Factors influencing the take-up of physics within second-level education in Ireland—the teachers’ perspective

There has been a disturbing decline in the take-up of physics within second-level education in Ireland since the early nineties. Here, an analysis is presented of the main factors influencing the take-up of physics from the perspective of secondary school teachers. The database underpinning the analysis is based on a comprehensive survey of teacher opinion in Irish schools conducted in December 2004. The sample included all such schools in Ireland and was directed at school principals, senior cycle physics teachers, and junior cycle science teachers. The data reveal that most senior cycle physics teachers in Ireland do not possess a ‘physics-dominated’ primary degree, are dissatisfied with the technical back-up available to them and their students, consider that many of their students lack the basic mathematical skills needed for physics, believe their students are not adequately informed about career opportunities in physics, and feel students are disadvantaged in regard to grade points in the leaving certificate examination compared with most other subjects. These findings echo those of a previous report by the Government Task Force on the Physical Sciences and lend renewed urgency to the necessity of implementing a comprehensive action programme to reverse the decline in physics take-up before it impacts negatively on the Irish economy.     

Psychological assessment and dyslexia: parents’ perspectives

The purpose of this paper is to explore parents’ perceptions of the process of having their child assessed for dyslexia by an independent Educational Psychologist and the affective impact on the child or young person. The research was carried out as part of an evaluation of the services offered by the Northern Ireland Dyslexia Centre (NIDC). The methodology involved the use of a postal survey questionnaire with both qualitative and quantitative outcomes. Findings are discussed in the context of strategies for promoting partnerships with parents and affective-academic pathways for learners with dyslexia.     

Talk

The publication and subsequent distribution and dissemination of Birth to Three Matters, A Framework to Support Children in their Earliest Years (DfES, 2002) marks a significant breakthrough in government recognition of the importance of the years from birth to three in shaping children's later learning. However, the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage, published the previous year, focuses upon the years from three to five. In this paper, Lesley Abbott and Ann Langston challenge the view that the Foundation Stage begins as children reach their third birthday, but rather that children are competent learners from birth, and it is at this very early stage that true foundations are laid.     

Choosing in schools: locating the benefits of specialisation

Recent policy in England has suggested that educational outcomes will be raised if schools specialise in particular subjects. In contrast, calls for the reform of 16–19 education have suggested that these outcomes will be improved if students become less specialised in their studies. At present, there is a limited evidence base from which to judge these arguments. In particular, we do not know the extent to which students’ achievements in 16–19 education are higher when they choose subjects which play to their perceived strengths. We also do not know whether students are more likely to choose to study subjects taught by more effective departments. That is, outcomes may be affected by the relative strengths of students or departments in circumstances where there is freedom to choose. In this paper we provide evidence of the existence and strength of these relationships. This evidence suggests that reducing the scope within schools for specialisation or competition will reduce average student attainment and these effects ought to be taken into account when evaluating alternative curriculum policies.     

The learning alliance: ethics in doctoral supervision

This paper is concerned with the ethics of relationships in doctoral supervision. We give an overview of four paradigms of doctoral supervision that have endured over the past 25 years and elucidate some of their strengths and limitations, contextualise them historically and consider their implications for doctoral supervision in the contemporary university. Two common threads across the four paradigms are a view of doctoral supervision as pedagogical practice and that supervisors have primary responsibility for the supervision of doctoral students. We challenge these assumptions. In their place, we propose that the goal of doctoral supervision is praxis and that this involves a learning alliance between multiple institutional agents grounded in a relational ethics of mutual responsibility.     

Response to Grace’s reflections on Allen and West’s paper

Since the 1970s, school effectiveness research has looked for process-variables filling the black box between mainly structural school features and cognitive outcomes in students. Two concepts came to the fore: school climate and school culture. Both concepts are currently used interchangeably, although it is open to debate whether both are actually the same thing. Because of the way culture and climate are defined and subsequently measured, we propose school culture is a better frame from which to study school effectiveness. This article goes through the premises of perceptual measurement usually overlooked in climate research, and we demonstrate empirically by means of very basic and simple methods and techniques that perceptual measurement and measurement based on assumptions are different approaches and might yield totally different results on an aggregated level. We conclude by demonstrating how culture can be probed and integrated in the models traditionally used in school effectiveness research in an advantageous and theoretically sound way.     

Strategic capacity building for Australian educational research: creating spaces for action

This paper provides some background information about the Strategic Capacity Building for Australian Educational Research initiative: a joint program of work sponsored by the Australian Association for Research in Education and the Australian Council of Deans of Education. In addition, it offers some broader analysis of the contexts within which Australian Educational Research is being framed and judged, and argues that leaders of educational research need to become more adept at finding and creating spaces in which important policy battles can be won.