Behaviours of Concern to Teachers in the Early Years of School

Teachers of students aged from five to eight years at 21 primary schools in western Sydney were surveyed about child behaviour that concerned them and their needs for support in dealing with such behaviour. Although most teachers were confident of their ability to manage classroom behaviour, teachers reported a need for support in dealing with distractibility and concern about aggressive behaviours. Less confident teachers expressed higher levels of concern about aggression, distractibility, and disobedience and wanted more support for dealing with distractibility and disobedience. No relationships were found between teacher concerns or support needs and teacher experience, class level or size, Local Government Area income grouping, and whether or not the school received additional funding for disadvantaged schools.     

Are effective or meritorious schools meretricious?

Data on student achievement gain in a large urban school district during the 1984–85 school year were analyzed to identify schools with achievement consistently higher or lower than schools with similar student and school characteristics. Before calculating gain scores, students were grouped with others of the same sex, ethnicity, initial grade level, and initial achievement level. After residuals for students who were above or below similar students were summed and averaged for reading and math at each grade, school-level regression analysis was used to further control for student and school characteristics. Results indicated that schools with reading gains one standard deviation above the mean had average raw scores less than two items higher than the district average on the sixty-item reading test, while schools with math gains this large had raw scores little more than one item higher than the average on the 44-item math test. In addition, examination of data on schools with residual (combined) reading and math gain scores 1.5 or more standard deviations above the average showed that after taking account of student background information and salient school characteristics, only one elementary school among 173 and no secondary school among 71 had unusually high achievement scores. Implications are discussed regarding efforts to identify and reward meritorious schools which allegedly have improved achievement more than other similar schools.     

A contribution to the discussion on participant readiness for action learning

The authors explore their experience of a course for long-term unemployed people and reflect as to whether the traits identified by Tom Bourner on readiness for action learning actually relate to their experience. They conclude that based on the obvious development by the members of the group over the course, they observed, in some small way, the kind of evolutionary process of becoming ready for action learning that Bourner seems to imply.     

Voices from Manukau: recruitment and success of traditionally under represented undergraduate groups in New Zealand

This paper describes a research project, “Voices from Manukau”, that investigated the impact of a joint initiative by a university and an institute of technology in New Zealand. The purpose of the initiative was to increase the participation of students traditionally under represented at tertiary-level study, particularly Māori (indigenous people) and individuals from Pacific Island nations. Many of the participants were adults who had not experienced high levels of success during their compulsory period of education and they lived in low socio-economic areas. We found that participation of under-represented groups increased. The “Manukau” students were as successful as other undergraduate students studying at the university. Of particular interest was the high level of success of Māori and Pacific Island students.     

Increasing Girls’ STEM Engagement in Early Childhood: Conditions Created by the Conceptual PlayWorld Model

Research in Science Education - As societal needs change and STEM solutions are offered, an increasing concern for the participation of girls in STEM has emerged. Research has consistently shown...