Deaf and hard of hearing students' performance on arithmetic word problems

There has been limited research into the intersection of language and arithmetic performance of students who are deaf or hard of hearing, although previous research has shown that many of these students are delayed in both language acquisition and arithmetic performance. The researchers examined the performance on arithmetic word problems of deaf and hard of hearing students in the South-East Queensland region of Australia; they also examined these students' problem-solving strategies. It was found that performance on word problems was similar for deaf and hearing students, but that deaf students experienced delays in achieving successful performance on word problems relative to their hearing peers. The results confirm the findings of other studies showing that students who are deaf or hard of hearing experience delayed language acquisition, which affects their capacity to solve arithmetic word problems. The study conclusions stress the need for greater use of direct teaching of analytic and strategic approaches to arithmetic word problems.     

Research supervision: the research management matrix

We briefly make a case for re-conceptualising research project supervision/advising as the consideration of three inter-related areas: the learning and teaching process; developing the student; and producing the research project/outcome as a social practice. We use this as our theoretical base for an heuristic tool, ‘the research management matrix’ and this is the major focus of this paper. The matrix facilitates the work of supervision. In the matrix we privilege the research questions. The research management matrix can be easily used to focus on key research features and the relationships amongst them. The timing of different parts of research is introduced so that practical goals are identified. This facilitates project and research student learning management and timely completions. For these reasons the research management matrix is a useful tool for supervisors/advisors     

Teaching science in primary schools: What knowledge do teachers need?

Several reviews on science education have lamented the lack of content knowledge of primary teachers and implied that improvements in this area would lead to better teaching and learning. Subject knowledge, however is a complex issue. What knowledge is required and how much? There is knowledge of the ‘content’ and the ‘processes’ of science. An elusive but essential third component has been described as syntactic (Grossman, Wilson &; Shulman, 1989), experiential (Burnard, 1986) or personal knowledge. This paper argues that it is unrealistic to consider the implementation of pre-service primary science courses that will provide potential teachers with all the ‘knowledge’ that they will require to be an effective teacher of science. Science educators, can however, provide effective frameworks from which pre-service students can identify and develop their existing knowledge. If teachers of science have their knowledge of science set within a personal view of science the potential exists for their school science programs to be more comprehensive, dynamic, relevant and contemporary. One perspective that could provide this framework is that offered by ‘Science, Technology and Society’ (S-T-S).     

Scientists’ Ontological and Epistemological Views about Science from the Perspective of Critical Realism

Including the perspectives of scientists about the nature and process of science is important for an authentic and nuanced portrayal of science in science education. The small number of studies that have explored scientists’ worldviews about science has thus far generated contradictory findings, with recent studies claiming that scientists simultaneously hold contradictory sophisticated and naïve views. This article reports on an exploratory study that uses the framework of Bhaskar’s critical realism to elicit and separately analyse academic scientists’ ontological and epistemological views about science in semi-structured interviews. When the views of scientists are analysed through the lens of critical realism, it is clear that it is possible to hold a realist ontological commitment about what knowledge is of, simultaneously with a fallibilist epistemological commitment about knowledge itself. The apparent incongruence of scientists’ so-called naïve and sophisticated views about science is resolved when analysed using a critical realist framework. Critical realism offers a simple and coherent framework for science educators that avoids many of the problems of positivism and social constructivism by finding a middle ground between them. The three pillars of critical realism: ontological realism, epistemological fallibilism and judgmental rationality help to make sense of how socially constructed scientific knowledge can be anchored in an independent reality.     

Broadband videoconferencing as a tool for learner-centred distance learning in higher education

This paper outlines the possibilities for using broadband videoconferencing within the larger context of changing the focus for teaching from the teacher to the learners. It also explores opportunities that might be created by this technology to facilitate learner‐centred engagement in learning and to provide new opportunities for collaboration and support for students studying by the distance mode. As part of the wider discussion, it presents a decision‐making framework for teachers to consider when integrating videoconferencing into their curriculum. The bandwidths possible from broadband Internet connection rather than the integrated services digital network transmission increase the richness of videoconferencing to a much closer approximation of natural communication, thus creating opportunities for more creative uses for the medium. The outcomes of trials undertaken at the University of New England during the last two years provide the basis for predicting the usefulness of the technology for learner‐centered interactions when the majority of students are learning from locations quite remote from the main campus.     

Technologizing Numeracy: Intergenerational Differences in Working Mathematically in New Times

Literacy educators have been actively theorising the demands of literacy in New Times yet mathematics educators have taken little of this debate up. If, as literacy educators suggest, literacy demands are different in these New Times, what are the implications for numeracy or mathematics educators? This paper explores perceptions of young and older people who are engaged in work practices. It was found that there were statistically significant differences in a number of areas. Numeracy was found to be an important variable in discerning differences between older and younger people, and that technology was also seen to differentiate the two cohorts. Within numeracy, older people were more like to see number as important, whereas younger people were more likely to identify statistics, applied areas of mathematics and the use of technology to support numeracy as being important. These finding shave implications for theorising and practice in mathematics education.     

Worked Examples Versus Non‐goal‐specific Problems: a test of schema development in geometry

A multiple baseline across subjects experimental design was used to compare the effects of a teaching programme designed to enhance schemata acquisition with that of worked examples, traditionally used to teach geometry to high school students. In the first treatment, students were guided to form their own personal, independent schema through the use of non‐goal‐specific questions, that is, questions that did not ask to find a single, specific unknown. The second treatment introduced students to solved examples of problems asking for specific values. Following exposure to one or other of the treatments, measures were obtained of students’ success in problem solving, the time taken and the processes used. Results show that students in both groups had gains in the number of problems solved following intervention, with those exposed to the non‐goal‐specific procedure showing greater rates of improvement and greater efficacy in their problem‐solving strategies. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for a schemata acquisition and problem‐solving hypothesis.     

Secondary Education and Research in New Zealand

Through the 1990s the secondary sector was a site of considerable change as the Government sought to ensure that the curriculum and associated assessment practices were designed to meet student needs and the long-term goals of New Zealand society. The new regime aimed to promote student achievement and in particular to attain more equitable educational outcomes for all New Zealand students. These were policy rather than practice driven initiatives that linked somewhat tenuously to research based evidence. This paper begins by giving an overview of the secondary sector in New Zealand and these educational reforms. The overview sets the context for the following section that describes links between educational research, policy and practice during this time. Key issues within the sector are highlighted and some of the ways research has been used to monitor changes and inform policy are identified. It is argued that much of the research over the past decade has been small scale and short term and while this has served the immediate policy agenda it has provided only fragmentary evidence to inform longer term goals such as improving student performance. The paper concludes by discussing some of the current initiatives that might contribute to improving the interface between research and policy/practice in secondary education. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.