Effects of a Cognitive Acceleration Programme in a Low Socioeconomic High School in Regional Australia

This paper presents research on the effects of a cognitive acceleration intervention in science lessons on low socioeconomic students in a government high school in regional Western Australia. Thinking Science Australia is a programme currently being implemented in Australian junior high school classes. The research was conducted for over two years as a case study in one school with students as they entered high school in Year 8 (n?=?71). Findings show that significant cognitive gains were made, with concomitant improvement in the state-wide testing in science when participating students were in Year 9, aged 13 and 14. Teachers reported changes to the ways they teach and described the challenges in implementing the intervention programme.     

Gender Stereotyping and Affective Attitudes Towards Science in Chinese Secondary School Students

This study explores explicit and implicit gender‐science stereotypes and affective attitudes towards science in a sample of Chinese secondary school students. The results showed that (1) gender‐science stereotyping was more and more apparent as the specialization of science subjects progresses through secondary school, becoming stronger from the 10th grade; girls were more inclined to stereotype than boys while this gender difference decreased with increasing grade; (2) girls tend to have an implicit science‐unpleasant/humanities‐pleasant association from the 8th grade, while boys showed a negative implicit attitude towards science up to the 11th grade. In self‐report, girls preferred humanities to science, while boys preferred science to humanities; (3) implicit affective attitude was closely related to implicit stereotype. In particular, implicit affective attitude has a stronger predictive power on stereotype than the other way around, the result of which may have more significance for girls.     

Children’s Self‐documentation and Understanding of the Concepts ‘Healthy’ and ‘Unhealthy’

The present paper describes a study in which 13 children aged 9–11 years, of diverse ethnic, linguistic, and socio‐economic backgrounds, were asked to use a digital camera and small notebook to document the range of things they consider to be healthy and unhealthy. Using open‐ended interview questions, the children were then asked to explain each item, including what it was, why they chose it, and why they thought it was either healthy or unhealthy. The range of definitions of ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ invoked by the children was surprisingly broad, encompassing not only illness and proper nutrition, but also environmental health, mental health, cleanliness, and other meanings. Findings across all 13 children are displayed, and a case study of one child serves as a detailed example of the types of meanings children ascribe to the words ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’, as well as the kinds of analyses being employed on these data. The theoretical implications of these results for research on children’s ideas about health, as well as implications for the design of health interventions, are discussed.     

Teacher Perceptions of Intra-Occupational Status Relationships among Elementary,Junior High,and Senior High School Teaching Positions

Correlation matrices having linear dependencies are a common occurrence in educational research. For such matrices there is no unique solution for the multiple regression coefficients; however, there is an infinity of solutions which satisfy the least squares criterion and yield the identical multiple-R and R-square. Traditional strategies for deriving the multiple regression coefficients do not ordinarily function in the presence of linear dependencies. The common practice is to use an iterative technique in which a series of approximations is carried out repeatedly until a solution is achieved. The authors have modified the Gauss-Jordan procedure to function in the presence of linear dependencies. The modified procedure is much simpler than the iterative procedure and has the added advantage of identifying each redundant variable with a zero regression coefficient.     

Teacher Classroom Management Skills and Pupil Behavior

An experimental group of 20 in service elementary teachers was trained using the Utah State University Classroom Management Protocol Modules, and compared before and after training with a control group of 9 teachers. Although the experimental teachers received more favorable post-training scores on all 13 classroom management behaviors covered in the modules, the differences were generally small and nonsignificant. The level of work involvement and deviant behavior of pupils of the experimental group teachers was also compared before and after the teachers had been trained. In recitation situations, pupil work involvement increased and deviant behavior decreased significantly. In seat work situations, pupil work involvement increased significantly, but no significant changes occurred in deviant behavior.     

THE ROLE AND FUNCTION OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH‐‐III

A structured interview was conducted individually with 310 Canadian kindergarten children selected as a representative sample of pupils in their community. The interview had four parts: I Recognition of acts of reading and writing; II Concepts of the purposes of reading and writing; III Concepts of features of printed materials; IV Visual perception (similar to one part of the Frostig Test). Most children achieved near perfect scores on Part IV. Part I was slightly more difficult. Part II was considerably more difficult and Part III was the most difficult of all. It is concluded that teachers should be more concerned about the development of these linguistic concepts than visual perception.     

Attitude toward Christianity among secondary school pupils in Northern Ireland: shifts in denominational differences

Background Northern Ireland is a province that remains deeply divided between Protestants and Catholics and maintains a segregated system of schools.

Purpose The research builds on a series of studies conducted in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to monitor the attitude toward Christianity of males and females educated in Protestant and Catholic schools.

Sample A sample of 2359 16- to 18-year-old pupils attending Catholic and Protestant schools in Northern Ireland.

Design and methods A random sample of seven Protestant and nine Catholic schools invited all pupils attending their lower and upper sixth-form classes to participate in the survey and to complete the Francis scale of attitude toward Christianity.

Results The data demonstrate that, while males attending Catholic schools maintained a more positive attitude towards Christianity than males attending Protestant schools, females attending Catholic schools reported a less positive attitude toward Christianity than females attending Protestant schools. These findings are compared with studies conducted during the 1970s and 1980s when both males and females attending Catholic schools recorded a more positive attitude toward Christianity than their peers attending Protestant schools.

Conclusions Repeated cross-sectional studies of this nature help to profile the changing religious climate of Northern Ireland.     

READING ATTAINMENT IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF BRIGHTON

Children who are ‘at risk’ of educational handicap, or who are likely to show a poor response to the experience of school require special help and care at the earliest opportunity. In order that the educational system can respond positively to the needs of such children, their early identification is a matter of priority. This may be achieved provided ‘risk’ factors in the child's environment have been established through experiment and that their effects, both singly and in combination, on various educational progress measures have been investigated. The present paper discusses the complex relationships observed between a wide range of conditions, personal and environmental, associated with a large group of children at school entry, and the subsequent educational development of these children three years later on. The analysis locates sub‐groups of children who have made a poor response to school and identifies them using different combinations of school entry factors. The analysis also defines a group of children who are on the whole somewhat above average in ability and attainment, but who nevertheless show a deterioration in their school work owing to emotional or social problems. The implication of these findings for the educational system is briefly discussed.