Determinants of organisational climate for academia

Being aware of the factors that develop a positive organisational climate is especially important in universities, where the academic members of staff are, in large measure, self-motivated. To identify the determinants of organisational climate for university academia, the validity and reliability of the first-order constructs of autonomy, cohesion and pressure were examined. These three constructs were found to have inadequate validity in this environment. The remaining five valid constructs indicated a second-order organisational climate construct organisational climate was influenced by support, followed by trust and fairness, and then by recognition and innovation. The findings of our study will assist university managers to identify areas to focus upon when developing their academic staff in the pursuit of improving the organisational climate.     

Six principles of undergraduate learning: The not‐so‐easy road to writing and committing to them

Indiana University—Purdue University Indianapolis has joined campuses across the nation in identifying and assessing student learning outcomes. With its twenty schools, diverse populations, and multiple goals, how this urban institution managed to organize much of its work around six learning principles is a tale of both caution and triumph.     

Exploring the Construct of Pedagogical Discontentment: A Tool to Understand Science Teachers’ Openness to Reform

It is well established that many teachers are resistant to take up the messages of reform if these messages require them to substantially shift their teaching practices. What accounts for this resistance? One well established explanation is that teachers lacks the self-efficacy required to attempt something new in their teaching—they simply do not feel capable of effectively enacting the messages. However, there are a host of studies describing teachers with high self—efficacy who remain resistant to messages of change. The purpose of this article is to address the gap in the application of self-efficacy to understand the change or lack of change of science teachers’ practice through the introduction of a related construct, pedagogical discontentment. This construct reflects a state of cognitive conflict that exists when an individual recognizes a mismatch between her/his science teaching pedagogical goals and classroom practices. One potential result of this mismatch is that a teacher problematizes her teaching practices, prompting an increased receptivity to reform messages. Building on existing literature, we present vignettes of four hypothetical teachers who exemplify variations of pedagogical discontentment. When combined with self-efficacy, pedagogical discontentment provides a useful lens to understand teachers’ consideration and adoption of messages of reform.     

Museums: Impact and value

The role of museums and their place within society is no longer one which we can take for granted. Eschewing the notion of funding based on ‘public good’, successive iterations of public sector reform have progressively required museums to prove that they are worthy of public support. Notions of ‘worth’ have increasingly been tied to the achievement of government policy and enforced through making attainment of key policy directions a condition of funding agreements. Current government policy aimed at ‘building social capital’ in both the Britain and Australia expects museums to prove that they ‘make a difference’ in terms of long-term social impact. However, unease over the imbalance created by what many perceive to be an overly ‘instrumental’ approach to assessing the role of museums has generated growing criticism and a parallel conversation about ‘intrinsic value’. Impact and value—the twin peaks of current discourse about the role of museums in contemporary society—are the subject of a recent study carried out in Australia, which is described here.     

Teachers' Mini-Case Studies of Children's Mathematics

This article reports findings from a five-day summer institute conducted with 27 practicing primary-grade teachers. The institute was part of a year-long professional development project that supported teachers' thinking about children's arithmetical understanding. From Quicktime movies that contained excerpts of six children's interviews, pairs of teachers developed mini-cases about the children's arithmetical understanding. At the end of the institute, the teachers presented their mini-case studies to the group. Teachers developed two types of hypotheses: hypotheses about children's thinking and hypotheses about what it means for children to know and do mathematics. After providing examples to clarify the two types of hypotheses, we address the challenges we faced in developing multimedia inquiry-based environments that facilitated teachers' thinking about children's arithmetical thinking. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

“妈妈，我想和我的男友一起生活”

改革开放后．不知从哪一年起．国外一些青年“婚前同居”，或称“试婚”的事渐渐流传开亲。消息传米．有人愕然，有人叫绝。有人茫然不解．有人跃跃欲试。市文作者是一位母亲。她的女儿就是“婚前同居”的受害者，善良的母亲以其博爱情怀，以其一腔热血．向世人痛述“婚前同居”的七大害处．字字滴血。声声流泪。     

Exploring the Purposes of Qualitative Data Coding in Educational Enquiry: Insights from recent research

A number of questions are raised concerning the purposes of data coding in qualitative research. It is suggested that in some cases these purposes may usefully be organised into two broad categories, each of which requires a separate coding response. A research project is briefly described in which it was found useful to employ two distinct, though connected, phases of data coding along the lines proposed.     

An Argument in Search of Evidence: A Response to Camara et al. (2019)

This article offers a critique of the validity argument put forward by Camara, Mattern, Croft, and Vispoel (2019) regarding the use of college‐admissions tests in high school assessment systems. We challenge their argument in two main ways. First, we illustrate why their argument fails to address broader issues related to consequences of using admissions tests as an achievement indicator in high school accountability systems. Second, we find the evidence put forth by Camara et al. argument incomplete and/or overstated, even if evaluated against a more limited set of claims. We offer several additional comments regarding the construction of their validity argument, the lack of transparency for evaluating many of the claims, and the potential unintended negative consequences associated with the use of the ACT or SAT as the primary achievement indicator in a state accountability system.