Before,During, and After Examination: Development of Prospective Preschool Teachers’ Mathematics-Related Enjoyment and Self-Efficacy

This article examines the stability of Norwegian prospective preschool teachers’ enjoyment of mathematics and their mathematics-related self-efficacy before, during, and after a teacher-education examination. In addition, the stability of the two constructs across countries was examined through a comparison with Germany. The data revealed partial stability (technically speaking, metric invariance) of enjoyment but not of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy increased significantly before and after the examination without decreasing enjoyment, which may be a result of increased learning time. Prior mathematical knowledge predicted the level and development of enjoyment and self-efficacy in both countries. Many Norwegian students reported low mathematics-related enjoyment and self-efficacy, including negative developments. It may be important to provide positive experiences of mathematical activities during preschool teacher education.     

Scaffolding strategies in a rubric-based intervention to promote engineering students’ ability to address wicked problems

ABSTRACT

In recent years, there has been increasing interest within the engineering education research community to prepare engineering students to address wicked problems (WPs) such as climate change, resource scarcity and violent conflict. Previous research suggests that engineering students are able to address WPs if they are given adequate support, but there is a lack of research on what kinds of support are needed. This paper aims to reduce this gap by reporting on students’ performance in, and approaches to, addressing WPs when different scaffolding strategies were used in different parts of a rubric-based intervention. The intervention aimed to provide undergraduate engineering students with an understanding of the nature of WPs and with a structured way of addressing them. For each part of the intervention, we discuss affordances for learning provided by the different scaffolding strategies. The results suggest that strong cognitive scaffolding can support students’ understanding of the nature of WPs and students’ performance in written responses to WPs, but possibly also limits deep engagement with WPs and transfer of learning to other contexts.     

An ‘appropriate’ test taker: the everyday classroom during the national testing period in school year three in Sweden

This article draws on data from a bigger project where we explore what is taking place in the daily life of classrooms during the national testing period in mathematics for 9–10-year-old children in Sweden. Data were produced by observations, video-recordings and interviews with children. The article shows on a micro level how assessment trends, on a macro level, affect children. It further focuses how children through different repertoires of time position themselves as ‘appropriate’ test takers.     

Successful design of learning solutions being situation aware

Education is increasingly enhanced by technology, and at the same time, the rapid pace of technology innovation and growing demand of consumers introduces challenges for providers of technological learning solutions. This paper investigates Finnish small and medium size companies who either develop or deliver technological solutions for education. Twelve companies were interviewed in order to capture the entrepreneurial narratives of successful design of learning solutions. Data was analyzed based on a conceptual framework. The framework draws on the situation awareness concept, meaning that we seek to answer the question how the participant enterprises examine relevant elements in their environment with regard to their development process. The results show that all the mature companies included in the study have well balanced situation awareness, but amongst the incubating and accelerating enterprises, balanced profiles are rare.     

The process of supervision in the turkish educational system: purpose, structure, operation

The aim of this study is to provide information on the purposes, structure and operation of the process of supervision in the Turkish educational system. In this paper, the historical development of supervision services in the Turkish educational system, as well as the purposes and principles of educational supervision in Turkey and the structure of supervision in the Turkish educational system are defined. Moreover, the organization of sub-systems of the Ministry of National Education and that of supervision at elementary schools, hiring supervisors, their training, duties and responsibilities as well as working principles are presented. In addition, a detailed analysis of the supervision of institutions and teachers by supervisors is included.     

What do second-order judgments tell us about low-performing students’ metacognitive awareness?

According to the unskilled and unaware effect (Kruger and Dunning 1999), low-performing students tend to overestimate their performance. Differentiating the assessment of metacognitive judgments into performance judgments (PJs) and second-order judgments (SOJs), PJs of low-performing students tend to be inflated, while their SOJs are usually lower than those of high-performing students (Händel and Fritzsche 2016; Miller and Geraci 2011). This suggests some level of awareness. The present study investigated whether low-performers’ lower SOJs actually indicate metacognitive awareness. We studied SOJs after adequate and inadequate PJs, and investigated whether low-performers’ lower SOJs are made by default or whether their lower SOJs differ in a similar magnitude compared to those of high-performers (indicating metacognitive awareness). We address this issue by disentangling student and item effects via generalized linear mixed models. Reanalyzing the data of Händel and Fritzsche (2016) from N?=?116 students, we found that SOJs depended on the students who provided the SOJ and on the items on which the SOJ was made. Overall, SOJs depended on the PJs and on the interaction of performance and PJs, but not on the performance itself. Separate analyses for students of different performance levels revealed that low-performing students showed less awareness, indicated by a non-significant interaction effect of performance and PJs. Thus, it takes mixed models to tell the whole story of low-performing students’ lower SOJs.     

Consequences of school grading systems on adolescent health: evidence from a Swedish school reform

ABSTRACT

Education reforms that entail increased emphasis on high-stakes testing, assessment and grading have spread across education systems in recent decades. Critics have argued that these policies could have consequences for stress, identity, self-esteem and the overall health of pupils. However, these potentially negative consequences have rarely been investigated in a systematic and rigorous way. In this study we use a major education reform in Sweden, which introduced grades and increased the use of testing for pupils in the 6^th and 7^th school year (aged 12 to 13 years), to study the consequences of grading and assessment for health outcomes. Using data from the Health Behaviours of School-Aged Children Survey, we find that the reform increased school-related stress and reduced the academic self-esteem of pupils in the 7^th school year. This, in turn, had an indirect effect on psychosomatic symptoms and life satisfaction for these pupils. Moreover, the negative effects of the reform were generally stronger for girls, thereby widening the already troubling gender differences in health. We conclude that accountability reforms aimed at increased use of testing, assessment and grading can potentially have negative side effects on pupils’ health.     

Comenius,moral and pious education,and the why,when and how of school discipline

ABSTRACT

The present study provides an analysis of John Amos Comenius’s thoughts on moral and pious education, educational governance and school discipline as expressed in Didactica Magna. This is examined from the background of his view of education as a societal phenomenon, the purposes of different categories of knowledge for individual formation and the role of pedagogy in the upbringing of children. Theoretically, this paper expands on Michel Foucault’s ideas about governmentality and discipline, as well as on Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theories. The article argues that Comenius can be viewed as a significant contributor to the early modern shift towards new administrative techniques for school governance, transmitting the mode of disciplinary power into pedogogised and didactic forms. The article contributes to achieving more systematic knowledge for understanding the focused areas of schooling, the concept of discipline and the pedagogic premises of disciplinary practice in an early-modern European educational context.