Making reasonable adjustments for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities: pre‐service teachers’ perceptions of an online support resource

The Equality Act called on British schools to ‘avoid as far as possible by reasonable means, the disadvantage which a disabled pupil experiences’. Teachers, therefore, must be creative and flexible in order to meet the needs and optimise the capabilities of all pupils. Using focus group interviews, this article explores the influence of an online resource on pre‐service teachers’ perceptions of making reasonable adjustments for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Pre‐service teachers appeared committed to making reasonable adjustments, with reports of the online resource being particularly influential on their planning and assessing progress. The influence of the resource was less significant on those pre‐service teachers with previous experience of making reasonable adjustments.     

Orthographic and Phonological Processes in Reading

Investigations of reading have focussed largely on two component processes, phonological processing and orthographic processing. However, a number of unresolved issues have hampered progress in the investigation of these abilities. Three such issues that formed the focus of the present study were (1) the extent to which tasks used to operationalise orthographic processing measure the same construct, (2) the extent to which tasks from a range of phonological processing domains measure the same construct, and (3) the degree to which orthographic processing tasks reflect orthographic processes independent of extraneous phonological operations, and conversely, phonological processing tasks measure phonological processes independent of orthographic processes. To address these questions, a variety of tasks used to evaluate orthographic processing (orthographic verification, homophone verification, nonlexical choice, irregular word reading, irregular word spelling), phonological processing (phoneme deletion, phonological choice, nonword reading, nonword spelling) and related domains (e.g., word identification, IQ) were administered to 177 children from Grades 3, 4 and 5. Factor analysis conducted using accuracy data revealed that orthographic processing tasks congregate along a single factor, while phonological processing tasks congregate along another, separate factor, viewed as evidence for the construct validity of orthographic processing and phonological processing, respectively. When response-time data were analysed, these same tasks did not differentiate on the basis of their orthographic and phonological demands, but rather in terms of their more general task demands. Additionally, results reveal that some phonological processing and orthographic processing tasks measure their respective construct with a greater degree of purity than do others. It is recommended that these tasks be used in future research.     

The role of feedback from phonology to orthography in orthographic learning: an extension of item‐based accounts

Skilled readers were trained to recognise either the oral (n=44) or visual form (n=40) of a set of 32 novel words (oral and visual instantiation, respectively). Training involved learning the ‘meanings’ for the instantiated words and was followed by a visual lexical decision task in which the instantiated words were mixed with real English words and untrained pseudowords, and the instantiated words were to be considered as words. The phonology‐to‐orthography consistency (feedback consistency) of the instantiated words was manipulated to investigate the role of feedback from phonology in orthographic learning. Masked consonant and vowel‐preserving form primes were used in the lexical decision task as probes of orthographic learning. Feedback‐consistent instantiated words were recognised significantly faster in lexical decision than feedback‐inconsistent instantiated words, and facilitation was significantly greater from consonant‐preserving than vowel‐preserving primes for orally but not visually instantiated words. The results support the hypothesis that orthographic representations based on a consonant frame can be generated from the speech signal before encountering the printed forms, and that feedback from phonology is involved in the early stages of orthographic learning.     

Recall of corporate advertising slogans in Nigeria

This study reports significant differences in the correct association of corporate slogans with company names among students and public‐relations and advertising practitioners in Nigeria. Because the overall rate for slogan recall is moderate for the entire sample, the continuing use of such slogans should be based on extensive research data.     

Normalising: Children's activity to construct meanings for trend

This paper looks back over a number of exploratory studies which have researched young children's construction of meanings for graphs, produced from data entered in spreadsheets. In this paper we discuss children's use of normalising, an activity in which children correct data towards some perceived norm. Through normalising, children construct meanings for trend in data and in graphs. We discuss how particular aspects of the pedagogical setting including task design encourage the use of normalising.This revised version was published online in October 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Working-class Men's Constructions of Masculinity and Negotiations of (Non)Participation in Higher Education

This article draws on discussion group data collected with 64 ethnically diverse working-class men who were predominantly not participating, or planning to participate, in higher education. The article identifies how the men drew on various discourses of masculinity in their arguments for and against higher education participation, and discusses potential implications of these discourses upon working-class men's continued underrepresentation in higher education. Analysis also highlights how the men's various constructions were framed/constrained by their locations within multiple, interlocking systems of inequality. Questions are raised with regard to future widening participation initiatives.     

Responsibility for student success/failure and observed verbal behavior among secondary science and mathematics teachers

The study compared selected teacher beliefs and verbal behaviors among secondary science and mathematics teachers. Teacher beliefs included teacher responsibility for student success and failure. These beliefs were measured by the Responsibility for Student Achievement (RSA) Questionnaire which has the locus of control construct as a theoretical basis. Teacher verbal behavior included (1) indirect and (2) direct behaviors and (3) praise and (4) criticism. These behaviors were measured with the Reciprocal Category System (RCS) which is consistent with the methodology of interaction analysis. Comparisons were made on the basis of the following teacher classifications: (1) science/mathematics, (2) junior high/senior high, and (3) teachers of advanced classes/basic classes. Teacher beliefs were not significantly different except for the advanced/basic comparisons. These comparisons produced significant differences in both teacher beliefs and behaviors. Teachers of basic students assumed more responsibility for student success, less responsibility for failure, and were more direct in verbal behavior. In gender comparisons, female teachers were significantly higher in incidences of indirect behavior and combined indirect-direct behavior. These findings suggest that further study of “self-fulfilling prophecy” in terms of these variables may be fruitful. Also, verbal behavior may sometimes be inadequately represented by the common practice of using ratios.     

The technological challenge: capabilities,compatibilities, and cost-effectiveness of electronic publishing

The rapid decline in the price of computer hardware and the steady increase in the power of computer software are making it harder for corporate service centers like word processing, graphic arts, and technical publications to justify the costs of, and even the need for, their services. Word processing could once be done only on expensive equipment that was economical only for trained specialists. Now virtually anyone can have word-processing capability, and the same is becoming true for graphics and document-production services. This article outlines the dimensions of the problem this technological revolution is creating and describes the technological aspects of a strategy we have devised to deal with it.