Banking on Knowledge: The new knowledge projects of the World Bank

The World Bank was the first cooperation agency seriously to explore the implications for itself and its clients of the heightened role of knowledge in economic and institutional development that had become increasingly evident in OECD countries. Beginning with its president's decision in 1996 to become 'the Knowledge Bank', different elements within the Bank went on to elaborate a knowledge discourse, most notably within the World Development Report on Knowledge for Development (1998), as well as a whole series of 'knowledge projects' and 'knowledge-based initiatives'. The article examines some of the tensions and debates that are at the very heart of the Bank's desire to become a knowledge agency. Amongst these, some of the more salient are the implications of the new knowledge discourse for the Bank's changing priorities towards education; the trade-off between knowledge sharing for the improved efficiency of Bank operations versus knowledge development by the Bank's clients; and the use of information and communications technology to create a global knowledge hypermarket, called the Development Gateway.     

Development and validation of a group test of integrated science processes

The paper describes the development and validation of a group test of integrated process skills. The test assesses student performance on a set of twelve objectives related to the generic objective: planning and conducting an investigation. Evidence of content validity, construct validity, and reliability are presented in the paper. A range of generalizability coefficients from 0.77 to 0.98 is reported for specific uses of the 24-item test. Since the items measure performance on objectives that can be readily translated into classroom activity, the test has direct applicability to classroom based research, and evaluation of instruction. In addition to sound psychometric properties, the Test of Integrated Science Processes is distincitve because it includes a set of interrelated, cumulative objectives which reflect autonomous problem solving.     

The ‘Learning in Regular Classrooms’ initiative for inclusive education in China

The purpose of this article is to understand the Learning in Regular Classrooms (LRC) initiative for inclusive education in China. First, the paper reviews the policy, legislation, and practice in relation to the LRC. It then goes on to explore the specific social–political context of the LRC, and compares the Chinese LRC with the Western approaches to inclusion and integration. The authors then discuss the challenges posed by the attempt to further promote the LRC or inclusive education in the collectivist culture and socialist political context of modern China.     

Physical discipline and children's adjustment: cultural normativeness as a moderator

Interviews were conducted with 336 mother-child dyads (children's ages ranged from 6 to 17 years; mothers' ages ranged from 20 to 59 years) in China, India, Italy, Kenya, the Philippines, and Thailand to examine whether normativeness of physical discipline moderates the link between mothers' use of physical discipline and children's adjustment. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that physical discipline was less strongly associated with adverse child outcomes in conditions of greater perceived normativeness, but physical discipline was also associated with more adverse outcomes regardless of its perceived normativeness. Countries with the lowest use of physical discipline showed the strongest association between mothers' use and children's behavior problems, but in all countries higher use of physical discipline was associated with more aggression and anxiety.     

Student task involvement in activity oriented science

The focus of this investigation was on relationships between teaching behaviors and student engagement in 13 middle school science classes. The results indicated that seven managerial variables and four instructional variables were significantly related to student engagement rates. Also the types of tasks allocated by teachers in science lessons were significantly related to the types of tasks undertaken by students. A canonical correlation analysis indicated significant relationships between three allocated task dimensions and three student engagement dimensions. Although teachers allocated adequate time for students to engage in investigation planning, data collecting, and data processing, the results indicated that overt engagement was prevalent only when data were collected. Attending was the predominant type of student engagement when investigations were planned and data were processed. The percentage of student time on task was approximately 63%. Rates of student off task behavior tended to be consistently high across all types of allocated tasks.     

Benefits of assistive reading software for students with attention disorders

This study investigated how assistive reading software affected the reading performance of a group of 20 post-secondary students who had a primary diagnosis of attention disorder. These students used assistive reading software for most of a semester to read assignments for an English class and in testing sessions in which comparisons were made between normal, unassisted reading, and reading assisted by the soft ware. This software provides a synchronized visual and auditory presentation of text, and incorporates study skills tools for highlighting and note taking. Attention measures, reading speed, comprehension scores, and attitude questionnaire responses were obtained during these sessions. The principal findings were that the assistive software allowed the students to attend better to their reading, to reduce their distractibility, to read with less stress and fatigue, and to read for longer periods of time. It helped them to read faster and, thereby, to complete reading assignments in less time. It did not have a significant effect on comprehension, but it helped some students whose comprehension was very poor. The study results indicate that assistive reading software should be considered as a significant intervention to assist students who have attention disorders and as an accommodation to help them compensate for their disabilities.     

BEING A LEARNER: A VIRTUE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

ABSTRACT:  Lifelong learning is something which one does for oneself that no one else can do for one: it is a public and personal human activity, rather than private or individualistic. One of the features of the education system is the paucity of a language for learning as process and participative experience. Personalised learning requires a sense of the worthwhileness of 'being a learner'– a virtue in the 21st century. A sense of one's own worth as a person is essential to understanding one's identity as a learner. Research suggests the human capacity to learn can be understood as a form of consciousness which is characterised by particular values, attitudes and dispositions, with a lateral and a temporal connectivity. This 'consciousness' has several dimensions which are all related to becoming a person, with a learning identity. They also enable the learner to become aware of and appropriate what is of worth and map onto the sorts of core values that learning communities espouse. Awareness of self and of one's own worth as a person is a necessary condition for 'becoming a learner' and for identifying and engaging with 'what is of worth'. Furthermore, a sense of self as a learner is formed in relationship, and understood as one learns to tell one's own story, as a participant in the conversation of the learning community. Character is the way in which we refer to that quality of personhood in which there is rooted the capacity to change and learn over time.     

Psychological Resources as Stress Buffers: Their Relationship to University Students' Anxiety and Depression

The association of protective resources, personality variables, life events, and gender with anxiety and depression was examined with university students. Building on regression analyses, a structural equation model was generated with good fit, indicating that with respect to both anxiety and depression, negative life events and coping resources were mediated by a common distress factor. Personality variables were associated with anxiety, which in turn had a direct relationship to depression.     

Constraints to curriculum reform: Teachers and the myths of schooling

Curriculum reform efforts usually have ignored the culture in which curriculum is embedded. Principal components of the culture are the knowledge of teachers and the myths of this culture. Images, metaphors, and metonymies are forms of teacher knowledge that influence the manner in which teachers define their roles and implement the curriculum. Unless endeavors are made to facilitate teacher learning through the construction of new images, metaphors, and metonymies, it is unlikely that curricular reform will proceed in the intended manner. Similarly, the myths that define the customs and taboos of a culture need to be considered by instructional designers if their curricular resources are to be used as intended. The myths ofteacher as controller of students andobjectivism together might persuade teachers to adhere to the more traditional approach whereby knowledge is transferred to students in teacher-controlled activities.This article describes theScience Vision series, a hypermedia system developed in response to a clear need for additional resources to educate teachers concerning alternative myths and their use in relation to utilizing resources.