AN EXPERIENTIALLY‐BASED TRAINING PROGRAMME IN CIVIL ENGINEERING

An innovative training programme providing second year students with a real taste of civil engineering practice through the construction of full‐size structures was introduced at the Nanyang Technological Institute, Singapore. Students are divided into companies, each responsible for executing the construction project for a profit, and in accordance with contract requirements in the forms of specifications and design drawings. Each company is sub‐divided into management, office and field groups. Thus the students, through a mandatory rotation of the role play, gain valuable experience in the field, office and management functions through personal involvement in such a real‐life project. To reflect the objectives of the programme, a system of assessment was developed based on the student performance at the team, group and individual levels. Due to the short history of the programme and since a true test of the effectiveness of this type of training is through the performance of the graduates, a summative evaluation is difficult to make at the present time. However, some interim feedback from the students, staff members and industrialists on students’ performance subsequent to their second year course work suggest that the programme has served well in achieving its intended objectives.     

Are “no-drug” cues discriminated during drug-discrimination training?

Rats were trained in a two-lever operant chamber to discriminate the presence versus the absence of a drug. During drug sessions, the training procedure involved reinforcing presses on lever 1 with saccharin-sweetened water but not reinforcing presses on lever 2. During no-drug sessions, only presses on lever 2 were reinforced. After this discrimination was learned, each rat was trained to discriminate presence versus absence of a second drug. All rats learned this second discrimination. Finally, the rats were tested to determine whether they could still discriminate the first drug, as well as other pharmacologically related compounds; most rats could. Training drugs were phenobarbital 30–35, nicotine 0.4, amphetamine 0.4, cyproheptadine 7, phencyclidine 4, cyclazocine 1.5, fentanyl 0.04, and scopolamine 0.2 mg/kg. The results indicate that drug versus no-drug discrimination training does not disrupt discriminative control previously established with a different drug. When considered in combination with the results obtained during substitution tests conducted after drug-versus-no-drug training, the data suggest that, instead of discriminating drug cues versus no-drug cues, rats discriminate presence versus absence of particular drug cues.     

BLIND MARKING AND SEX BIAS IN STUDENT ASSESSMENT

Three studies are reported which investigated the existence of sex bias in the marking of undergraduate degrees. Study 1 failed to find any evidence that females were marked less extremely than males by second markers, as has been found in previous research. Study 2 found that marker disagreements were not resolved upwards more frequently for male candidates, again contradicting the results of some previous research. Study 3 failed to find any of the expected differences between an institution using blind marking and one using non‐blind procedures. In the light of this negative evidence and of the confusing picture presented by. previous research, it is concluded that there is little firm evidence for sex bias in marking. Despite this, it is likely that there will be increasing pressure to adopt blind marking in the future.     

Individual to collaborative: guided group work and the role of teachers in junior secondary science classrooms

This paper, through discussion of a teaching intervention at two secondary schools in Hong Kong, demonstrates the learning advancement brought about by group work and dissects the facilitating role of teachers in collaborative discussions. One-hundred and fifty-two Secondary Two (Grade 8) students were divided into three pedagogical groups, namely ‘whole-class teaching’, ‘self-directed group work’ and ‘teacher-supported group work’ groups, and engaged in peer-review, team debate, group presentation and reflection tasks related to a junior secondary science topic (i.e. current electricity). Pre- and post-tests were performed to evaluate students’ scientific conceptions, alongside collected written responses and audio-recorded discussions. The results indicate that students achieved greater cognitive growth when they engaged in cooperative learning activities, the interactive and multi-sided argumentative nature of which is considered to apply particularly well to science education and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development framework. Group work learning is also found to be most effective when teachers play a role in navigating students during the joint construction of conceptual knowledge.     

Angry Anglos and aspirational Asians: everyday multiculturalism in the selective school system in Sydney

ABSTRACT

‘Asian whiz kids’ perfect test scores.’ ‘Selective schools and tiger parents.’ These types of headlines highlight the increased visibility of academically successful students from Asian migrant backgrounds, in Australia and other Western countries. They also point to anxiety about the perceived aggressive ‘tiger’ parenting often associated with Asian academic success. This paper focuses on the forms of everyday multiculturalism found in and around high-performing selective schools and classes in Sydney, Australia, almost all of which are dominated by Asian-Australian students. Drawing on interviews with parents and students from Anglo- and Asian-Australian backgrounds, it documents the different positionalities adopted by participants within these culturally diverse settings, including anger, aspiration and cosmopolitanism. This potentially volatile combination of approaches to diversity reveals some of the social consequences of neoliberal migration and education policies.     

Science Teachers’ Perceptions: Similarities and Differences in the U.S., England,Singapore and Japan

The prospect of using internationally generated comparative data, augmented with practice patterns, to provide useful information from which countries can learn from each other, is gaining acceptance from the increasing popularity of such an approach (Stigler and Hiebert, 1999). Using the survey data from TIMSS we examine the beliefs of teachers in the U.S., England, Singapore and Japan, and find little national variation in many teachers’ perceptions of core practices in science teaching, indicating that science teachers the world over share the same common core practices. However, there is one key difference among their practices, which signals a departure in the way teachers in Japan and Singapore operate vis‐à‐vis those in the U.S. and England. This key difference is attributed to cultural differences in the U.S. and England, when compared to Japan and Singapore.