WHEN IS A SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT PERCEIVED AS SUPPORTIVE BY BEGINNING MATHEMATICS TEACHERS? EFFECTS OF LEADERSHIP, TRUST, AUTONOMY AND APPRAISAL ON TEACHING QUALITY

This study examines the hypothesis that the more support beginning mathematics teachers perceive and the better they evaluate the management of their school, the higher their teaching quality is. Indicators of teaching quality were how the teachers, who were in their third year in the profession, regarded themselves able to cope with the challenges of mathematics instruction and generic tasks like classroom management and how satisfied they were with their job. Indicators of support were the level of appraisal and autonomy the teachers reported. School management indicators were the administrative leadership of the principal and the climate of trust as perceived by the teachers. Our results reveal that teacher support plays an important role in the quality of beginning mathematics teachers. All quality indicators improved significantly if beginning teachers reported more appraisal and autonomy. A climate of trust plays an important role for the extent of autonomy perceived. Administrative leadership was significantly related to the amount of appraisal the teachers reported. Our results provide important information on how to steer a school so that the quality of beginning mathematics teachers is maximized.     

ASSESSING STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF TEACHER KNOWLEDGE IN ASIA, EASTERN EUROPE, AND WESTERN COUNTRIES: DIFFERENTIAL ITEM FUNCTIONING IN TEDS-M

The “Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics” assessed the knowledge of primary and lower-secondary teachers at the end of their training. The large-scale assessment represented the common denominator of what constitutes mathematics content knowledge and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge in the 16 participating countries. The country means provided information on the overall teacher performance in these 2 areas. By detecting and explaining differential item functioning (DIF), this paper goes beyond the country means and investigates item-by-item strengths and weaknesses of future teachers. We hypothesized that due to differences in the cultural context, teachers from different countries responded differently to subgroups of test items with certain item characteristics. Content domains, cognitive demands (including item difficulty), and item format represented, in fact, such characteristics: They significantly explained variance in DIF. Country pairs showed similar patterns in the relationship of DIF to the item characteristics. Future teachers from Taiwan and Singapore were particularly strong on mathematics content and constructed-response items. Future teachers from Russia and Poland were particularly strong on items requiring non-standard mathematical operations. The USA and Norway did particularly well on mathematics pedagogical content and data items. Thus, conditional on the countries’ mean performance, the knowledge profiles of the future teachers matched the respective national debates. This result points to the influences of the cultural context on mathematics teacher knowledge.     

Not Read,but Nevertheless Solved? Three Experiments on PIRLS Multiple Choice Reading Comprehension Test Items

Multiple-choice (MC) reading comprehension test items comprise three components: text passage, questions about the text, and MC answers. The construct validity of this format has been repeatedly criticized. In three between-subjects experiments, fourth graders (N ₁ = 230, N ₂ = 340, N ₃ = 194) worked on three versions of MC items from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2001 reading comprehension test with relevant components successively deleted: “original version” (text, questions, MC-answers), “version without text” (questions, MC-answers), “version without text and without questions” (only MC-answers). Answering correctly the MC items became more difficult as the relevant information was eliminated. In the two narrative fictional texts presented, the students' performance of the version without text was not better than chance. Conversely in the informational (fictional) text, the students' performance of the version without text was better than chance. In the third condition, students' performance was never better than chance.     

A Comparison of Approaches for the Analysis of Interaction Effects Between Latent Variables Using Partial Least Squares Path Modeling

Although stratification in the workplace has received considerable attention in the literature on organizations, there is little systematic understanding about how individual and structural characteristics act to produce a stratified workplace. This study focuses on understanding the dynamics of workplace attainment by examining stratification within higher education administration. The purpose of the study is twofold—(a) to propose and test a model concerning how organizational and individual variables affect workplace attainment and (b) to demonstrate the application of structural equation modeling in estimating and testing this model. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical significance and practical implications.     

Assessments of Student–Teacher Relationships in Residential Treatment Center Schools

Students in residential treatment center (RTC) schools are likely to have histories of extreme or ongoing relational trauma (e.g., abuse and neglect by primary caregivers), have substantial interpersonal and relationship problems, and exhibit many high-risk behaviors. Accordingly, these students may have particular difficulty forming positive relationships with teachers, yet student–teacher relationship quality in RTC schools has not been empirically studied. This study examines links between RTC school students' assessments of their relationships with teachers and their perceptions of self and others. Participants were 113 students in 2 RTC schools from 5th to 12th grade. Results indicate that male and female RTC students' positive perceptions (of self and others) are linked to positive assessments of their relationships with teachers. However, for girls in RTC schools, negative perceptions of self are linked to less positive assessments of the teacher–student relationship. Implications are discussed.     

Knowledge Orientations of Prospective Early Childhood Teachers: A Study of Students' Scientific Versus Subjective Orientations in Teacher Education Courses in Germany

Recent changes in the system of early childhood teacher education in Germany raise the question of whether different academic levels of early childhood teacher education lead to different beliefs and orientations. In this study, prospective early childhood teachers' orientations to scientific knowledge and to research were explored. A questionnaire addressing orientations to the utility of research, educational and psychological theories versus orientations to intuitive theories and personal experience was completed by 712 prospective early childhood teachers. In a latent profile analysis, two types of orientation profiles could be identified: (a) an orientation towards subjective theories, lay theories, and subjective experience, and (b) an orientation towards scientific theories and research results. Results are discussed from the perspective of professionalization in early childhood teacher education.     

Tracing discursive processes of shared knowledge construction in a technology-enhanced higher education setting

This study focused on combining both the group- and individual-level analyses in studying a collaborative activity in technology-enhanced interactions in a higher education setting. The aim was to make visible, with empirical examples, the quality of the students' web-based discussions and trace the route for shared understanding. By quantifying various communicative functions, the analysis provided general knowledge on the quality and purpose of the discussion in the group and highlighted the different functional positions each student had within the group. However, only a detailed interpretative analysis of the relationships between specific thematic contents, communicative functions, and the collaborative features of the discussion, in the temporal frame, made it possible to trace and gain a deeper understanding of the true acts of collaboration. It also highlighted the individual participants' different participatory and discursive positions in the different phases of the task. Over the study, it became evident that any attempts to define a collaborative activity from either the group's or individual's perspective would only result in a partial interpretation of the collaborative enterprise.     

Three theses on teaching and learning in higher education

In our article, we explore the possibility of formulating theses about teaching as one way to use research as a basis for educational action. The theses are formulated from current educational research on teaching and learning in higher education. We also explore the potential for action and the consequences derived from the theses. With our theses, we criticise less complex ways of using research for educational purposes. Through theses we can suggest directions for action without prescribing certain methods or procedures and provide answers without reducing the teachers' possibilities for choice or diminishing their responsibility for their actions. Our exploration is an invitation to a collaborative exploration of theses on teaching and learning in order to broaden and deepen our shared basis for educational action.     

Reading Occupied Istanbul: Turkish Subject-Formation from Historical Trauma to Literary Trope

Abstract

The Allied occupation of Istanbul is a little-known historical event outside of Turkey and the Middle East. European powers occupied Istanbul between 1918 and 1923 to enforce the partition of the Ottoman Empire after WWI in the construction of the Modern Middle East. Almost 100 Turkish novels that address occupied Istanbul have appeared over the last ninety years, beginning even before Allied armies left Istanbul in 1923. Turkey's present Middle Eastern re-emergence and post-Kemalist reassessment of secular modernity has also led writers and intellectuals back to the occupation of Istanbul. To examine why Turkish authors return repeatedly to the trope of occupied Istanbul, this essay surveys the first canonised novels about occupied Istanbul written during the Kemalist monoparty period (1923–50): Shirt of Flame by the exiled feminist and nationalist Halide Edib (1884–1964), Sodom and Gomorrah by the Kemalist ideologue Yakup Kadri Karaosmano?lu (1889–1974) and Outside the Scene by Turkey's first experimental, modernist author Ahmet Hamdi Tanp?nar (1902–62). As bilingual Istanbul intellectuals, all three made occupied Istanbul a central drama in their fictions. However, each represented it differently as a formative event in the construction and critique of the nation-state and of modern Turkish subject-formation.