Barriers to career progress for women in education: the perceptions of female headteachers

The number of women who achieve senior posts in educational management is disproportionate to the number of women employed. This is particularly true for women in secondary education, where only about 20 per cent of headships are held by women. All the female headteachers of one English shire county were interviewed about their own experiences and views on barriers to women's progress. The interview schedule was based on the author's classification of the theories of Shakeshaft and Schmuck. The data are analysed under the headings of: overt and covert discrimination; constraints experienced within the work situation; and constraints experienced through roles outside the work situation and early career influences. The headteachers had experienced both overt discrimination and more subtle sexism and tended to meet both with pragmatism, rather than confrontation. They had avoided gender‐stereotyped roles within the work situation, and were generally free of the major responsibility for domestic affairs. As children, they had been aware of high educational expectations held of them by their parents. Supportive partnerships and minimal career breaks had been important in their progress.     

The development of a questionnaire on metacognition for students in higher education

Interest in the role of metacognition has been steadily rising in most forms of education. This study focuses on the construction of a questionnaire for measuring metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive regulation and metacognitive responsiveness among students in higher education and the subsequent process of testing to determine its validity.

Purpose

The aim of the study was to construct an original instrument for measuring features of metacognition, henceforth referred to as the Awareness of Independent Learning Inventory (AILI), and further to establish the similarities and differences between this model and existing instruments for measuring metacognition.

Sample

The AILI questionnaire was distributed to 1058 students in various types of Teacher Training Institutes in the Netherlands and Belgium. The abridged English version of the questionnaire was administered to another sample of 729 students reading Economics and Business Administration at the University of Maastricht in the south of the Netherlands.

Design and methods

The AILI instrument was constructed on the basis of a facet design along two dimensions: components of metacognition and topics of concern to students in higher education. The data gathered with the instrument was analyzed by means of a generalisability study and a decision study, respectively. The validity of the instrument was investigated by using confirmatory factor analysis.

Results

The generalisability study showed that the reliability of the instrument was satisfactory. The decision study revealed that the number of items included in the questionnaire could be reduced substantially by leaving out two components of one of the dimensions in the facet design, without losing too much generalisability. The validity study showed that there was a considerable level of congruity between parts of the AILI questionnaire and the relevant parts of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ).

Conclusions

The AILI questionnaire is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring metacognitive knowledge, regulation and responsiveness. It is suitable for use in the evaluation of the effects of interventions that purport to increase metacognitive knowledge, regulation and responsiveness of students in higher education.     

Explaining the mathematical creativity of a young boy: an interdisciplinary venture between mathematics education and psychoanalysis

Curriculum documents for mathematics emphasise the importance of promoting depth of knowledge rather than shallow coverage of the curriculum. In this paper, we report on a study that explored the analysis of junior secondary mathematics textbooks to assess their potential to assist in teaching and learning aimed at building and applying deep mathematical knowledge. The method of analysis involved the establishment of a set of specific curriculum goals and associated indicators, based on research into the teaching and learning of a particular field within the mathematics curriculum, namely proportion and proportional reasoning. Topic selection was due to its pervasive nature throughout the school mathematics curriculum at this level. As a result of this study, it was found that the five textbook series examined provided limited support for the development of multiplicative structures required for proportional reasoning, and hence would not serve well the development of deep learning of mathematics. The study demonstrated a method that could be applied to the analysis of junior secondary mathematics in many parts of the world.     

Objects prompt authentic scientific activities among learners in a museum programme

Although the scientific disciplines conduct practical work in different ways, all consider practical work as the essential way of connecting objects and phenomena with ideas and the abstract. Accordingly, practical work is regarded as central to science education as well. We investigate a practical, object-based palaeontology programme at a natural history museum to identify how palaeontological objects prompt scientific activity among upper secondary school students. We first construct a theoretical framework based on an analysis of the programme’s palaeontological content. From this, we build our reference model, which considers the specimens used in the programme, possible palaeontological interpretations of these specimens, and the conditions inherent in the programme. We use the reference model to analyse the activities of programme participants, and illustrate how these activities are palaeontologically authentic. Finally, we discuss our findings, examining the mechanism by which the specimens prompt scientific activities. We also discuss our discipline-based approach, and how it allows us to positively identify participants’ activities as authentic. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings.     

Teaching physics to prospective elementary teachers: Bridging gaps or widening chasms

The education of prospective Elementary and Early Childhood (E&EC) teachers to teach science has been an on-going challenge for science teacher educators. Accordingly, a course in physical science was planned and implemented especially for prospective E&EC teachers. The purpose of this study was to understand the nature of the enacted curriculum and about the forces which constrained its evolution. Miller, the teacher of the course, had no prior experience in teaching prospective E&EC teachers and many of his experiences as a university level teacher were based on his teaching of physics majors. These experiences shaped his approach to teaching the course as did his years as a basketball coach. Miller was an expert in physics and constructed his role as teaching students significant scientific truths. Miller saw the purpose of the course as being to educate the students in science, not to prepare them to teach science. He was unwilling to address the goals of students that were oriented strongly toward becoming better teachers. The beliefs of the teacher constrained the enacted curriculum to an extent that gaps between the needs of students and the enacted curriculum were wider at the end of the course than they were at the beginning. Armstrong College In my opinion I think I failed completely, but I am quite happy with what I am trying to do. I just don't think I executed it well. So I was pretty unhappy with the whole experience in terms of the results, but I was not unhappy with the experience in terms of whether it was worth doing. I think it is important in science to develop free-thinking and being able to come to conclusions. Science is being able to reflect on the human condition, and being able to think about things you don't know about. (Miller)     

机载相控阵雷达调度的专家系统研究

本文研究设计了一种新型的机载相控阵雷达调度(SOMAPAR)的专家系统。该系统构造了一个由多种知识表达方式实现的知识库,并运用模糊数学方法表达知识,建立了一个简单的模糊推理机。仿真结果表明,该SOMAPAR专家系统能使雷达自适应于目标环境的变化,调整自身状态在最佳条件下工作,具有一定的专家水平。     

Spannungsfeld Polyvalenz in der Lehrerbildung

The Bologna Process of higher education reform has led to a vast array of different programs of study in German teacher training. In this article, we firstly analyze the implementation of Bachelor programs in teacher training, comparing profession-oriented programs (i.e. those aiming to train students for the teaching profession from the beginning of studies) to polyvalent programs (i.e. those aiming at broad qualifications and including a late decision to become a teacher). Secondly, we investigate whether students enrolled in these study programs differ systematically in their subjective certainty about their career choice. To answer these questions, we analyze portfolios of documents related to teacher training programs from nine German universities that prepare students for teaching in the academic track. Additionally, we analyze data from N?=?2585 Bachelor and N?=?928 Master degree students. We found that most programs, even when they espouse polyvalence, require an early decision to become a teacher. Moreover, our data confirm findings from earlier studies indicating that student teachers are highly certain about their career choice from the very beginning, with students in polyvalent programs being slightly less certain than those in profession-oriented programs (d?=?0.32).