Book reviews

The Light That Shines: Chapel Hill, 1912–1916. Robert B. House. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964. Pp. 216. $5.00.)

Psychology of Adolescence for Teachers. Glenn Myers Blair and R. Stewart Jones. (New York: Macmillan, 1964. Pp. 118. $1.50, paper.)

Psychology of the Child in the Classroom. Don C. Charles. (New York: Macmillan, 1964. Pp. 86. $1.25, paper.)

Reading Instruction for Today's Children. Nila Banton Smith. (Engle‐wood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice‐Hall, 1963. Pp. 594. $7.50.)

Religion and the Schools, The Great Controversy. Paul Blanchard. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963. Pp. 265. $4.95.)

School Business Administration in the Smaller Community. Fredrick W. Hill and James W. Colmey. (Minneapolis: T. S. Denison and Company, 1964. Pp. 324. $7.95.)

Sociology of Childhood. Oscar W. Ritchie and Marvin R. Koller. (New York: Appleton‐Century‐Crofts, 1964. Pp. 333. $5.00.)

The Teaching of Mathematics. Roy Dubisch. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1963. Pp. 124. $2.95, paper.)

Vignettes on the Theory and Practice of School Administration. Finis E. Engleman, Shirley Cooper, and William J. Ellena. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1963. Pp. 237. $4.80.)     

Twenty questions about student errors

Errors in science learning (errors in expression of organized, purposeful thought within the domain of science) provide a window through which glimpses of mental functioning can be obtained. Errors are valuable and normal occurrences in the process of learning science. A student can use his/her errors to develop a deeper understanding of a concept as long as the error can be recognized and appropriate, informative feedback can be obtained. A safe, non-threatening, and nonpunitive environment which encourages dialogue helps students to express their conceptions and to risk making errors. Pedagogical methods that systematically address common student errors produce significant gains in student learning. Just as the nature-nurture interaction is integral to the development of living things, so the individual-environment interaction is basic to thought processes. At a minimum, four systems interact: (1) the individual problem solver (who has a worldview, relatively stable cognitive characteristics, relatively malleable mental states and conditions, and aims or intentions), (2) task to be performed (including relative importance and nature of the task), (3) knowledge domain in which task is contained, and (4) the environment (including orienting conditions and the social and physical context). Several basic assumptions underlie research on errors and alternative conceptions. Among these are: Knowledge and thought involve active, constructive processes; there are many ways to acquire, organize, store, retrieve, and think about a given concept or event; and understanding is achieved by successive approximations. Application of these ideas will require a fundamental change in how science is taught.     

Retaking the Test

Data-driven teaching and learning is common sense in education today, and it is common sense that these data should come from standardized tests. Critiques of standardization either make no constructive suggestions for what to use in place of the tests or they call for better, more scientifically rigorous, reliable, and authentic forms of testing. This article aims to critique the underlying logic of testing within neoliberal education by a return to the question of the ontology of testing as such. We do this by distinguishing the practices and technologies used in current testing from the fundamentally educational and philosophical aspect of human experience that critical theorist Avital Ronell (2005 Ronell, A. (2005). The test drive. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. [Google Scholar]) calls the “test drive.” Posing the test drive against the current testing regime will allow us to reclaim health, personality, and taste from the high-stakes notion of testing that prevails today.     

Identifying profiles of children at risk of being less physically active: an exploratory study using a self-organised map approach for motor competence

This study aims to develop profiles in children according to physical fitness, actual and perceived motor competence, and to examine the level of engagement in physical activity and weight status according to these profiles. In the study, 156 typically developing Spanish children (47.4% girls) of primary school age (5–11 years-old) participated voluntarily. Children’s perceived and actual motor competence, physical fitness, physical activity participation and weight status were assessed. A Self-Organising Map and K-means cluster analysis were used to classify and visualise the values. Four profiles were found: profile 2 was aligned – high capacity, high perception, profile 1 was partially aligned – medium capacity and perception, profile 3 and 4 were both non-aligned – low capacity, medium perception and medium capacity, low perception; respectively. Children in profile 2 were more active than children in profile 3 and 4 (P < .05). In profile 2 there was a lower frequency of overweight/obese children than normal-weight children. On the contrary, in profiles 1, 3 and 4 a similar distribution of normal-weight and overweight/obese children was found. High capable children with high perception exhibited higher physical activity participation and were more likely to be of normal-weight compared to those with low capacity and/or perception.