High School‐Aged Youths' Attitudes Toward their Peers with Disabilities: the role of school and student interpersonal Factors

Negative peer attitudes are generally recognised as being a major barrier to full social inclusion at school for children and youth with disabilities. The present study examined the attitudes of 1,872 grade nine high school students in Ontario, Canada toward their peers with disabilities. A bioecological perspective and a structural equation modeling approach were adopted to investigate how various aspects of school culture and student interpersonal factors influenced attitudes. The majority of students (61%) held attitudes toward peers with disabilities that ranged from slightly above neutral to very positive. However, a substantial number (21%) held slightly below neutral to very negative attitudes. Positive student relationships at the school level and a school goal task structure that promoted learning and understanding for all students, rather than social comparison and competition among students, were two aspects of school culture that had both direct associations with positive attitudes and indirect associations through student interpersonal factors. Teacher and student relationships at the school level was an aspect of school culture that had an indirect association with positive attitudes via interpersonal support from teachers. Results support the development of ecologically based programs aimed at promoting aspects of school culture that contribute to positive attitudes of students toward their peers with disabilities.     

Triadic Assessment

This article describes the findings of, and the conclusions drawn from, a research project sponsored by the University of Plymouth Student Centred Learning Initiative (SCLI) with the intention of gaining an indepth view of self, peer and tutor (triadic) assessment. The research employed an essentially qualitative methodology incorporating the use of questionnaire and semi-structured interview techniques. The research cohort was drawn from groups of students studying at different stages of the BA(Hons) Education and Training programme within the Faculty of Arts & Education at the University of Plymouth. The research project was designed to examine triadic assessment within the context of the formative and summative stages of the assessment process of the programme. Of significance to the research was the fact that triadic assessment was seen to form an integral part of the formative and summative stages of the programme assessment procedures. This involved all students in a collaborative process of setting their own assessment criteria; a process supported through directed study activities and ongoing monitoring and review. While the researchers all subscribed to the view that this process is a key part of triadic assessment, the discourse evaluation that the research also involved ensured that the assessment practices examined were closely and critically evaluated. The ongoing process of interrogation and re-conceptualisation of the epistemological foundations of the research practice were sustained throughout the research process. Questions of power and knowledge were closely examined, alongside a close critical analysis of the way in which the professional identity and assessment practice style of those involved in the research were influenced by the way in which they were situated within a variety of different practice contexts. This article proposes a problematising of triadic assessment and concludes that it is clearly not a transparent activity that reveals easily generalisable and universalisable features and characteristics. Depending upon chosen perspectives, triadic assessment will, therefore, possess strengths and weaknesses. Evidence from the research suggests that notions of self- and peer assessment are contested and negotiated within the context of situated and active discursive construction.     

The SOLO Taxonomy as a Means of Shaping and Assessing Learning in Higher Education

This paper is a discussion of the use of the SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes) Taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982, 1989; Biggs, 1991, 1992a, 1992b; Boulton‐Lewis, 1992, 1994) as a means of developing and assessing higher order thinking in Higher Education. It includes a summary of the research into its use to date as an instrument to find out what students know and believe about their own learning, to assess entering knowledge in a discipline, to present examples of structural organization of knowledge in a discipline, to provide models of levels of desired learning outcomes, and in particular to assess learning outcomes. A proposal is made for further research.     

Assessment of Language Skills in Young Children with Profound Hearing Loss under Two Years of Age

This article presents an initial evaluation of a technique known as the Diary of Early Language (Di-EL), designed to obtain data about early lexical development in young children with profound hearing loss using cochlear implants, hearing aids, or both. The validity of the Di-EL, a parent report technique, was examined through comparisons with other measures of language development. Lexical data reported by parents using the Di-EL was found to agree with that reported by the same parents for the same children using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI), although some differences in the lexical items were noted. Rate of lexical acquisition on the Di-EL was found to correlate highly with that measured by the CDI and with expressive language skills as measured by the Rossetti Infant Toddler Language Scale, suggesting that the Di-EL is a valid measure of early lexical progress. These results are discussed with reference to other diary studies, along with research and clinical applications of the Di-EL.     

All in a day's work: primary teachers ‘performing’ and ‘caring’

This article discusses the current nature of primary teachers' work, which is explored in terms of ‘performing’ and ‘caring’ activities. It considers how the education policies of successive Governments in the UK, particularly for England, have given rise to a ‘performance culture’ in primary schools which emphasises targets, testing and tables and is overly concerned with the monitoring and measurement of teachers' work. The article examines teachers' experiences of working in a more competitive and performance‐driven environment particularly given that primary teaching is historically perceived as ‘women's work’ and linked with caring and mothering. The introduction of performance related pay and performance management in schools in England by the New Labour Government has made ‘performing’ activities more transparent while undermining, overshadowing and rendering invisible ‘caring’ activities in primary schools. The findings suggest that there appears to be a changing role for women teachers as the primary school culture shifts significantly from its association with the feminine qualities of nurturing towards a more masculine culture of management and performance.     

Growth and maturity status of elite British junior tennis players

Growth and maturation impact the selection, development and progression of youth athletes. Individual differences in the growth and maturity may afford a performance advantage, clouding coaches and practitioners’ perceptions regarding current ability and future potential. This may result in the exclusion of talented, yet less physically gifted athletes. Participants were 91 male (n = 47) and female (n = 44) elite British Junior tennis players, 8–17 years of age (12.5 ± 1.9 years). Height and body mass were measured and compared to growth charts; hand-wrist radiographs were taken. Skeletal age (SA) was estimated with the Fels method and contrasted to chronological age (CA). Mean height and body mass of individual players ranged between the 50th and 90th centiles for age and sex. Females were advanced in SA relative to CA (0.3–0.89 years.) from 8 years. Males were average to delayed in maturation from 8 to 12 years, but advanced in SA from 14 to 16 years (0.75–1.23 years). Individual differences in growth and maturation appear to contribute towards the selection of elite junior tennis players, with a bias towards males and females who are advanced in maturation and comparatively tall and heavy for their age. This has important implications for talent identification and development.     

School composition,school culture and socioeconomic inequalities in young people's health: Multi‐level analysis of the Health Behaviour in School‐aged Children (HBSC) survey in Wales

Health inequalities emerge during childhood and youth, before widening in adulthood. Theorising, testing and interrupting the mechanisms through which inequalities are perpetuated and sustained is vital. Schools are viewed as settings through which inequality in young people's health may be addressed, but few studies examine the social processes via which institutional structures reproduce or mitigate health inequalities. Informed by Markham and Aveyard's theory of human functioning and school organisation, including their concept of institutional boundaries, critical theories of marketisation and the concept of micro‐political practices within schools, this paper presents analysis of student survey data (N = 9055) from 82 secondary schools in Wales. It examines the role of socioeconomic composition, social relationships at school and institutional priorities in mitigating or perpetuating health inequality. It finds that affluent schools were most unequal in terms of student health behaviours and subjective wellbeing. In relation to health behaviours, students from affluent families accrue a disproportionate benefit. For wellbeing, students from poorer families reported lower subjective wellbeing where attending more affluent schools. Student–staff relationships appear to be a key mechanism underpinning these effects: poor relationships with staff were predicted by a pupil's position within schools’ socioeconomic hierarchy and associated with worse health outcomes. That is, students from the poorest families reported better relationships with teachers where attending less affluent schools. Universal approaches engaging with these social processes are needed to reduce health inequalities.     

Children’s transitions to school: ‘so what about the parents’? or ‘so,what about the parents’?

Children progress through a number of life transitions and each is a pivotal point of development and growth for them, their parents and family members. Through a review of the literature, the Bioecological Model will be used to frame childhood transitions as highly social, contextualised and political. This paper will assert that governments, schools and educators have an increased role in supporting parents with their changing roles, responsibilities and relationships as their child transitions to school and that schools need to provide space for parents to share their own transition to school narratives in order to better understand the effect these stories may have on the transition process for them and their children. Finally, schools and systems will be challenged to engage in a strengths-based approach to support parents at this pivotal time in their own and their child’s growth and development and call for increased research to identify ways in which this can occur within respectful, collaborative and agentic relationships.     

Virtual action learning: experiences from a study of an SME e-learning programme

This paper presents the findings from a project investigating management development for SME managers using an action learning programme, combining both face-to-face workshops and a virtual action learning environment. This programme was undertaken as part of the ENSeL (Engaging Networks for Sustainable eLearning) project, which was supported by the European Commission. The project aimed to address three main objectives: reworking results from previous European projects to disseminate to a wider audience, creating a learning network amongst the project partners and to undertake three learning trials with SMEs in UK, France and Italy. This paper principally addresses the findings from the UK trials, which ran between February and April 2005, and provides valuable learning to all those interested in developing future learning programmes aimed at SMEs.     

Challenges and Changes: Developing Teachers’ and Initial Teacher Education Students’ Understandings of the Nature of Science

Teachers need an understanding of the nature of science (NOS) to enable them to incorporate NOS into their teaching of science. The current study examines the usefulness of a strategy for challenging or changing teachers’ understandings of NOS. The teachers who participated in this study were 10 initial teacher education chemistry students and six experienced teachers from secondary and primary schools who were introduced to an explicit and reflective activity, a dramatic reading about a historical scientific development. Concept maps were used before and after the activity to assess teachers’ knowledge of NOS. The participants also took part in a focus group interview to establish whether they perceived the activity as useful in developing their own understanding of NOS. Initial analysis led us to ask another group, comprising seven initial teacher education chemistry students, to take part in a modified study. These participants not only completed the same tasks as the previous participants but also completed a written reflection commenting on whether the activity and focus group discussion enhanced their understanding of NOS. Both Lederman et al.’s (Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39(6), 497–521, 2002) concepts of NOS and notions of “naive” and “informed” understandings of NOS and Hay’s (Studies in Higher Education, 32(1), 39–57, 2007) notions of “surface” and “deep” learning were used as frameworks to examine the participants’ specific understandings of NOS and the depth of their learning. The ways in which participants’ understandings of NOS were broadened or changed by taking part in the dramatic reading are presented. The impact of the data-gathering tools on the participants’ professional learning is also discussed.