Policies on special needs education: competing strategies and discourses

This paper critically examines the array of policy approaches that have been adopted in the field of special needs education in Scotland over recent years. These are characterized in the following ways: (1) supporting or changing the child—an individualized approach; (2) making schools inclusive for all—a systems approach; (3) challenging the mainstream—an anti‐discrimination approach. Each approach creates different distributions of power, accountability and resource allocation. They formulate categories and eligibility requirements that can both include and exclude children (and their parents), and create rights and duties with varied potential and limitations. Thus, the policy approaches may aver their promotion of inclusion but, in fact, they create a new quilt of inclusive and exclusive policies and practice. This is further examined through the analysis of official statistics, which suggests that there has been little difference in the proportion of children who are excluded spatially from mainstream schools and classrooms. Recent legislation, the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, claims to underpin a radical new approach to promoting inclusion. However, many features of the Act suggest that it will reinforce the power of professional groups, rather than investing more power in children and their parents. There is a real danger that, whilst policy frameworks shift, practices remain the same as a result of inertia and resistance to change.     

Using the Constructivist Tridimensional Design Model for Online Continuing Education for Health Care Clinical Faculty

This article presents a new paradigm for continuing education of Clinical Instructors (CIs): the Constructivist Tridimensional (CTD) model for the design of an online curriculum. Based on problem-based learning, self-regulated learning, and adult learning theory, the CTD model was designed to facilitate interactive, collaborative, and authentic learning. The authors conducted experimental research with twenty-one physical therapy (PT) CIs to explore how the participants perceived the usefulness of the online curriculum structured around the CTD model in improving their knowledge in student mentoring. The CTD-inspired module was effective in that the participants perceived an improvement in the quality of their mentoring skills and they were able to maintain best practices.     

Gifted High-School Students' Perspectives on the Development of Perfectionism

Through the use of in-depth interviews, this study investigated how gifted high-school students scoring high on at least one measure of perfectionism (self-oriented, socially prescribed, or other-oriented) perceived their perfectionism as developing. Findings suggested support for three family history models outlined by Flett, Hewitt, Oliver, and Macdonald (2002 Flett, G., Hewitt, P., Oliver, J. and Macdonald, S. 2002. “Perfectionism in children and their parents: A developmental analysis”. In Perfectionism: Theory, research, and treatment, Edited by: Flett, G. and Flett, P. 89–132. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Lack of challenge in their early academic experiences was also indicated as an influence. Findings are discussed within the context of the current literature on perfectionism in gifted students, and avenues for future research are suggested.     

Pro-Nets Versus No-Nets: Differences in Urban Older Adults' Predilections for Internet Use

Enthusiasm for information technology (IT) is growing among older adults. Many older adults enjoy IT and the Internet (Pro-Nets), but others have no desire to use it (No-Nets). This study found that Pro-Nets and No-Nets were different on a number of variables that might predict IT use. No-Nets were older, had less education and income, were retired, in poor health, and less active than Pro-Nets. No-Nets potentially have the most to gain from access to—and training inusing—the Internet as a health management tool. Further research with this population could inform the development of health-related web based interventions.     

CREATIVITY IN ADULTHOOD AND OLD AGE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

The purpose of this study was to explore the creative process and creative products across the adult life span. The subjects were 61 women, ages 20 to 83 years, who were comparable in intelligence, education, and interest in writing. They completed a creative writing project and took three standardized creativity tests and two intelligence subtests. Both quantitative and qualitative differences were found favoring young adults. Predictive but not construct validity was demonstrated for the creativity tests with this population of young and old adults. Both methodological constraints and the ecological validity of these measures of creativity are discussed.     

Information Technologies as Health Management Tools: Urban Elders' Interest and Ability in Using' the Internet

Older adults represent an increasing percentage of both the whole U.S. population and persons living with one or more chronic health conditions. However, extant research has largely overlooked older adults when examining current Internet users and the potential for the Internet as a health management resource. In this study, the researchers conducted focus groups with urban elders in Detroit to elicit, in their own words, their collective perceptions about their interest, current uses, and desired uses for health management via the Internet in tandem with their current abilities and needs for technological training and support. The findings reveal that many urban elders access the Internet, or would like to, and they clearly articulate many ways that management tools on the Internet do/could empower and assist them in actively engaging in their health management and knowledgably interacting with their health care providers. The findings also support the premise that survey measurement instruments need to be developed in collaboration with those who will directly benefit from research findings and the practice applications.     

Gipsy Hill Training College graduates: once,always and everywhere a modern woman teacher in the interwar years

This article examines the ways in which Gipsy Hill Training College’s (GHTC) graduates represented their lives and work in the college magazine, the Gipsy Trail. The so-called ‘Wraggle Taggle News’ featured snippets from married and single women teachers at every stage of their lives and work in Britain and overseas by the late 1930s. It will be shown that graduates integrated discourses of the modern woman and Gipsy Hill’s modernist ideals of individual autonomy, and educational and social progressivism into their paid work and domestic situations, leisure and propaganda work across their life course. Indeed, it was a case of ‘once a teacher, always a teacher’ and everywhere a modern woman teacher in the interwar years.     

Assessing learning,quality and engagement in learning objects: the Learning Object Evaluation Scale for Students (LOES-S)

Learning objects are interactive web-based tools that support the learning of specific concepts by enhancing, amplifying, and/or guiding the cognitive processes of learners. Research on the impact, effectiveness, and usefulness of learning objects is limited, partially because comprehensive, theoretically based, reliable, and valid evaluation tools are scarce, particularly in the K-12 environment. The purpose of the following study was to investigate a Learning Object Evaluation Scale for Students (LOES-S) based on three key constructs gleaned from 10 years of learning object research: learning, quality or instructional design, and engagement. Tested on over 1100 middle and secondary school students, the data generated using the LOES-S showed acceptable internal reliability, face validity, construct validity, convergent validity and predictive validity.

Prompting undergraduate students’ metacognition of learning: implementing ‘meta-learning’ assessment tasks in the biomedical sciences

To succeed at post-secondary education, it’s essential that students develop an understanding of their own knowledge and learning processes. This metacognition of learning, or ‘meta-learning’, helps students to become more effective learners, as they become more aware of their self-regulatory processes and recognise the effectiveness of their study strategies. To increase biomedical science students’ self-awareness, we have designed and implemented meta-learning assessment tasks across our biomedical science courses. Most students reported that meta-learning tasks had a positive impact on their learning, as they prompted self-regulatory processes of forethought and self-reflection. We found that students were equally likely to change or not change their study strategies across subsequent semesters. Those students that did not change were generally high achievers, believing their study approaches were most effective, but their performance did not improve across semesters. In contrast, students who adapted, mostly by modifying how they appraised and rearranged records or improved planning and time management, performed less well overall but significantly improved their performance across semesters. Meta-learning tasks may prompt students to become more self-reflective and independent learners by affecting their approach to learning, enabling them to reflect on their study strategies, adapt and improve performance, and may enable the development of lifelong learning skills.