Exploring School Principals’ Leadership Styles and Learners’ Educational Performance: A Perspective from High- and Low-Performing Schools

School leadership is fundamental to the educational functioning of schools and their improvements of results. The study employed a qualitative approach to explore school principals’ leadership styles and the educational performance of learners in high- and low-performing schools in Vhembe District, Limpopo, South Africa. The participants were purposefully selected from 10 secondary schools in terms of their performance. Focus group interviews were conducted with five teachers from each school. The interview data was transcribed and analysed, and identical patterns of coded data were grouped together under emerging themes. The overall results of the study indicated that the democratic leadership style together with the transformational leadership style contribute to high educational performance of learners. School principals from high- and low-performing schools employ a democratic leadership style and differ only in the sense that the latter are permissive or lenient towards learners’ behaviours or conduct. The study recommends that school principals engage teachers as members of a disciplinary committee in order to deal with those learners whose conduct is not conducive to successful teaching and learning. It is recommended that school principals from low-performing schools strengthen their democratic leadership by not being lenient to learners’ behaviour which is not conducive to successful teaching and learning.     

Going Deep into Mechanisms for Moral Reasoning Growth: How Deep Learning Approaches Affect Moral Reasoning Development for First-year Students

The purpose of this paper was to determine the effects of deep approaches to learning on the moral reasoning development of 1,457 first-year students across 19 institutions. Results showed a modest positive relationship between our measures of deep approaches to learning and moral reasoning at the end of the first year of college even after controlling for precollege moral reasoning. After accounting for a host of demographic and relevant student characteristics and for the natural clustering of students, we found that the integrative learning subscale, which captures students’ participation in activities designed to integrate information from varied sources and diverse perspectives, positively affected moral reasoning among first-year students. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.     

培养本科生创新能力的创新实践课教学

介绍了旨在培养本科生的创新精神、科研能力的北京工业大学创新实践课程的情况,结合材料学院创新实践课程的实际,分析了受欢迎的创新实践课程的特点,提出了有关创新实践课程教学的思考。     

A contribution to the history of assessment: how a conversation simulator redeems Socratic method

Assessment in education is a recent phenomenon. Although there were counterparts in former epochs, the term assessment only began to be spoken about in education after the Second World War; and, since that time, views, strategies and concerns over assessment have proliferated according to an uncomfortable dynamic. We fear that, increasingly, education is assessment-led rather than learning-led and ‘counter to what is desired’ in an ugly judgemental spirit whose moral underpinnings deserve scrutiny. In this article, we seek to historicise assessment and the anxieties of credentialising students. Through this longer history, we present a philosophy of assessment which underlies the development of a new method in assessment-as-learning. We hope that our development of a conversation simulator helps restore the innocence of education as learning-led, while still delivering on the incumbencies of assessment.     

Incompatibility between pregnancy and educational projects,from the perspective of socially vulnerable adolescent women and men in Mexico

Research focused on adolescent pregnancy reports that this event acquires significance and has different consequences according to the context and social subjects who experience it. In this study, by means of a sample formed by adolescent women and men who are socially vulnerable in Mexico, with and without a history of pregnancy, we can see how this reproductive event turns into a factor of educational vulnerability and how their possibilities and expectations with respect to continuing in school are determined in a differentiated manner, according to gender. The findings show that adolescent pregnancy in vulnerable sectors is scarcely compatible with educational projects and that possibilities and expectations to continue in or re-enter the school system are determined by gender differences; these usually lead to fewer opportunities for adolescent women to return to school during or after pregnancy.     

A Library Compliance Strategy for Regional Accreditation Standards: Using ACRL Higher Education Standards with Community and Junior Colleges in the Western Association of Schools and Colleges

The standards of the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges provide accreditation guidance for two-year libraries in their jurisdiction. These standards are the basis for a successful evaluation of the libraries. However, the ACRL Standards for Libraries in Higher Education and the associated workbook provide significant guidance and assistance in crafting a successful assessment. The library at Windward Community College is used as an example of successful employment of this strategy to provide a thorough assessment, which was validated by the ACCJC accrediting visit. Appendices provide materials used by Windward library in the successful evaluation and are recommended for use by other libraries.     

Journalism

George E. Stevens and John B. Webster's Law and the Student Press (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1973---price not given, paper)

Jerome L. Nelson's Libel. A Basic Program for Beginning Journalists (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1973---price not given, paper)

Art of the Printed Book: 1455-1955 (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1973---$20.00/11.00)

Bruce Buschel, Albert Robbins, William Vitta, and Rod Nordland's The Watergate File (New York: Quick Fox Inc., 33 West 60th St., 1973---$3.95, paper)     

Practical Guides

THE DESIGN OF ADVERTISING by Roy Paul Nelson (Dubuque, IA: Wm C. Brown, 1989—price not given, ISBN 0-697-04374-6)

EXPLORING COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY by Robert Hirsch (Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown, 1989—$30.00, paper, ISBN 0-697-06132-9)

VIDEO HELD PRODUCTION by Ron Whittaker (Mayfield Publishing Co., 1240 Villa St., Mountain View, CA 94041—$34.95, ISBN 0-87484-836- 9)     

Provo City Library: Building across a Century

The public library in Provo City, Utah, has undergone significant changes since the founding of the original 1906 building that was funded by Andrew Carnegie. The library has changed according to the needs of the community as it has adapted from its pioneer heritage to a modern service-information organization. As it has adapted, however, the Provo Library has maintained its focus on community service with its physical facilities, collection development, community outreach, and quality staffing.