors include students’ affective commitment towards academics and students’ calculative commitment towards the institution; factors which draw from the relational literature. A third factor, commitment balance, was developed within this research. Commitment balance occurs when a student’s commitment to their university is perceived to be reciprocated by the university’s commitment to the student. The study found that commitment balance was the most important driver of students’ ongoing attachment to their institution. The paper proposes that commitment balance is a key idea to consider within relational studies generally, but has a particular relevance in the higher education context for understanding the student experience. Commitment balance reflects the pulse of reciprocity which energises relational exchanges between students and institution. The findings of this research reinforce how critically important it is for universities and academics to build relationships with students. The desired outcome is to enhance the student experience, create positive attachment between students and university and ultimately improve student retention.     

‘These religions are no good – they’re nothing but idol worship’: mis/representation of religion in Religious Education at school in Malawi and Ghana

This article draws data from two complementary studies in sub-Saharan Africa to highlight the problem of religious misrepresentation in (multi-faith) Religious Education (RE) at school in Malawi and Ghana. Employing Michael Apples’ conception of selective tradition, the article is critical of the confrontational disputation inherent in the RE in the two countries. The misrepresentation is analysed under themes related to classroom discourse and the nature of religion. It argues that RE could actually be counter-productive and thus end up misrepresenting religions instead of promoting them. Unless there is a radical shift in the areas identified, the subject will continue to present a distorted picture of religion and thus fail in its civic responsibility as a curriculum area that is perhaps best placed to inculcate pro-social values towards citizenship in a world of religious diversity.