Clarifying pre-service teacher perceptions of mentor teachers’ developing use of mentoring skills

The aim of this study is to clarify how pre-service teachers perceive mentor teachers’ use of mentoring skills. Sixty stimulated-recall interviews were conducted, each in connection with a previously recorded mentoring dialogue. A quantitative analysis showed that six types of mentoring skills appeared to be perceived by pre-service teachers as offering emotional support and five others as offering task assistance. After mentor teachers were trained in mentoring skills, shifts in their frequencies of use of distinct skills, as observed by independent raters, corresponded to a considerable extent with shifts in frequencies of pre-service teacher perceptions of mentor teachers’ mentoring behaviour.     

Playing on the Field of Social and Technical Innovation: The Impact of the Sale of Lawn Tennis Sets in the Netherlands, 1874–1887

In 1874, after tennis had been played indoors for centuries, British officer Walter Wingfield introduced an open-air version of the game, which he called sphairistike or lawn tennis. He developed a lawn-tennis box that was easy to carry and that contained all the necessary equipment for playing. Wingfield's concept was innovative, not only technologically in both game and design, but also socially. He made it clear, for instance, that lawn tennis was also intended for ladies and he fabricated lighter rackets for women. Little is known, however, about the introduction of lawn tennis in the Netherlands. Our study reveals that the strong sales and marketing concept of Wingfield – and his competitors – also facilitated a quick diffusion of the game in the Netherlands. The first places where lawn tennis was played were estates owned by nobility, seaside resorts such as Domburg and Noordwijk, attracting well-to-do ‘Brits’ for recreational purposes, and – interestingly – also farms. Soon, the first ‘one box clubs’ arose as precursors of the formally established clubs. For most upper-class players, tennis was a leisure-time activity, yet the organization of the first national tennis tournament in 1887 shows that some already had lucrative business models in mind.     

Contributions of Academic Language,Perspective Taking,and Complex Reasoning to Deep Reading Comprehension

ABSTRACT

Deep reading comprehension refers to the process required to succeed at tasks defined by the Common Core State Literacy Standards, as well as to achieve proficiency on the more challenging reading tasks in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) framework. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that three skill domains not frequently attended to in instruction or in theories of reading comprehension—academic language, perspective taking, and complex reasoning—predict outcomes on an assessment of deep reading comprehension. The Global Integrated Scenario-based Assessment (GISA; O'Reilly, Weeks, Sabatini, Halderman, & Steinberg, 2014 O'Reilly T., Weeks, J., Sabatini, J., Halderman, L., & Steinberg, J. (2014). Designing reading comprehension assessments for reading interventions: How a theoretically motivated assessment can serve as an outcome measure. Educational Psychology Review, 26, 403–424. doi:10.1007/s10648-014-9269-z[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) is designed to reflect students' abilities to evaluate texts, integrate information from an array of texts, and use textual evidence to formulate a position, all features of deep reading comprehension. We tested the role of academic language, perspective taking, and complex reasoning in explaining variance in end-of-year GISA scores, controlling for beginning-of-year scores and student demographics. All three predictors explained small, but significant, amounts of additional variance. We suggest that these three skill domains deserve greater attention in theories of reading comprehension and in instruction.     

The Challenges and Tensions in Reconstructing Teacher - Parent Relations in the Context of School Reform: A case study

This paper reports on a comparison of two research approaches of the study of the reflective practice in two different modes of tele‐guidance of the school practicum. The results of two studies were contrasted encouraging the dialogue between researchers coming from different research paradigms. Although the researchers in the two studies shared some perspectives on educational practices and student teachers’ reflection, the studies resulted in two different reports on student teachers’ reflection. Ontological, epistemological and methodological beliefs in both studies are related to a rationalistic and a naturalistic paradigm informing the two research sites. Researchers’ voices in both studies have been interacting, changing and developing but the differences in beliefs between the two sites seem to have contributed to the different analyses and results.     

Teacher reflection: the development of a typology

In this article, a contribution is made to the discussion of reflection on the part of teachers. The discussion to date has shown that reflection must be broad and deep. However, just what constitutes broad and deep reflection and the relations between the two remain unclear. After consideration of the characteristics of broad and deep reflection, three domains of broad reflection are distinguished (i.e. the pragmatic, ethical and moral domains). Closed versus open approaches to deep reflection are also then distinguished which produces a typology of six reflection possibilities. Empirical support for this typology was gathered via interviews with 11 experienced secondary school teachers. The content of the interviews addressed actual difficult decision situations which the teachers had experienced, and application of the constant comparative method showed the teachers to indeed use the six reflection possibilities when they reflected upon the difficult decision situations. A clear preference for closed types of pragmatic and ethical reflection over open or moral reflection was shown. The conclusion is that the proposed typology can be used to map teacher reflection. The results further suggest that the breadth and depth of teacher reflection are in need of development and that the relations between teacher reflection and their professional behaviour should be examined in greater detail.     

Diversity in primary teacher education gender differences in student factors and curriculum perception

The teaching of Probability Theory constitutes a new trend in mathematics education internationally. The purpose of this research project was to explore the degree to which preschoolers understand key concepts of probabilistic thinking, such as sample space, the probability of an event and probability comparisons. At the same time, we evaluated an educational programme which aimed to introduce children to the basic principles of Probability Theory. The research sample consisted of 29 preschoolers (with an average age of 5 years and 4 months) from two classes of a Greek public kindergarten. The research was based on a semi-experimental, three-phase plan: the pretest, the teaching intervention and the post-test. The pretest explored the children’s conception of key probabilistic constructs and contributed to the planning of the teaching intervention. Through the post-test, we evaluated the contribution of the teaching intervention. The findings showed that pupils displayed a satisfactory level of comprehension of key probabilistic concepts and that, moreover, teaching this subject can improve their comprehension.     

Preparing university teachers in The Netherlands: Issues and trends

Abstract

During the last ten years universities in The Netherlands have become less dependent on national policies regarding salary structures, promotion criteria and reward systems. At the same time the government has put increased pressure on universities to take a serious look at the quality of education in general, and at the teaching qualities of the staff in particular. The effects of these policies on staff development at Dutch universities is described. The main focus is on recent initiatives by two universities, Utrecht and Maastricht, to improve the preparation of university teachers. For Utrecht a closer look is taken at the career system, in which the importance of teaching competence is upgraded; at the teacher training programme; and at the role of portfolios and assessment in the programme. The implications are discussed.     

Relations Between Teachers' Professional and Religious Orientations and Their Behavior During Morally Critical Incidents

The focus of this study is on how teachers' professional and religious orientations relate to their reaction intentions when confronted with morally critical incidents. The context of the study is the increasing importance of the moral task of teachers which is complex in current secularized and individualized Western society. The main assumption is that both professional and religious orientations constitute a possible source for understanding differences in teachers' behavior during such incidents. The results suggest that both orientations indeed play a role. This result is notable with regard to the religious orientations because of the absence of this variable in current research.     

Multidimensional performance characteristics and standard of performance in talented youth field hockey players: A longitudinal study

Abstract

To identify performance characteristics that could help predict future elite field hockey players, we measured the anthropometric, physiological, technical, tactical, and psychological characteristics of 30 elite and 35 sub-elite youth players at the end of three consecutive seasons. The mean age of the players at the end of the first season was 14.2 years (s = 1.1). Repeated-measures analyses of covariance, with standard of performance and measurement occasion as factors and age as a covariate, showed that the elite players fared better than the sub-elite players on technical and tactical variables. Female elite youth players also scored better on interval endurance capacity, motivation, and confidence. Future elite players appear to have excellent tactical skills by the age of 14. They also have good specific technical skills and develop these together with interval endurance capacity better than sub-elite youth players in the subsequent 2 years. To verify our conclusions, we will be tracking these players into adulthood.     

Static versus dynamic kinematics in cyclists: A comparison of goniometer,inclinometer and 3D motion capture

Kinematic measurements conducted during bike set-ups utilise either static or dynamic measures. There is currently limited data on reliability of static and dynamic measures nor consensus on which is the optimal method. The aim of the study was to assess the difference between static and dynamic measures of the ankle, knee, hip, shoulder and elbow. Nineteen subjects performed three separate trials for a 10-min duration at a fixed workload (70% of peak power output). Static measures were taken with a standard goniometer (GM), an inclinometer (IM) and dynamic three-dimensional motion capture (3DMC) using an eight camera motion capture system. Static and dynamic joint angles were compared over the three trials to assess repeatability of the measurements and differences between static and dynamic values. There was a positive correlation between GM and IM measures for all joints. Only the knee, shoulder and elbow were positively correlated between GM and 3DMC, and IM and 3DMC. Although all three instruments were reliable, 3D motion analysis utilised different landmarks for most joints and produced different means. Changes in knee flexion angle from static to dynamic are attributable to changes in the positioning of the foot. Controlling for this factor, the differences are negated. It was demonstrated that 3DMC is not interchangeable with GM and IM, and it is recommended that 3DMC develop independent reference values for bicycle configuration.