NEEDED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATING HIGH ABILITY CHILDREN

Serious research on the gifted began some 70 years ago with the Terman studies, and has intensified in the last decade or so. Since many decisions on identification, education and counseling depend on the underlying conception of giftedness, a fruitful area of research involves the validity of various concepts. Research is also needed to ascertain the effectiveness of identification procedures, to determine what kinds of educational and socialization opportunities are needed to transform potential into performance, and better to identify and nurture giftedness in populations which are traditionally underrepresented. We need to understand better how affective characteristics can be nurtured, as well as the influence of family and community on talent development and ways of achieving the twin goals of equity and excellence.

     

Issues of Equity in Special Needs Education from a Gender Perspective

This article is concerned with gender issues in resource allocation for special needs in mainstream schools. The ways in which categories operate in academic life and professional practice in schools raise dilemmas for the development of the concept and practice of equality of opportunity. Data are drawn from a recent ESRC study (R000237346) and used to illustrate some of the ways in which significant problems for the management of special needs services are revealed from the perspective of gender.     

Assessment for learning: Developing formative assessment in the classroom

This article reports on a research project designed to investigate and develop formative classroom assessment in primary schools. The project was a collaborative one, involving two university based researchers and a team of teacher researchers. It used an action research approach to try to bring about changes in classroom assessment practices. The article reports on changes in practice particularly involving the clarification and communication of assessment criteria to pupils.     

RESEARCH SECTION: Provision in further education colleges for 14‐ to 16‐year‐olds with social,emotional and behavioural difficulties

Previous research set out to identify and examine practice and provision for young people exhibiting behaviour problems who may have been placed in colleges of further education for a variety of reasons. In this paper, Natasha Macnab, John Visser and Harry Daniels explore some of the implications faced by college staff and examine some of the key themes that emerged from this previous study. The first of these themes concerns ‘college culture’, which is seen as being ‘adult orientated’ and therefore more likely to appeal to young people who are tired of school. Indeed, college staff suspect at times that schools are using the transition to college as an alternative to exclusion for some young people. This form of ‘managed transfer’ raises real issues in colleges, especially when some members of college staff do not yet appreciate the ‘appeal of teaching young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD)’, regarding them as ‘disaffected’ and ‘switched off’ from education. The authors of this article note the need for ‘skilled and committed adults’ to build relationships with these young people in order to promote their social inclusion. They argue that this work will require professional development for staff but will have real benefits for the young people concerned.     

Audience support and choking under pressure: a home disadvantage?

This paper highlights the not-so-obvious but compelling reasons why the same supportive audiences that can help performers attain their highest potential also may increase performers' risk of choking under pressure. Drawing primarily from social psychology research and theory, we conclude that audience support magnifies performance pressure and induces performers to avoid failure rather than seek success during the most critical moments of performance contests. Although supportive audiences can inspire performers to excel when motivation would otherwise be lacking, audiences may also lead performers towards maladaptive self-monitoring and overcautiousness when the stakes are highest. The increased self-focus that supportive audiences induce can disrupt the automatic execution of the skills performers possess. Dispositional and situational moderators of the relationship between audience support and performance are reviewed.     

The Functional Context Method of Instruction

This is a discussion of a method of instruction designed to replace conventional methods for training radio repairmen. In traditional radio repair instruction, basic electronics has been taught as a block of instruction preceding instruction on intact equipment and maintenance operations. This approach is criticized for its failure to provide the student with meaningful and relevant contexts for the learning of basic electronics and for the obstacles it presents to the assimilation of basic electronics knowledge into maintenance skills. A new approach, entitled the functional context method, is offered as a means for avoiding these shortcomings. This is accomplished through a topic sequence wherein basic electronics is taught in the broader contexts of over-all equipment functions and maintenance operations.