Higher education policy in post-devolution UK: more convergence than divergence?

Many researchers studying the impact of parliamentary devolution conclude that education policies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are diverging. They attribute this to five factors: the redistribution of formal powers associated with devolution; differences in values, ideologies and policy discourses across the four territories; the different composition, interests and policy styles of their policy communities; the different ‘situational logics’ of policy-making and the mutual independence of policy decisions in the different territories. This article reviews trends in higher education (HE) policy across the UK since parliamentary devolution. It focuses on policies for student fees and student support, for widening participation, for supporting research and for the HE contribution to economic development, skills and employability. On balance, it finds as much evidence of policy convergence, or at least of constraints on divergence, as of policy divergence. It argues that each of the five factors claimed to promote divergence can be associated with corresponding pressures for convergence.     

Adaptive control of bi-directionally coupled Lorenz systems with uncertainties

The bi-directionally coupled Lorenz systems are linked to the modeling of a coupled double loop thermosyphon system where the mass momentum and heat exchange are both considered. As the key parameters of the system, known as Rayleigh numbers, increase, the system of differential equations predicts typical flow dynamics in a thermosyphon from heat conduction to time-dependent chaos. In many applications including the thermosyphon systems, there are uncertainties associated with mathematical models such as unmodeled dynamics and parameter variations. Also, under the high heat environment for a thermosyphon, there exist external disturbances quantitatively linked to the Rayleigh numbers. All these sources constitute uncertainties to the dynamical system. Our objective is to design adaptive controllers to stabilize the chaotic flow in each thermosyphon loop with unknown system parameters and existence of uncertainties. The controllers consist of a proportional controller with an adaptive gain and a wavelet network that reconstructs the unknown functions representing the uncertainties. Explicit stability bounds and adaptive laws for the control parameters are obtained so that the coupled Lorenz systems are globally stabilized.     

Student-teachers’ perspectives on the purposes and characteristics of faith-based schools: an Australian view

At a time when the faith-based identity of schools is facing serious challenges, the researchers undertook a longitudinal study of the relevant opinions, beliefs and values of student-teachers at a Catholic university campus in Australia. The focus of the current paper is on the responses of first-year students to a survey regarding their choice of secondary school, the purposes of schooling and the characteristics of Catholic schools. Relevant context are addressed including global education trends, the values and characteristics of Catholic education and relevant aspects of Australian schooling and youth culture. Regardless of religious affiliation, self-reported religiosity or type of school attended, providing a ‘safe and caring school environment’ emerged as the most important purpose of schooling and as a key reason for choice of school, while faith-based purposes and reasons received particularly low ratings. ‘Caring community’ was regarded as by far the most important characteristic of the Catholic school, followed by engagement in social justice programmes. The findings are briefly compared with parallel findings for teachers in Queensland Catholic schools.     

Sign language Web pages

The WORLD WIDE WEB has changed the way people interact. It has also become an important equalizer of information access for many social sectors. However, for many people, including some sign language users, Web accessing can be difficult. For some, it not only presents another barrier to overcome but has left them without cultural equality. The present article describes a system that allows sign language-only Web pages to be created and linked through a video-based technique called sign-linking. In two studies, 14 Deaf participants examined two iterations of signlinked Web pages to gauge the usability and learnability of a signing Web page interface. The first study indicated that signing Web pages were usable by sign language users but that some interface features required improvement. The second study showed increased usability for those features; users consequently couldnavigate sign language information with ease and pleasure.     

“Spanish as a foreign language” teachers’ profiles: inclusive beliefs, teachers’ perceptions of student outcomes in the TCLA program, burnout, and experience

The present study focuses on the Temporary Classroom of Linguistic Adaptation program (TCLA program) in which specialist teachers (Spanish as a foreign language teachers—SFL teachers) teach Spanish to immigrants who are not proficient in the language. We suggest that support for immigrant students in Spanish schools should adopt a new inclusive educational approach. The present investigation is a preliminary attempt at characterizing the profiles of SFL teachers by assessing, simultaneously, five relevant variables (through cluster analysis): inclusive beliefs, teachers’ perceptions of student outcomes in TCLA program, general burnout, diversity-related teacher burnout, and years of teaching experience. Eighty-one SFL teachers from 132 schools in Spain (EU) were asked to complete a self-report questionnaire. Cluster analysis found two clearly differentiated groups: the larger one, Innovative SFL Teachers and the smaller, Traditional SFL Teachers. The Traditional SFL Teachers are characterized by more years of experience, lower inclusive beliefs scores, lower teachers’ perception of student outcomes in the TCLA program scores, and higher burnout scores as compared with the Innovative SFL Teachers. Moreover, Traditional SFL Teachers conceptualize their teaching role as a "teacher of Spanish" whereas Innovative SFL Teachers see themselves much more as playing a supportive role.     

Determinism and Underdetermination in Genetics: Implications for Students’ Engagement in Argumentation and Epistemic Practices

In the last two decades science studies and science education research have shifted from an interest in products (of science or of learning), to an interest in processes and practices. The focus of this paper is on students’ engagement in epistemic practices (Kelly in Teaching scientific inquiry: Recommendations for research and implementation. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, pp 99–117, 2008), or on their practical epistemologies (Wickman in Sci Educ 88(3):325–344, 2004). In order to support these practices in genetics classrooms we need to take into account domain-specific features of the epistemology of genetics, in particular issues about determinism and underdetermination. I suggest that certain difficulties may be related to the specific nature of causality in genetics, and in particular to the correspondence between a given set of factors and a range of potential effects, rather than a single one. The paper seeks to bring together recent developments in the epistemology of biology and of genetics, on the one hand, with science education approaches about epistemic practices, on the other. The implications of these perspectives for current challenges in learning genetics are examined, focusing on students’ engagement in epistemic practices, as argumentation, understood as using evidence to evaluate knowledge claims. Engaging in argumentation in genetics classrooms is intertwined with practices such as using genetics models to build explanations, or framing genetics issues in their social context. These challenges are illustrated with studies making part of our research program in the USC.