Relating Narrative, Inquiry, and Inscriptions: Supporting Consequential Play

In this paper we describe our research using a multi-user virtual environment, Quest Atlantis, to embed fourth grade students in an aquatic habitat simulation. Specifically targeted towards engaging students in a rich inquiry investigation, we layered a socio-scientific narrative and an interactive rule set into a multi-user virtual environment gaming engine to establish a virtual world through which students learned about science inquiry, water quality concepts, and the challenges in balancing scientific and socio-economic factors. Overall, students were clearly engaged, participated in rich scientific discourse, submitted quality work, and learned science content. Further, through participation in this narrative, students developed a rich perceptual, conceptual, and ethical understanding of science. This study suggests that multi-user virtual worlds can be effectively leveraged to support academic content learning.     

An Evaluation of Foreign HR Consulting Company Effectiveness in China

With vast amounts of foreign capital entering China yearly, there is a strong need to build its human capital to Western accepted levels. A plethora of external vendors offering training and consulting interventions to develop this labor force have quickly followed this investment. An evaluation of what these vendors are actually offering based on Donald Kirkpatrick's widely accepted “Four Levels of T&D Evaluation” is put forward. The findings are that while Chinese management does acknowledge the strong knowledge pool these companies can offer, they find that the high ethnocentric delivery of the skills content is an impediment to learning. They are also unhappy with the high costs, over usage of part‐time consultants, and a lingering perception of vendors using “outdated” training and consulting methods. The researcher proposes communication and delivery of a polycentric training mechanism, where stakeholders (local Chinese) directly contribute to what they are learning under a rubric of Chinese cultural and societal norms in order to incorporate more soft measures in the learning evaluation.     

A Survey of Current and Future Perceived Multi‐National Corporation Manufacturing Training Needs in Tianjin,China (T.E.D.A.)

The purpose of this study was to survey current and perceived future employer‐provided training practices among MNC [multi‐national corporations] manufacturing companies in the Tianjin Economic Development Area (T.E.D.A.) of China. The study bifurcated the data into two areas: all firms and only firms with a structured formal training program in place. A face‐to‐face interview was administered to HR personnel and trainers in the “top eighty” manufacturing MNCs in T.E.D.A. as designated by the T.E.D.A. administrative government in March 2000. A total of 56 interviews were obtained for a sampling margin of error of +/‐ 5. Data analysis revealed that overall the workforces in T.E.D.A employed 350 people or less, were largely youthful, and growing slowly. All employees had 11 to 15 years of formal education. A majority of firms conducted training needs assessments, gave skilled workers more training than unskilled, and earmarked 60% of the training budget for outsourcing. The quality perception of outsource training available in T.E.D.A. was mediocre. Management, technical skills, QC [quality control], and sales training accounted for 67% of the current training need. In three years, they were still perceived to be accounting for the same amounts, but among well‐correlated training departments, QC training was expected to decrease 2%, while in firms without a structured training program, sales training was expected to increase 2%. Trainers did not perceive employee turnover as a training problem. ROI [return on investment] perception on training was greater than 6%.     

‘Sweet analytics’: Athleticism and Elementary-School Football Associations

J.A. Mangan and Colm Hickey, in articles in 1999 and 2008, argued that the motivation of teachers promoting elementary-school football in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was mainly athleticism. In 2000, 2005 and 2009, I expressed my reservations about their claims. Most recently, articles by Gerry P.T. Finn in Soccer & Society in 2010 and by Hickey and Finn separately in the International Journal of the History of Sport in 2011 have argued against my reservations and offered what they consider further evidence for athleticism in elementary-school football. In response, the present article examines the evidence for the claims of athleticism in elementary-school football and concludes that it was only through failing to engage with the vast majority of sources of this kind of football, in particular the records of Schoolboy Football Associations and the sporting and local press, that the claims of Mangan, Hickey and Finn for the extent of the influence of athleticism in elementary-school football could be sustained.     

The constraints of youth: young people,active citizenship and the experience of marginalisation

ABSTRACT

This paper charts the experiences of a group of young people and their involvement in a local government initiative to engage young people in public decision-making. Activated through a youth leaders’ council that sought to influence and inform local government decision-making, the participating young people were given responsibility for enacting focus projects in collaboration with local government personnel. However, this method of simply bringing young people together with local government decision-makers did not automatically alter the way that decisions came to be made and ironically resulted in interactions that went some way to further reinforce existing perceptions of young people as incapable in situations of public administration. This paper reports on a case example detailing an interaction between the youth leaders and local government councillors, and will suggest that the experience of the young people involved in the youth leaders’ council can be understood against a dynamic of ‘constraint’.     

A mixed-methods evaluation of the longer-term implementation and utility of a teacher classroom management training programme in Irish primary schools

Inappropriate, aggressive and disruptive behaviour in the classroom can be detrimental to child and teacher well-being. This study involved a longer-term evaluation of the Incredible Years Teacher [Classroom Management] programme (IYTP) undertaken mainly within disadvantaged schools in south-west Ireland. The IYTP is designed to strengthen teacher classroom management competencies. Eleven teachers, who had previously participated in a group-randomised control trial (RCT), took part in a 12-month post-baseline follow-up assessment. Psychometric and observational measures were administered to assess teachers when interacting with children (n?=?217) in their classes. Qualitative data were collected from a sub-sample of teachers to explore their perceptions of programme impact and utility. The quantitative results showed some significant improvements in teachers’ classroom management, although few changes were recorded on teacher-child observation measures. Qualitative findings indicated continued implementation of proactive disciplining strategies and higher levels of teacher self-efficacy. These results suggest, albeit tentatively in view of the study limitations, that the IYTP can benefit teacher classroom management, as well as teacher well-being, particularly within disadvantaged schools where behavioural problems tend to be more prevalent. The IYTP could prove useful in improving teacher competencies and the classroom environment in the longer term, although a need for further research is indicated.     

Parental education, grade attainment and earnings expectations among university students

While there is an extensive literature on intergenerational transmission of economic outcomes (education, health and income for example), many of the pathways through which these outcomes are transmitted are not as well understood. We address this deficit by analysing the relationship between socio-economic status and child outcomes in university, based on a rich and unique dataset of university students. While large socio-economic differences in academic performance exist at the point of entry into university, these differences are substantially narrowed during the period of study. Importantly, the differences across socio-economic backgrounds in university grade attainment for female students is explained by intermediating variables such as personality, risk attitudes and time preferences, and subject/college choices. However, for male students, we explain less than half of the socio-economic gradient through these same pathways. Despite the weakening socio-economic effect in grade attainment, a key finding is that large socio-economic differentials in the earnings expectations of university students persist, even when controlling for grades in addition to our rich set of controls. Our findings pose a sizable challenge for policy in this area as they suggest that equalising educational outcomes may not translate into equal labour market outcomes.     

All Christians? Experiences of science educators in Northern Ireland

In this paper we respond to Staver’s article (this issue) on an attempt to resolve the discord between science and religion. Most specifically, we comment on Staver’s downplaying of difference between Catholics and Protestants in order to focus on the religion-science question. It is our experience that to be born into one or other of these traditions in some parts of the world (especially Northern Ireland) resulted in starkly contrasting opportunities, identities and practices in becoming and being science educators. The paper starts with a short contextual background to the impact of religion on schooling and higher education in Northern Ireland. We then explore the lives and careers of three science/religious educators in Northern Ireland: Catholic (Jim) and Protestant (Ivor) males who are contemporaries and whose experience spans pre-Troubles to post-conflict and a Catholic female (Colette) who moved to Northern Ireland during the Troubles as a teenager. Finally, we discuss the situation regarding the teaching of creationism and evolution in Northern Ireland—an issue has recently generated high public interest. The Chair of the Education Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly recently stated that “creationism is not for the RE class because I believe that it can stand scientific scrutiny and that is a debate which I am quite happy to encourage and be part of…” (News Letter 2008). It could be the case that the evolution debate is being fuelled as a deliberate attempt to undermine some of the post-conflict collaboration projects between schools and communities in Northern Ireland.