Tracking the nomadic life of the educational researcher: What future for feminist public intellectuals and the performative university?

Is the idea of the liberal university dead, has the postmodern university any chance of being emancipatory, has the theory-practice divide merely collapsed in an era of ‘new knowledge work’, or has the university just become one aspect of market states and global capitalism? Knowledge-based economies locate universities as central to the commodification and management of knowledge, while at the same time the legitimacy of the university and the academic as knowledge producers is challenged by postmodernist, feminist, post-colonial and indigenous claims within a wider trend towards the ‘democratisation of knowledge’ and a new educational instrumentalism and opportunism. What becomes of the educational researcher, and indeed their professional organisations, in this changing socio-political and economic scenario? Is our role one of policy service, policy critique, technical expert or public intellectual? In particular what place is there for feminist public intellectuals in a so-called era of postfeminism and public-private convergence? The paper draws on feminist and critical perspectives to mount a case for the importance of the public intellectual in the performative postmodern university.     

Learning from Texts and Visual Aids: a Developmental Perspective

The aims of this research were to investigate the ways in which students in primary and secondary schools process texts and accompanying visual aids and to ascertain any developmental patterns. Think-aloud protocols were gathered from 119 Grade 5, Grade 7 and Grade 9 students while they read and studied grade-appropriate History and Science materials which contained both text and visual aids (tables, diagrams). Analyses of the think-aloud protocols yielded over 50 different processes, subsumed under 10 major categories. While the History results showed no reliable grade differences in the 10 think-aloud categories, the Science results showed developmental differences. Older students demonstrated a more diverse array of strategies, and explicit linking of text and visual aid information was not as evident in the younger students. ANOVAs following cluster analyses showed weak relationships between cluster membership and outcomes. Implications for instruction are discussed.     

Why Talk about Mental States? The Significance of Children's Conversations with Friends, Siblings, and Mothers

Natural language data from 38 47-month-olds recorded at home in unstructured observations were analyzed and comparisons made of characteristics of mental state term use in child-friend, child-sibling, and child-mother dyads. Significantly more references to mental states were made by the children in conversations with siblings and friends than with mothers. Frequent use of mental state terms by both partners was related to cooperative interaction in both child-friend and child-sibling dyads and several associations were found with measures of language fluency, gender, and maternal education, although these varied across the 2 dyads. Children's use of mental state terms in conversations with siblings and friends was correlated with their performance on two false belief measures. Results highlight the importance of extending investigations into the social implications of the development of children's "theories of mind."     

Environmental differences within the family and adjustment differences within pairs of adolescent siblings

To what extent do siblings in the same family experience different parental treatment, sibling interaction, and peer relationships? Are such within-family experiential differences related to differences in the siblings' emotional adjustment? The present study explored these questions concerning within-family environment using data from 348 families that each included 2 siblings 11-17 years of age. The results indicate that siblings in the same family experience different environments, as reported by parents and to a larger extent by the siblings themselves. The results also demonstrate that within-family environmental differences are related to differences in development between siblings. Both the parent and sibling reports of the environment converge on the finding that the sibling who is more psychologically well adjusted (as reported by parents, siblings, and teachers) also experiences more maternal closeness, more sibling friendliness, more peer friendliness, more say in family decision making, and more parental chore expectations as compared to the other sibling.     

Vocabulary Use by Low, Moderate, and High ASL-Proficient Writers Compared to Hearing ESL and Monolingual Speakers

The written English vocabulary of 72 deaf elementary school students of various proficiency levels in American Sign Language (ASL) was compared with the performance of 60 hearing English-as-a-second-language (ESL) speakers and 61 hearing monolingual speakers of English, all of similar age. Students were asked to retell "The Tortoise and the Hare" story (previously viewed on video) in a writing activity. Writing samples were later scored for total number of words, use of words known to be highly frequent in children's writing, redundancy in writing, and use of English function words. All deaf writers showed significantly lower use of function words as compared to their hearing peers. Low-ASL-proficient students demonstrated a highly formulaic writing style, drawing mostly on high-frequency words and repetitive use of a limited range of function words. The moderate- and high-ASL-proficient deaf students' writing was not formulaic and incorporated novel, low-frequency vocabulary to communicate their thoughts. The moderate- and high-ASL students' performance revealed a departure from findings one might expect based on previous studies with deaf writers and their vocabulary use. The writing of the deaf writers also differed from the writing of hearing ESL speakers. Implications for deaf education and literacy instruction are discussed, with special attention to the fact that ASL-proficient, deaf second-language learners of English may be approaching English vocabulary acquisition in ways that are different from hearing ESL learners.     

The Role of Coaching Within the Context of Instructional Design

Upon entry into the instructional design workforce, there is a need for instructional designers to continue to hone their craft and skill development. Often times novice instructional designers are paired with experts during the onboarding process. Coaching is utilized to provide novices and those less experienced with the necessary support they need to enhance their skillset. This article explores the use of coaching in the professional development of instructional designers. Specific attention is given to theoretical approaches, models, and contexts related to coaching.     

Teaching high school science using image processing: A case study of implementation of computer technology

An in-depth case study of teachers' use of image processing (a state-of-the-art computer technology used by research scientists) in biology, earth science, and physics classes within one high school science department explored issues surrounding technology implementation. The study, conducted within a districtwide, schoolwide, and classroom context, explored four areas related to the teacher's adoption of image processing: (a) teachers' background with computers outside of instructional use, (b) teachers' attitudes toward educational technology and insights gained from their experience using computers within the science curriculum, (c) training and perceived influence of district and school administrators, and (d) teachers' classroom and computer lab practices. The following factors were deemed critical in teachers' decision to use or not use image processing with their students: (a) time to thoroughly explore and master the technology so they could use it with students to explore science concepts; (b) classroom management skills specific to technology use; (c) perception of the teaching value of the technology; (d) perception of the reasonableness of administrators' expectations for technology use; and (e) understanding of how to implement inquiry-based science teaching, independent of technology issues. These factors have implications for how to help teachers use computer technology to teach high school science. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 297–327, 1998.     

Constructs of writing proficiency in US state and national writing assessments: Exploring variability

Persistent gaps between optimistic state and pessimistic national academic performance assessment results are increasingly leading to calls for unified national standards in the US. Critics argue that these gaps reveal vast differences in how proficiency is conceptualized; however, little is known about how conceptualizations compare among large-scale US assessments. To explore this issue, the present study investigated constructs of writing proficiency implicated in 41 US state and national high school direct writing assessments by analyzing the relationships between prompt-genre demands and assessment scoring criteria. Results of this analysis suggest that national writing assessments differ as a group from state assessments in the extent to which they emphasize genre distinctions and present coherent conceptualizations of writing proficiency. The implications of these assessment variations for college preparedness are discussed.