In memory of all the broken ones: catalytic validity through critical arts research for social change

The authors of this article use data produced in a collaborative community arts group in BC Canada as a way to think about validation in arts-based educational research (ABER). As Lather attempted to find middle ground between ‘rampant subjectivity’ and ‘pointless precision’ in research, she (1986) suggested that studies with an ideological or critical agenda might be validated by their catalytic potential – the ability to generate change. She has further argued that such work must be both conceptually and methodologically rigorous. With this charge in mind, the authors describe and discuss a memory box made by one participant in a two-year federally funded postdoctoral research project. They consider the catalytic validity of this artefact and reflect upon research methodology in ABER, in terms of triangulation, face and construct validities and member checks. They conclude with a challenge: What new and imaginative research methodologies might be invented for critical research in arts-based education?     

Are there differences between children’s display of self-regulation and metacognition when engaged in an activity and when later reflecting on it? The complementary roles of observation and reflective dialogue

Recent years have seen considerable growth of evidence that young children possess metacognitive and self-regulatory skills, alongside a view that some research tools, including observation and video-stimulated interviews, may provide better opportunities to see them. This paper examines possible differences in the evidence these two tools may afford. Data from 29 children aged 4–5 years in a London Reception class were analysed using a behavioural coding scheme. Overall, children were significantly more likely to display self-regulation and metacognition in post hoc interviews about an activity rather than during the activity. This was particularly so for metacognitive knowledge. Children were more likely to show regulatory aspects such as planning and monitoring during an activity, whilst evaluation was more evident in later discussion. Observations and video-stimulated interviews are suggested as valuable tools when combined with one another, offering complementary insights, and helping make children’s learning more visible to both themselves and to adults.     

The effectiveness of teleconferencing in fostering interaction in distance education

A recent investigation indicates that using teleconferencing in teaching mathematics by distance education gives the students access to a flexible educational medium. Results confirm that this technology can support interaction between teacher and students similar to that in a conventional school. The investigation concludes that using teleconferencing in teaching mathematics by distance education gives the students access to education that, although different from that available in a traditional classroom, forms part of an effective teaching and learning environment. It also highlights the need to address pedagogical issues to maximise interaction within this environment.     

Leadership Reflections: Extrovert and Introvert Leaders

Leadership calls for the ability to work well with people, communicate with stakeholders, participate in and lead meetings, and often public speaking. As a leader advances within an organization, expectations increase for the individual to engage with others as leaders spend more time working with colleagues and stakeholders to advance the organization. These expectations tend to favor extroverts in leadership roles but organizations may overlook the strengths of introverts as leaders losing out on the potential for effective management. An understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of personality types will help individuals as well as organizations in developing leadership in order to achieve organizational goals.     

Can we avoid digital structural violence in future learning systems?

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces the concept of digital structural violence and examines the negative role it could have in future learning systems. To address it, we propose a new interdisciplinary research agenda at the intersection of three current but disparate lines of work that:

1. Use the concept of epistemic privilege to theorise the inclusion of marginalised learners in the design of learning systems, and utilise participatory action research and emancipatory methodologies to pragmatically ensure this happens;

2. Support young learners and teachers to understand and build their own artificial intelligence algorithms;

3. Develop sustainable interdisciplinary links with computer science to address digital structural violence at the algorithmic level and to make its societal implications and underlying processes more widely understood, especially by teachers.

Taken together, these provide for a material form of resistance to digital structural violence and a theoretically and methodologically coherent future research agenda for building just learning systems.     

Gender, ‘bias’, assessment and feedback: analyzing the written assessment of undergraduate history essays

This paper reports on findings relating to a project on gender and essay assessment in HE. It focuses on one aspect of the study: the assessment of and feedback given to two sample essays by 50 historians based at universities in England and Wales. We found considerable variation both as to the classification awarded to the essays and to positive and negative comments made about their quality, supporting the argument that the ‘quality’ of a piece of writing for assessment is ultimately constructed by the reader of the essay and cannot be objectively ascertained. Gender issues emerging from the data are explored in the paper, relating to lecturers’ perceptions of the essays’ qualities; views concerning the way feedback should be presented; and the content and style of feedback given by lecturers on the sample essays. We found that gender constructions were manifested more in presentation than practice. These findings on the situated practice of assessment have implications for the conception of the ‘reliability’ of essay assessment in HE.     

The ‘automatic’ use of context in children's reading

The present investigation examined developmental changes in the automatic use of context in single word recognition. A modified Stroop procedure was used in which children were asked to name the color of the ink of target words. The target was preceded either by a semantically related or by an unrelated word. Results suggested that, in contrast to attentional context effects (Pring and Snowling 1986), the older readers showed significantly more influence from the semantic context than the younger, less-proficient readers. The results are discussed with reference to the connections between a novice reading system and a child's rapidly growing semantic memory system.