Towards a more systematic approach to continuing professional development in vocational education and training

Vocational education and training (VET) teachers and trainers have a key role in ensuring that workers in business and industry are upskilled and up-to-date in a rapidly changing industrial, economic and technological environment. It follows that the VET practitioners should themselves keep up to date, not only with industry developments but also with the pedagogical skills needed to embrace technology and adapt to new sites for learning. However, in Australia and other Western nations, continuing professional development for VET practitioners has been spasmodic and not always well supported, in contrast to the ways it has been established and accepted in other professions. This paper examines the professional development approaches of some of those other professions and identifies the key features that might be adopted in any genuine attempt to develop a more purposeful and systematic provision of ongoing learning for teachers and trainers in VET. The paper concludes with a number of recommendations aimed at Australian VET practitioners in particular, but which might be applicable to VET in any developed country.     

Examining teacher ethical dilemmas in classroom assessment

The current spotlight on assessment in education raises ethical issues as practices evolve. This study documents ethical conflicts faced by teachers in the United States regarding assessment of students. Critical incidents generated by practising teachers revealed a majority of reported conflicts related to score pollution, and conflicts frequently arose between teachers’ perceptions of institutional demands and the needs of students. The most frequently mentioned assessment topics causing conflict included grading, standardised testing, and special populations. These findings suggest that explicit guidelines for defining and avoiding unethical behaviour would be helpful to teachers in developing their assessment practices.     

Explorative case studies on technical,market,and institutional risks for entrepreneurs in Chinese emerging knowledge-intensive industries:Hangzhou's software business

中国知识密集型行业中创业者面临制度不确定性、市场风险和技术风险。本文认为中国制度环境的高度动态和不确定性影响了企业核心能力的形成,同时,通过对杭州地区三家软件企业的案例分析,探讨了这些不确定性和风险形成的机理。     

The limited benefits of rereading educational texts

Though rereading is a study method commonly used by students, theoretical disagreement exists regarding whether rereading a text significantly enhances the representation and retention of the text’s contents. In four experiments, we evaluated the effectiveness of rereading relative to a single reading in a context paralleling that faced by students in the classroom. Participants read educational texts (textbook chapters or a Scientific American article) under intentional learning instructions. Learning and memory were tested with educationally relevant summative assessments (multiple choice, short-answer questions, and text summaries). With only several exceptions, rereading did not significantly increase performance on the assessments. We also found that reading comprehension ability did not alter this pattern. It appears that when using ecologically valid materials such as a textbook chapter, immediate rereading may have little or no benefit for improving performance on educationally relevant summative assessments.     

Do School Segregation and School Resources Explain Region-of-Origin Differences in the Mathematics Achievement of Immigrant Students? 1

Levels and Dronkers (2006 Dronkers, J. and Wanner, R. A. 2006. Waarom verdienen immigranten minder? Effecten van immigratiebeleid en arbeidsmarktkenmerken [Why do immigrants earn less? Effects of immigration policies and labour market characteristics]. Tijdschrift voor Arbeidsvraagstukken, 22: 379–394.  [Google Scholar]) showed that educational achievement differs between immigrant students from different regions of origin (Latin America, Northern Africa, and Western Asia). This follow-up paper establishes whether these differences in educational achievement between immigrant students from different regions of origin can be explained by school segregation, whether along ethnic or socioeconomic lines. Ethnic and socioeconomic school segregation have a negative influence on the scholastic achievement of all students, although the impact of socioeconomic school segregation is greater than that of ethnic school segregation. Ethnic school segregation affects the scholastic outcomes of native and immigrant students from some regions of origin more than those of immigrant students from other regions. The analysis shows that neither ethnic, nor socioeconomic, school segregation explains the lower mathematics achievement of immigrant students from Latin America, Northern Africa, and Western Asia.     

Effect of taste preexposure on taste and odor aversions

Thirsty Sprague-Dawley rats drank flavored water in a wind tunnel prior to lithium-induced toxicosis. Flavors were presented for 5 min; 30 min later a toxin, lithium chloride, was injected. After the rats had recovered, subsequent aversions to the taste and the odor were assessed separately. In Experiment 1, extensive preexposure to the taste component of the flavor attenuated neophobia to the flavor and the subsequent taste aversion. However, the subsequent odor aversion was unaffected. Experiment 2 partially replicated the results of Experiment 1 and showed that, in a situation in which only taste-potentiated odor aversions are usually found, nonpotentiated aversions were evident. Experiment 3 found that, in addition to attenuating taste aversions, taste preexposure enhances the capacity of rats to learn nonpotentiated odor aversions. The results are interpreted with a neural-based model of conditioned flavor aversions.     

Harsh Parenting and Child Externalizing Behavior: Skin Conductance Level Reactivity as a Moderator

Skin conductance level reactivity (SCLR) was examined as a moderator of the association between harsh parenting and child externalizing behavior. Participants were 251 boys and girls (8–9 years). Mothers and fathers provided reports of harsh parenting and their children's externalizing behavior; children also provided reports of harsh parenting. SCLR was assessed in response to a socioemotional stress task and a problem-solving challenge task. Regression analyses revealed that the association between harsh parenting and externalizing behavior was stronger among children with lower SCLR, as compared to children with higher SCLR. SCLR may be a more robust moderator among boys compared to girls. Results are discussed with regard to theories on antisocial behavior and multiple-domain models of child development.     

Deaf children's use of beliefs and desires in negotiation

Although several studies have shown that deaf children demonstrated impaired performances on false-belief tasks, the children's belief understanding appeared intact when asked to explain emotions or behavior. However, this finding does not necessarily indicate a full-fledged theory of mind. This study aimed to investigate deaf children's negotiation strategies in false-belief situations, because situations that require negotiation provide a natural context with a clear motivational aspect, which might appeal more strongly to deaf children's false-belief reasoning capacities. The purpose of this study was to compare the reactions of 11- to 12-year-old deaf and hearing children to scenarios in which a mother, who is unaware of a change in the situation, threatens to block the fulfillment of the child's desire. The results showed that deaf children more often failed to correct the mother's false beliefs. In contrast with hearing children, who frequently left their own desires implicit, deaf children kept stressing their desires as a primary argument, even though the mother could be expected to be fully aware of these desires. Moral claims were used to the same extent by both groups. In general, deaf children more often used arguments that did not provide new information for their conversation partners, including repetitions of the same argument. The results were interpreted in terms of the special needs that are required by the hampered communication between deaf and hearing people as well as in terms of the ongoing discussion regarding theory-of-mind development in deaf children.