The Role of Executive Functions in Socioeconomic Attainment Gaps: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial

The socioeconomic attainment gap in mathematics starts early and increases over time. This study aimed to examine why this gap exists. Four-year-olds from diverse backgrounds were randomly allocated to a brief intervention designed to improve executive functions (N = 87) or to an active control group (N = 88). The study was preregistered and followed CONSORT guidelines. Executive functions and mathematical skills were measured at baseline, 1 week, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year posttraining. Executive functions mediated the relation between socioeconomic status and mathematical skills. Children improved over training, but this did not transfer to untrained executive functions or mathematics. Executive functions may explain socioeconomic attainment gaps, but cognitive training directly targeting executive functions is not an effective way to narrow this gap.     

Pictures are necessary but not sufficient: Using a range of visual methods to engage users about school design

It has been argued by both educationalists and social researchers that visual methods are particularly appropriate for the investigation of people’s experiences of the school environment. The current and expected building work taking place in British schools provides an opportunity for exploration of methods, as well as a need to establish ways to achieve this involvement of a range of school users, including students. This article describes a consultation that was undertaken in a UK secondary school as part of a participatory design process centred on the rebuilding of the school. A range of visual methods, based on photographs and maps, was used to investigate the views of a diverse sample of school users, including students, teachers, technical and support staff and the wider community. Reported here is the experience of using these tools, considering the success of different visually-based methods in engaging a broad cross section of the school community and revealing useful information. Using a range of visual methods allows a complex, but coherent, understanding of the particular school environment to be constructed and developed. It is further argued that such a range of visual and spatial methods is needed to develop appropriate understanding. The study, therefore, contributes to knowledge about specific visual research methods, appreciation of the relationship between tools, and a general methodological understanding of visual methods’ utility for developing understanding of the learning environment.     

Structural change from physical foundations: The role of the environment in enacting school change

Educational change is known to be challenging and therefore research exploring the conditions that seem to facilitate change is important. The literature relating to school level change shows some awareness of the part played by the physical school environment, but the role of the school premises in change is rarely the focus of research rooted within this literature. This is a notable omission. The history of innovation in school design parallels the recognised challenges of school reform and change. Educational leadership practice and certain historic policy initiatives suggest awareness of how the physical environment may encourage or constrain, and so is potentially an important part of a change process, but this understanding is not developed. This paper brings together our research concerning school environments and our work with schools attempting pedagogical change to develop such an understanding of the place of the physical setting in initiating, supporting and sustaining school level change. It is a conceptual exploration of the role of the physical environment in enacting change using an empirical base to illustrate our argument. We present a narrative account of two schools’ approaches to change and use the theoretical framework of culture, structure and individual action, where the physical environment is part of the structure within which change is attempted. It becomes clear that although the physical setting is intimately related to other school structures, particularly certain organisational features, there is a qualitative difference in the way the physical setting, as a tangible and visible entity, contributes to change processes. As well as contributing to the development of conceptualisations of educational change, our exploration has implications for the wider understanding of structures within human society, and their relationship to culture and individual agency.     

Teaching Scientists to Communicate: Evidence-based assessment for undergraduate science education

Communication skills are one of five nationally recognised learning outcomes for an Australian Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree. Previous evidence indicates that communication skills taught in Australian undergraduate science degrees are not developed sufficiently to meet the requirements of the modern-day workplace—a problem faced in the UK and USA also. Curriculum development in this area, however, hinges on first evaluating how communication skills are taught currently as a base from which to make effective changes. This study aimed to quantify the current standard of communication education within BSc degrees at Australian research-intensive universities. A detailed evidential baseline for not only what but also how communication skills are being taught was established. We quantified which communication skills were taught and assessed explicitly, implicitly, or were absent in a range of undergraduate science assessment tasks (n?=?35) from four research-intensive Australian universities. Results indicate that 10 of the 12 core science communication skills used for evaluation were absent from more than 50% of assessment tasks and 77.14% of all assessment tasks taught less than 5 core communication skills explicitly. The design of assessment tasks significantly affected whether communication skills were taught explicitly. Prominent trends were that communication skills in tasks aimed at non-scientific audiences were taught more explicitly than in tasks aimed at scientific audiences, and the majority of group and multimedia tasks taught communication elements more explicitly than individual, or written and oral tasks. Implications for science communication in the BSc and further research are discussed.     

The Contested Curriculum: Academic learning and employability in higher education

This article explores the discourse of employability in higher education by investigating the understanding of different stakeholder groups (students, staff, employers) of the University of Nottingham (UK and China), and their fit to each other and to the educational literature. It finds that, while theories of life-long or life-wide learning position employability as an outcome of a holistic curriculum embracing both discipline and employability, stakeholders perceive learning for employability as a threat to disciplinary learning. The results suggest that to progress significant curriculum development in support of employability, a greater consensus of stakeholder views is needed with a deeper sympathy towards the integration of academic learning and employability. The article concludes with an assessment of the re-envisioning needed by Nottingham and other universities as they prepare students for an “employability” fit for purpose in a twenty-first century characterized by change and challenge.     

Re-Discovering a Roman Wall Painting at Harvard: New Research on a Fragment from the Villa at Boscotrecase

ABSTRACT

This article presents historical and scientific analysis, as well as the conservation treatment of a newly rediscovered Roman wall painting fragment, now in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums. Although the piece has not previously been published, it was among a group of fragments removed from a Roman villa near Boscotrecase in southern Italy, an area that has been key to the study of Roman wall painting and other decoration. Technical imaging confirms the use of painting techniques consistent with other high-quality paintings in the area. Materials analysis revealed a palette consistent with published findings of Roman wall paintings, including abundant use of Egyptian blue and green earth. Of interest was the use of Egyptian blue as an optical brightener in select white passages. Despite the high quality of the painting, no cinnabar was present, and all red passages were achieved using hematite. Multiple different white minerals were identified including calcite, aragonite, and gypsum. The widespread presence of gypsum is unusual and may point to alteration.