Do we need more male primary teachers? Tensions and contradictions in the perspectives of male and female trainees

Primary teaching Initial Teacher Training courses across the UK have been under pressure from central government, Ofsted and the media to recruit more male students to their courses with the aim of increasing the proportion of males in the primary teaching workforce. This is because increasing the number of male role models in primary schools has been mooted as the solution to boys’ underachievement, especially in reading and writing. There is, however, little evidence showing any correlation between boys’ educational outcomes and the number of male primary teachers in schools. The purpose of the project reported in this paper was to ascertain the beliefs of the future primary school workforce about this focus on the need for male role models in schools. A mixed-methods approach was employed: 120 male and female primary trainees were surveyed and a further 48 took part in group interviews, all of whom were based in an Initial Teacher Training department in a university in North West England. Results indicated that although aspiring teachers felt that males and females could make equally good role models for children their personal value systems perpetuated the myth that boys need male role models to achieve better educational outcomes.     

Mergers in Higher Education: A Strategic Analysis

This paper looks at recent mergers in higher education from a strategic management perspective. It is based on private research undertaken for a dissertation in completion of an MBA degree in 1996. The objectives of the study included the discovery and analysis of merger input factors and process variables, and an assessment of the contribution of both towards an effective outcome. The paper considers similarities and differences between mergers in higher education and as a whole. The process included structured interviews with senior management in two universities, which helped to develop a census survey of incidents involving an HE partner between 1987 and 1994. The incidents included mergers with further education colleges, other HE institutions, and colleges of health.     

Electronic Performance Support Technology: Defining the Domain

Electronic performance support is an expanding area within the field of performance technology. This article reviews and classifies the literature, both conceptual and case-based, in order to assess settings for use, initiating factors for development, and general features of the various systems. Identification of each article reviewed is presented in a matrix of categories that can be used to point those interested in specific aspects of this complex topic to the most pertinent information for their own needs. A general summary of findings follows.     

Meta-analytic evidence for the persuasive effect of narratives on beliefs,attitudes, intentions,and behaviors

Although narratives are often credited with the capacity to change opinions, empirical tests of this prediction have produced mixed results. To provide a more precise test of narrative's effect on beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, we performed meta-analyses on studies that evaluated narrative's persuasive influence on these outcomes. Results suggested positive relationships between exposure to a narrative and narrative-consistent beliefs (k?=?37; N?=?7,376; r?=?.17), attitudes (k?=?40; N?=?7,132; r?=?.19), intentions (k?=?28; N?=?5,211; r?=?.17), and behaviors (k?=?5; N?=?978; r?=?.23). Moderator analyses on the effect of fictionality yielded mixed results. Neither medium of presentation nor research design influenced the magnitude of the narrative-persuasion relationship. However, results suggested the presence of unidentified moderators.     

Culturally Appropriate Education: Insights From Educational Neuroscience

Culturally appropriate education focuses on educational competence needed in a global world and respect for different world views of learners and teachers from different cultural contexts. The relationship between gene, brain, and culture is complex and dynamical. Cultural experience and learning sculpts the anatomy and function of the human brain and shapes human behavior. This neuroplasticity is the basis of educability in human beings. Education reform should reflect cultural diversity and embed teaching practices into the cultural history of a nation and should promote positive inclusion of minority and indigenous history so as to maximize successful adoption by teachers and parents. This tenet is at the core of the concept of “culturally appropriate education.” Successful educational reform and pedagogy require that teachers become culturally and neuroscientifically literate.     

Using 9-1-1 call data and the space–time permutation scan statistic for emergency event detection

During medium to large-scale emergency events such as fires or earthquakes, emergency response teams must be deployed to the location of the event in a timely fashion. Information gathered from 9-1-1 call makers is useful for this, but is not always accurate. In this paper, we show how the space–time permutation scan statistic can be used to detect the presence and location of such events by monitoring the overall spatiotemporal pattern of 9-1-1 emergency calls instead. In an analysis of collected 9-1-1 call data, top detected clusters were found to correlate with emergency events as reported on the news, showing the algorithm's usefulness for automatically estimating their location and temporal extent. We show how the detection procedure works in cases where the emergency event generates a small but statistically significant increase in the number of 9-1-1 calls, as well as cases where events must be detected against a large background activity of 9-1-1 calls. We discuss the possible adoption of the proposed algorithm within the next generation digital government framework.     

Participatory Scaling Through Augmented Reality Learning Through Local Games

The proliferation of broadband mobile devices, which many students bring to school with them as mobile phones, makes the widespread adoption of AR pedagogies a possibility, but pedagogical, distribution, and training models are needed to make this innovation an integrated part of education, This paper employs Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) to argue for a participatory model of scaling by key stakeholders groups (students, teachers, researchers, administrators), and demonstrates through various cases how ARIS (arisgames.org) — a free, open-source tool for educators to create and disseminate mobile AR learning experiences — may be such a model.