The role of pupil voice as a trigger for teacher learning in Lesson Study professional groups

This paper focuses on the role of pupil voice as a trigger for teacher learning and for improving teaching quality. This is investigated in the context of Lesson Study (LS), a professional development model that can incorporate pupil voice into teachers’ collaborative reflections on lessons. Data are from two LS groups of mathematics teachers in London (one primary and one secondary school). Video-recorded pupil interviews and teacher discussions were transcribed. Episodes of teacher discussions were coded for reference to pupil input and subsequent impact on future plans. Qualitative analysis of discussions examined whether some pupils’ input was favoured over others’. Results are significant in pointing to LS as a mechanism for attending to pupil voice. In so doing, it is suggested that pupil input provided a challenge for teachers in their interpretations of pupil learning, evaluating lessons and planning, and in contributing to teacher learning from LS.     

Shedding the content: semantics of teaching burdened by didactic formalisms

The paper argues that what is left behind in the current era of accountability is the educational content. The authors present shedding the content as the great challenge of teaching and learning in today’s schools. They turn to the tradition of Bildung and outline the theoretical background for the content-focused approach to (research on) teaching and learning. Their approach is based on analyses of authentic (real-life) teaching and learning situations. The paper highlights how didactic case studies can be used to generalize the findings across individual cases. Within the multiple case studies, 44 didactic case studies were reanalysed to identify didactic formalisms, i.e. problems in the semantic and logical structure of educational content, which corrupt the quality of instruction. Two specific types of didactic formalism are described in detail; stolen cognition and concealed cognition. Stolen cognition prevents cognitive activation of students when the teacher over-reduces the space allowed for the students’ cognitive work with the content, concealed cognition are instances of purposeless cognitive activation of students due to their being disconnected from the content.     

Feedback for everybody? Exploring the relationship between students’ perceptions of feedback and students’ socioeconomic status

In this article I describe teacher–student feedback as an active process shaped by both the teacher and the student and argue that feedback is influenced by students’ unique experiences and socialisation. Drawing on sociological theories on interaction and communication, I argue that the type and quality of the teacher–student feedback perceived by the student is influenced by the student's background. While many studies have shown that feedback is a key determinant for student learning and achievement, only a few have examined how feedback is perceived by students and if the perception is related to their socioeconomic status (SES). I use data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 in a multilevel regression model to examine differences in students’ perceptions of directive and facilitative feedback. The five Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are used as cases. Regarding directive feedback, I find no relationship between this type of feedback and students’ SES. However, the results indicate that students with high SES perceive more facilitative feedback in Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden than students with low SES. These results indicate that students are not given equal opportunities to learn. I argue that this might create inequalities in the Nordic school systems. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Variation in expert source selection according to different objectivity standards

Several scholars have tried to clarify how journalists handle and implement the abstract objectivity norm in daily practice. Less research attention has been paid to how common abstract professional norms and values, in casu the objectivity norm, may systematically vary when interpreted and implemented in daily journalistic practice. Allgaier’s study “Who is having a voice?” is a most welcome contribution to the, so far, limited literature on variation in the interpretation and implementation of journalistic norms among journalists. Not only does it demonstrate how the interpretation of journalistic norms may vary among journalists, but it goes one step further and demonstrates how variation in the implementation of such norms may affect journalistic products.     

E-learning in life long education: A computational approach to determining listening comprehension ability

E-Learning is the use of telecommunication technology to deliver information for education and training and it is emerging as the new paradigm of modern education. Because of the increasing amount of technology integration in the learning environment, more and more studies focus on examining “how people learn with technology” This study was conducted to find out how computer assisted language learning contributes to learners’ ability to develop listening comprehension. The results revealed that learner computer anxiety, instructor attitude toward e-Learning, e-Learning course flexibility, e-Learning course quality, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and diversity in assessments are the critical factors affecting learners’ perceived satisfaction.     

Making the connection: The role of social and academic school experiences in students' emotional engagement with school in post-secondary vocational education

This study examines the emotional engagement with school of a diverse sample of 909 students in post-secondary vocational education in the Netherlands. Using multilevel regression analysis, we assess the role of students' background characteristics and school experiences, and their interaction, in students' emotional engagement with school. At-risk students do not report lower levels of emotional engagement, except for students using (soft)drugs. While Dutch dropout prevention focuses on fostering a sense of belonging through enhancing teacher–student relationships, we do not find a significant role of perceived support from school staff in students' sense of belonging. A good relationship with classmates is more important to engage students in post-secondary vocational education. Perceiving an academic fit is most prominently related to the emotional engagement of vocational students, indicating that a sense of belonging should not only be defined in social, but also in academic terms.     

Technology and moral change: the transformation of truth and trust

Ethics and Information Technology - Today humanity is in the midst of the massive expansion of new and fundamental technology, represented by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The...     

Psychological well-being and motivation in a Turkish physical education context

Using Self Determination as a framework, the purpose of the study was to examine the relationships between basic psychological needs, motivational regulations, self-esteem, subjective vitality, and social physique anxiety in physical education. One thousand and eighty two high school students aged between 14 and 19 [mean (M) = 15.89 ± 0.95 years] from six public high schools participated to the study. Students’ basic psychological needs: motivational regulations, subjective vitality and self-esteem served as positive indicators, while social physique anxiety was a negative indicator of psychological well-being. Structural equation modelling results revealed that students’ motivational regulations mediated the relationship between basic psychological needs and psychological well-being. Intrinsic motivation negatively predicted social physique anxiety and positively predicted subjective vitality. Amotivation positively predicted social physique anxiety and negatively predicted subjective vitality. Identified regulation and external regulation positively predicted subjective vitality. Results supported the tenets of Self Determination Theory (SDT) and suggested that satisfying adolescents’ basic psychological needs in physical education will promote their psychological well-being.     

Assessing Development in Numeracy of Students from Different Socio-Economic Areas: A Rasch Analysis of Three Fundamental Tasks

Development in the ability of 11-year-olds to solve numerical problems of addition, multiplication, and proportion was analysed by means of three Rasch models of change. The students, who had participated in a New Zealand numeracy project in 2002, comprised two groups that differed in socio-economic status: 1,274 students came from low socio-economic areas, and 564 students came from high socio-economic areas. The Rasch analysis showed that students from low socio-economic areas found all three tasks difficult, although they made some progress during the course of the year. Their development was consistent with a model in which each student underwent their own specific development. The development of students from high socio-economic areas was best described as stemming from two latent classes, one of which made substantial and uniform progress and the other of which made no progress. The cumulative nature of the tasks meant that failure on addition propagated to failure on multiplication and proportional reasoning.