Viewpoint on distance education ‐ towards a focus and a future. ICDE World Conference, 11 August 1988. Oslo,Norway

Professor Charles Wedemeyer has appropriately been called the father of American distance education; he could also be termed an uncle of the British Open University, having acted as a consultant before the University opened to students.

As William Lighty Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin at Madison he broke the ground for much subsequent research in the field of distance education. His most familiar published work is his book Learning at the Back Door (University of Wisconsin Press, 1981).

His long and distinguished career has included the Presidency of the International Council for Distance Education (ICDE), and the award of an Honorary Doctorate from the Open University in 1975.

He has attended many ICDE World conferences over the years, and in Oslo in the summer of 1988 gave a viewpoint on distance education for the future. Professor Wedemeyer has indicated that perhaps this paper will be the last he writes in this area; “This does not indicate a lack of interest... but at 77 years... I find it difficult to keep up with the volume of reading alone that must be maintained if I want to write among the best in our burgeoning field’.     

The function of individualized education programmes in special education: a discussion of premises∗

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the construction and implementation of written individual plans for teaching students in special education. Experiences from a number of countries are given, and from these experiences two premises for planning teaching are deduced: one regarding the link between diagnosis and instruction and one regarding teacher planning. The premises are discussed in some detail and consequences for individual planning in special education are formulated.

     

Adult education and earnings: A 45-year longitudinal study of 834 Swedish men

Consistent with previous research, the findings indicate that acquired level of youth education, including tertiary education, functions as a socioeconomic stratifier through its effects on occupational status and earnings at the age of 30, 35, 43 and 52. The direct effect of youth education on occupational status is found to decrease from age 30 to 52, whereas the effect of adult education on occupational status augments from age 35 to 52. Adult education appears to mediate and reinforce the effects of youth education on occupational status. The inclusion of adult education does not necessarily alter the predictability of earnings. The probability of acquiring adult education is significantly greater the higher the initial level of youth education.     

Reasons for Gender-Related Differential Item Functioning in a College Admissions Test

Gender fairness in testing can be impeded by the presence of differential item functioning (DIF), which potentially causes test bias. In this study, the presence and causes of gender-related DIF were investigated with real data from 800 items answered by 250,000 test takers. DIF was examined using the Mantel–Haenszel and logistic regression procedures. Little DIF was found in the quantitative items and a moderate amount was found in the verbal items. Vocabulary items favored women if sampled from traditionally female domains but generally not vice versa if sampled from male domains. The sentence completion item format in the English reading comprehension subtest favored men regardless of content. The findings, if supported in a cross-validation study, can potentially lead to changes in how vocabulary items are sampled and in the use of the sentence completion format in English reading comprehension, thereby increasing gender fairness in the examined test.     

Reactive versus proactive support coordinator roles: an international comparison

The four studies on support teacher roles from the UK, The Netherlands, Spain and Australia, in this issue of the journal, are considered via a comparative analysis. Two perspectives, namely categorical and relational, are applied to identify the main continuities and discontinuities related to basic understandings of special need support in inclusive education development. Within-country differences were found more decisive for support teacher roles than those between countries. Conditions for support teacher roles being reactive or proactive are discussed with reference to mandates; status of power and priorities; and time allocated for coordinating tasks. ‘Scapegoat’ roles for support teachers are also considered. Fostering the concept of inclusive education requires a commitment to whole-school reform. This is also seen as a prerequisite for support coordinators' roles to develop in a more proactive way.     

Everyday Phenomena and Teachers’ Training

The Swedish curriculum for the nine-year compulsory school prescribes that the teacher shall work in an investigative way with everyday phenomena. This can be interpreted as working with simple experiments using common materials, and presupposes that teachers themselves have a good and reflected comprehension of the phenomena illustrated. In order to study the ability of our teacher students to explain everyday phenomena, we chose to ask all the students in the fourth term about phenomena where transformations of matter are involved. The students were requested to give their answers in writing and as detailed as possible. The answers have been analysed in different ways. We have categorised them and studied whether there are any systematic patterns between individuah. A very general conclusion is that there is a great need in teacher training to work with conceptual understanding and with ways of expressing oneself as a teacher.     

The Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test: Development, Use, and Research

How are entrance examinations for college used in Sweden? What is measured by these examinations? What kinds of research have been conducted? Have gender differences been found on the tests?