Inequalities and Agencies in Workplace Learning Experiences: International Student Perspectives

National systems of vocational education and training around the globe are facing reform driven by quality, international mobility, and equity. Evidence suggests that there are qualitatively distinctive challenges in providing and sustaining workplace learning experiences to international students. However, despite growing conceptual and empirical work, there is little evidence of the experiences of these students undertaking workplace learning opportunities as part of vocational education courses. This paper draws on a four-year study funded by the Australian Research Council that involved 105 in depth interviews with international students undertaking work integrated learning placements as part of vocational education courses in Australia. The results indicate that international students can experience different forms of discrimination and deskilling, and that these were legitimised by students in relation to their understanding of themselves as being an ‘international student’ (with fewer rights). However, the results also demonstrated the ways in which international students exercised their agency towards navigating or even disrupting these circumstances, which often included developing their social and cultural capital. This study, therefore, calls for more proactively inclusive induction and support practices that promote reciprocal understandings and navigational capacities for all involved in the provision of work integrated learning. This, it is argued, would not only expand and enrich the learning opportunities for international students, their tutors, employers, and employees involved in the provision of workplace learning opportunities, but it could also be a catalyst to promote greater mutual appreciation of diversity in the workplace.     

Prolog programming techniques

In this paper we introduce the concept of a Prolog programming technique. This concept is then distinguished both from that of an algorithm and that of a programming cliché. We give examples and show how a knowledge of them can be useful in both programming environments and in teaching programming skills. The extraction of the various techniques is outlined. Finally, we discuss the problem of representing techniques where we conclude that the most promising approach is the development of a suitable meta-language.     

Entering Initial Teacher Education: science graduates’ views of the interview and selection process

This paper describes ongoing research that builds on earlier studies by the authors that have investigated issues concerning the selection of science graduates to secondary PGCE courses. These studies identified the need for criteria that are understood by tutors and applicants to ensure that candidates from ethnic minority groups are not disadvantaged. The research focuses on the perceptions that science graduates have about the selection process for secondary teacher education courses and seeks to identify whether the procedures used disadvantage any particular groups or individuals. We are interested also in whether there is a mismatch between tutors’ perceptions of the interview process and those of the applicants. During 1995/96 current students and applicants for one year PGCE courses in science were asked how they had prepared for their interviews and for their impressions of the interviewing process. The paper describes initial findings and the implication of these findings.     

The Frontier of Web-based Instruction

In spite of advances in course design software and experience with online offerings, the question of how web-based education affects teaching and learning remains largely unanswered, and the terrain of online learning remains largely unmapped. In this paper, through the stories of 10 faculties of education and one computer science instructor in Ontario, we map out a small piece of the frontier of web-based course delivery and plot a course for future exploration. We argue that most existing offerings take the form of a Lone Ranger or Greenhorn approach but that there is a need to move toward a strategic institutional Wagon Train approach that consolidates and integrates support for online teaching and learning. We argue, as well, that failures in online instruction cannot simply be attributed to improper instruction or inappropriate course design. Rather, at least part of the problem locates in the ways in which conversation is structured in the online environment.     

Children's Responses to Contrasting `Realistic' Mathematics Problems: Just how realistic are children ready to be?

In recent years there has been an increasing emphasis within the world of mathematics education on realistic problem solving. At the same time research has shown that children typically remain apparently unwilling or unable to introduce realistic considerations when solving supposedly realistic word problems, though research has also shown that children's behaviour in this domain does vary as a function of the nature of the item, its context and the child's social background. This paper analyses 11–12 year-old English children's responses to two realistic problems. The first is taken from English national tests; the second is a revised version of this item which has been rewritten to encourage a more realistic pattern of responses. Through a comparison of responses to the two items it is suggested that, given suitable realistic problems, many children may be more willing and able to introduce realistic responses in a testing context than earlier research might lead us to expect.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Effects of signaled reward in instrumental conditioning: Enhanced learning on DRL and DRH schedules of reinforcement

The effects of signaled reward were examined using DRL and DRH schedules of reinforcement. In each case, one group of rats received a brief cue between the reinforced response and the reward, and a second group received brief cues at random times. With the DRL schedule (Experiment 1), signaled reward decreased response rate, increased response efficiency (number of responses per reinforcer), and increased resistence to satiation relative to the control group. With the DRH schedule (Experiment 2), signaled reward increased response rate, efficiency, and resistance to satiation. These results refute an overshadowing explanation of the effects of signaled reward and suggest that food-correlated cues enhance learning of the reinforcement contingencies.     

The stimulus-response overshadowing phenomenon with VI versus FI schedules of reinforcement

Previous research has shown that response rates on a variable interval (VI) schedule of reinforcement decrease if a brief response-produced signal is given prior to reward. One explanation is that the signal overshadows the response because it is a better predictor of reinforcement. The S-R overshadowing effect does not occur with variable ratio (VR) schedules, however. Tarpy, Lea, and Midgley (1983) explained this fact by suggesting that the signal functions to enhance the salience of the temporal interval offset on the VI schedule (a characteristic not possessed by VR schedules), which then overshadows the response. In this experiment, the salience of the temporal interval was enhanced in another way: signaled or unsignaled reward was provided to rats responding on either a VI or fixed interval (FI) reward schedule. As predicted, rates were lowest for animals receiving signaled reinforcement on an FI schedule and highest for those receiving unsignaled reinforcement on a VI schedule.     

The Effects of an Introductory Provision of Context on the Oral Reading Behaviour of an Above Average Reader

Abstract Previous studies have shown that prior discussion, or the provision of context, both decrease oral reading errors and increase self‐correction amongst low‐progress and mentally retarded readers. This study investigated the effects of prior provision of context upon the reading behaviour of an above average reader. The results indicate that discussion of context (through examination of the relevant illustrations, asking and answering questions, and the verbal introduction of some new words in the text) both significantly decreased errors, and slightly increased the amount of self‐correction for this subject.     

Signifying “students”, “teachers” and “mathematics”: a reading of a special issue

This paper examines a Special Issue of Educational Studies in Mathematics comprising research reports centred on Peircian semiotics in mathematics education, written by some of the major authors in the area. The paper is targeted at inspecting how subjectivity is understood, or implied, in those reports. It seeks to delineate how the conceptions of subjectivity suggested are defined as a result of their being a function of the domain within which the authors reflexively situate themselves. The paper first considers how such understandings shape concepts of mathematics, students and teachers. It then explores how the research domain is understood by the authors as suggested through their implied positioning in relation to teachers, teacher educators, researchers and other potential readers.