Becoming Data Driven: The Influence of Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy on Concerns Related to Data-Driven Decision Making

Data-driven decision-making (DDDM) reform has proven to be an effective means for improving student learning. However, little DDDM reform has happened at the classroom level, and little research has explored variables that influence teacher adoption of DDDM. The authors propose a model in which teachers’ sense of efficacy for the skills that support classroom-level DDDM and DDDM anxiety significantly influenced teachers’ DDDM efficacy, which then influenced collaboration concerns that influenced refocusing concerns. The authors used structural equation modeling to analyze data on 537 teachers in order to validate this hypothesized model. Results supported this model and are discussed.     

Managing Stress and Feelings of Mastery among Swedish Comprehensive School Teachers

The purpose of this study was to create guidelines for stress management intervention by investigating the relationship of 12 factors with stress reactions (emotional exhaustion and irritation) and feelings of mastery among Swedish comprehensive school teachers. Data were collected via a questionnaire distributed to 928 teachers in 27 schools. The response rate was 89%. Multiple regressions were conducted on colleague support, cooperation, coordination problems, goal clarity, learning orientation, manager support, negative feedback, positive feedback, pupil misbehaviour, teacher age, work control and perceived work demands, all as independent variables. Perceived work demands was treated as a dependent variable in an additional regression analysis. Teacher stress reactions were best predicted by perceived work demands, pupil misbehaviour and negative feedback. Feelings of mastery were best predicted by learning orientation, positive feedback and goal clarity. In the additional analysis perceived work demands was best predicted by pupil misbehaviour, coordination problems and (low) work control. Practical implications are discussed.     

The Indirect Influence of Educational Attainment on Loneliness among Unmarried Older Adults

This investigation examined the indirect influence of past educational attainment on current feelings of loneliness across a sample of unmarried older adults. Participants in this study included 227 community-dwelling individuals, age 65 to 94, who were never-married, divorced, or widowed. The developmental adaptation model (Martin & Martin, 2002 Martin , P. & Martin , M. ( 2002 ). Proximal and distal influences on development: The model of developmental adaptation. Developmental Review , 22 , 78 – 96 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) was used as a conceptual framework in the evaluation of an integrated path model of loneliness. In particular, this model was used to assess how proximal influences including neuroticism, stress, and social support mediate the association between past educational attainment and loneliness. Results suggest that greater educational attainment in the past appears was directly associated with less neuroticism and stress. Furthermore, neuroticism directly influenced greater loneliness, whereas social support was directly associated with feeling less lonely. Stress only had a weak direct influence on loneliness. Finally, the model supports an indirect link between past educational attainment and loneliness through neuroticism and stress. This influence appeared to be most salient among widowed older adults. Recent experiences associated with greater feelings of anxiety and lower provisions of support increased loneliness among persons who remain unmarried in later life. However, education remains an important resource that may reduce this vulnerability in older unmarried populations. This has implications for providing educational opportunities and learning experiences for older persons who are ever-single or formerly married.     

School placement and classroom participation among children with disabilities in primary school in Norway: a longitudinal study

The purpose of this paper is to address changes in school placement and classroom participation with respect to children with disabilities of primary school age in Norway, as well as examining the factors which explain variation in school placement and classroom participation. School placement refers to whether children with disabilities attend regular school, while classroom participation refers to time spent in regular classrooms at regular schools. The analysis is based on longitudinal data drawn from surveys undertaken in 2003 and 2006, of parents of children with disabilities. Present findings suggest there are no major changes in school placement during primary school years, which is contrary to earlier findings. However, the amount of time children with disability are absent from regular classes does increase significantly as the children become older. Size of municipality population, type of disability and degree of impairment are the main factors which have an impact on school placement. In addition to these, the amount of special education also has an impact on classroom participation. There are small changes in mechanisms that lead children out of both regular schools and classrooms, during their primary school years. However, some of the identified factors strengthen in importance as the children become older. The apparent policy change for older children, from special school placement to an “out of class” practice, is discussed. It could be seen as regular schools’ adaptation to the tension between the prevailing ideology of inclusion and schools’ maintenance of existing practice.     

‘Cruel optimism’: teacher attachment to professionalism in an era of performativity

Abstract

This study provides a critical exploration of the way teachers’ attachment to notions of professionalism may facilitate a process whereby teachers find themselves obliged to enact centralised and local education policies that they do not believe in but are required to implement. The study argues that professionalism involves an entanglement of (past) occupational and (present) organisational discourses and that the remainders of the former facilitate the enactment of the latter. The study draws on Berlant’s notion of cruel optimism to help understand this process, whereby teachers’ attachment to professionalism may assist them in undermining the very values they believe it embodies.     

Conceptualization and Labelling as Cognitive Challenges for Students of Data Modelling

Constructing a data model for a problem area requires identifying and formulating some symbolic representation of the concepts involved, their characteristics, and the relationships between them. Taking a socio-cultural perspective on learning, analysis of classroom dialog is used to identify cognitive challenges met by novice students of data modelling. This paper shows how Vygotskyan theory of concept building sheds light on some psycholinguistic aspects of data modelling. The high-school students in the study displayed a lack of what will be called metalinguistic consciousness. Many of their problems were related to the conceptualisation process of forming entities and assigning appropriate labels to them. In teaching data modelling, there seems to be a need to focus more explicitly on the four-way relationship between (1) concrete or abstract objects of the world, (2) the terms denoting these objects, (3) the related subjective meaning and (4) the symbolic representation in a data model.     

Working with uncertainty to support the teaching of critical reflection

This paper explores the cumulative reflections of lecturers examining their tacit assumptions of teaching practice. Despite extensive literature on the educational value of reflection, there is less visible research on teachers assessing their own reflective thinking. This longitudinal interpretive study uses Larrivee's assessment framework with a purposive sample of UK business students. Findings reveal insights for teaching reflection; acknowledging the discomfort of reflexive practice encourages learners to experiment with knowledge interpretation. The students' struggle to engage in reflection resonated with lecturers' parallel difficulties. The teaching approach balances deliberate structure with uncertain outcomes to trigger fresh interpretation of developmental theory and workplace relevance. Practice implications for lecturers are that harnessing uncertainty can provoke deeper insights that enable students to direct their learning and develop reflective skills. This case study offers a practical assessment example to enrich reflexive teaching, with scope to compare and replicate in different disciplinary settings.     

Risks and Risk‐Based Regulation in Higher Education Institutions

Risk‐based regulation is a relatively new mode of governance. Not only does it offer a way of controlling institutions from the outside but it also provides the possibility of making an organisation’s achievements visible/visualisable. This paper comments on a list of possible risks that higher education institutions have to face. In a second step, it is discussed that a higher education institution changes when a framework of risk‐based regulation is adopted. The paper then illustrates how governance changes when the risk‐based regulation approach is transferred from a UK context to an overall European one with differing traditions of higher education.     

The idea of impact and its implications for academic development work

In the current context of higher education, those working in academic development feel the need to demonstrate the impact that their work makes on achieving desired institutional outcomes. In this paper, we examine the concept of impact, consider the various meanings of impact and review ways that the term has been used rhetorically and conceptually in relation to academic development. We explore our experience of working in an academic development unit (ADU) and what role impact may have played in our motivations and outcomes. Specifically, we document the changes in the focus, format and language of the ADU's annual reports over three years and reflect on what these revealed to us about our approach to academic development work and the idea of impact.

Dans le contexte actuel de l'enseignement supérieur, ceux qui oeuvrent dans le domaine du développement pédagogique ressentent le besoin de démontrer l'impact de leur travail en relation avec les résultats institutionnels escomptés. Dans cet article, nous examinons la notion d'impact, nous étudions ses diverses significations et nous passons en revue les façons avec lesquelles cette notion a été utilisée aux plans rhétorique et conceptuel en lien avec le développement pédagogique. Nous explorons notre expérience de travail au sein d'une unité de développement pédagogique (ADU) et quel rôle l'impact a pu jouer à l'égard de nos motivations et de nos résultats. De façon plus spécifique, nous documentons les changements de focus, de format ou de langage observés dans les rapports annuels de notre ADU sur une période de trois ans et réfléchissons à ce que cela nous a révélé au sujet de notre approche à l'égard du travail de développement pédagogique et de la notion d'impact.     

Gender-blind racism in the experience of schooling and identity formation

Much of the research dealing with education and race has concentrated on the experiences of black males. Research now needs to address the issue of how schools affect the production of black femininities. The aim is to explore how both black males and females adapt to schooling, and school exclusion in particular. Previous theoretical models often situate black women within the stereotype of the ‘superwoman’ and negate the experiences of black females in families that are not female-headed. Previous research also suggests that much of the black male pupil response to schooling is based on the way in which teachers equate disaffection with black masculinity. The study draws on research in schools with pupils aged from 13 to 15 years when observed and interviewed. Many pupils responded to schooling in a way that cut across race and gender. Pupils often attempted to subvert the traditional relationship of teacher as powerful and pupil as powerless, reacting to this relationship through their own racial and gendered backgrounds. It is argued that teachers often speak of black pupils in homogeneous ways when in fact gendered differences exist. The issue of how schools construct blackness is addressed and it is argued that too often this is simply to equate race with masculinity.