Personal action potency: early years practitioners participating in interprofessional practice in early years settings

This paper reports on case study research in the UK analysing the participation of early years staff in interprofessional practice to provide effective care and education for children, primarily those with special educational needs. Even though case study staff in different ‘outstanding’ settings had equivalent qualifications and similar years of experience, the ease with which they were able to marshal and deliver effective provision for children requiring input from other services varied depending on a complex set of factors. Social Practice Theory (Holland and Lave 2009) and the concepts of personal action potency in trajectories of participation (Dreier 2002, 2008) shed light on how and why this was the case. The findings indicate that structural arrangements, interpersonal relationships, history and contentions influenced the practitioners' participation in interprofessional practice, but were not entirely deterministic. Contributing to theoretical development, the paper argues that the potential for interprofessional practice is a shared rather than individual capacity in settings. There is scope for enhancing this capacity through attention to the features identified in the analysis.     

Reflection in the context of team‐teaching

Team‐teaching is not a common practice in universities but in the experience of the authors of this paper it has a great deal to offer in terms of professional development because of the opportunities it provides for collaborative reflection. The paper describes the authors’ approach to team‐teaching, developed over a period of several years, and the application of the process in the teaching of a Master's course in Adult Education. They focus on the ways in which working with a teaching partner deepens and enhances the process of reflection in which they would normally engage individually and give examples of some of the outcomes triggered by their reciprocal reflection. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ways in which team‐teaching provides many of the elements other authors have described as helpful in promoting effective reflection.     

Online discussions in a doctoral research methods course: ‘Like a text by many authors’

In this mixed-methods study, we investigated how doctoral students used asynchronous online discussions that were added to a face-to-face research methods course. We focused specifically on what sociocognitive tools the students used and what they thought about the value of the online discussions for their learning. Our data included three online whole-class discussions from the course and students’ self-evaluations, which they completed three times during the semester. Our findings support the usefulness of online discussions in providing a site where students could draw on a rich repertoire of tools and strategies as well as on the knowledge of others to enhance their thinking and understanding of theory and research.     

Examining the role of social goals in school: A study in two collectivist cultures

Achievement goal theorists have mostly focused on the role of mastery and performance goals in the school setting with little attention being paid to social goals. The aim of this study was to explore the role of social goals in influencing educational outcomes in two collectivist cultures: Hong Kong and the Philippines. Results showed that social goals were able to predict additional variance in various adaptive educational outcomes even after controlling for the effects of mastery and performance goals. Implications for cross-cultural research are discussed.     

Some Practical Considerations on the Current Initiative towards Management Training for Heads and Senior Staff in Secondary Schools

In the past decade a growing number of industrialised nations have been concerned with school systems which have attained their goals of academic excellence. Within the research on education in less developed countries, environmental factors, particularly in‐school determinants of student achievement have not been fully explored. This paper examines classroom management and teaching practices as they impact on student achievement in a Caribbean setting. Characteristics of academically persistent environments and school effectiveness strategies are discussed.     

The Local Context and the Legacy of the Past

This paper draws upon interviews with eight headteachers in ‘Northern LEA’, and examines (a) how the heads perceived their role in relation to the current period of rapid educational change, and (b) how they sought to cope with the increasingly difficult demands which they faced. The consequences of the current situation are considered in relation to a qualitative understanding of ‘high performance’ which recognises the situational complexity of the school as an organisation.

The heads made use of many sources of support; the most important were a network of informal contacts with other headteachers and an increase in the involvement of senior management team colleagues in the stresses and responsibilities of management. The paper concludes that despite the efforts of the heads themselves, the consequences of resource cuts and the Education Reform Act 1988 are likely to make the achievement and management of high performance increasingly difficult.     

A Model for Assessing Higher Order Thinking in Statistics

ABSTRACT

As in other areas of the school curriculum, the teaching, learning and assessment of higher order thinking in statistics has become an issue for educators following the appearance of recent curriculum documents in many countries. These documents have included probability and statistics across all years of schooling and have stressed the importance of higher order thinking across all areas of the mathematics curriculum. This paper reports on a pilot project which applied the theoretical framework for cognitive development devised by Biggs and Collis to a higher order task in data handling in order to provide a model of student levels of response. The model will assist teachers, curriculum planners and other researchers interested in increasing levels of performance on more complex tasks. An interview protocol based on a set of 16 data cards was developed, trialed with Grade 6 and 9 students, and adapted for group work with two classes of Grade 6 students. The levels and types of cognitive functioning associated with the outcomes achieved by students completing the task in the two contexts will be discussed, as will the implications for classroom teaching and for further research.     

An action learning approach to partnership in community development: a reflection on the research process

Green space offers a significant environmental resource that can improve the individual experience of health and quality of life. However, barriers exist that prevent the use of green space, and partnership (multi-agency) working has the potential to overcome these. Current public health policy aims to broaden the range of environmental public health intervention through effective partnership working. In response to this, a community development partnership project (Stepping Stones to Nature) was established in the south west of England to improve green spaces in neighbourhood communities through engagement and consultation. Integral to this project was an initiative to research the process and experience of partnership working. The aim of this paper is to report the experience of the multi-agency group guiding the research process and how they used an action learning approach to explore their experiences and guide the research process. Halfway through the project a ‘formal’ focus group discussion was arranged in order to capture the reflective thinking and learning that had taken place. The focus of this paper is on the data from that group discussion. Four main themes were evident from the data: expectation/perceptions; stakeholder involvement; tensions (at organisational and individual levels); and reflection and learning (through the partnership and research process). This paper reflects the different expectations of the research process that need to be identified early in partnership research in order that they can be appropriately managed.     

The Effects of Outcome Uncertainties,Patriotism, and Asian Regionalism in the World Baseball Classic

This article investigates the effects of patriotism and Asian regionalism on game attendance and television viewers by using World Baseball Classic match data. The micro data of TV ratings provides comprehensive insights into the behavior of TV viewers. The results imply that attendance and TV viewers are affected by patriotism and Asian regionalism. Patriotism and regionalism have a significant positive effect on TV ratings. Although total points scored and game uncertainty are not significantly related to attendance and TV ratings in the game-level analysis, total points scored are significantly positively related to TV ratings in the inning-level analysis. Coefficients of inning-level uncertainty are partially negatively related to Videoland Sport's TV rating. The evidence weakly supports the hypothesis of game uncertainty.