‘Bunking off’: The impact of truancy on pupils and teachers

There is widespread interest in the impact of unauthorised absence on pupil attainment, links with disaffection, exclusion from school and criminality. However, little is heard about what those who take unauthorised absence from school think that the effect has been on them; nor do we hear the voices of other pupils and their teachers. This article presents evidence from a one‐year study of absence in seven local authorities in England funded by the Department for Education and Skills. It defines ‘truancy’, explores some issues from existing literature on pupil non‐attendance, and presents evidence to show the impact that absence from school has on truants, other pupils and teachers. Finally, it suggests that although the greatest impact is on the academic and socio‐psychological development of persistent absentees, the attitudes and learning of other pupils and the workload and morale of teachers are also affected.     

Children Persist Less When Adults Take Over

Children need to learn to persist through challenges, yet adults sometimes step in to solve problems for them. Here, we looked at how adult taking over related to children’s persistence. In an observational study (N = 34, ages 4–8), we found that parents who took over more often during a challenging puzzle task rated their children as dispositionally less persistent. To establish whether taking over can cause reduced persistence, we ran two preregistered experiments (N = 150, ages 4–5). Children assigned to a taking over condition persisted less on a subsequent task compared to those in a teaching or a baseline condition. Reframing the context did not ameliorate the negative impact of taking over. The results suggest that taking over impairs children’s persistence.     

Supervisors’ experiences in supervising higher education students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds during work-integrated learning of health and non-health courses

The growing number of students who are culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) relative to the host university undertaking fieldwork placements raises questions about how to best support their needs and the needs of their fieldwork supervisors so as to maximize the experience for both parties. This research aims to quantify and compare fieldwork supervisors’ perceptions of CALD versus non-CALD students’ performance during placements, the areas and levels of concern they experience in providing this supervision. Placement supervisors from health and non-health courses affiliated with an Australian University were randomly assigned to a survey containing question sets relating to their experiences in supervising CALD (n = 153) or non-CALD students (n = 168). The survey comprised Likert scale questions assessing “pressure points” to supervision and open-ended questions including strategies fieldwork supervisors typically used to assist students. Using univariate ordinal logistic regression analyses, “speaking” (coefficient, 95% CI 2.1 (1.56, 2.65)), “writing” in English (1.69 (1.17, 2.20)), and “adapting to culture of workplaces” (1.20 (0.71, 1.69)) were perceived by placement supervisors as the top “pressure points” in supervising CALD students. Interaction effects demonstrated that “difficulties in assessing CALD students’ competency” (coefficient, 95% CI?1.14 (?2.27, ?0.01), “feeling competent in supervising students for placements” (1.35 (0.26, 2.45)), and the “perception of lack of support” from either the university or employing organization (?1.70 (?2.83, ? 0.56)) were evident within fieldwork placement of health courses only. These results can assist universities and placement organizations to prioritize resources to address the key areas affecting CALD students’ performance on placements, and to improve supervisors’ experience in supervising CALD students on placements in health courses.

     

Informal Science Educators: Understanding Their Goals for Preschool-Aged Audiences

Research in Science Education - Informal science educators’ (ISEs) work with young children has received limited attention in the literature. We investigated ISEs’ goals for...     

Writing intervention with elementary students struggling with writing: examining approach profiles to the teacher feedback on writing quality and motivational variables

Reading and Writing - Many young students experience difficulties mastering writing, and are designated as students struggling with writing. Teacher feedback on writing is an educational tool...     

Beyond employer engagement and skills supply: building conditions for partnership working and skills co-production in the English context

Education providers and employers working together to prepare young people and adults for employment is internationally accepted as a key factor in effective technical and vocational education. In the English context, however, we argue that two related orthodoxies have prevailed – ‘employer engagement’ and ‘skills supply’ – in which education providers have striven to gain employer involvement in their programmes and meet their skills needs. The effectiveness of these twin orthodoxies has been limited by the ‘New Low Skills Equilibrium’ (NLSE) involving a symbiosis of weaknesses on both the education and employer sides. The article draws on findings of a two-year research and development programme in East London which explored the process of education-employer partnership working to support inclusive growth in key economic sectors. The research suggested that this aim was best supported by processes of ‘co-production’ that actively involved both partners in attempting to address features of the NLSE. The research also pointed to constraining factors. The article concludes by identifying the conditions required for the realisation of co-production approaches that include the development of new collaborative structures – High Progression and Skills Networks (HPSNs) – involving a wide range of social partners at the local and regional levels.     

Potential school violence: Relationship between teacher anxiety and warning‐sign identification

This study examined the relationship between teacher anxiety and their identification of warning signs of student violence. Fifty‐six public school teachers, 22 male and 34 female, between the ages of 23 and 60 participated. Participants identified warning signs in five fictional student case files created for this study and completed the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory and a demographic survey. The case files included positive and negative information, and high‐ and low‐severity warning signs. Neither state (r = .02) nor trait (r = .04) anxiety was significantly correlated with high‐severity warning‐signs identification. Low‐severity warning‐signs identification was positively correlated with state anxiety (r = .28, p < .05) but not trait anxiety (r = .18, p > .05). False positive identification was not significantly related to state anxiety (r = .07) or trait anxiety (r = .06). The findings indicate that teachers who experience higher levels of state anxiety when confronted with warning signs of potential violence are better able to identify low‐severity warning signs than do their less anxious counterparts, without over‐identifying nonthreatening information as potential warning signs. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 623–635, 2005.     

Promoting group talk and higher‐order thinking in pupils by ‘coaching’ secondary English trainee teachers

One hundred and eighty British secondary school pupils aged 11–12 and their six trainee teachers in five schools participated in an action research project, designed to improve the quality of children's group talk in English lessons, particularly their engagement in higher‐order thinking through ‘exploratory’ talk. The programme, supported by the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), now Training and Development Agency, was devised by a team of mentors and an Initial Teacher Educator from Sussex University. It aimed to develop the trainees' skills both in planning challenging tasks for, and sustaining effective group talk, using ‘ground rules’ and varied teacher discourse strategies. The data include qualitative comparative analysis of discourse audiotaped before and after the intervention, taken from 66 pupils. Findings indicate a clear improvement in the quality of talk, in terms of pupils' collaborative engagement in higher‐order thinking. Further evidence from observations and interviews with all participants suggests confirmation of the programme's effectiveness in improving trainees' and pupils' skills in, and understanding of how to use group talk to reason.     

Same Language,Different Histories: Developing a “Critical” English Teacher Identity

ABSTRACT

Our paper contends that growing awareness of the historicity of English lies at the heart of the process by which English language teachers develop “critical” identities. We compare novice teachers in three different contexts of English teaching: urban Guatemala, rural Nicaragua, and a Tibetan refugee community in India. Collectively, these ethnographic case studies illustrate the complexity of English teacher identity formation in contemporary global society, as our participants developed new understandings of their positions in history, their relationships with English learners, and the local meanings around English as symbolic capital.     

Digital storytelling as a disciplinary literacy enhancement tool for EFL students

Educational technology research and development - This research compared the process of disciplinary literacy acquisition of students who experienced two different pedagogical approaches to...