Teacher education in further education 2000–2010: Subversion,avoidance and compliance

This article explores the impact of key teacher education policies created between 2000 and 2010 on further education teacher educators. Data was collected from a group of experienced teacher educators in the Midlands through a series of semi-structured interviews. This article argues that the reforms were driven by too great a concern for political ideology and established overly restrictive control mechanisms to ensure compliance. Although the need for standardisation was acknowledged, the use of competency-based standards was seen as detrimental to meaningful teacher education pedagogy. It was perceived that the policies were being implemented in a managerial manner that strove for compliance. However, where compliance was at odds with their own personal and democratic professional stance, the teacher educators used a range of strategies to subvert or avoid implementing policy in order to try to stay true to their philosophical values. Nevertheless, positive aspects did emanate from the teacher education reforms, which included a drive for professional status and a recognised level 5 qualification. These positive features now appear to have been abandoned following the Lingfield Report and a different ideological thrust to deregulate the sector.     

Developing generic skills at university,during work placement and in employment: graduates' perceptions

This paper presents findings from Stage 4 of the Griffith Graduate Project. Graduates from three Schools within Griffith University were surveyed to determine their perceptions of the contributions that the learning contexts of university, work placement and post‐graduation employment made to the development of their generic skills. All graduates involved in the project had experienced work placement as a formal part of their undergraduate studies. Supplementary data from focus group discussions held with employers and graduates are also included. Findings showed that while graduates recognized the contribution university had made to their generic skills development, they greatly valued the experience of learning in the workplace during placement and subsequently in employment. The importance of teamwork, being given responsibility, and collaborative learning emerged as the most important factors for effective learning in the three contexts under consideration.     

The exchangeability of brief intelligence tests for children with intellectual giftedness: Illuminating error variance components’ influence on IQs

This study examined the exchangeability of total scores (i.e., intelligent quotients [IQs]) from three brief intelligence tests. Tests were administered to 36 children with intellectual giftedness, scored live by one set of primary examiners and later scored by a secondary examiner. For each student, six IQs were calculated, and all 216 values were submitted to a generalizability theory analysis. Despite strong convergent validity and reliability evidence supporting brief IQs, the resulting dependability coefficient was only .80, which indicates relatively low exchangeability across tests and examiners. Although error variance components representing the effects of the examiner, examiner‐by‐examinee interaction, the examiner‐by‐test interaction, and the test contributed little to IQ variability, the component representing the test‐by‐examinee interaction contributed about one‐third of the variance in IQs. These findings hold implications for selecting and interpreting brief intelligence tests and general testing for intellectual giftedness.     

Modeling Basic Writing Processes From Keystroke Logs

The goal of this study is to model pauses extracted from writing keystroke logs as a way of characterizing the processes students use in essay composition. Low‐level timing data were modeled, the interkey interval and its subtype, the intraword duration, thought to reflect processes associated with keyboarding skills and composition fluency. Heavy‐tailed probability distributions (lognormal and stable distributions) were fit to individual students' data. Both density functions fit reasonably well, and estimated parameters were found to be robust across prompts designed to assess student proficiency for the same writing purpose. In addition, estimated parameters for both density functions were statistically significantly associated with human essay scores after accounting for total time spent writing the essay, a result consistent with cognitive theory on the role of low‐level processes in writing.     

Developmental Cascade and Transactional Associations Among Biological and Behavioral Indicators of Temperament and Maternal Behavior

An empirical model of temperament that assessed transactional and cascade associations between respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), negative affectivity, and the caregiving environment (i.e., maternal intrusiveness) across three time points during infancy (N = 388) was examined. Negative affectivity at 5 months was associated positively with maternal intrusiveness at 10 months, which in turn predicted increased negative affectivity at 24 months. RSA at 5 months was associated positively with negative affectivity at 10 months, which subsequently predicted greater RSA at 24 months. Finally, greater RSA at 5 months predicted greater negative affectivity at 10 months, which in turn predicted greater maternal intrusiveness at 24 months. Results are discussed from a biopsychosocial perspective of development.     

Making Content Easier or Adding More Challenge in Year One University Physics?

This paper argues that lecturers may provide insufficient challenge when teaching first year university physics courses, which may contribute to unsatisfactory learning outcomes. Comparisons in learning outcomes between a traditional teaching group and a constructivist orientated teaching group were investigated along with lecturers' and students' perceptions of those courses by interview and survey. Three main findings emerged from this study. The lecturers emphasised the students' poor physics background and adopted strategies to diminish the possible cognitive challenge in their teaching design. However, the students' concerns about the difficulty of the course seemed to be very minor. Finally, this study found that a teaching strategy of increasing the cognitive challenge for the students was likely to encourage an adoption of a comprehension learning approach, highlight the needs for learning university physics, and to promote cognitive engagement and learning commitment.     

Tonic immobility in chicks during presentations and withdrawals of an imprinting stimulus

We investigated the effects of presentation and withdrawal of an imprinting stimulus on durations of the tonic immobility reaction in domestic fowl. In Experiment 1, presentation and withdrawal of the imprinting stimulus was compared to similar manipulations with a novel stimulus. Differences in the immobility reaction were due to specific effects of the imprinting stimulus. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated the effect of the presence or withdrawal of only the imprinting stimulus on the duration of the immobility reaction. The presence of the imprinting stimulus shortened the duration of the immobility reaction, while the withdrawal of the same stimulus lengthened the duration of the reaction, relative to a baseline condition. The results are interpreted in terms of central affective states which interact in simple ways.