Educational research and development in the United Kingdom: Framework,impact and future prospects

Three forms of research activity are defined: free, policy-oriented and development. In the United Kingdom, structures for each of these have developed rapidly in the past twenty years; and there is now a variety of research organisations, different in pattern, function and funding. The present need is to sustain a vigorous programme of research and development through these organisations, but their level of funding is relatively low (less than one per cent of all educational expenditure), contrary to an OECD, 1972, forecast of continuing growth.Research-based knowledge has influenced educational policy, but its effect is not fully recognised. Research seldom has direct impact but influences policy indirectly, through interaction and by aggregation, penetrating public consciousness.Present weaknesses are the lack of collaboration between research institutions (though there are advantages in a plurality of organisations), and in the small scale of financial support for research, which reflects a lack of public will or confidence in the use of research in education.

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Zusammenfassung Drei Arten von Forschung werden definiert: freie, Bildungspolitik-orientierte und Entwicklung. Im Vereinigten Königreich haben sich Institutionen für jede dieser Arten rapide entwickelt, so daß es jetzt eine Vielfalt von Forschungsorganisationen gibt, die sich in Aufbau, Funktion und Finanzierung unterscheiden. Benötigt wird ein reichhaltiges Programm für Forschungs- und Entwicklungsarbeit; dennoch erhalten diese Organisationen, im Gegensatz zu dem im Jahre 1972 von der OECD vorausgesagten ständigen Wachstum, nur verhältnismäßig geringe Finanzmittel (unter 1% der Gesamtausgaben für das Bildungswesen).Auf Forschung beruhende Erkenntnisse haben die Bildungspolitik beeinflußt, doch ist ihre Wirkung wenig augenfällig. Nur selten hat die Forschung direkte Auswirkungen; sie beeinflußt die Politik auf indirektem Wege, indem sie durch Wechselwirkung und Summierung ins Bewußtsein der Öffentlichkeit dringt.Schwachstellen sind unzureichende Zusammenarbeit der Forschungsinstitutionen (obwohl eine Pluralität von Organisationen ihre Vorteile hat) und geringe finanzielle Unterstützung der Forschung, eine Reflektion fehlenden öffentlichen Interesses oder Glaubens an den praktischen Wert der pädagogischen Forschung.

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Résumé Trois types d'activité de recherche sont définis: la recherche indépendante, la recherche visant à répondre à une politique, et le développement. Au Royaume-Uni, les structures de chacune d'elles se sont rapidement développées au cours de ces vingt dernières années; il existe maintenant toute une variété d'organisations de recherche, différant quant à la forme, la fonction et le financement. Ce qui est nécessaire, désormais, c'est de mener un vigoureux programme de recherche et de développement grâce à ces organisations, mais leur financement est relativement faible (moins de 1% du budget total de l'éducation), bien que les prévisions de l'OCDE en 1972 aient envisagé un développement croissant.La connaissance basée sur la recherche a influencé la politique de l'éducation, mais son effet n'est pas pleinement reconnu. La recherche a rarement un impact direct; son influence sur la politique de l'éducation se fait sentir indirectement, par un phénomène d'interaction et d'agrégation accumulative, en pénétrant progressivement la conscience publique.Les présentes faiblesses sont imputables au manque de collaboration des institutions de recherche (bien qu'une pluralité d'organismes présente des avantages) et aussi à la modicité des moyens financiers mis à la disposition de la recherche, reflet du manque de volonté ou de confiance de la part de la société en ce qui concerne l'utilisation de la recherche dans le domaine de l'éducation.

     

Exploring Inquiry in the Third Space: Case Studies of a Year in an Urban Teacher-Residency Program

Using case studies, we describe what happens from novice to apprentice when preservice teachers learn to teach in an urban teacher-residency (UTR) program with a focus on inquiry. Our UTR operates within a “third space” in teacher education, seeking to realign traditional power relationships and to create an alternate arena where the roles of the university, school, teacher candidate, and community can be reimagined. This third space encourages preservice teachers to be inquirers themselves in order for them to support their students as inquirers.     

Responses to Interpersonal and Physically Provoking Situations: The utility and application of an observation schedule for school‐aged students with and without attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

The present research describes the development and pilot testing of a new instrument, the Responses to Interpersonal and Physically Provoking Situations Schedule (RIPPS), designed to measure the reactivity of students with and without attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) in the naturalistic setting of the classroom. For this study, 29 pre‐service teachers from one university graduate school of education conducted structured observations on two students each, one clinically diagnosed student with AD/HD and the other with no diagnosed disorder, resulting in 58 Year 8–11 students (aged 13–17 years) participating in the study. Each student pair was observed for 40 minutes, with alternating observational blocks of two minutes per student. Observational data in the form of responses to emotionally provoking events and the triggers to the responses were clustered together and systematically coded, resulting in four distinct categories for responses and four distinct categories for triggers. Students with AD/HD exhibited significantly more solitary off‐task behaviours, interactional off‐task behaviours, and challenging behaviours than their non‐AD/HD peers. There were no differences between the students in the perceived severity of responses. For triggers, failure to begin assigned tasks and peer‐initiated triggers were the most common, with nearly half of the solitary off‐task behaviours being attributed to environmental distractions and over a quarter attributed to teacher behaviours. While the RIPPS is a relatively new instrument, important data have been gathered in ecologically valid contexts and provide the framework for further development of an instrument of this nature.     

Doing time and motion diffractively: academic life everywhere and all the time

This article offers a diffractive methodological intervention into workplace studies of academic life. In its engagement of a playful, performative research and writing practice, the article speaks back to technocratic organisational and sociological workplace ‘time and motion’ studies which centre on the human and rational, and presume a linear teleology of cause and effect. As a counterpoint, we deploy posthumanist new materialist research practices which refuse human-centric approaches and aim to give matter its due. As a means to analyse what comes out of our joint workspaces photo project we produce two ‘passes’ through data – two diffractive experiments which destabilise what normally counts as ‘findings’ and their academic presentation. The article deploys the motif of ‘starting somewhere else’ to signal both our intention to keep data animated, alive and interactive, and to utilise visual and written modes of seriality as enabling constraints which produce a more generative focus on the mundane, emergent, unforeseen, and happenstance in studies of daily working life.     

Is there a thing called dyslexia?

A controversy whether developmental dyslexia is qualitatively different from other forms of reading disability has existed among reading specialists for many years because poor readers, regardless of the labels attached to them, resemble each other symptomatically (i.e., in reading achievement). For this reason, it is difficult to establish a priori criteria based on symptoms to identify dyslexia and compare it with other forms of reading disability. One possible solution to this impasse is to see if poor readers differ in the etiology of their reading disability and, if they do, then to see whether one group of poor readers fits the traditional definition of dyslexia. This strategy was adopted in the present study. In this paper, it was hypothesized that the etiology of dyslexia is different from that of other forms of reading disability because there is a difference in the components that malfunction in dyslexia and other forms of reading disability. Studies have shown that the two components that account for a large proportion of variance in reading are decoding and comprehension. Previous studies also indicate that dyslexic children are deficient in decoding skills but not necessarily in comprehension. In this study, reading-disabled children were divided into two groups on the basis of their listening comprehension. Children whose listening comprehension was at or above grade level were placed in one group; poor readers with below-grade-level listening comprehension were placed in the second group. Both groups, however, were matched for reading comprehension. The two groups and a control group of normal readers were administered a number of tasks that were designed to assess the efficiency of the components of reading. It was found that poor readers with normal listening comprehension were deficient in tasks that involved grapheme-phoneme conversion (Component I, decoding). When tested on tasks that minimized decoding requirements, their reading comprehension was comparable to that of normal readers. In contrast, the group with sub-average listening comprehension was poor in measures of reading comprehension, even when decoding requirements were minimal. With the exception of very few children, this group also had adequate decoding skills. Because poor readers with normal listening comprehension had average or above average IQ, they conform to the traditional definition of dyslexia. Poor readers with below average listening comprehension had below average IQ and could be considered as “general reading backward.” It was, therefore, concluded that the etiology of developmental dyslexia is different from that of general reading backwardness. In this paper, the termetiology refers to proximal causal factors such as decoding and comprehension and not to distal causal factors such as genetic and neurological characteristics.     

Correlates of spelling abilities in children with early speech sound disorders

The correlates of spelling impairment wereexamined in children with histories of earlyspeech sound disorders. The spelling errors of52 children with histories of speech sounddisorders were analyzed to predict theassociation between weaknesses in expressivelanguage skills in early childhood andschool-age spelling abilities. Resultsrevealed that children with preschool speechsound and language problems became poorerspellers at school age than did children withpreschool speech sound disorders only. However, even children with isolated speechsound disorders demonstrated a weakness inspelling skills relative to their reading andlanguage abilities and Weschler Performance IQ.Measures of phonological awareness were highlycorrelated with spelling skills, suggestingthat phonological processing abilities arerelated to the ability to spell phoneticallypredictable words. Analysis of spelling errorsbased on level of phonological awareness skillrevealed that children with preschool speechsound disorders utilize phonetic strategies inspelling phonetically predictable words. Familial aggregation of spelling disorderssuggests a possible genetic component that ismodified by gender.     

Speedometry: A vehicle for promoting interest and engagement through integrated STEM instruction

ABSTRACT

The curriculum, Hot Wheels Speedometry (Mattel, El Segundo, CA, USA), was designed to align with the Next Generation Science Standards for science and the Common Core State Standards for mathematics. Our objective was to develop, implement, and evaluate the impact of this integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum on students' knowledge, interest, and engagement. The authors conducted the study in a district where students were predominantly from communities under-represented in STEM fields. The findings indicate that student individual interest developed. Furthermore, students demonstrated affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement along their progression of interest development. The study shows promise for the development of interest and engagement in under-represented groups through the use of an integrated STEM curriculum.     

Factors That Impact College Students’ Perceptions of Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction

Abstract

It is important to understand how people experience pleasure and sexual satisfaction with a partner, as these phenomena can impact how they view their relationships, themselves, as well as the role of sexual activities within relationships. Three hundred and four undergraduates at East Carolina University and California State University Chico who reported having at least one sexual experience with a partner completed a 45 item survey assessing social correlates of sexual pleasure and sexual satisfaction. Analysis revealed that those in a committed relationship reported the highest sexual pleasure (on average), followed by those in an emotionally-involved relationship, followed by those in a hookup. A parallel analysis for sexual satisfaction revealed the same associations. Regarding the length of relationship, being in a relationship for at least six weeks appeared to matter for pleasure and satisfaction, but being in a relationship longer than six months did not indicate greater advantages than those in a relationship between six weeks and six months. Limitations of the research are identified.