Developing and validating a scale for measuring teachers’ readiness for flipped classrooms in junior high schools

The aim of this research is to examine the dimensions of junior high school teachers’ readiness for implementing a flipped classroom approach and to construct and validate an instrument—the Flipped-Classroom Teacher Scale (FCTS). Two sets of samples (170 and 495 junior high school teachers) served to explore and confirm the constructs of the FCTS model proposed by this study. The model has been empirically validated via exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis. The research participants were from different geographical locations in Taiwan. The FCTS consists of four factors: institutional support, technology self-efficacy (TSE), teacher beliefs and teaching strategies (TS). The results show that the FCTS model is a valid and reliable scale. Teachers may use the FCTS to gain a greater understanding of their instructional design and strategies in relation to flipped classrooms.     

Parents,teachers and children’s school outcomes: a Taiwanese study

The study examined relationships among family social status, perceptions of family and school learning environments, and measures of children’s academic achievement, educational aspirations and self‐concept. Data were collected from 261 (128 boys, 133 girls) 11‐year‐old Taiwanese children. The findings from structural equation modelling suggest that: (a) family social status continues to have an unmediated association with children’s academic achievement, but its relationship to educational aspirations and self‐concept is mediated by children’s perceptions of their more immediate learning environments, and (b) after taking into account differences in parents’ aspirations and parental involvement, children’s perceptions of teachers have strong associations with self‐concept but are not related to differences in academic achievement and educational aspirations.     

Cognitive profiling in Chinese developmental dyslexia with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders

The cognitive profiles of children with Developmental Reading Disorder (RD) and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD) have been extensively studied in alphabetic language communities. Deficits in phonological processing and rapid naming have been implicated as core features of RD although whether the latter is a deficit specific to RD remains controversial. Similar research aiming to explore the cognitive profiles of children with both RD and ADHD in non-alphabetic language communities is limited. The specificity of rapid naming deficit to RD among Chinese has yet to be studied. In the first study, 43 Chinese children with confirmed diagnoses of RD + ADHD were assessed on their cognitive abilities in relating to reading. In the second study, the specificity deficit hypothesis of rapid naming to RD but not ADHD was examined. A digit naming test was administered to the RD + ADHD group (43 subjects) and an ADHD only group (49 subjects). In regard to cognitive profiling, rapid naming and orthographic knowledge were found to be the most common deficits among the Chinese RD + ADHD group. This co-morbid group was also found to have a significant deficit performance on the rapid naming task than the ADHD only group. The present findings support the double dissociation hypothesis in cognitive deficit between RD and ADHD. The results of both studies are discussed with reference to the findings of the Western counterparts.     

Returns to education and economic transition: an international comparison

This paper compares the returns to education in transitional economies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, Slovak Republic and the Ukraine in the 1990s, and in China in the 1980s and 1990s. In the pre‐transition period, the returns to education in the six CEE countries were low at about 2–4%, while those in China were even lower at less than 2%. As the process of transition towards a market economy evolved over time, the returns to education steadily increased, and non‐state sector workers and young workers were rewarded with higher returns to their education than their counterparts in the state sector and older age categories. The marginal returns to university education are the highest of all of the marginal returns to various education levels. Moreover, the results show that it took about a decade for the six CEE countries, and two decades for China, to raise their respective returns to education to the 10% level.     

A framework for fostering a community of practice: scaffolding learners through an evolving continuum

This paper proposes a framework of an evolving community of practitioners along a simulation, participation, and codetermined interactions continuum. Simulation, participation, and codetermined interactions are three models of learning, which describe how learners can be brought through a scaffolded process within a community experience. The framework also focuses on the processes rather than on the outcomes or products of a community. In this paper, we describe a case study of a group of heads of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in schools being scaffolded through an experiential workshop to achieve learning outcomes such as ICT‐based project work (as product) and other constructivist dispositions of learning (as processes). The proposed framework is intended to be sufficiently broad so that learners are supported from simulation to codetermined interactions where autonomy of learners’ co‐construction efforts are encouraged and experienced.     

Effects of flipped classrooms integrated with MOOCs and game-based learning on the learning motivation and outcomes of students from different backgrounds

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to investigate the effect of flipped classrooms integrated with massive open online courses (MOOCs) and game-based learning on the learning motivation and learning outcomes of students from different backgrounds (in terms of gender, grade, self-confidence indicators in mathematics, and roles played in the game-based learning process). Surveys and a semi-structured open questionnaire were used for data collection, including a basic information questionnaire (to understand the participants’ backgrounds), a questionnaire on learning motivation (the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire, MSLQ), a test of learning achievements in mathematics, and a semi-structured open-ended questionnaire (to understand the learners’ feelings). Quantitative analysis results showed that flipped classrooms integrated with MOOCs and game-based learning can enhance students’ learning motivation and outcomes. Specifically, compared with students with high self-confidence in learning mathematics, students with low and medium levels of self-confidence showed significantly greater improvement in overall learning motivation. Significantly more enhancements were found for the expectation component of “soldiers” (students with relatively lower learning achievements) than for “generals” (students with higher learning achievements). Furthermore, students in the eighth grade showed significantly greater progress in academic performance than did students in the seventh grade.     

Authenticity in learning for the twenty-first century: bridging the formal and the informal

The paper attempts to bridge informal and formal learning by leveraging on affordance structures associated with informal environments to help learners develop social, cognitive, and metacognitive dispositions that can be applied to learning in classrooms. Most studies focus on either learning in formal or informal contexts, but this study seeks to link the two. The paper proposes three tenets to augment de-contextualized learning in schools by putting back the: (a) tacit, (b) social-collective, and (c) informal. This paper seeks to advance the argument for a consideration of how formal learning might be made more authentic by leveraging the affordances of informal learning. Two case examples are illustrated. The first case shows learners operating in a virtual environment in which??through the collaborative manipulation of terrain??adopt the epistemic frame of geomorphologists. The case seeks to illustrate how the tacit and social-collective dimensions from the virtual environment might be incorporated as part of the formal geography curriculum. In the second case, interactions between members of a school bowling team highlight the contextualized and authentic metacognitive demands placed on learners/bowlers, and how these demands are re-contextualized??through metacognitive brokering??to the formal curriculum. Productive linkages are made between informal and formal learnings and anchored through learners?? authentic experiences.     

Exploring parental involvement in early years education in China: development and validation of the Chinese Early Parental Involvement Scale (CEPIS)

This study developed and validated an instrument, the Chinese Early Parental Involvement Scale (CEPIS), that can be widely used in both local and international contexts to assess Chinese parental involvement in early childhood education. The study was carried out in two stages: (1) focus group interviews were conducted with 41 teachers and 35 parents in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Teachers and parents were found to hold different perceptions of parental involvement. Responses further revealed that Chinese parents practiced more home-based involvement than preschool-based involvement, and that Chinese parents also have layers of responsibilities that limit their level of involvement in children's early development; (2) items of the CEPIS were developed using focus group responses. To validate the scale, 319 parents were asked to complete the new CEPIS. Results from principal-components factor analyses established that the resultant 26-item CEPIS consists of six parental involvement dimensions. Further analyses revealed that parental involvement differed as a function of parents' marital status and employment status. The major findings, implications and limitations of this research are discussed, together with directions for future research.     

Monitoring health,activity and fitness in physical education: its current and future state of health

Various government policies, strategies and responses in England over the years have highlighted schools and physical education to be instrumental in addressing health and the focus on health has been strengthened within subsequent revisions of the National Curriculum. Whilst this might seem encouraging, concerns have been expressed that such policies and governmental regulation increasingly bear features of a ‘performative culture’ and that these have led to increasingly widespread health surveillance in schools. Linked to this are long-standing concerns over the way in which health is addressed in schools and physical education, as well as over some of the monitoring measures and practices employed within the curriculum. Despite this, little is known about monitoring practices in physical education. This article, therefore, presents findings of a study which aimed to (1) determine the nature, prevalence and purpose of monitoring health, physical activity and physical fitness within the physical education curriculum and (2) establish physical education teachers' views of and approaches to monitoring. The study comprised two phases. The first phase involved a survey completed by Heads of Physical Education in 110 secondary schools from across England, and the second semi-structured interviews with 18 of those from the original sample. The findings revealed monitoring, and in particular fitness monitoring, to be a common feature within the physical education curriculum in many schools. However, a number of issues and limitations associated with monitoring and some of the schools' monitoring practices were identified, and the individualistic nature and performative culture reflected in and reinforced through monitoring were acknowledged as potentially problematic. It was thus suggested that if the findings are typical, then monitoring practice is currently not in a good state of health. The article concludes proposing a way forward for monitoring within physical education in the form of some recommendations for practice.