Evaluating a Professional Development Framework to Empower Chemistry Teachers to Design Context-Based Education

Even experienced chemistry teachers require professional development when they are encouraged to become actively engaged in the design of new context-based education. This study briefly describes the development of a framework consisting of goals, learning phases, strategies and instructional functions, and how the framework was translated into a professional development programme intended to empower teachers to design context-based chemistry education. The programme consists of teaching a pre-developed context-based unit, followed by teachers designing an outline of a new context-based unit. The study investigates the process of teacher empowerment during the implementation of the programme. Data were obtained from meetings, classroom discussions and observations. The findings indicated that teachers became empowered to design new context-based units provided they had sufficient time and resources. The contribution of the framework to teacher empowerment is discussed.     

The construct validity and predictive validity of a self-efficacy measure for student teachers in competence-based education

This study intends to investigate the validity of a self-efficacy measure which is developed for predictive and diagnostic purposes concerning student teachers in competence-based education. CFA results delivered converging evidence for the multidimensionality of the student teacher self-efficacy construct and the bi-factor model as underlying structure, reflecting a teacher competence framework. Factor loadings of the bifactor model evidenced the theoretical assumption that incipient student teachers enter the programme with a global undifferentiated sense of teacher self-efficacy, having teaching experiences a further differentiation takes place to a partly differentiated sense of teacher self-efficacy. Logistic regression analysis revealed that the measure succeeds in predicting students’ first-year outcomes and delivered evidence for the diagnostic value of the scale.     

Laughter,smiles and grins: The role of humor in learning and facilitating

Abstract

This article inquires into the role of humor in the relational learning process that takes place in adventure education programs. It presents program episodes, which the authors experienced in their practice as facilitator, staff trainer and researcher, and explores the related literature. Four aspects appear to affect whether humor either facilitates or interferes with participants' learning in development programs. First, humor plays a role in developing relationships among participants and between participants and facilitators, and hence in the relational safety that characterizes an environment conducive to learning. Second, it may play a role in creating a workable distance to sensitive learning issues. Third, humor may offer new and unexpected perspectives, which contribute to revising familiar but restrictive reference frames. Finally, humor seems to fulfill these functions to the extent that it is not planned to do so, and as such may exemplify the ‘paradox of functionality’ in relational processes.     

Judgments of self-perceived academic competence and their differential impact on students’ achievement motivation, learning approach, and academic performance

Using path analysis, the present study focuses on the development of a model describing the impact of four judgments of self-perceived academic competence on higher education students’ achievement goals, learning approach, and academic performance. Results demonstrate that academic self-efficacy, self-efficacy for self-regulated learning, academic self-concept, and perceived level of understanding are conceptually and empirically distinct self-appraisals of academic competence which have a different impact on student motivation, learning, and academic performance. Furthermore, the current study suggests that students reflecting high scores on the four measures of self-perceived competence, are more persistent, more likely to adopt mastery and/or performance approach goals, less anxious, process the learning material at a deeper level, and achieve better study results. However, this study also warns that high self-perceived competence (e.g., perceived level of understanding), if not accompanied by a mastery goal orientation, can turn into overconfidence resulting in lower persistence levels and poorer study results.     

The Role of the Intellectual--An Excursion into Self-Criticism

Currently, Professor Johan Galtung is Director and Professor of Peace Studies with a Peace and Development Network for Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means (TRANSCEND), France. The article below, published in Higher Education in Europe in 1976, represents the author's views on problems that he considers relevant to the development of higher education.     

Adolescents' Selective Visual Attention for High‐Status Peers: The Role of Perceiver Status and Gender

Previous research has shown that adolescents' attention for a peer is determined by the peer's status. This study examined how it is also determined by the status of the perceiving adolescent, and the gender of both parties involved (perceiver and perceived). Participants were 122 early adolescents (M age = 11.0 years) who completed sociometric measures and eye‐tracking recordings of visual fixations at pictures of high‐status (popular) and low‐status (unpopular) classmates. Automatic attention (first‐gaze preference) and controlled attention (total gaze time) were measured. Target popularity was associated with both measures of attention. These associations were further moderated by perceiver popularity and perceiver and target gender. Popular adolescents attracted attention especially from other popular adolescents. Popular boys attracted attention especially from girls.     

Swedish teachers’ ethical reflections on a study visit to Central America

In this article we argue that culturally variable values and morals have a key role in educational initiatives that address a global dimension. The article suggests that looking at values and morals in relation to a teaching practice is a way of adding knowledge to this field. Our study inquires into how an intercultural experience can evoke ethical reflections on environmental and sustainability issues. The article is based on a qualitative empirical study of teachers’ experiences of a teacher development programme, where we analyse the variety of ethical reflections that emerge during a study visit to a Central American country. We build on a pragmatic analytical approach that takes John Dewey’s ethical thoughts on moral situations as a point of departure and deals with teachers’ ethical reflections in a way that takes the contextual and situated nature of morals into account.     

Harmony and disharmony in an educational reform concert: towards a Parsons’ inspired dynamic model of tuning

In large-scale educational reforms, many actors play their roles. The diversity of contributions and lack of harmonization prove to be frequently found to cause educational reform failures. Many explanations for these failures focus on differences between the actors and on differences in their contributions to the reform process. In this article, we examine the effects of these differences and emphasize on the need to harmonize these contributions to the reform process. Contributions by several actors to a large-scale curriculum reform undertaken in the Netherlands in the 1990s are mapped for this purpose. This curriculum reform is part of a larger educational reform aimed to introduce a constructivist approach. Education is conceptualised as a social system, and educational reform as the manner in which this social system adapts to immanent and emmanent changes. The actors in the education system are distributed across functional subsystems. In the present analyses, teacher acting within a particular subsystem stands central. The results show adequate exchange and harmonization of the contributions from the different subsystems to be a necessary condition for successful educational reform. To achieve a good exchange and harmonization, the use of an Educational Impact Assessment is recommended.     

Prison Inmates' Educational Motives: Are They Pushed or Pulled?

The aim of the present study was to examine inmates' educational motives. The participants were 467 inmates who attended education in Norwegian prisons. Three motive categories were identified: “To prepare for life upon release” (Factor 1), “social reasons and reasons unique to the prison context” (Factor 2), and “to acquire knowledge and skills” (Factor 3). Factor 1 explained more of the variance than the sum of the other factors, and educational level was not related to scores on this first factor. Inmates with long sentences were more likely than those with short sentences to start an education in prison to prepare for life upon release. Inmates with low education scored significantly higher on Factor 2 than those with high education, but significantly lower on Factor 3 than the latter group.