School Environmental Education Programme Impacts upon Student and Family Learning: A case study analysis

This article uses a case study approach to explore the impact of two school environmental education programmes, from the perspective of participating students, their teachers and their parents. A total of 152 students (79 from primary schools and 73 from a secondary school), 3 teachers and 62 parents contributed their perceptions regarding the impact of the programmes. Each programme is described in detail and students' responses compared across the two programmes and across different class groups participating in each programme. It is concluded that both programmes were successful in engaging students in thinking and learning about environmental issues, although some programme features were more likely than others to lead to impacts beyond the bounds of the classroom. Recommendations are made regarding those features that need to be included in school environmental education programmes in order to maximise student and family learning outcomes.     

Reflections of parents and students with severe learning difficulties on their special schooling and the transition to post-school provision

The majority of school-leavers over two years from two special schools were individually interviewed (n=34), as were their parents (n=37). Both groups expressed broad satisfaction with the schooling. The parents were split on the merits of mainstream education. Those in favour tended to stress the social benefits whereas those against felt that only special schools could meet their child's particular needs.     

Educational software usability: Artifact or Design?

Online educational technologies and e‐learning tools are providing new opportunities for students to learn worldwide, and they continue to play an important role in anatomical sciences education. Yet, as we shift to teaching online, particularly within the anatomical sciences, it has become apparent that e‐learning tool success is based on more than just user satisfaction and preliminary learning outcomes—rather it is a multidimensional construct that should be addressed from an integrated perspective. The efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction with which a user can navigate an e‐learning tool is known as usability, and represents a construct which we propose can be used to quantitatively evaluate e‐learning tool success. To assess the usability of an e‐learning tool, usability testing should be employed during the design and development phases (i.e., prior to its release to users) as well as during its delivery (i.e., following its release to users). However, both the commercial educational software industry and individual academic developers in the anatomical sciences have overlooked the added value of additional usability testing. Reducing learner frustration and anxiety during e‐learning tool use is essential in ensuring e‐learning tool success, and will require a commitment on the part of the developers to engage in usability testing during all stages of an e‐learning tool's life cycle. Anat Sci Educ 10: 190–199. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists.     

Paper–based versus computer–based assessment: key factors associated with the test mode effect

This investigation seeks to confirm several key factors in computer–based versus paper–based assessment. Based on earlier research, the factors considered here include content familiarity, computer familiarity, competitiveness, and gender. Following classroom instruction, freshman business undergraduates (N = 105) were randomly assigned to either a computer–based or identical paper–based test. ANOVA of test data showed that the computer–based test group outperformed the paper–based test group. Gender, competitiveness, and computer familiarity were NOT related to this performance difference, though content familiarity was. Higher–attaining students benefited most from computer–based assessment relative to higher–attaining students under paper–based testing. With the current increase in computer–based assessment, instructors and institutions must be aware of and plan for possible test mode effects.     

Teacher Education,Evacuation and Community in War-Time Britain: The Women of Avery Hill at Huddersfield 1941–46

The evacuation of civilians during Second World War Britain included the relocation not only of school children and teachers but of whole schools and, in some instances, of teacher training colleges. This paper examines the evacuation of Avery Hill College, a leading teacher training college, from London to Huddersfield between 1941 and 1946. Focusing on issues of gender and community, it provides an account of the circumstances of the move, institutional relations and resources, the social milieu of war-time Huddersfield, the challenges arising from evacuation, the responses of staff and trainees, and the broader institutional and teacher education policy transitions that ensued.     

An Untimely Intuition: Adding a Bergsonian Dimension to Experience and Education

This essay explores Henri Bergson's intuition as a philosophical and methodological concept, specifically considering how it might be useful in thinking about education. The main argument is that the repetition-succession model of time — or time as measure — that became established in modernity, and to which we are habituated, edits out of consciousness an organic, qualitative, nonhomogeneous aspect of time that is more true to our being-in-the world, resulting in an unfortunate thinning of our lives. An understanding of this different dimension of time, called duration here, awakens the intuition, making us less dependent on mechanical time, which is finitude, and more open to the nonmeasurable, qualitative aspects of phenomena. Pedagogically, this essay offers a praxis that aims toward a liberatory awakening to the conditions of our experience.     

Non-price factors in the export competitiveness of agricultural engineering products

Recent studies fo international trade in engineering goods have highlighted non-price factors as the major determinants of export competitiveness in this area. This paper uses both patent data and import-export unit value statistics to show that technical change in product performance is the main factor determining export competitiveness in the European agricultural engineering industry (excluding tractors). It shows that the erosion of the U.K. industry's share in OECD trade, and the rapidly increasing import penetration of the U.K. market, are largely the result of a failure on the part of U.K. firms to update sufficiently the quality, reliability and performance of agricultural engineering products. The statistical data are supported by the opinions of U.K. farmers who bought U.K. built machinery largely because of its relative cheapness and the convenience of local suppliers, and foreign machinery primarily for reasons relating to quality and performance, where price figured hardly at all.Comparisons between the U.K. and West German industries showed that U.K. firms operate at the bottom end of the market while West German firms specialise in machinery with a higher technical content and superior performance characteristics. The evidence suggests that in areas where continuous technical change in product performance is a major factor in international competitiveness, product cycle theory does not apply. Rather, patterns of trade approximate more to the technology gap model.     

PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS�� INITIAL CONCEPTIONS ABOUT PUPILS�� DIFFICULTIES IN SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS: A POTENTIAL RESOURCE IN TEACHER EDUCATION

A crucial issue for prospective teachers (PTs) in their education is to develop pedagogical content knowledge (PCK; i.e. how to make a topic comprehensible to pupils). However, research has shown that PTs may have tacit ideas about teaching that act as filters preventing consideration of unfamiliar and discrepant ideas. These ideas must be elicited and taken into consideration in order to be modified. Therefore, PTs’ explicit conceptions may constitute a valuable resource in teacher education. The aim of this study was to investigate PTs’ ideas about pupils’ difficulties, at a topic-specific level, upon beginning the teacher education programme. The “Lesson Preparation Method” was used in four case studies to elicit the conceptions of 32 PTs regarding pupils’ difficulties in four specific science and mathematics topics: plant growth, gases, equations and heat and temperature. In all four topic groups (n = 5 – 11), there was a variety of initial conceptions about pupils’ difficulties, which were categorised into two to five topic-specific categories. Although, initially, PTs may not have expressed any notions about pupils’ difficulties, conceptions were elicited by using the Lesson Preparation Method. Furthermore, we found that the initial ideas corresponded with earlier research on pupils’ difficulties, which could provide a potential resource when creating a scaffolding context in teacher education programmes where PCK development is stimulated.     

The Educated Habitus, Progress at School, and Real Knowledge

The New Zealand Progress at School study has demonstrated that certain personal dispositions, elements of the habitus, are associated with relative educational progress at school. The most important of these prove to be aspiration, academic self-concept, and perception of schooling. It is suggested, however, that these characteristics of the successful student are elements of the stratified self, unified by an overarching concept of education. Interview material with senior secondary school students is used to show how the desire to be educated within a specific concept of education is essential to their success. It is argued, with close reference to Bourdieu, that the concepts of education and the educated person need to be founded on the educational necessary as real knowledge.