‘Bridging work’ and its role in improving progression and continuity: an example from science education

Science in English primary schools has been judged a success, yet few pupils make the progress in secondary schools that their performance at the end of primary school suggested. Projects where pupils start science work at the end of the primary school and complete it at the start of secondary school—known as bridging units—have been suggested as one solution. This article reports an evaluation of bridging work in science in the north‐east of England. Pupils' and teachers' views of bridging lessons were collected and data on pupils' performance before and after bridging lessons compared. Claims that pupils find this type of work repetitive and that their teachers would rather teach something else either side of transfer are challenged. Findings highlight areas that are still problematic, including the use made of transferred assessments and progression in pupils' abilities, to comment on relationships between variables and patterns in data. The future for bridging work is discussed.     

The joint influence of mother and father parenting on child cognitive outcomes at age 5

Few studies of parenting have considered the possibility that the association between one parent's supportive parenting and a child's early cognition is moderated by the other parent's supportiveness. We test this proposition using a low-income sample of coresident couples. In addition, we cross-classify parents within couples according to their parenting behaviors to test for homogamy. Mothers and fathers were videotaped during separate free-play dyadic interactions with their 2-year-old child, and each parent's behavior was coded according to six scales. K-means cluster analysis was used to describe each parent's pattern of parenting behaviors. Parents were then cross-classified within couples by pattern. There was mixed evidence of homogamous parenting styles within couples. After parents were consolidated into four primary pairings, children in each of these pairings were compared on age 5 math and language scores. Children with two supportive parents scored highest, while those with two unsupportive parents scored lowest. Among children with one supportive parent, the sex of that parent was inconsequential. There were no significant interactions between maternal and paternal supportiveness on either math or language. Thus, it appears that in this low-income sample the combined effects of maternal and paternal supportiveness are additive.     

ICT teacher training: Evaluation of the curriculum and training approach in Flanders

A policy-evaluation study was set up of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) teacher training in Flanders, focusing on the following questions: (a) What is the validity of the content and format of the teacher training, and (b) to what extent is the ICT teacher training linked to policies of schools? In-depth interviews were organised with respondents of primary, secondary, and adult education schools. The results indicate that ICT school policies are not well developed and reveal a partial match between policies, needs, and the actual in-service training. Innovative applications of ICT are not promoted. The supply-driven approach, the school-based nature, and follow-up activities are questioned.     

Teaching and Learning in Interdisciplinary Higher Education: A Systematic Review

Interdisciplinary higher education aims to develop boundary-crossing skills, such as interdisciplinary thinking. In the present review study, interdisciplinary thinking was defined as the capacity to integrate knowledge of two or more disciplines to produce a cognitive advancement in ways that would have been impossible or unlikely through single disciplinary means. It was considered as a complex cognitive skill that constituted of a number of subskills. The review was accomplished by means of a systematic search within four scientific literature databases followed by a critical analysis. The review showed that, to date, scientific research into teaching and learning in interdisciplinary higher education has remained limited and explorative. The research advanced the understanding of the necessary subskills of interdisciplinary thinking and typical conditions for enabling the development of interdisciplinary thinking. This understanding provides a platform from which the theory and practice of interdisciplinary higher education can move forward.     

Nameability supports rule-based category learning in children and adults

The present study tested the hypothesis that verbal labels support category induction by providing compact hypotheses. Ninety-seven 4- to 6-year-old children (M = 63.2 months; 46 female, 51 male; 77% White, 8% more than one race, 4% Asian, and 3% Black; tested 2018) and 90 adults (M = 20.1 years; 70 female, 20 male) in the Midwestern United States learned novel categories with features that were easy (e.g., “red”) or difficult (e.g., “mauve”) to name. Adults (d = 1.06) and—to a lesser extent—children (d = 0.57; final training block) learned categories composed of more nameable features better. Children's knowledge of difficult-to-name color words predicted their learning for categories with difficult-to-name features. Rule-based category learning may be supported by the emerging ability to form verbal hypotheses.     

Enhancing Student Motivation: A Schoolwide Approach

What little motivational research is directed toward the practical world of education is primarily addressed to classroom teachers. We presume to speak to those in school leadership roles. Building on current interest in restructuring schools as well as the recent attention to motivational issues, we suggest how the school as a whole can be redesigned so as to enhance student motivation and learning. Our proposal is based firmly on an established program of research and is framed by goal theory. In addition to presenting a rationale for school change and a process to effect that change, we describe an ongoing project based on the theory and directed toward school change.     

Inklusion – Interdisziplinäre Kritik und Perspektiven von Begriff und Gegenstand

The term and schope ‘inclusion’ features prominently in public, political and pedagogical discussion. However, from an academic point in view there is neither a clear understanding of the term, nor it is clarified how the partially contradictory ideas of inclussion as a social principle and inclusion in its realisation in the field of education are related to one another. The article clarifies the term of inclusion by an interdisciplinary academic reflection of the normative settings and single patterns of logic. Therefore, the relationship between ideal and the reality is elaborated by referring to an ethical and philosophical body of thought. Then educational theory is used to reconsider how inclusive principle of the school system can be understood. Finally, implementation measures of the inclusive principle and the aporia linked with them are discussed, amongst others referring to discourses in sociology, school pedagogy and school psychology. Academic perspectives and profession-related implications are discussed using the example of teacher education.     

Extinction of enhanced latent inhibition

Hungry rats were used in a classical conditioning procedure in which visual stimuli were paired with food. Conditions in which nonreinforced exposure to a nontarget stimulus was followed by exposure to a simultaneous compound nontarget/target stimulus (a blocking procedure) resulted in enhanced latent inhibition to the target relative to exposure to the nontarget, followed by exposure to the target stimulus alone. A third phase of nonreinforced exposure training, in which the target was exposed alone following the compound, reduced levels of latent inhibition relative to results obtained with the blocking procedure. Experiments also suggested that this was not the result of restoration of associability by the omission of an expected presentation of the nontarget stimulus in the final preexposure phase. These results suggest that enhanced latent inhibition is due to summation of a direct-target-no-event association and a second-order association of these elements via target-nontarget and nontarget-no-event association. Exposure to the target after compound exposure extinguished the target-nontarget association and reduced the sources of no-event learning for the target.     

A performance technologist's approach to process performance improvement

Process performance management provides detailed understanding of the design of a process to improve performance. This article highlights a process performance model aligned with the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) steps of the Six Sigma model, but with additional substeps to guide process improvement. It thus identifies process improvement as one of the key tools in the performance technologist's toolkit and provides recommendations for methods, practices, and tools.