Towards graduate employment: exploring student identity through a university-wide employability project

Students have expectations of their university education leading to graduate careers, with universities investing considerable resources in institution-wide initiatives designed to enhance opportunities for student work placements and work-related learning. However, there are large variations between courses and disciplines in student uptake of these opportunities, with limited evidence explaining why this might be the case. Recognising recent approaches which consider student identity in transitions, this study explored student attitudes to work-related learning across a range of subject disciplines. The first phase of the study used in-class surveys (N = 199) to focus on students’ self-identification and perceptions of employability initiatives. Follow-up interviews were conducted to further explore themes emerging in the survey data. The study found that, while some students drew on resources for identity work in their recognition of and approach to work-related learning, access was limited, and university resources were not always recognised or effective. The findings have implications for the design of effective graduate employability initiatives.     

How to sustainably increase students’ willingness to protect pollinators

The current loss of biodiversity requires efforts to increase awareness of pollinator conservation. An important tool is education which often uses the honeybee (Apis mellifera) as an exemplary organism to reach this goal. Any successful module needs to focus on reducing the perceived danger associated with fear, in order to support the willingness to protect them. Using a quasi-experimental design, we investigated the effectiveness of two educational approaches: one by authentically encountering living animals at a beehive, the other by using a remote online beehive. We monitored secondary school students’ (N = 354) perception of bees with respect to interest, danger and conservation as well as situational emotions (interest, well-being, boredom) during both interventions. In both cases positive effects on perception levels were observed, even when already a high willingness to protect bees existed. Using living animals in educational settings is crucial, especially when students’ situational emotions need targeting. However, we achieved similar intervention results in perception levels using a remote beehive, which therefore constitutes an excellent alternative to raise awareness of the conservation of bees as pollinators when working with living organisms is not possible.     

XXI. Internationale Erziehungskonferenz,UNESCO/BIE, (Methoden internationaler pädagogischer Zusammenarbeit) Genf,Juli 1958

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Exploring the social inclusion of deaf young people in mainstream schools,using their lived experience

Research suggests that children with hearing loss face a number of difficulties in the education system, including socially. Although there has been much research with the severe to profound deaf population there has been little research into the life experiences of children with moderate hearing loss who attend mainstream secondary schools. This research sought to examine the experiences of social inclusion for five young people with moderate hearing loss. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews in the young person’s school setting and were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Although each participant had distinctive experiences, there were a number of common themes that emerged indicating the factors that support social inclusion and those which create barriers for deaf children in schools. Implications for educational psychologists are considered and the limitations of the research are outlined.     

‘I’m more confident now,I was really quiet’: exploring the potential benefits of child-led research

This article explores whether child-led research (CLR) benefits the well-being of the children and young people involved. The article draws upon evaluation data from a pilot CLR programme facilitated by a non-government organisation that supports disadvantaged children, young people and families. Nine participants (aged 10–14 years old) volunteered for the CLR programme, conducted over 18 weeks, which involved learning about and undertaking their own research on a topic of their choosing. The programme was externally evaluated both in terms of process and outcomes so as to gain insights into what is involved in CLR and any potential benefits it might offer for participants. The discussion explores a range of positive benefits for children whilst also signalling the challenges involved in planning, implementing and evaluating such initiatives, not least of which is the difficulty in scaling up this kind of research, given its resource-intensive nature.     

Biting Behaviors Among Preschoolers: A Review of the Literature and Survey of Practitioners

Biting behavior occurs frequently among young children in child care settings. Research indicates several possible reasons for biting behavior including developmental as well as emotional issues. This study examines procedures that have been established to handle childhood biting by early childhood education child care facilities in a southeastern state of the United States. We were interested in whether these child care providers considered biting a normal developmental behavior or an abnormal, dysfunctional behavior. Additionally, how did their philosophy about childhood biting relate to their handling of biting incidents in their facilities?     

The risk of delayed school entry in relation to migration background in different institutional settings

In Germany, children of immigrants are faced with delayed school entry about twice as often as children of native-born parents because they are more often diagnosed not being ready for school. We investigate these early educational inequalities, focusing on the interplay of individual competencies and the institutional context in terms of the school enrollment procedure. We compare the conventional procedure, where school enrollment is supposed to be bound on school readiness, with reformed procedures where school enrollment is not supposed to be bound on school readiness. Data of school entry examinations from Hesse, Germany from 2008–2012 are analyzed (N = 50,717). The results show that children of immigrants from all origin groups have a substantially higher risk of obtaining a recommendation for delayed school entry than children of native-born parents. However, these ethnic differences are strongly reduced in the reformed procedures as compared to the conventional school enrollment procedure, indicating that these procedures could be an effective measure to reduce ethnic educational inequalities at school start.