Teachers’ Perceptions of School Inspection: a stressful experience

Research into inspection is increasing, although in the past much of it tended to focus on either the perspective of the school management or the inspectors themselves. As part of a 3 year study into inspection, Brimblecombe, Ormston and Shaw have completed a national questionnaire survey and in‐depth interviews focusing on the classroom teacher's experiences of inspection. Whilst the analysis is still in the preliminary stages, several interesting issues have emerged. This paper focuses on one of them‐‐the stress on teachers generated by inspection‐‐and examines what causes it, how it is managed, what forms it takes and what impact it has on the inspection process, the inspection outcomes and the teachers themselves     

The importance of shared environment in mother-infant attachment security: a behavioral genetic study

In a sample of 157 monozygotic and dizygotic twins, genetic and environmental influences on infant attachment and temperament were quantified. Only unique environmental or error components could explain the variance in disorganized versus organized attachment as assessed in the Ainsworth Strange Situation Procedure. For secure versus nonsecure attachment, 52% of the variance in attachment security was explained by shared environment, and 48% of the variance was explained by unique environmental factors and measurement error. The role of genetic factors in attachment disorganization and attachment security was negligible. Genetic factors explained 77% of the variance in temperamental reactivity, and unique environmental factors and measurement error explained 23%. Differences in temperamental reactivity were not associated with attachment concordance.     

A rationale and description of a CAI program to teach the BASIC programming language

A BASIC Instructional Program is being developed as a vehicle for research in tutorial modes of computer-assisted instruction (CAI). Several design features will be appropriate to training in other technical areas and applicable in other instructional settings where the development of analytic and problem-solving skills is a goal. Methods are incorporated for monitoring and aiding the student as he works on programming problems in the BASIC language. The instructional program developed can be used to investigate schemes for optimizing problem presentation and giving assistance during problem-solving based on a model of the student's abilities and difficulties. Previous experience in the instructional and technical aspects of teaching a programming language indicates that a course in computer programming can be designed to help the student acquire programming concepts in a personalized and efficient manner as he develops skills at increasingly advanced levels. This article reports on work currently in progress and briefly summarizes observations and conclusions based on operation during the pilot year. A major goal of the research project is to increase the sophistication with which the instructional program monitors the student's work and responds to it with appropriate hints and prompts. One aspect of such work is the utilization of algorithms for checking the correctness of a student procedure. Limited but sufficient program verification is possible through simulated execution of the program on test data stored with each problem. Within the controllable context of instruction, where the problems to be solved are predetermined and their solutions known, simulated execution of the student's program can effectively determine its closeness to a stored model solution. The BASIC Instructional Program (BIP) is written in SAIL (VanLehn, 1973; Swinehart and Sproull, 1971), a versatile, ALGOL-like language, implemented exclusively at present on the DEC PDP-10 computer. SAIL includes a flexible associative sublanguage called LEAP (Feldman et al., 1972), which was used extensively to build BIP's information network. The course is now running on the PDP-10 TENEX timesharing system at the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences. It was offered during the pilot year as an introductory programming course at DeAnza College in Cupertino, California, and at the University of San Francisco in San Francisco, California. The collected data are being used to modify the problems and the “help” sequences in preparation for a more controlled experimental situation planned for the next academic year.     

Secondary students’ ideas about scientific concepts underlying climate change

Abstract

We present ideas about concepts underlying climate change, held by students in years 9 and 10. Misconceptions about climate change are common among students, and may be due to misconceptions about underlying concepts. To investigate this, we developed the Climate Change Concept Inventory (CCCI), and trialed it with 229 students; corroborating findings through focus group interviews. Our interview method and data analysis methods are described. Findings included overestimation of human contributions to atmospheric carbon inputs, ultra violet radiation in sunlight, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Students were unaware that CO₂ dissolves in water, and of the role of oceans in the carbon cycle. Greenhouse gases other than CO₂ were rarely known. Earth’s energy balance and black body radiation were not well understood. There were misconceptions about interactions between electromagnetic radiation and atmospheric gases; and limited understanding of carbon chemistry. The CCCI is available from the corresponding author.     

Growing Talent for Inclusion: using an appreciative inquiry approach into investigating classroom dynamics

This paper reports on an Appreciative Inquiry project called ‘Growing Talent for Inclusion’ which has been running since 2002. The project grew out the authors’ work in a Local Authority Support Service assisting schools to meet the needs of pupils with a range of additional educational needs. Faced with a large number of individual referrals, many relating to the emotional, social and behavioural needs of pupils, it was considered that an eco – systemic approach was required and that a priority was to support pupils and teachers in developing more effective and satisfying interpersonal relationships in the classroom. ‘Growing Talent for Inclusion’ uses Appreciative Inquiry to investigate a management change process which has been used within large organisations and communities but less commonly at classroom level. It is a type of action research which is solution not problem focused and therefore lends itself well to a research focus of improving classroom dynamics. The paper introduces a 4‐D Cycle of Appreciative Inquiry: discovery, dream, design and deliver, as advocated by Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987, which guides the identification, acknowledgment and amplification of skills pertinent to improving social dynamics within the classroom and discusses the methodological issues which arise from this collaborative, participative form of inquiry. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods has been used to identify and track the development of attributes for improving working relationships in four different primary and secondary classrooms in three schools. 76 pupils and four teachers have been involved in the project since its inception in 2002 with classes in a further three primary schools using the approach during the academic year 2005–2006. Findings from the project show an increase in the number of pupils with whom other pupils are happy to work, a reduction in the number of pupils identified as socially excluded at the beginning of the project and enhanced capacity of the group in terms of the talents identified for growth. Feedback from staff and students also suggests that the process of noticing and acknowledging strengths has contributed to improvements in working relationships.     

Justice in the Higher Education Classroom: Students’ Perceptions of Unfairness and Responses to Instructors

We investigated college students’ perceptions of instructor unfairness and their emotional and behavioral reactions to perceived injustice. Results obtained from 397 undergraduates from three universities in the United States indicate that anger and dissent were the strongest emotional and behavioral responses to injustice. Furthermore, disgust mediated the influence of injustice on student behaviors most damaging to professors—taking action, expressing verbal aggression, and dissenting to authority. Stress mediated the effect of injustice on the most constructive student behaviors—changing their approach and engaging in the class. We discuss the implications of the results of our study for the student-instructor relationship and learning in the contemporary higher education environment.     

An investigation of hierarchical relationships in children’s literacy attainments at baseline

This paper describes one element of the research basis for the Baseline Assessment Scales now published for optional use in baseline schemes nationally (SCAA, 1997a). The aim in developing these scales was to provide a range of criteria that would allow almost all children to show some attainment, whilst also acknowledging the attainments of the most able. For this purpose, four-point scales were required. The first point would be attainable by over 80 per cent of children in their first term of school, and the fourth by only 20 per cent or fewer, with two intermediate points. Four such scales were trialled for reading, and one for writing. As part of the trial analysis, an investigation was undertaken into the hierarchies amongst the items on each scale – that is, to what extent was it possible for a child to attain a more difficult item, whilst failing an easier item on the same scale? A ‘coefficient of dependency’ was calculated for each pair of items on each scale. The percentages of children achieving each item are reported, and the strength of the hierarchies amongst them. This provides some evidence as to the interrelationships between children’s literacy attainments at the start of school.     

Variables affecting alternation behavior in the cockroach,Blatta orientalis

To investigate alternation behavior in the cockroach as an invertebrate, three T-maze experiments were conducted assessing the effects of (a) intratrial (exposure) and intertrial (exposure to test) interval, (b) brightness similarity of the alternatives and response-direction factors, and (c) an initial free-choice vs. a varying number of forced-choice exposures. Alternation was enhanced with a long exposure on Trial 1, a short interval between Trial 1 and Trial 2 (test), greater dissimilarity (or discriminability) of the arm brightnesses and more frequent forced-choice exposures to an arm prior to test. These results highlight the role of intramaze brightness cues as controlling alternation in the cockroach and accord well with a response-to-change interpretation of the phenomenon. In addition, they suggest that the alternation paradigm can be used effectively to assay short-term memory storage in neurologically simple organisms.     

Empathy and Cognition in High-Functioning Children with Autism

This study compares the ability of nonretarded autistic children (9-16 years of age) with the ability of normally developing children (9-14 years of age) to discriminate between various emotional states, to take the perspective of another regarding emotional states, and to respond affectively. The children's understanding of conservation was also assessed. While the children with autism did surprisingly well on the empathy-related measures, they performed less well than the normal children on these measures and on conservation. There was a closer association between cognitive abilities and affective understanding in the group of autistic children than in the control group.