One Teacher Trainer's Perspective on a Sample of Academic Educational Research Papers

In this study a teacher trainer analyses 56 papers from the journal Educational Studies and, applying specific criteria, determines the extent to which their content can be said to have applications to and implications for educational practice. Section 1 of the study explores the general context of the sample papers. Findings here show that in this set of papers the academic research is conducted and written almost exclusively by staff within Schools of Education in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs); that the authorship includes a higher proportion of males than females; that research style is mainly empirical and that gender may play a role in the research style itself; and, significantly for this study, that the titles of these papers, when considered exclusively, imply a close association with the classroom context. In Section 2, a systematic scrutiny of the content of a sub-sample of the papers reveals a significant trend of potential, as opposed to actual relevance to educational policy and practice—at variance with the findings for the study of their titles alone in Section 1. Additional findings are that there is little evidence in the papers of direct collaboration between HEIs and schools. Finally, Section 3 contains the author's personal reflections on communication of the research message within the sample and ways are suggested in which the writing in academic journals generally might be made 'barrier-free' to the wider educational community. Concluding comments tend to be made as appropriate within the body of the paper at the point of discussion. The main conclusion briefly considers the role of Initial Teacher Training tutors in Higher Education, and the issue of monitoring language and communication style in academic research.     

Young Children's Spatial Representations Developed through Exploration of a Desktop Virtual Reality Scene

Virtual Reality (VR) technology seems to offer the opportunity of designing 3D worlds and navigation activities which provide settings that are close to children's everyday experiences, capitalising on their enthusiasm for videogame-like technologies.This paper describes how different types of exploration of a VR scene by 6[emsp4 ]y-old children affected their performance in a series of spatial tasks. Individual children explored a desktop virtual world where we varied both the visual perspective on the VR scene (route vs. survey view) and the level of exploration control (active vs. passive movement). We measured children's knowledge of the spatial layout of the environment through their memory of objects' location in the virtual scene and through the analysis of their wayfinding abilities within the scene.The results indicate that children were able to develop and display different levels of allocentric knowledge about the virtual world depending on the way they had familiarized with it and on the characteristics of the task demands. This finding contributes to inform the design of VR technologies aimed at supporting or evaluating spatial abilities in children of this age.     

Effects of a Pre‐service Teacher Preparation Programme on Effective Instruction

A quasi‐experimental, treatment‐control group investigation was designed to test the effects of a pre‐service training course on effective instruction. Research findings from teacher effects research and cognitive strategy instruction were translated into two direct instructional models: one model for explicit or well‐structured skills and one model for implicit skills or higher‐level thinking strategies. Following a course on effective instruction from their teacher educators, student teachers implemented standardised lessons to apply selected research‐derived teaching behaviours and to increase pupil engagement rates. Based on trained observers’ pre‐and post‐training classroom observations, a significant treatment effect was found for student teachers’ teaching behaviours regarding effective instruction and for pupil engagement rates. Ratings from supervising teachers also showed that the student teachers who participated in the course on effective instruction used the recommended instructional skills after completion of the course significantly better than prior to the course.     

Between a rock and a hard place: women and computer technology

This paper explores certain possible reasons behind the uneasy relationship between women and technology. The cultural identification of technology with masculinity has been well documented through previous research. However, we feel it is useful to revisit this complex relationship through the scope of a more subtle distinction between ‘users’ and ‘connoisseurs’, and the struggle over power, which revolves around a specific form of hegemonic masculinity. We draw on interviews that examine students’ experiences, emotions, and statements about gender, technology, mathematics, and education, and we try to offer an understanding of the ways women negotiate their position within the dominant discourse about computing and mathematics. Our analysis employs post-structuralist discourse theory.