Children participating as researchers in primary schools: what’s in it for the teachers?

Whilst within universities, research on rather than with children/pupils is a well-established methodology, this paper reports on teachers’ responses to a schools and university-based partnership project, ‘Pupils as Research Partners in Primary (PARPP), which works to co-create pupil-led research opportunities for pupils in research projects informed by pupils’ experiences in primary schools. A previous paper, French and Hobbs, [(2017). “‘So How Well Did It Really Go’? Working with Primary School Pupils as Project Evaluators: A Case Study.” TEAN Journal 9 (1): 56–65] reported on how one PARPP project had a beneficial effect on pupils and their school environment. For this paper the project team interviewed a number of teachers whose pupils in the partner schools were involved in the pilot study phase of the project. Specifically, the teachers were interviewed to ascertain if the involvement of pupils, as lead researchers in projects exploring various aspects of the school environment, had impacted on their perceptions of pupil-led research. Findings suggest that the experiences of teachers in schools where PARPP projects had taken place had led them to re-evaluate the practicality and desirability of encouraging pupils to actively to research their school environments.     

Selectivity in Diagrams: reading beyond the lines

Diagrams are commonly used with beginning students of technical domains to introduce these learners to key aspects of the subject matter. Instructional benefit is intended to result from a diagram's simplification of the content into a highly selective form of graphic presentation. However, this selectivity may not benefit those lacking the domain‐specific knowledge necessary to construct from the diagram an appropriate mental representation of the depicted situation. A weather map diagram extension task compared the mental representation of subjects with high levels of knowledge in the domain of meteorology (meteorologists) with that of low knowledge subjects (non‐meteorologists). The meteorologists’ domain‐specific elaboration of the given markings suggested a mental representation that was not limited by the diagram's selectivity, but rather incorporated the broader meteorological situation implied by the diagram. In contrast, the non‐meteorologists’ domain‐general approach indicated a meteorologically impoverished mental representation that was largely driven by the given diagram's visuo‐spatial characteristics.     

Gender Composition of Editors and Editorial Boards in Seven Top Criminal Justice and Criminology Journals from 1985 to 2017

This paper examines the gender composition of editors and editorial board members of seven top criminal justice and criminology (CCJ) journals from 1985 through 2017. The findings indicate that women have historically been, and continue to be, underrepresented in these positions. From 1985 through 2017, women comprised 14% of all Editors-in-Chief, 27% of all Associate Editors, and 22% of all Editorial Board members. While there was a period during the early 2000s when Justice Quarterly and Criminology achieved gender parity in representation across all of the editorial roles, this equality was short lived. The other journals have never achieved gender parity, and, on average, women have comprised 3.8% to 35.2% of the editorial positions at each of the journals. The implications of this imbalance for women’s scholarship and professional success are discussed, and recommendations for changes to CCJ journal policies and practices to ensure more equity are provided.     

Extracting information from an animation during complex visual learning

The construction of a high quality mental model from a complex visual display relies the capacity of learners to extract appropriate information from that display. Beginning students of meteorology complied written records of generalisations extracted from animated weather map sequences in order to prepare themselves for a subsequent prediction task. Analysis of these records revealed that much of the information extracted was perceptually salient rather than thematically relevant. This perceptual dominance effect was found for both visuospatial and temporal aspects of the display. The statements produced were deficient with regard to the causal explanations that would be necessary to build a satisfactory mental model of the depicted situation. These deficiencies involved both the proportion of causal material recorded and the attribution of causality on an everyday rather than a domain-appropriate basis. The limitations of the information extracted were interpreted as evidence of subjects’ use of selective attention to control cognitive load in a complex, demanding processing situation and the effects of their lack of domain-specific background knowledge. Contrary to prevailing orthodoxies, the results raise the possibility that in some circumstances, animations may not be instructionally superior to static depictions because the processing demands involved can have negative effects on learning.     

A skills development framework for learning computing tools in the context of engineering practice

Informatics is a first-year subject in the new Bachelor of Engineering/Graduate Diploma in Engineering Practice degree at the University of Technology, Sydney. All undergraduate engineering students must do this subject irrespective of their intended engineering discipline (civil, mechanical, environmental systems, electrical, telecommunications, computer systems). The focus of this subject is to introduce students to computational tools (such as spreadsheets and programming languages) and information retrieval tools (such as the World Wide Web), which support engineering, as well as looking at the effective and professional use of these tools. Informatics has three core elements: the development of specific skills which will assist students in both their studies and their professional practice; the development of an ability to continue to develop further skills independently; and consideration of a wide variety of issues related to the computational tools that the students are using. Examples of the issues covered include: privacy; accuracy of content; fraud; security; the professional and ethical responsibility of engineers for the results of their calculations; selecting the best tool for the job; and limitations of computational tools. This paper will review the activities and challenges the students faced, describe the approaches that we adopted and the various issues we raised, the expected and actual outcomes arising from the activities, and our plans for the future of the subject.     

On the viability of supporting institutional sharing of remote laboratory facilities

Laboratories are generally regarded as critical to engineering education, and yet educational institutions face significant challenges in developing and maintaining high-quality laboratory facilities. Remote laboratories are increasingly being explored as a partial solution to this challenge, with research showing that – for the right learning outcomes – they can be viable adjuncts or alternatives to conventional hands-on laboratories. One consequential opportunity arising from the inherent support for distributed access is the possibility of cross-institutional shared facilities. While both technical feasibility and pedagogic implications of remote laboratories have been well studied within the literature, the organisational and logistical issues associated with shared facilities have received limited consideration. This paper uses an existing national-scale laboratory sharing initiative, along with a related survey and laboratory sharing data, to analyse a range of factors that can affect engagement in laboratory sharing. The paper also discusses the implications for supporting ongoing laboratory sharing.