Antagonism Between Achievement and Enjoyment in ATI Studies

There is evidence that negative correlations between student achievement and their enjoyment of instructional methods exist under certain circumstances. In aptitude‐treatment interaction (ATI) studies where two or more methods are allowed to interact with student aptitudes to predict enjoyment and achievement, it appears that students often report enjoying the method from which they learn the least. Selected ATI studies are reviewed, and an explanation is suggested which may account for the negative correlations between achievement and enjoyment in instructional settings. It appears that students make inaccurate judgments about the amount of effort they will have to expend to achieve maximum learning outcomes. Low ability students typically report liking more permissive instructional methods, apparently because they allow them to maintain a “low profile” so that their failures are not as visible. However, in order to experience maximum achievement low ability students require less permissive methods which lower the information processing load on them. High ability students like more structured methods which they believe will make their efforts more efficient when these lower load methods seem often to interfere with their learning. High ability students seem to learn more from more permissive approaches which allow them to bring their own considerable skills to bear on learning tasks.     

Adult education between the wars: the curious case of the Selborne Lecture Bureau

‘Independent’ lecture agencies are a neglected element in the history of education. Between 1918 and 1939, the Selborne Lecture Bureau was a significant national provider of adult education in Britain, both in its own right and as a supplier of lecture(r)s to Women's Institutes and other bodies, and it pioneered the use of films in schools. For a brief period, it was an ‘educational’ vehicle for the Empire Marketing Board with a programme of over 2400 lectures in 1929. The Bureau originated in the early twentieth century split between the conservative (and male) traditions of natural history and the radical (and female) campaigning (anti‐) plumage movement that produced the RSPB. The interwar history of the Selborne Lecture Bureau provides a counterpoint to conventional accounts of adult education between the two world wars, part of an influential ‘third stream’ alongside the ‘liberal tradition’ and growing state and local authority provision.     

Telling it Like it Is

Abstract

This study examined attitudes about business and the environment in a sample of 237 business students, using a 14-item measurement scale, the Business-Environment Questionnaire. The study also explored the underlying worldview concerning the environment using the New Environmental Paradigm Scale (Dunlap and Van Liere 1978). Overall, the study found the expressed attitudes of the sample to be strongly pro-environmental and primarily related to a concern for the balance of nature. The results appear consistent with the emergence of a “New Environmental Paradigm.” To the extent that attitudes of contemporary business students indicate the future orientation of the business community, corporate policies toward the environment may undergo a considerable shift in the future.     

Visitation to Natural Areas on Campus and its Relation to Place Identity and Environmentally Responsible Behaviors

This study examined college students’ visits to natural areas on campus and how these visits relate to place identity and environmentally responsible behaviors. The majority (76.5%) of the 115 participants visited the natural areas, and 55.7% of these students visited for a course requirement. Students who lived on campus, were younger, and majored in environmental studies, humanities, or arts made more frequent visits. Among those who had visited the natural areas (n = 88), place identity and environmental responsibility were related to visitation frequency, and were stronger for those who had visited for a course requirement. Place identity mediated the relationship between visiting for a course requirement and environmental behaviors, but did not mediate the impact of visitation frequency.     

Comparing religious education in Canadian and Australian Catholic high schools: identifying some key structural issues

Religious education (RE) in Catholic high schools in Australia and Canada is compared by examining some of the underlying structural factors that shape the delivery of RE. It is argued that in Canadian Catholic schools RE is diminished by three factors that distinguish it from the Australian experience. These are: the level and history of government funding which in turn leads to a relative lack of autonomy of Catholic schools to control their own RE curriculum; external political and social influences on the RE curriculum which is apparent in the popular election of Catholic school trustees; and most decisively, the absence of strong, ongoing bureaucratic support of RE.