Does what you study at age 14–16 matter for educational transitions post-16?

Abstract

This paper considers whether subject choice at 14–16 influences post-16 transitions, taking into account prior academic attainment and school characteristics, and if so, whether this accounts for socioeconomic, gender, and ethnic differences in access to post-16 education. We consider post-16 progression to full-time education, A-levels, and studying two or more facilitating subjects at A-level. We use ‘Next Steps’, a study of 16,000 people born in England in 1989–1990, linked to administrative education records (the National Pupil Database). We find that students pursuing an EBacc-eligible curriculum at 14–16 had a greater probability of progression to all post-16 educational outcomes, while the reverse was true for students taking an applied GCSE subject. Curriculum differences did not explain the social class differences in post-16 progression, but an academic curriculum was equally valuable for working-class as for middle-class pupils. Pursuing an EBacc-eligible curriculum particularly strongly increased the chances of girls and white young people staying in the educational pipeline, whereas applied subjects were particularly detrimental for girls. An EBacc-eligible curriculum at age 14–16 increased the chances of studying subjects preferred by Russell Group universities at A-level.     

Beyond Average: Contemporary statistical techniques for analysing student evaluations of teaching

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) have been used to evaluate higher education teaching performance for decades. Reporting SET results often involves the extraction of an average for some set of course metrics, which facilitates the comparison of teaching teams across different organisational units. Here, we draw attention to ongoing problems with the naive application of this approach. Firstly, a specific average value may arise from data that demonstrates very different patterns of student satisfaction. Furthermore, the use of distance measures (e.g. an average) for ordinal data can be contested, and finally, issues of multiplicity increasingly plague approaches using hypothesis testing. It is time to advance the methodology of the field. We demonstrate how multinomial distributions and hierarchical Bayesian methods can be used to contextualise the SET scores of a course to different organisational units and student cohorts, and then show how this approach can be used to extract sensible information about how a distribution is changing.     

Charismatic cops,patriarchs and a few good women: leadership,club culture and young peoples' drinking

The paper reports on key findings of a research project that examined the roles that community-based sporting clubs in the Australian state of Victoria play in shaping young people's understandings and uses of alcohol. Our research imagined clubs as community hubs that are located in complex networks that impact on the ways that clubs understand their locations in communities, and which have unpredictable influences and consequences on club histories, culture and orientations to issues such as young people and alcohol use. The paper focuses on understanding the key roles played by club leaders in facilitating change and transformation in these contexts, particularly in terms of alcohol-related practices and the potential impact of these on young people's uses and understanding of alcohol. We situate these findings in a framework that draws on the literature of complexity science and complex adaptive systems (CAS) to suggest that these practices and changes need to be understood in ways that allow for complexity, uncertainty, emergent behaviours and adaptive change.     

Economics and Education for Human Flourishing: Wendell Berry and the Oikonomic Alternative to Neoliberalism

Neoliberal ideologies and policies have transformed how we think about the economy, education, and the environment. Economics is presented as objective and quantifiable, best left to distant experts who develop algorithms regarding different monetary relations in our stead. This same kind of thinking—technical, numerical, decontextualized, and ostensibly objective—infiltrates how we think about education and the environment. For example, neoliberal education reform focuses on using test scores and markets as a way to measure and improve learning and teaching. Similarly, environmental issues are presented as problems to be solved through new technologies and market efficiency. In response, we critique neoliberalism using the philosophy of the agrarian poet and writer Wendell Berry who abhors how neoliberalism disconnects humans from one another and the traditions that sustain them in their communities. Rather than neoliberalism's rootless entrepreneurial individual—homo economicus—we suggest that freedom, instead, resides in one's ability to flourish in one's place in the world. Such flourishing cannot occur without reinvigorating the traditions, including Aristotle's oikonomics, that have allowed people to live sustainably in their social and ecological communities.     

The Development of Fifth-Grade Children's Problem-Posing Abilities

This one-year study involved designing and implementing a problem-posing program for fifth-grade children. A framework developed for the study encompassed three main components: (a) children's recognition and utilisation of problem structures, (b) their perceptions of, and preferences for, different problem types, and (c) their development of diverse mathematical thinking. One of the aims of the study was to investigate the extent to which children's number sense and novel problem-solving skills govern their problem-posing abilities in routine and nonroutine situations. To this end, children who displayed different patterns of achievement in these two domains were selected to participate in the 10-week activity program. Problem-posing interviews with each child were conducted prior to, and after the program, with the progress of individual children tracked during the course of the program. Overall, the children who participated in the program appeared to show substantial developments in each of the program components, in contrast to those who did not participate.     

Young children's combinatoric strategies

Children aged between 4 years 6 months and 9 years 10 months were individually administered a series of novel tasks involving the formation of different combinations of two items, selected from discrete sets of items. An analysis of the children's performance revealed a series of six, increasingly sophisticated, solution strategies ranging from a random selection of items through to a systematic pattern in item choice (cf. Piaget and Inhelder's, 1975, combinatoric operations). A significant number of children independently adopted more efficient solution procedures as they progressed on the tasks, with many displaying an algorithmic procedure reflecting the odometer strategy (holding one item constant while systematically varying each of the other items). Given that children as young as 7 years demonstrated this systematic strategy, it would appear that, within the appropriate learning environment, young children can discover a procedure for forming n x n combinations prior to the stage of formal operations postulated by Piaget and Inhelder. The findings support the inclusion of the combinatorial domain as a topic of investigation in the elementary school curriculum.     

Contextualizing learning in the World Wide Web: accounting for the impact of culture

There is a developing urgency about how Australian universities should best make use of the World Wide Web (WWW) to meet the needs of culturally diverse students, especially those of Asian origin. This urgency is the result of both global and internal pressures, some political, (consider the imminence of the 'Hanson movement' against a multicultural Australia), some economic, some social. Moreover, to miss the current opportunity to exploit WWW technologies to design, implement and market effective instructional courses will only work to disadvantage Australia in a growing but globally competitive educational market. One of the most pressing problems in this context is how to provide instructional materials in a model of teaching and learning that is cost-effective, makes extensive use of WWW technologies to provide for flexibility in learning, and that is culturally appropriate. This paper outlines an approach and model for investigating and developing culturally appropriate instructional materials. It is hoped that through publication, we might obtain feedback on the validity of this model and also widen the potential of its scope beyond its immediate application to the Australian context. The following hypotheses are central to our work: (1) Existing cultural influences in instructional materials designed and delivered on the WWW by Australian universities, and intended for use by culturally diverse students, are minimal and ineffective. (2) The efficacy of learning based in the use of the WWW for instructional purposes can be improved by the adoption of a culturally appropriate model of instructional design. (3) Culture is a significant factor in determining the effectiveness of learning materials created in the WWW and intended for use by culturally diverse students. In testing these hypotheses, we intend to provide the empirical research to help determine the most appropriate ways of using the WWW to stimulate effective learning at tertiary level for all learners, whatever their cultural heritage or perspectives     

Age and directed-participation variables influencing the effectiveness of televised instruction in concrete operational behaviors

Head Start preschoolers on an isolated Papago reservation in southern Arizona were subjects of two studies of the effects of televised instruction and directed participation on teaching enumeration and conservation skills. Television instruction was most effective when used with active, directed participation and corrective feedback, but this, as well as amount and skills learned, varied with age. The televised segments used linear sequencing rather than the fragmented approach of Sesame Street. This research was supported in part by grant OCD-CB-479 from the Children’s Bureau, Office of Child Development, U.S. Office of Education. The authors appreciate the cooperation and participation of the Papago Tribe and the staffs of Head Start centers at San Xavier, Sells, and Pisinimo, Arizona. Special thanks are extended to Thora Schultz, who facilitated liaison on the Papago Reservation, and Margie Francisco, Elizabeth Siqueros, Edith Manuel, Pat Mendez, Elaine Williams, and Irma Dean Edmund, who contributed to instructional development and data collection.     

Negotiating Sexuality Education with Young People: Ethical Pitfalls and Provocations

This paper focuses on a nested project within a three-year participatory research project, funded by the Australian Research Council. The project was undertaken in secondary schools across Victoria and South Australia and engaged over 100 students as coresearchers (ages 15–19) in understanding, critiquing, and transforming sexuality education (SE). Data was produced through visual arts and participatory methods and supported by ethnographic techniques (participant observations, focus groups, and guided conversations). In this paper we attempt to expose some of the ethical, methodological and pedagogical processes required when foregrounding young people’s voices in SE. More specifically, to problematize the microethical moments that warrant not only the attention but response of educators and researchers who are open to transforming SE with young people.