Evaluation of students' strategies for concept application in engineering design

The article presents the results of an educational experiment in evaluating the strategies and microstructure of student thinking in the application of domain specific concepts in engineering design at the University of Melbourne. This work is related to previously reported propositions in educational theory. It is found from the Melboume experience that the compartmentalized domain specificity of engineering science learning, and by corollary the learning programmes in secondary schools, adversely affect the robustness of concept formation in engineering design. It is also conjectured that fluency in concept use as well as flexibility in crossing boundaries of knowledge domains is an essential trait of effective engineering designers.     

Design and inquiry: Bases for an accommodation between science and technology education in the curriculum?

This article examines the merits of the proposition that design and inquiry are conceptual parallels. It does so by first looking closely at the inquiry‐related discourse within science education, then at aspects of the design discourse within engineering, and finally within technology education. Convergences and divergences of these two streams of curricular advocacy are then identified, and implications and conclusions with respect to curriculum and instruction in both subjects are suggested. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 255–281, 2006     

Knowledge of persuasion and writing goals predict the quality of children’s persuasive writing

Reading and Writing - We assessed the influence of genre-specific discourse knowledge and writing goals on the persuasive writing of 4th and 6th grade students with and without learning...     

Addressing Self‐Injury on College Campuses: Institutional Recommendations

Nonsuicidal self‐injury is a significant concern on college campuses. Hence, the authors, the International Consortium on Self‐Injury in Educational Settings, offer the current position paper. First, the authors review current research in the field. Next, they discuss considerations for colleges' institutional‐wide response to self‐injury, including the role of and recommendations for relevant stakeholders (students, residence staff, mental health professionals) who directly and indirectly support students who self‐injure. Guidelines for response and suggested resources are also presented.     

The phantom national? Assembling national teaching standards in Australia’s federal system

In this paper, we use the development of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) as an illustrative case to examine how national schooling reforms are assembled in Australia’s federal system. Drawing upon an emerging body of research on ‘policy assemblage’ within the fields of policy sociology, anthropology and critical geography, we focus on interactions between three dominant ‘component parts’ in the development of the APST: the Australian federal government; New South Wales state government agencies; and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. While policies like the APST claim to be national in form and scope, our analysis suggests ‘the national’ is much more disjunctive and nebulous, constituted by a heterogeneous and emergent assemblage of policy ideas, practices, actors and organisations, which often reflect transnational traits and impulses. We thus see national reforms such as the APST as having a phantom-like nature, which poses challenges for researchers seeking to understand the making of national policies in federal systems.     

Examining Patterns and Motivations for Drug-Related Information Seeking and Scanning Behavior: A Cross-National Comparison of American and Israeli College Students

The current study uses a grounded theory approach to explore dimensions and bi-national comparisons of active information seeking efforts (seeking) for and passive information acquisition (scanning) of drug-related information among two college student samples from the United States (N = 25) and Israel (N = 39). Specifically, the study focuses on seeking and scanning related to amphetamines and marijuana, two frequently used drugs among college populations, about which information is easily accessible. Results of semi-structured interviews suggest that information scanning and seeking about marijuana and amphetamines are common, particularly from peers and from the Internet. The analysis uncovers themes relating to young adults’ drug-related, information-seeking behaviors, including cross-source information acquisition across interpersonal and media sources, and motivations for engaging in active efforts to seek drug-related information. These findings extend research on information seeking and scanning and suggest future research should examine predictors and effects of these behaviors in the context of substance use.     

Personal responsibility and behavioral disengagement in innocent bystanders during classroom management events: The moderating effect of teacher aggressive tendencies

Recent studies have shown that student behavioral engagement is malleable. For example, these studies have reported that students who feel emotionally supported by their teachers experience higher levels of behavioral engagement. The authors contributed to this research by investigating behavioral disengagement among innocent bystanders during classroom management events. Participants included 528 Year 7 students from Melbourne, Australia, who completed 3 questionnaire measures. Results revealed that personal responsibility is inversely related to behavioral disengagement during classroom management events. This relationship is moderated by teacher aggressive tendencies, with higher levels of teacher aggression leading to higher levels of behavioral disengagement. However, the Johnson-Neyman technique analysis revealed that the moderating influence of teacher aggressive tendencies was only statistically significant equal to or below the 76th percentile of the distribution of the variable. Implications regarding the influence of the teacher–student relationship on behavioral disengagement are discussed.     

The promise of dynamic systems approaches for an integrated account of human development

After decades of theoretical fragmentation and insularity, a converging explanatory framework based on general scientific principles is an important goal for developmental psychology. Dynamic systems approaches may provide such a framework, using principles of self-organization to explain how novel forms emerge without predetermination and become increasingly complex with development. New trends in traditional theoretical families emphasize systemic, emergent processes, and these can now be explicated with principles of self-organization that apply to all natural systems. Self-organization thus provides a single explanation for the multiple facets of development, integrating diverse developmental viewpoints within a larger scientific perspective.