The relationship between PE biographies and PE teaching practices of classroom teachers

The current study sought to explore the relationship between personal school physical education (PE) experiences and current PE teaching practices of classroom teachers. Questionnaires were completed by 189 teachers from 38 randomly selected schools. Additionally, semi-structured interviews of 31 classroom teachers were conducted. The results indicated that many teachers had negative memories of school PE and believed that they were not taught anything. Interestingly, teachers involved in the study held reasonably positive attitudes towards teaching PE but examination of their current teaching practices indicated that little ‘teaching’ was evident in their PE programmes. A hierarchical regression model was used to examine key predictors of PE programme quality and accounted for 32% of the variance. Personal school experiences in primary school PE, quality of preservice education and attitudes to teaching PE were established as significant predictors. A key finding of the current study was the significant relationship evident between personal school experiences in PE and current PE teaching practices which has not been previously established with classroom teachers. The implications of these findings for preservice education and professional development will be discussed.     

Counseling with teachers on the sexual acting-out of disturbed children

This paper discusses the complicated task of counseling with teachers in the schools on the sexual acting-out of emotionally disturbed children. Clinical case material is presented to illustrate the meanings and motivations children have subconsciously applied to various types of sexual behavior. The material for discussion is divided into behaviors that are sexual acting-out toward self and sexual acting-out toward others. The final section of the paper proposes some guidelines that can be used constructively when discussing this problem with teachers in the school setting.     

STUDENT INTEREST IN TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE (SITS) SURVEY: DEVELOPMENT,VALIDATION, AND USE OF A NEW INSTRUMENT

This study presents the systematic development, validation, and use of a new instrument for measuring student interest in science and technology. The Student Interest in Technology and Science (SITS) survey is composed of 5 sub-sections assessing the following dimensions: interest in learning science, using technology to learn science, science careers, technology careers, and attitudes toward biotechnology. Our development process included review of existing instrumentation, pilot testing, and expert panel review. The resulting instrument was administered before and after implementation of a biotechnology intervention which used a computer-based game to engage learners in the use of biotechnology to address a societal issue. We employed item response theory (IRT) to explore instrument validity and precision. Results of the psychometric analyses suggest that the SITS survey has a well-defined structure and meets IRT assumptions. Difficulty and discrimination parameters as well as reliability analyses indicate that SITS items provide useful measures of student interest. Finally, we use the SITS to explore the extent to which the intervention used in this study supports changes in student interest and association between students’ interest and related content knowledge. Implications for the future use of this instrument are discussed.     

Developing and Piloting a Baselining Tool for Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (ESDGC) in Welsh Higher Education

Mainstreaming Education for Sustainable Development in higher education is vital if graduates are to possess the abilities, skills, and knowledge needed to tackle the sustainability issues of the future. In this article we explain the development and piloting of a baselining tool, the Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Development Framework, developed with support from the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales. We draw comparisons with the Sustainability, Tracking, Assessment and Rating System Program, developed by the North American Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. The resulting framework offers consistency with existing Welsh Government strategic documentation, builds on increasing momentum, and has relevance across the higher education sector globally.     

Assessing approaches to learning with nonparametric multidimensional scaling

This article reports on a trace-based assessment of approaches to learning used by middle school aged children who interacted with NASA Mars Mission science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) games in Whyville, an online game environment with 8 million registered young learners. The learning objectives of two games included awareness and knowledge of NASA missions, developing knowledge and skills of measurement and scaling, applying measurement for planetary comparisons in the solar system. Trace data from 1361 interactions were analysed with nonparametric multidimensional scaling methods, which permitted visual examination and statistical validation, and provided an example and proof of concept for the multidimensional scaling approach to analysis of time-based behavioural data from a game or simulation. Differences in approach to learning were found illustrating the potential value of the methodology to curriculum and game-based learning designers as well as other creators of online STEM content for pre-college youth. The theoretical framework of the method and analysis makes use of the Epistemic Network Analysis toolkit as a post hoc data exploration platform, and the discussion centres on issues of semantic interpretation of interaction end-states and the application of evidence centred design in post hoc analysis.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Educational game play has been demonstrated to positively affect learning performance and learning persistence.
• Trace-based assessment from digital learning environments can focus on learning outcomes and processes drawn from user behaviour and contextual data.
• Existing approaches used in learning analytics do not (fully) meet criteria commonly used in psychometrics or for different forms of validity in assessment, even though some consider learning analytics a form of assessment in the broadest sense.
• Frameworks of knowledge representation in trace-based research often include concepts from cognitive psychology, education and cognitive science.

What this paper adds

• To assess skills-in-action, stronger connections of learning analytics with educational measurement can include parametric and nonparametric statistics integrated with theory-driven modelling and semantic network analysis approaches widening the basis for inferences, validity, meaning and understanding from digital traces.
• An expanded methodological foundation is offered for analysis in which nonparametric multidimensional scaling, multimodal analysis, epistemic network analysis and evidence-centred design are combined.

Implications for practice and policy

• The new foundations are suggested as a principled, theory-driven, embedded data collection and analysis framework that provides structure for reverse engineering of semantics as well as pre-planning frameworks that support creative freedom in the processes of creation of digital learning environments.