Invisible labour: home–school relations and the front office

When school front offices are mentioned in research on schools and their relations with the community, it is often to describe how parents/carers and the public are treated officiously and/or inappropriately. In professional development materials, schools are urged to improve communication, and occasionally directed to consider the practices of the front office staff. Yet when schools send out information to parents/carers, the school office is usually the place to which all queries are directed. However, there is almost no detailed research that looks at what actually happens in this place. In this paper we draw on a small‐scale commissioned research project which began to fill this gap. In seeking to reread our data and push further on analysis, we have come to realize that those who work in school front offices are women whose physical and emotional labour is not only rendered largely invisible in a wide range of literatures relating to home–school relations but is also inadequately recognized through recruitment practices, professional development and remuneration. We suggest that there needs to be further research into the high energy, multitasking, nurturing work that goes on in school front offices.     

Analysis of Pre‐test‐Post‐test Control Group Designs in Educational Research

Pre‐test‐post‐test control group designs are well suited to investigating effects of educational innovations and are common in educational research. They are frequently analysed by means of an ANOVA on change scores, or, what amounts to the same thing, a repeated measures ANOVA to test the treatment by occasion interaction. Although the analysis of change scores has intuitive appeal, such analyses are often inappropriate. An ANCOVA on post‐test scores, with pre‐test scores as co‐variate usually provides a more appropriate and informative analysis. Advantages of the ANCOVA approach are explained and illustrated using SPSS‐X analyses of fabricated data sets.     

A little more madness in our methods? A snapshot of how the educational leadership,management and administration field conducts research

ABSTRACT

The field of educational leadership, management and administration (ELMA) uses methods drawn primarily from cognate educational disciplines. But does this matter? This paper explores the methods used in recently published papers through a snapshot of six issues of six ELMA journals. The analysis showed a preponderance of survey, interview and case study methods, with one journal, JEAH, also publishing papers using methods drawn from history, philosophy and sociology. The snapshot also revealed the methods that were rarely used – for example, ethnography, visual and on-line methods. Through a Bourdieusian lens, the paper argues that the ELMA field appears to be somewhat removed from methods developments and debates in the wider educational and social science fields. There may thus be mileage in the ELMA field considering the use of additional methods, including the ‘wilder’ ones. The field might also benefit from understanding methods as more than tools and as practices possessed of a social life.     

Teacher beliefs in ‘testing’ times: a lesson from Singapore

International benchmarking and national testing of students at all levels of schooling have provoked teachers to critically reflect on their place in this endeavour. Many of the curriculum and pedagogical approaches associated with this type of assessment and accountability conflict with long-held beliefs about the role of teachers and the work of schooling. Singapore is recognised for significant achievement in the international schooling arena and also has a long history of national testing. This study draws specifically on positioning theory to investigate teacher beliefs and positioning in these times. A large qualitative research project located in Singapore sought the ways experienced teachers positioned themselves and their work as they negotiated multiple and sometimes conflicting discourses of teaching. A rigorous process was used to elicit teacher beliefs and resultant teacher positions.     

Executive function: association with multiple reading skills

Reading and Writing - Executive function (EF) is related to reading. However, there is a lack of clarity around (a) the relative contribution of different components of EF to different reading...     

Effects of instructions for on-task behavior and academic behavior: Two case studies

The effects of daily teacher instructions to “work hard” for the on-task behavior of two special education students during a math period were examined in a multiple-baseline design. The results indicated that teacher instructions could increase such behavior. Generalization to work output (the rate of correct math problems) was observed. Follow-up data revealed that the effects of the instructional procedure were of lasting duration. It was suggested that instructions could be an effective, inexpensive, easy to implement, and socially acceptable classroom intervention procedure.     

Assessing giftedness in children: Comparing the accuracy of three shortened measures of Intelligence to the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales,Fifth Edition

This study examined the accuracy of three shortened measures of intelligence: the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability, Third Edition Brief Intellectual Ability (WJ III COG BIA) score; the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale, Fifth Edition Abbreviated IQ (SB5 ABIQ); and the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test IQ Composite (K‐BIT) in predicting giftedness as assessed by the SB5 Full Scale IQ score (SB5 FSIQ). Participants were 202 third grade students who were individually administered the SB5, WJ III, and K‐BIT. Four scores (SB5 ABIQ, K‐BIT, WJ III COG BIA, and SB5 FSIQ) were extracted. Correlational analyses revealed positive, significant relationships among the four scores. Discriminant function analyses, conducted to examine the accuracy of the three shortened measures of intelligence in predicting giftedness, revealed that overall, the WJ III score was the most accurate, and the K‐BIT score was the least accurate in identifying giftedness. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Changing Play – writing,researching and learning in an early years arts project

ABSTRACT

‘Changing Play’ is an ongoing project initiated by education curators from the Serpentine, a prestigious London art gallery, working with the Portman children’s centre nursery. Viewed by curators as a collaboration between artist, children’s centre staff and parents, and the gallery, Changing Play combines art and action research, and expands the boundaries of the gallery. In the words of one of the education curators, ‘the project is about social change’. It is not for the gallery curators to develop proposals but to ‘co-develop work’. Ethnographic evidence employing narrative, visual arts informed analysis is being used by the gallery to report to funders, inform iterative planning and inform future directions. The paper focuses on methodological questions on ways in which ethnographers might meet artistic projects both during and after being in the ‘field’. It takes the form of a ‘loose parts’ montage which reflects the ways in which the art project was conducted.     

书目记录功能需求及IFLA相关研究的进展

此文是IFLA编目组中FRBR研究项目主席Pat Riva对FRBR研究的介绍,及对FRBR研究到目前阶段的概要总结。文中提到这一项目在哪些方面的研究有所扩展,以及今后FRBR会影响到哪些编目的领域。