Noun or verb? Adult readers’ sensitivity to spelling cues to grammatical category in word endings

The spelling of many disyllabic English word endings holds cues to their grammatical category, beyond obvious inflectional endings such as -ing for verbs. For example, some letter sequences are clearly associated with nouns (e.g., -oon) and others with verbs (e.g., -erge). This study extended recent research by Arciuli and Cupples (2006), and confirmed that skilled adult readers are sensitive to these orthographic cues. It was found that adults were more likely to treat pseudowords as nouns when they had noun-like endings than verb-like or control endings, and more likely to treat pseudowords as verbs when they had verb-like than noun-like endings. This sensitivity held across three tasks (sentence construction, sentence judgement, and pseudoword judgement), which required increasingly explicit awareness of the way that cues could allow grammatical categorisation. In some tasks sensitivity to verb-like endings was related to reading ability, although not to spelling ability or grammatical awareness. Implications for our understanding of language processing are discussed.     

‘Sitting on embers’: a phenomenological exploration of the embodied experiences of inclusion of newly arrived students in Sweden

What can we learn from and with the body in order to understand more about the (lived) experiences of newly arrived students in schools? This question has hitherto been given little attention in relation to the field of migration and education. Using the perspective of Ahmed's critical feminist phenomenology, this article aims to explore the embodied experiences of the different contexts that newly arrived students encounter in a rural monolingual school in Sweden. The empirical data are based on participant observation conducted in introductory and mainstream classrooms, as well as interviews undertaken with newly arrived students during a year of fieldwork. The findings of our study show how close attention to newly arrived students' embodied experiences can help to dispel prevailing myths surrounding inclusion, bringing to light thereby how the current lived conditions of inclusion in fact carry with them lines of exclusion.     

Capturing student teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) using CoRes and digital technology

During the last decades, digital technologies have become more common in providing opportunities for reflection and in-depth analysis of classroom practices and have afforded new ways of organising teacher education. In particular, videotaped lessons have proven to be a valuable tool for capturing teaching episodes, subsequent reflection and development of student teachers’ professional knowledge, here referred to as ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ (PCK). The aim of this project was to investigate how the use of the reflective tool, content representations (CoRes) in combination with video and associated digital tools might be used as a means for capturing student teachers’ professional knowledge of practice. In the study we explore how a group of 24 secondary science student teachers were provided with Content Representations (CoRe) and video annotations to support their reflection-on-action during their practicum. Video annotations, alongside a written reflection of critical incidents in the student teachers’ teaching constituted data for analysis. Our findings suggest that the different tools enabled the student teachers to connect captured examples of teaching instances with theoretical issues, and in this way offered the ability to see as well as to analyse their teaching practice. As such, the CoRe, together with the video annotation tool, proved to be successful in scaffolding and structuring student teachers’ reflection-on-action, allowing them to connect their reflections to components of PCK and further to articulate connections between these components.     

Journals based on applications: An attempt to improve students' learning about composite materials

In a course on composite materials for fourth-year students at Chalmers University of Technology, students are required to write journals as a complement to the more traditional teaching approach. The journals comprise a series of reports relating the theory currently being treated to an application object, and are sent to the teacher by e-mail for comments. These give the students the opportunity to make use of the theoretical knowledge they meet in each section of the course by reflecting on how it is applicable to a real application. The goal is for better, more integrated understanding, in that, on the one hand, the students should understand the importance of each part of the course and, on the other hand, they should be able to relate the parts to one another, and to practical application. In this paper, we describe the goals and strategies of the change to teaching, we analyse the ways that students approach the journal writing task and we discuss ways in which the journals can improve the quality of student learning.     

What church examination records can tell us about the inheritance of reading disability

Long before the establishment of a general school system in Sweden (1842), a vast majority of the adult population had reached some reasonable level of reading literacy. The level of reading skill among the members of a household was assessed by the parish priest at annual catechetical examinations, and the results of these examinations were recorded in church registers. Eventually (in the 18th century) a 5-point grading scale was developed. In the present investigation, these unique records were used to study the transmission of low reading marks over successive generations in 17 families. For comparison, a set of 17 family trees originating from good readers was traced. The average scores of the descendants of poor readers were significantly lower than corresponding scores for descendants of good readers. However, the transmission patterns in the family trees of poor readers did not indicate any simple genetic mechanism. In another study, two dyslexic cases living today were traced backward to ancestors born around 1750. In one of the cases, a massive familial pattern of reading disability down to the eighth generation was observed, while most ancestors of the other case had average or above average reading skill as judged by the priests. The reasons for the absence of a simple hereditary pattern were critically discussed. This research was supported by a grant from the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Birgitta Esberg served as research assistant.     

How education policy is made meaningful – a narrative exploration of how teachers show autonomy in the development of teaching and learning

This study addresses how the autonomy of teachers in higher education, in relation to education policy and reform, can be understood. By taking a narrative-in-action approach, we studied health profession teachers’ activities and reasoning within their ongoing practice during one year. The findings show how the teachers created their own policies and in what way these policies became meaningful. As teachers in this study continuously made changes, the joint creation of policies contributed to their sense of togetherness and the re-building of a community of practice. In parallel, they increased the evidence-based standards related to their discipline and experienced a shift in perspective concerning teaching and learning. The importance of their jointly made policies can be explained by how they learned a student-learning view together, and built on their own ideas of what educational matters needed to be developed. At the same time, their activities and reasoning mirror ‘a debated but yet prevailing view’ on the discourse of quality and a number of ideals thereof such as transparency and standardisation, effective teaching and increased academisation.     

Reliability and validity of a new double poling ergometer for cross-country skiers

Thirty-eight competitive cross-country skiers were divided into three groups to assess the reliability and validity of a new double poling ergometer. Group A (n = 22) performed two maximal 60-s tests, Group B (n = 8) repeated peak oxygen uptake tests on the double poling ergometer, and Group C (n = 8) performed a maximal 6-min test on the double poling ergometer and a double poling time-trial on snow. The correlation between the power calculated at the flywheel and the power applied at the base of the poles was r = 0.99 (P < 0.05). The power at the poles was 50-70% higher than that at the flywheel. There was a high test-retest reliability in the two 60-s power output tests (coefficient of variation = 3.0%) and no significant difference in peak oxygen uptake in the two 6-min all-out tests (coefficient of variation = 2.4%). There was a strong correlation between the absolute (W) and relative power (W x kg(-1)) output in the 6-min double poling ergometer test and the double poling performance on snow (r = 0.86 and 0.89 respectively; both P < 0.05). In conclusion, our results show that the double poling ergometer has both high reliability and validity. However, the power calculated at the flywheel underestimated the total power produced and needs to be corrected for in ergonomic estimations.