Health and wellbeing: a policy context for physical education in Scotland

The ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ (CfE) guidelines and associated learning experiences and outcomes have been developed following a national debate on the purposes of education in Scotland. The recent development shifts physical education's (PE) role in Scottish education, changing from contributing to the ‘Expressive Arts’ area of the curriculum, to one central to the newly created curriculum area of ‘Health and wellbeing’ in the CfE. This paper provides an analysis of the broader policy context at national and global levels examining the policy developments for PE in Scotland situating them within a globalised discourse emphasising concerns about ill-health and obesity within society. Drawing on the work of Bowe et al., the paper examines the context of production and the context of influence that has contributed to the recent development of ‘Health and wellbeing’ within the CfE. It is argued that the role for PE and the focus on schools promoting daily physical activity within the CfE masks the complexity of addressing the issues of health and well-being. In conclusion it is highlighted that in the interpretation and implementation of policy there will be further issues for PE and as yet unknown consequences for the context of practice and pupils' experiences of PE in Scotland.     

The long‐day childcare context: implications for toddlers' pretend play

Forty‐eight toddlers aged 17 to 31 months attending long‐day childcare participated in this project, which examined some of the influences of the day‐care context on their emerging pretend play. Ninety minutes of video‐taped observations were collected for each participant as they engaged in free play with their same‐age peers and their pre‐school‐aged peers. The play environment was assessed on a number of dimensions, including the provision of play materials, the quality of care and staff attitudes toward play. Additionally, the participants' weekly attendance pattern was taken into consideration. The complexity of pretend play was coded in accordance with Westby's Symbolic Play Scale (1991 Westby C A scale for assessing children's pretend play 1991 in: C. E. Shaefer, K. Gitlin & A. Sandgrund (Eds) Play diagnosis and assessment New York Wiley 131 161  [Google Scholar]). Two components of the long‐day childcare context—play with pre‐school‐aged peers and the unsatisfactory provision of play materials—were found to be significantly influential on the participants' complexity of pretend play. An attendance of four or more days in childcare was also found to be favourable. A number of implications for educational programming in the day‐care context arise from these results.     

Being taught to learn together: an ethnographic study of the curriculum in two Chinese kindergartens

This paper reports the findings of a pilot study which adopted an ethnographic approach to investigate the cultural features of the Chinese kindergarten curriculum by means of ‘semi‐participant’ observations, semi‐structured interviews, daily conversations and open‐ended questionnaires in two Chinese kindergartens. The paper first introduces the debate over teaching and learning in the early years in Western contexts. It then demonstrates that the curriculum in Chinese kindergartens is mainly implemented by means of teachers' formal collective teaching. Children seem to be taught to learn; their spontaneous learning interests are welcomed but seldom developed in depth. The preference among teachers for this formal collective teaching, coupled with their perception that this teaching is required in their particular situations, creates a tension between teaching and children's learning. The shift in parents' views of education, from an over‐emphasis on children's knowledge‐based study to support for children's harmonious overall development, also contributes to this tension.     

Practising what we preach: towards a student-centred definition of feedback

Students appear to have an almost insatiable appetite for receiving feedback and the scholarly literature has acknowledged its central importance for learning. And yet there is no widely accepted definition of feedback, most definitions reflecting the perspective of the teacher rather than student. When staff at the University of New South Wales who had put a lot of time into providing feedback nevertheless failed to score highly on the course satisfaction survey question on feedback, staff conjectured that their students might not recognize what they are providing as constituting feedback. A study was undertaken to find out just how students would define feedback. This article provides the background to the study, describes its design and presents the definition of feedback as conceptualised by the students, and then considers its significance.     

Perceptions of two television cartoons: Powerpuff girls and Johnny Bravo

“Powerpuff Girls” (PPG) and “Johnny Bravo” (JB) are two recent additions to cartoon programming on the Cartoon Network. In Study 1 over three‐fourths of 187 elementary school children indicated that they had watched JB and PPG. These children perceived PPG to be significantly more aggressive than JB. In Study 2 two trained, independent raters scored JB, compared to PPG, as more likely to make appearance‐enhancing actions and more likely to use come‐ons while the PPG were more aggressive and more likely to giggle/laugh. Johnny was more likely to be the recipient of aggressive behaviors, rather than be aggressive himself.     

The spiral of silence: examining how cultural predispositions,news attention,and opinion congruency relate to opinion expression

This study examines new explanatory predictors behind the spiral of silence theory, using the issue of legalization of same-sex marriage in Singapore as the context of study. Our results show that fear of isolation and saving face were negatively associated with individuals' willingness to express their opinion on the issue, whereas news attention and issue salience were positively associated. Also, fear of isolation was negatively associated with individuals' willingness to offer a rationale for their opinion, whereas news attention and issue salience were positively associated. Power distance had no effects on outspokenness. Notably, news attention moderated the influence of fear of isolation and saving face on public outspokenness.     

Influence of measurement errors on HIV risk behavior analysis: A case study examining condom use among drug users

Multiple indicators of HIV risk behaviors are not yet well developed in the field of drug abuse and AIDS prevention, with most research relying on single‐item measures. Weak or inconclusive statistical analyses often result from measurement errors. This study illustrates the problems of biased statistical estimates when single‐item measures with measurement errors are used. Using HIV risk behaviors among injection drug users as an example, this study shows the impact of measurement error on statistical results in path analysis. The results suggest that more attention is needed to address the issue of measurement reliability in survey data. Measurement error should be taken into account in analyzing HIV risk behaviors, and appropriate multiple indicators for a full range of HIV risk behaviors should be developed to deal successfully with the “errors‐in‐variables” problem.     

Learning Computer Science and Engineering in Context

The growing tendency away from transmissive pedagogy to a broadly constructivist pedagogy in higher education is characterised as a cultural change which lacks a strong theoretical foundation within the culture. In this paper, learning is considered from a phenomenographic perspective, which teachers can ground in their own experience of teaching and work with to gain insights into their students' experience of learning. Thereby the theoretical foundation of the culture can successively be strengthened. The message is illustrated with the results of empirical research into students' experience of learning in groups in a project-focused induction course to a computer science and engineering programme.     

Attitudes towards science: A review of the literature and its implications

This article offers a review of the major literature about attitudes to science and its implications over the past 20 years. It argues that the continuing decline in numbers choosing to study science at the point of choice requires a research focus on students' attitudes to science if the nature of the problem is to be understood and remediated. Starting from a consideration of what is meant by attitudes to science, it considers the problems inherent to their measurement, what is known about students' attitudes towards science and the many factors of influence such as gender, teachers, curricula, cultural and other variables. The literature itself points to the crucial importance of gender and the quality of teaching. Given the importance of the latter we argue that there is a greater need for research to identify those aspects of science teaching that make school science engaging for pupils. In particular, a growing body of research on motivation offers important pointers to the kind of classroom environment and activities that might raise pupils' interest in studying school science and a focus for future research.