The Relationship Between Organization and Management in Schools

Vice-principals’ role and their relationship with principals are of paramount importance in shaping the effectiveness of school management, particularly after the implementation of school-based management (SBM) worldwide. This paper reports primarily on prior studies on the vice-principalship and suggests a framework to help explain the different working relationships between principals and vice-principals. The framework is a matrix based on three dimensions, namely status, roles and management tasks. The framework was then examined through an illustrative case study. What emerged was that the framework provides a powerful means to explain the different combinations of relationship between principals and vice-principals.     

Activity theory and knowledge production

Abstract

The article is based on a paper delivered to the AWCEBD KEYWORDS Conference at Cirencester in 1999, where the focus was upon staff emotional support. The article proposes that some of the causes of teacher and intelligence; worker stress are organizational factors and perceptual bias, and that staff support; stress is an inevitable consequence of working in an environment supervision where human relationships are critical for the successful management of young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.The author suggests that one way of alleviating this stress is through the introduction of supervision to the educational field. Supervision in other helping professions has been successful in providing support, changing perceptions, managing emotions and coping with stressful situations, and in so doing has improved relationships with others and work performance.     

THE QUALITATIVE ASPECTS OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING

Vocational educational has long struggled with a reputation as a lower track and dead end for socially disadvantaged populations. Since the alarm call in the 1980s about the “forgotten half,” significant efforts have been expended to develop reform programs that provide disadvantaged populations viable options that would enhance their academic and economic prospects. However, considering the fact that such reform programs consist of a disproportionate numbers of Latinos and African Americans, how do we know that such reforms are not reproducing structures of racial domination? This article, an ethnographic study of a promising vocational education reform, examines race-making in the institutional organization, the representational practices, and the perspectives of students and teachers inside and outside this reform program. I argue that although the academy was a success story to some extent, it encountered negative stereotypes from its host school, while indirectly producing conditions that racially stigmatized its population. This poses questions about racial equity and the role of the institutional culture of the host school in implementing vocational reform programs.     

Application of velocity loss thresholds during free-weight resistance training: Responses and reproducibility of perceptual,metabolic, and neuromuscular outcomes

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to investigate the differences and long-term reliability in perceptual, metabolic, and neuromuscular responses to velocity loss resistance training protocols. Using a repeated, counterbalanced, crossover design, twelve team-sport athletes completed 5-sets of barbell back-squats at a load corresponding to a mean concentric velocity of ~0.70 m·s^?1. On different days, repetitions were performed until a 10%, 20% or 30% velocity loss was attained, with outcome measures collected after each set. Sessions were repeated after four-weeks. There were substantial between-protocol differences in post-set differential ratings of perceived exertion (dRPE, i.e., breathlessness and leg muscles, AU) and blood lactate concentration (B[La], mmol·L^?1), such that 30%>20%>10% by small to large magnitudes. Differences in post-set countermovement jump (CMJ) variables were small for most variables, such that 30%<20%<10%. Standard deviations representing four-week variability of post-set responses to each protocol were: dRPE, 8–11; B[La], 0.8–1.0; CMJ height, 1.6–2.0; CMJ PPO, 1.0–1.8; CMJ PCV, 0.04–0.06; CMJ 100ms-Impulse, 5.7–11.9. Velocity loss thresholds control the magnitude of perceptual, metabolic, and neuromuscular responses to resistance training. For practitioners wanting to reliably prescribe training that can induce a given perceptual, metabolic, or neuromuscular response, it is strongly advised that velocity-based thresholds are implemented.     

Open access megajournals: The publisher perspective (Part 1: Motivations)

This paper is the first of two Learned Publishing articles in which we report the results of a series of interviews with senior publishers and editors exploring open access megajournals (OAMJs). Megajournals (of which PLoS One is the best known example) represent a relatively new approach to scholarly communication and can be characterized as large, broad‐scope, open access journals that take an innovative approach to peer review, basing acceptance decisions solely on the technical or scientific soundness of the article. This model is often said to support the broader goals of the open science movement. Based on in‐depth interviews with 31 publishers and editors representing 16 different organizations (10 of which publish a megajournal), this paper reports how the term ‘megajournal’ is understood and publishers’ rationale and motivations for launching (or not launching) an OAMJ. We find that while there is general agreement on the common characteristics of megajournals, there is not yet a consensus on their relative importance. We also find seven motivating factors that were said to drive the launch of an OAMJ and link each of these factors to potential societal and business benefits. These results suggest that the often polarized debate surrounding OAMJs is a consequence of the extent to which observers perceive publishers to be motivated by these societal or business benefits.     

Dangerous liaisons: Reflections on a pilot project for state-mandated outcomes assessment of written communication

This study details the development and results of a campus-based writing assessment plan that was mandated by a state-wide university system in order to explore the “value-added” from a writing program curriculum to undergraduate students’ competence with written expression. Four writing samples (two timed essays and two conventional essays) that are produced before, during and at the close of enrollment in the writing program are scored for critical thinking, genre knowledge, rhetorical skills, and mechanics. The results indicate that local campus student achievement related to writing is comparable with performance captured by nationally normed technologies and larger assessment projects at similar state universities. The data also suggest significant performance difference related to the institutional position of students’ instructors as well as students’ own enrollment status. The article concludes that while the data produced by this research project are compelling, the policy and political implications of the undertaking suggest greater sensitivity to the institution's culture and program direction as well as its impact on instructor morale, student learning environment and the place of composition studies in the university.     

Speech and drama training for lectures as a means of improving university teaching

Although considerable resources have been invested in programs for the improvement of college and university teaching, there is little data available on the effectiveness of these programs. The present study assessed the value of speech and drama training as a method of improving lecturing skills in university teachers. It was found that teachers who received speech and drama training showed significant improvement in student ratings of classroom teaching relative to control teachers. Rival hypotheses involving greater motivation to improve in experimental teachers and generalized placebo and self-help effects were ruled out on the basis of student rating data from previous courses and differential findings for target and nontarget rating scales. It is concluded that speech and drama training can make a small but significant contribution to the improvement of university teaching.     

Deaf college students' comprehension of relational language in arithmetic compare problems

In this study of deaf college students' performance solving compare word problems, relational statements were either consistent or inconsistent with the arithmetic operation required for the solutions. The results support the consistency hypothesis Lewis and Mayer (1987) proposed based on research with hearing students. That is, deaf students were more likely to miscomprehend a relational statement and commit a reversal error when the required arithmetic operation was inconsistent with the statement's relational term (e.g., having to add when the relational term was less than). Also, the reversal error effect with inconsistent word problems was magnified when the relational statement was a marked term (e.g., a negative adjective such as less than) rather than an unmarked term (e.g., a positive adjective such as more than). Reading ability levels of deaf students influenced their performance in a number of ways. As predicted, there was a decrease in goal-monitoring errors, multiple errors, and the number of problems left blank as the reading levels of students increased. Contrary to expectations, higher reading skills did not affect the frequency of reversal errors.