Counsellors perceptions of the phenomenon of concentration difficulties

Pupils’ lack of concentration is a concern in everyday classrooms in Norway as in many other countries. Whereas research has defined different behaviour issues in classroom contexts, there has been less focus on how the counsellors, working at the Educational and Psychological Counselling Service (EPCS), describe different behaviour issues. This article is based on a study that aims to develop a deeper understanding of how the counsellors perceive the term ‘concentration difficulties’. Even though the term is widely used in templates and in national strategic documents to describe pupils’ disruptive behaviour, few other studies emphasise this perspective. The study has a phenomenological-hermeneutic inspired approach and is based on individual in-depth interviews with counsellors working at the EPCS. The key findings suggest that the counsellors understanding of the term are influenced by their personal perceptions of the term, their education and the way they facilitate adapted learning.     

Knowledge of love: narratives of romance told by 12-year-old children

This article reports research on young people's conceptualisations of love and romance through a gender perspective. The data are stories written by 12-year-old girls and boys in Norway who were asked to fantasise about their future love life. Their narratives are explored through discourse analysis and semiotics and analysed within a sociological framework. The article has two major aims. The first is to contribute to the methodology of collecting essays written by young people to gain knowledge of their conceptions of adult life. The second aim is to offer new findings on the specific subject of romantic love in contemporary society, by describing how to do love in young people's fiction.     

Group coaching: a new way of constructing leadership identity?

This paper focuses on group coaching, one of the newer school leadership development approaches to recently emerge. Using a group-coaching methodology developed at the University of Oslo, we deconstruct the concept of leadership identity as it is reported in texts from students in the National Principal Programme. We suggest that leaders develop greater confidence in their leadership role through personal and contextual feedback from other leaders. We argue that bringing existing and aspiring school principals together in a target-oriented group-coaching process may have profound positive effect on leaders' context-based identity development.     

Action research – connecting practice and theory

Teacher education is often criticised for not being relevant and for there being a lack of continuity between practice teaching and the university coursework. In the literature, action research is presented as a way to bridge the gap and connect the two. The present article explores, through a qualitative study, how research-based knowledge communicated at the university and experiences from practice teaching interact in student teachers’ action research projects. The study also explores the outcome, for the student teachers, of conducting research in their practicum. The findings show that student teachers use theory and research in many different ways, and they are both consumers and producers of research. They especially emphasise the outcome of theory interacting with real situations encountered in the teaching practice. Contributing to a positive impact on their outcome were the opportunity they are offered to reflect on their own practice, the possibility they have to focus on something they find important, and the chance to make their own experiences with a particular tool for professional development.     

The Effectiveness of a Large‐Scale Language and Preliteracy Intervention: The SPELL Randomized Controlled Trial in Denmark

The present article reports results of a real‐world effectiveness trial conducted in Denmark with six thousand four hundred eighty‐three 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds designed to improve children's language and preliteracy skills. Children in 144 child cares were assigned to a control condition or one of three planned variations of a 20‐week storybook‐based intervention: a base intervention and two enhanced versions featuring extended professional development for educators or a home‐based program for parents. Pre‐ to posttest comparisons revealed a significant impact of all three interventions for preliteracy skills (= .21–.27) but not language skills (d = .04–.16), with little differentiation among the three variations. Fidelity, indexed by number of lessons delivered, was a significant predictor of most outcomes. Implications for real‐world research and practice are considered.     

Leaving teaching: lack of resilience or sign of agency?

Alarming numbers of teacher attrition are reported in many countries, including in Norway. Whereas most of the research tells about personal and professional negative experiences which have a harmful impact on teachers’ resilience, a different approach is taken in the current paper. Four cases of leavers are purposefully selected because they represent qualified teachers who left the profession, not because they were unhappy with the job or had negative experiences, but because they needed more space and autonomy than they had as teachers. The findings show that their motives for teaching were mainly intrinsic, they were successful teachers, however, they became restless and left their secure jobs to start afresh, and they succeeded. We suggest that it is time to examine the strength of the leavers and accept that teaching is not a lifelong ‘call’ for some of its best people. It is time to seek new ways to revive the profession.     

The GRoLTS-Checklist: Guidelines for Reporting on Latent Trajectory Studies

Estimating models within the mixture model framework, like latent growth mixture modeling (LGMM) or latent class growth analysis (LCGA), involves making various decisions throughout the estimation process. This has led to a wide variety in how results of latent trajectory analysis are reported. To overcome this issue, using a 4-round Delphi study, we developed Guidelines for Reporting on Latent Trajectory Studies (GRoLTS). The purpose of GRoLTS is to present criteria that should be included when reporting the results of latent trajectory analysis across research fields. We have gone through a systematic process to identify key components that, according to a panel of experts, are necessary when reporting results for trajectory studies. We applied GRoLTS to 38 papers where LGMM or LCGA was used to study trajectories of posttraumatic stress after a traumatic event.     

Preschool teachers' understandings of some aspects of educational planning and practice related to the national curricula in Norway

Norway recently adopted a National Framework Plan for Preschools. In this study, the central questions are: what does a Framework Plan for one to five year olds mean to the preschool teachers and their educational work with children? What are preschool teachers' understandings of the concept of learning in their educational planning and practice, and how is this related to the Framework Plan? How do preschool teachers understand the central content and strategies in the Framework Plan and in their own practical work? The results are based on empirical data from in‐depth interviews with eight Norwegian preschool teachers.     

Experimental evidence of the relative effectiveness of problem-based learning for knowledge acquisition and retention

This study investigated the effects of problem-based learning (PBL) on knowledge acquisition and knowledge retention in a controlled experiment in a lab setting. Eighty-eight first-year psychology students were randomly assigned to either a PBL condition, a lecture condition, or a self-study condition. All participants had the opportunity to study the same text. Their knowledge acquisition was tested on both an immediate post-test and a delayed post-test, one week later. The results showed beneficial effects for the PBL group on the immediate and the delayed test compared to the lecture group. There were no differences between knowledge acquisition scores for the self-study condition and either of the other conditions. Moreover, no differences on knowledge retention were shown, because the decline in performance over time was equal in all conditions. In conclusion, the present study provides experimentally based evidence of the disadvantageous effects of instruction through lectures compared to PBL.     

Tutors seen through the eyes of mentors assumptions for participation in third space in teacher education

The aim of this Norwegian study is to get a deeper understanding of the assumptions for building third spaces in teacher education. Learning in different contexts may open for development of new knowledge in the third space through intersubjectivity based on confidence, respectful disagreement and a common aim. This is the backdrop for the current study where a group of mentors with and without mentor education are interviewed focusing on tutors’ competences and responsibilities. Findings show that mentors have an unclear understanding of who the tutors are. Experiences from teaching are essential for mentors’ understanding of tutors as respectful collaborators. Educated mentors value theoretical knowledge and research higher than non-educated. The conclusion is that tutors and mentors should have knowledge about and respect for each-others’ competence and responsibilities and that mentor education is a promising assumption for building third spaces and developing a pedagogy for teacher education.