Including Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Pupils in a Mainstream Comprehensive: A study of the behaviour of pupils and classes

A group of twelve pupils from an emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) school were transferred to a mainstream comprehensive school. They were supported by a specialist teacher and two Educational Support Assistants. The behaviour of the pupils was monitored. The behaviour of the EBD pupils was found to be very similar to that of the other pupils in the school. Only two of the EBD boys showed behaviour significantly worse than their peers. On the whole, the EBD pupils behaved extremely well in well-run classes, but their behaviour deteriorated in less well-organised lessons. Their behaviour tended to decline over the course of the school day, and the behaviour of all the pupils in the school was shown to be worse for the last period of the day. The implications of this research on the whole concept of EBD is discussed, as is the role, attitudes and practice of both teachers and educational psychologists.     

Comparison of Most-to-Least Prompting to Flexible Prompt Fading for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study compared most-to-least prompting to flexible prompt fading for teaching four children with an autism spectrum disorder various expressive tasks. Using a parallel treatment design nested into a multiple probe design, researchers taught each participant how to expressively label six pictures with most-to-least prompting and six pictures with flexible prompt fading. The researchers evaluated effectiveness, maintenance, efficiency, and performance across both prompting conditions and across all participants. Results indicated that both prompting procedures were effective across all four participants. Results also indicated that flexible prompt fading led to a higher percentage of independent correct responding during teaching trials. For three of the participants, flexible prompt fading was also a more efficient procedure. Results were mixed in terms of maintenance across the four participants.     

Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion,perceived adequacy of support and classroom learning environment

Inclusive education has become a cornerstone of many government policies in an increasing number of countries, yet teachers have been found to hold mixed attitudes towards its implementation and usefulness. This article, using English terminology and thinking, aims to extend previous research on the effect of teacher attitudes towards inclusion in classroom learning environments, and to explore perceived adequacy of support, levels of stress, and willingness to include pupils with certain difficulties. Teachers (N = 95) completed questionnaires on attitudes to inclusion, classroom learning environment, support and stress. Pupils (N = 2,514) completed a questionnaire on classroom learning environment only. Teacher attitudes towards including special educational needs pupils in mainstream settings were found to have a significant impact on how they managed their classroom learning environments and how adequately they perceived available support. Teachers with more positive attitudes towards inclusion were reported by their pupils to have classroom environments with greater levels of satisfaction and cohesiveness and lower levels of friction, competitiveness and difficulty than for those with teachers who held less positive attitudes. Teacher attitudes towards inclusion increased with greater perceived adequacy of both internal and external support. Teachers were less willing to include pupils with behavioural difficulties than pupils who were able/gifted or had physical difficulties, irrespective of attitude to inclusion.     

Is exam hell the cause of high academic achievement in East Asia? The case of Japan and the case for transcending stereotypes

High student achievement across East Asia is often explained as an outcome of highly competitive, stress‐inducing college entrance exams across the region. This ‘exam hell’ drives students to study longer and harder than their peers worldwide, a race that leads—unsurprisingly—to higher marks in international comparisons such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Yet, the race comes at a considerable cost: psychological pressure, forfeited childhoods, regimes of rote memorisation, lack of creativity and private outlays for cram schools. In this article, we seek to refute this outdated narrative by focusing on changes in Japanese education over the past three decades. We first analyse quantitative data for learning time based on three longitudinal surveys conducted by researchers in Japan to show that learning time for Japanese upper secondary students declined during 1980–2000 (Study 1). We then turn to analyse PISA 2015 data to show that now Japanese students study less than their peers in major Anglo‐American countries: the USA, the UK and Australia (Study 2). These findings run counter to well‐worn images frequently rehearsed in both the academic and popular literature. In helping to remove one of the most persistent stereotypes about East Asian education, we seek to help make visible other explanations for East Asian student achievement.     

The roles of epistemology and ideology in teachers’ pedagogy with historical ‘media’

Within the field of social studies education, disciplinary models of teaching, such as approximating a historian in asking students to ‘think historically,’ have been the emphasis of countless professional development and teacher education programs. This movement, however, has focused largely on the use of traditional primary documents and generally does not include training for teachers or students on how other forms of media construct history. This collective case study examines how two US history teachers’ epistemological beliefs about historical media and ideology and overall goals for students as citizens impacts their pedagogy with different historical media, particularly film. Data were collected on a daily basis over the course of six months, and included observations, teacher interviews, and the media used as historical sources. Findings show that teachers’ beliefs about how sources represent history affect their pedagogy with the particular media, and that epistemic development and current notions of historical thinking may be limited when it comes to media that commonly serve as historical sources for the public at large (e.g., film, television, WWW, videogames). This limitation is caused in large part by the teachers’ larger goals for students that are informed by their ideology, and difficulty in identifying bias in media that aligned with their own beliefs. Therefore, a shift in teachers’ epistemic beliefs about how different forms of media serve as sources of history, essentially a form of critical media literacy, and coinciding recognition of ideological goals needs to occur in order to better instill students with skills in historical and media literacy for the twenty‐first century.     

The best years of our lives? Coping with stress predicts school grades,life satisfaction,and feelings about high school

This study examines whether problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidant coping strategies predict key outcomes in a sample of 354 high school students. The four outcomes considered are: academic achievement, life satisfaction, positive feelings towards school, and negative feelings towards school. Results demonstrate that coping incrementally predicts all four outcomes above and beyond the effects of the Big Five personality factors, vocabulary, and demographic variables. Incremental prediction is strongest for school feeling variables, where coping predicts 17.4% of the variance in positive feelings, and 15.9% of the variance in negative feelings. All three coping styles are important in predicting different outcomes: problem-focused coping predicts grades, life satisfaction, and positive feelings about school; emotion-focused coping predicts negative feelings only; and avoidant-focused coping predicts both positive and negative feelings about school. Results suggest that coping styles are an important variable for school outcomes, and that the effectiveness of different strategies differs depending on the outcome considered.