Looking at debit and credit card fraud

This article, written jointly by a mathematician and a barrister, looks at some of the statistical issues raised by court cases based on fraud involving chip and PIN cards. It provides examples and insights that statistics teachers should find helpful.     

Progress of pupils attending resourced provision for specific learning difficulties

An analysis of the improvement in attainments of 109 students attending specialist-resourced provision for specific learning difficulties (SpLD) attached to mainstream secondary schools was conducted as they progressed through Key Stages 3 and 4. Steady progress was made in terms of reading accuracy, reading comprehension, spelling ability and rate of reading. The ratio gains for these skills varied from 0.68 to 0.91. Additionally, self-efficacy was monitored and also showed a slight improvement. This study therefore provides some suggestion of the progress that might reasonably be expected of pupils starting secondary school with significant literacy difficulties.     

Football Hooliganism Revisited: A Belated Reply to Patrick Murphy,Eric Dunning and Joseph Maguire

In the light of the republication of my original article on ‘Football hooliganism in England before 1914’ in the volume Sports History: Critical Concepts, edited by Wray Vamplew and published by Routledge in 2014, I offer here a belated reply to the counter-critique of my arguments given by Patrick Murphy, Eric Dunning and Joseph Maguire in their article in the International Journal of the History of Sport in 1998. I regard this debate as still relevant to the academic discussion of the history of association football, particularly the concern about the social and historical origins of football hooliganism within an English context, despite the topic being rather less fashionable than it once was. I believe that my original article, and this reply to Murphy, Dunning and Maguire, make a contribution to the ongoing debate within sports history over the relevance of using particular forms of sociological theory (in this case, Norbert Elias' concept of a ‘civilising process’ operating in European history from the middle ages) to explain historical phenomenon. This paradigm, it is argued, distorts the historical interpretation of sport by the use of such a priori sociological arguments.     

Assessing the Quality of Expertise Differences in the Comprehension of Medical Visualizations

Understanding how best to assess expertise, the situational variations of expertise, and distinctive qualities of expertise that arises from particular workplace experiences, presents an important challenge. Certainly, at this time, there is much interest in identifying standard occupational measures and competences, which are not well aligned with such variations and distinctiveness in performance. Therefore, this paper addresses the methodological issues posed by such a challenge through reviewing the expertise literature to identify ways forward. Based on the example of one target domain, medicine, and one criterion task, the comprehension of visualizations, the study identifies, elaborates, and evaluates assessments used to study qualitative changes in professional vision that occur as a result of extended periods of workplace learning experiences. It identifies the kinds of sample, materials, measures, and analysis methods used to assess the quality of expertise differences, as well as what elements of and differences in visual expertise are revealed in particular assessment processes. In doing this, the study seeks to illuminate how assessing the quality of expertise differences matured over the past 20 years, noting that strategies of scanning brain activity and tracking eye movements are now being used in ways that augment traditional approaches such as using verbal reports and observing representational practices. The findings demonstrate how the assessment of visual expertise has become more multidisciplinary over the past two decades. Implications for educational practice and future research directions on the development of professional vision are discussed.     

Histological knowledge as a predictor of medical students' performance in diagnostic pathology

Over the years, the role and extent of the basic sciences in medical curricula have been challenged by research on clinical expertise, clinical teachers, and medical students, as well as by the development and diversification of the medical curricula themselves. The aim of this study was to examine how prior knowledge of basic histology and histopathology among students predicts early learning of diagnostic pathology. Participants (N=118, representing 91% of the full student cohort) were medical students at the University of Turku, Finland. Data were collected during two preclinical courses that students attended in their first and second years of medical school. The measurements included tests on biomedical and clinical knowledge and a performance test in diagnostic pathology. Second‐year performance on the diagnostic pathology examinations was predicted by the students' prior knowledge of histology, but not by the students' prior knowledge of histopathology. Although earlier research has demonstrated similar results in studies with shorter longitudinal designs, the present study demonstrates that the effect remains even if there is a considerably long time delay (a year) between the measurements, thus confirming the long‐term value of basic science studies in the preclinical phase. Anat Sci Educ 6: 361–367. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.     

Education Reform and Reconstruction as a Challenge to Research Genres: Reconsidering School Effectiveness Research and Inclusive Schooling

This project investigates the impact of the dynamic approach to school improvement (DASI) aiming to help schools face and reduce bullying through integrating research on bullying with educational effectiveness research (EER). A network of approximately 15 schools in each participating country (i.e., Belgium, Cyprus, England, Greece, and The Netherlands) received support to use DASI in order to improve the functioning of school factors included in the dynamic model of educational effectiveness which are associated with reduction of bullying. The Revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire was administered to students of the experimental (n = 1461) and control (n = 1535) group at the beginning and at the end of the intervention. With the use of multilevel modelling techniques, it was found that schools which made use of DASI were able to reduce bullying at a significantly higher level than the schools of the control group. Implications for the development of effective policies and practices in reducing bullying are drawn.     

Conceptions of geological time among primary teacher trainees,with reference to their engagement with geoscience,history, and science

People's grasp of geological time is under-researched, despite attention being devoted to the philosophy of time. Research carried out with 179 pre-service primary teachers suggests they perceive events in Earth's geological past as falling into three distinct clusters: extremely ancient, less ancient and geologically recent. Respondents' grasp of relative time is more secure than their grasp of absolute time and instruments which address absolute time generate less conclusive evidence than do those requiring simple sequencing. Trainee teachers vary in their geoscience interests and classroom experiences and are more comfortable and imaginative with their teaching of history than with their geology, despite the parallels. In order to render more secure people's learning of geoscience concepts and processes, a deep time framework is needed for each learner, individualized to accommodate learner characteristics and local geoscience features.     

Discussion of Socio‐scientific Issues: The role of science knowledge

This paper considers the relationship between science knowledge and the ability to engage in reasoned discussion of the social consequences of science. Through a study of over 200 school students aged 14–16 we show that the ability to engage in reasoned discussion of applications of gene technology is strongly influenced by the ability to recognize key issues, and that ability to recognize key issues requires some understanding of the relevant science. It is also influenced by the specificity of the context under discussion and personal experience. The requisite scientific knowledge base is relatively modest and can be effectively taught through brief teaching interventions that are well designed and contextualized. The implications for classroom practice are considered