Physiotherapy Student Clinical Education: the influence of subjective judgements on observational assessment

The process of assessing students on clinical placements has to date been under‐researched. In particular, while the involvement of subjective judgements in assessing students has been discussed in the literature, there has been no attempt to look for systematic evidence. This paper comprises the first attempt to relate judgement theory to the assessment of vocational education. Preliminary results demonstrate that physiotherapy assessors made subjective judgements of their students, that these contributed to the determination of assessment grades, and that in certain cases these judgements were erroneous. The relationship of these subjective judgements to the awarding of grades via a supposedly objective assessment instrument is not yet known. Given the widespread use of such assessment instruments across different professions, the question raised is whether all observational assessment systems suffer from similar problems. If students are being judged on criteria not included on assessment instruments, perhaps the other criteria being used need to be made more explicit.     

A CASE FOR SELF‐ASSESSMENT BASED ON RECENT STUDIES OF STUDENT LEARNING

An account of an experiment in self‐assessed learning where the lecturer used his authority to give his students responsibility for their own assessment. Students were expected to set their own goals, week‐by‐week, and prepare a self‐assessment, which was open to questioning and discussion by other members of the group, but which involved only the individual student in the final decision.

The difficulties encountered are clearly stated, but the final judgment is that only such methods can achieve deep processing in Higher Education. It is also argued that conventional methods of evaluation are inappropriate for this style of learning.     

That’s Not Something We Have to Discuss: Interrupting Silences About Multiracial Students in Teacher Work

The author asserts that the field of teacher education must begin a critical conversation to better prepare and support teachers in attending to the complexities of racialized identities, experiences, and perspectives of multiracial students in K12 schools. The author offers a review of literature relevant to multiracial students, and draws from the emerging theoretical framework of Multicrit (Harris in Int J Qual Stud Educ 29(6):795–813, 2016) to present monoracism, ahistoricism, colorism and intersectionality to analyze excerpts from three respective research studies. Each excerpt demonstrates an imperative to build a critical understanding of multiracial students within teacher work. The author concludes with implications for future research and practice.     

The effectiveness of post-16 pathways for gaining employment associated with undergraduate degree study

This article sets out to examine the effectiveness of five different post-16 study pathways and the impact that spending time away from education has on gaining employment associated with an undergraduate degree. It also explores advice and guidance for students looking at post-16 study options, higher education and employment. An initial online survey was used, followed by case studies to form a mixed-method approach. The findings suggest that a vocational pathway better prepares students for making decisions around employment and study in comparison to the more traditional A Level pathway. They also highlight that a period of one to four years after finishing post-16 study and starting undergraduate degree study is the most effective for students to gain employment associated with their undergraduate degree. Finally, it was found that most participants did not have positive experiences with advice and guidance regardless of their pathway.     

Learning about the past: exploring the opportunities and challenges of using an outdoor learning approach

This paper examines the potential of outdoor learning for supporting children’s understanding of and attitude towards history. A class of primary school children participated in an intensive experiential, residential history programme. A range of data was collected before, during and after the residential programme, and the findings suggest that the experience had a positive impact on the children’s attitude towards history and enabled many of the children to be able to easily recall highly specific factual knowledge. However, the children’s understanding of history as a provisional construct was not developed, as it was not a strong feature of the programme. Nor was the experiential nature of the experience fully exploited. Overall the study suggests that such a programme has the potential to support children’s learning of the past, but a deeper understanding of history, drawing on the benefits of outdoor learning pedagogy, needs to be planned for more explicitly.     

Fees,flows and imaginaries: exploring the destination choices arising from intra-national student mobility

ABSTRACT

Are intra-national student flows driven by the same forces as international student mobility? This paper addresses this question by analysing cross-border student mobility in the UK. The paper identifies four principles that one might expect to drive the destination choices of students from Scotland enrolling in English universities. Following a statistical analysis of student destination choices, it is argued that cross-border moves from Scotland to England are stimulated by some of the same global forces as international student mobility (such as a desire to accumulate cultural capital), but in terms of destination choice the imaginaries held by Scottish students of ‘good’ places to study in England to accumulate cultural capital are constructed differently from the imaginaries of international students.     

Mental toughness and transitions to high school and to undergraduate study

Mental toughness can be conceptualised as a set of attributes that allow people to deal effectively with challenges, stressors and pressure. Recent work has suggested that it may be a valuable construct to consider within educational settings. The current studies explored the associations between mental toughness and educational transitions. Study 1 examined the relationships between mental toughness and concerns about moving to a new school in 105 children aged 12–13 years of age. The results revealed significant relationships between several aspects of mental toughness, but particularly confidence in abilities, and children’s concerns. Study 2 examined the relationships between mental toughness and adjustment to university in 200 undergraduate students at various stages of their course. The results revealed a role for several aspects of mental toughness; commitment, control of life, control of emotion, confidence in abilities and interpersonal confidence. The results are discussed in terms of implications for educational practice. It is suggested that measures of mental toughness could be used to identify individuals who may benefit from additional support during transition to a new school or to university, and that future research should explore the potential benefits of mental toughness training.     

Theory Competition and the Process of Change

The reasons why many educational change initiatives have little impact are often framed in terms of either a poorly designed process on the part of the change initiator, or in terms of problems with the attitudes, skills and/or knowledge of those responsible for implementation. In this paper, we seek to integrate these two perspectives more closely by focusing on their interface and the competing theories frequently held by the change initiators and implementers. This concept of theory competition is illustrated with a case of a national literacy initiative in New Zealand in which the change initiators wished to raise the achievement of low performing students through the development of “learning-centred” leadership in schools and evidence-based practice. The desired outcomes were not achieved because theories about what it means to be a successful leader in such a situation, the data needed to undertake the type of evidence-based analysis envisioned and school personnel beliefs about the target students were understood differently by those responsible for initiating the change and those responsible for implementing it.