Secondary Students' Perceptions about Learning Qualitative Analysis in Inorganic Chemistry

Grade 10 students in Singapore find qualitative analysis one of the more difficult topics in their external examinations. Fifty-one grade 10 students (15-17 years old) from three schools were interviewed to investigate their perceptions about learning qualitative analysis and the aspects of qualitative analysis they found difficult. The results showed that students found qualitative analysis tedious, difficult to understand and found the practical sessions unrelated to what they learned in class. They also believed that learning qualitative analysis required a great amount of memory work. It is proposed that their difficulties may arise from not knowing explicitly what is required in qualitative analysis, the content of qualitative analysis, the lack of motivation to understand qualitative analysis, cognitive overloading, and the lack of mastery of the required process skills.     

Panoptic performativity and school inspection regimes: disciplinary mechanisms and life under special measures

This paper looks at Ofsted and particularly special measures regimes as part of a disciplinary mechanism. It examines issues such as school effectiveness theories, the increasing powers of Ofsted, and life under special measures and links it to performativity, discipline and surveillance using the metaphor of the panopticon. The change in teachers’ accountability is traced, along with the rise in the audit culture in teaching, and the increase in the power of Ofsted. The research context is a case study of a school over the period 1999–2003. During this time the school was placed into special measures and provided an opportunity to examine the effects of a key Government policy. The issues researched were Ofsted, special measures and the effects that these had on schools and teachers. The paper argues that a special measures regime is an example of panoptic discipline which I call panoptic performativity. The primary research is echoed by much of the existing research and first hand accounts of Ofsted inspections. I also locate special measures regimes in the context of Lyotard’s ‘performativity’, Foucault’s ‘normalization’, and the school effectiveness literature.     

Hanging in or shaping a future: defining a role for vocationally related learning in a ‘knowledge’ society

This paper explores the ‘joined‐up thinking’ and attempts at ‘joined‐up working’ that policy architects recommend for the successful operationalization of the New Deal for 18–24 year olds. In particular, it examines the difficulties arising around the full‐time education and training option. The research project reports upon the ‘implementation gaps’, in particular the workings of Employment Service Personnel and College staff who strive to interpret and work within the relevant policy guidance for the New Deal for Young People (NDYP). The paper draws upon semi‐structured interviews and documentary analysis from a qualitative case study in South Wales to describe the interaction and articulation of the ‘main players’ who facilitate New Deal education and training options. Centralized and mandatory programmes like the New Deal for Young People which aims to be integrative and ameliorative, but which are framed within a strong sanctioning policy, have created tensions between those professionals trying to work in a ‘joined‐up’ manner. The guidance, educative, and social work elements which contribute to a positive learner/trainee identity are at odds with the surveillance and policing roles involved in monitoring claimant participation. FE staff who facilitate and manage the ‘New Deal’ full time education and training option emerge as a seriously challenged group, which has to forge workable and practical applications of a policy which somewhat undermines notions of a learning society and lifelong learning.     

Inspection and the fabrication of professional and performative processes

This paper is about the issue of the performance of inspection. Based on research conducted in an English secondary school in the years following its time under Special Measures, I discuss the idea that during an inspection the school becomes focussed around performing for inspection. I discuss performance theory here as well as notions of performativity. I set the scene with middle and senior managers' recollections of life under Special Measures, in effect the time in which they learnt to perform. I then use data from time spent in the school before and during the school's OfSTED inspection, and discuss inspection as performance.     

Developing a Model of Medication Adherence among Filipino Elderly

While adherence to medication remains a problematic area in the care of chronically ill elderly, an extended model that incorporates the interaction of studied variables remains a blank spot. Anchored on Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior, this article details our efforts to develop and test a model of medication adherence among Filipino elderly relative to their medication belief, follow-up visits, consultation satisfaction, memory task, trust with physician, perceived stress, memory strategies, social support, memory load, depression, length of time taking the medication, number of conditions, and self-efficacy with medication adherence. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to study causalities among all parameters. With the participation of 325 older adults located in District IV, Sampaloc, Manila, data needed were gathered through a multiaspect questionnaire consisting of a robotfoto, a memory strategy usage measure, an eight-scale Morisky Medication Adherence Scale, a 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale, a General Self-efficacy Scale, a Consultation Satisfaction Questionnaire, and a Perceived Stress Scale. Data were analyzed using AMOS version 19. Results revealed that depression, trust with physician, and number of conditions affect adherence positively, while event-based memory, consultation satisfaction, memory load, and external memory strategy affect it otherwise. Some suggested variables were found to have no impact at all. As this study reveals, careful consideration should be given to multiple factors, and their interrelationship should be examined well. Because many factors can influence medication adherence behavior of the elderly, and because the reasons for their noncompliance are also varied, multifaceted solutions must be developed.     

Honoring and Suffering the Thorn: Marking,Naming, and Eldering Depth Psychology II

This is the second article advocating and explicating a depth psychological approach to the education of the talented. In this analysis we take the “thorn” on the Piirto Pyramid of Talent Development and relate it to the processes of marking, naming, and eldering/mentoring as teachers practice them. The article presents 20 ways that the imaginal, symbolic aspects of life can be acknowledged and brought forth in students, thus invoking the educare within education.