The impact of support staff on pupils’ ‘positive approaches to learning’ and their academic progress

In recent years there has been an unprecedented increase in support staff in schools in England and Wales. There were widespread expectations that this will be of benefit to teachers and pupils but there has been little systematic research to address the impact of support staff. This study used a naturalistic longitudinal design to investigate the relationship between the amount of support (measured by teacher estimates and systematic observation) and pupils’ ‘Positive Approaches to Learning’ (PAL) and academic progress. There were over 8000 pupils across two cohorts and seven age groups. Results on PAL were not straightforward by there was a consistent trend for those with most support to make less academic progress than similar pupils with less support, and this was not explained by characteristics of the pupils such as piror attainment or level of special educational need.     

Errors in judging "offside" in association football: test of the optical error versus the perceptual flash-lag hypothesis

The objective of this study was to analyse the correctness of the offside judgements of the assistant referees during the final round of the FIFA 2002 World Cup. We also contrasted two hypotheses to explain the errors in judging offside. The optical error hypothesis is based on an incorrect viewing angle, while the flash-lag hypothesis refers to perceptual errors associated with the flash-lag effect (i.e. a moving object is perceived as spatially leading its real position at a discrete instant signalled by a briefly flashed stimulus). Across all 64 matches, 337 offsides were analysed using digital video technology. The error percentage was 26.2%. During the first 15 min match period, there were significantly more errors (38.5%) than during any other 15 min interval. As predicted by the flash-lag effect, we observed many more flag errors (86.6%) than non-flag errors (13.4%). Unlike the predictions of the optical error hypothesis, there was no significant difference between the correct and incorrect decisions in terms of the positioning of the assistant referees relative to the offside line (0.81 and 0.77 m ahead, respectively). To reduce the typical errors in judging offside, alternative ways need to be considered to teach assistant referees to better deal with flash-lag effects.     

Developing an appreciation of what it means to be a school-based teacher educator

The nature of partnership between schools and higher education institutions is changing in many countries, with experienced teachers taking on more responsibility for teacher education whilst remaining in their school as teachers, rather than entering the higher education sector to become teacher educators. This research considers the perspectives of these school-based teacher educators (SBTEs) in England, exploring the impact that this role has on them, their student-teachers and their schools. Some benefits and challenges that they face in the dual role of teacher and teacher educator are revealed. The research takes an interpretive perspective, listening to the meanings being constructed by the participants through use of a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and a focus group of student-teachers who learned from these SBTEs. Possible impacts on student-teachers’ learning and implications for the development of high-quality teacher education are examined.     

Effects of Introducing Classroom Peflormance Assessments on Student Learning

How can performance assessments be used as part of regular instruction? Will this raise student performance on external achievement measures? What aspects of examinee performance improve on the assessment exercises?     

山国尼泊尔之行

Nepal.tueked into the himalayas ,and its capital ,katmandu are well worth a visit in preparation for king     

The influence of participants in formative evaluation on the improvement of learning from written instructional materials

Formative evaluation in instructional design is widely advocated as a means to improve instructional materials through tryouts with learners and experts and revision based on this feedback. Research on formative evaluation has sought to prove its effectiveness and to provide guidance as to which methods of collecting feedback and which sources of feedback are most effective in improving learning. It is difficult to determine from the research whether aspects of tryout or of revision are responsible for improved learning. This paper describes a systematic investigation of both tryout and revision to more clearly determine the influence of different formative evaluation participants (experts, learners and revisers) on the improvement of learning from written instructional materials.It was found that revised versions incorporating learner feedback had the most impact on improving learning from the materials. It was also found that revisers have a far more powerful impact on formative evaluation outcomes than was previously supposed, in terms of how they mediate and incorporate the feedback they are given. The results refute contentions that any revision is better than none since versions revised without learner feedback did not improve learning. Implications are discussed.     

Adolescent males in New Zealand school choirs: the contradictory business of being in the gender vanguard

School choirs have been stigmatised for adolescent males in New Zealand, resulting in constraints in involvement, bullying, and threat to gender identity. In other national contexts, boys who sing in choirs have experienced a negative stereotype associated with accusations of inferior masculinity, yet little research has probed whether such forces are at play for their New Zealand counterparts. The current study was conducted with a sample of adolescent male school choir members in New Zealand (a country where essentialist gender attitudes have existed). Adolescent male choristers’ perceptions of the gender stereotype, its moderation by cultural context, and how the stigmatised choral domain was negotiated, were explored within a framework of critical masculinities. Such a stereotype and wider implications for gendered structures found in society at large were confirmed. Personal and school-based factors enabling the male choristers’ endurance in a domain that rendered their construction of masculinity subordinate, are discussed.     

Micro-Counseling: An Experimental Study of Pre-Practicum Training in Communicating Test Results

Micro-counseling techniques were used to train 10 beginning graduate students in communicating test results. Training emphasized listening and responding to cues given by the client, brief and concise statements about test-related information, and relating the information to the client's experiences and needs. Training aids included programmed materials, brief videotapes of positive and negative models, role-playing, and videotape feedback of the role-playing and test interpretation sessions. Judges' ratings of trainees in the experimental group were significantly higher than their ratings for the 10 trainees in the control group. Client ratings of counselor effectiveness did not differ significantly for the two groups. Changes in clients' pre- and post-test attitude scores and knowledge scores were statistically significant. An enthusiastic response to the micro-counseling approach was evident from both inexperienced and experienced graduate students.