Education management and performance after rural education finance reform: Evidence from Western China

Based on a survey of rural school districts in Western China, this essay explores the effects of fiscal centralisation on the relationship between local governance and school district management, most particularly on how managerial power is distributed in the rural education sector. The essay also examines some of the possible effects that changes in managerial arrangements may have on teacher incentives and on educational quality as measured by student test scores. Our analysis suggests that teachers’ incentives and students’ education performance are unlikely to benefit from the excessive centralisation of decision-making power or from incessant horizontal level power struggles among different government bodies.     

Lexical expertise and reading skill: bottom-up and top-down processing of lexical ambiguity

The lexical quality hypothesis assumes that skilled readers rely on high quality lexical representations that afford autonomous lexical retrieval and reduce the need to rely on top-down context. This experiment investigated this hypothesis by comparing the performance of adults classified on reading comprehension and spelling performance. ‘Lexical experts’, defined by above average performance on both measures, were compared with individuals who are good readers/poor spellers, poor readers/good spellers, or poor on both measures. Sentences finishing with a homograph (e.g., She danced all night at the ball) were followed by a probe word and participants had to decide whether it had occurred in the sentence. Critical probe words were related to either the sentence-congruous or the sentence-incongruous meaning of the homograph (e.g., waltz vs. throw). Lexical experts showed less interference from related probes than the other groups. When the sentences were presented at fast rates, poorer spellers showed interference for sentence-congruous but not sentence-incongruous probes. However, at slower presentation rates, all groups showed equivalent interference for both types of probes. The results support the lexical quality hypothesis by showing that high quality lexical representations, indexed by better spelling, are associated with reduced reliance on sentence context.

The Library Is for Studying: Student Preferences for Study Space

Systematic observation of non-computer seating areas in library and non-library spaces on an urban campus showed an important role for the library in individual and group study area choices. The study provides data on important points to consider in library design, including laptop needs and gender preferences.     

Fun with Computers and GNVQ: Performing to Criteria and the Confidence to Improvise

This article examines the development and assessment of communication skills at GNVQ. It does this by reflecting on a project using multi-media technology to deliver communication skills to ESOL students. The author argues that current models of communication skills in GNVQ can be narrow and limiting and suggests that stimulating imaginative uses of language is more constructive in raising student confidence and achievement.