Predictive validity of a three-dimensional model of performance anxiety in the context of tae-kwon-do

We tested the predictive validity of the recently validated three-dimensional model of performance anxiety (Chang, Hardy, & Markland, 2009) with elite tae-kwon-do competitors (N = 99). This conceptual framework emphasized the adaptive potential of anxiety by including a regulatory dimension (reflected by perceived control) along with the intensity-oriented dimensions of cognitive and physiological anxiety. Anxiety was assessed 30 min before a competitive contest using the Three-Factor Anxiety Inventory. Competitors rated their performance on a tae-kwon-do-specific performance scale within 30 min after completion of their contest. Moderated hierarchical regression analyses revealed initial support for the predictive validity of the three-dimensional performance anxiety model. The regulatory dimension of anxiety (perceived control) revealed significant main and interactive effects on performance. This dimension appeared to be adaptive, as performance was better under high than low perceived control, and best vs. worst performance was associated with highest vs. lowest perceived control, respectively. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of the regulatory dimension of anxiety.     

How can we find out what 3 and 4 year olds think? New approaches to eliciting very young children's understandings in science

This paper outlines work in progress on a study which is investigating what children understand about natural and processed materials and how scientific learning on the topic could be extended and reinforced in the home. Four different interview schedules for eliciting children's understanding were developed and tried out. Children's understandings prior to each of the four units, and at the conclusion of the teaching program were documented through individual interviews. Family interviews were also conducted prior to and at the conclusion to the teaching. In this paper the difficulties associated with researching young children's thinking are explored. The rationale for a storytelling context for the interviews is presented, and there is a preliminary discussion on the effectiveness of the methodology utilised. Specializations: early childhood science education; the Curriculum Corporation K-3 Science Program. Specializations: primary science education, teacher education in science, adult experiences of science and technology; the K-3 Science Program.     

A Conceptual Framework for Learning to Teach Secondary Mathematics: A Situative Perspective

This paper offers for discussion and critique a conceptual framework that applies a situative perspective on learning to the study of learning to teach mathematics. From this perspective, such learning occurs in many different situations -- mathematics and teacher preparation courses, pre-service field experiences, and schools of employment. By participating over time in these varied contexts, mathematics teachers refine their conceptions about their craft -- the big ideas of mathematics, mathematics-specific pedagogy, and sense of self as a mathematics teacher. This framework guides a research project that traces the learning trajectories of teachers from two reform-based teacher preparation programs into their early teaching careers. We provide two examples from this research to illustrate how this framework has helped us understand the process of learning to teach. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Praxis,educational development and the university sector in Australia

In this article, we utilise recent theorising on praxis and educational development to explore how academics in universities can foster public, institutional and more personal development, even as they are challenged by what are sometimes described as more ‘managerial’ and ‘neoliberal’ conditions. The research draws upon a variety of sources of data, including publicly available correspondence on the university sector in Australia, interviews with colleagues, and personal reflective journals. These data reflect three instances of educational praxis development in the Australian university context, and at three scales/levels: nationally; unit-wide (university/faculty/institute); and sub-unit/individually. The findings reveal such development in the form of: academics using mainstream media to inform the general public about the nature of university industrial relations and funding at a national level; junior and senior academics collaborating and engaging in mentoring practices to build institutional research capacity at a university/institutional level; and, individual academics meeting to develop individual teaching practice. Through explicating the characteristics and value of educational development for and as praxis, we provide resources for hope for better understanding how the work of universities, including their broader mission to inform the public, might be enacted more educationally.     

Uneasy alliances: University,workplace, industry and profession in the education doctorate

The phenomenon of Professional Doctorates in Australia has come at a time of great change in the higher education sector. Such change includes an intensified imperative for universities to establish ‘partnerships’ with industry and the professions. The Professional Doctorate is, in part, a consequence of such changes and is also helping to effect them. However, in its examination of the Education Doctorate, this paper problematises the notion of partnerships and indeed the various policy constructions of the parties involved. Through fictionalised accounts of standpoints of a higher education policy maker, an EdD student, an academic in an EdD program and a member of the education industry, it identifies some of the tensions involved within and between such categories. In so doing it suggests some matters that require research and pedagogical attention.     

New approaches to the inservice education in science and technology of primary and early childhood teachers (or mum is not dumb after all!)

Conclusion These preliminary findings have implications for the effective inservicing of early childhood and primary teachers in the science and technology areas. They are also likely to have implications for preservice courses. The research findings indicate that teachers can overcome their often negative views of science and of science teaching. Factors significant in this process appear to be: firstly, and most importantly, experience by the teachers of support and acceptance as they begin—often anxiously-their explorations of science, science teaching and learning. Secondly, teachers begin their investigations in a context with which they are familiar, from the point “where they are at” and hence from which they can develop their investigations in directions they perceive to be the most fruitful. Thirdly, the sharing of explorations, reflections and progress amongst group members encourages the teachers to clarify and justify their own directions and perspectives, to learn of others' journeys, and to receive affirmation of their own learning. it is clear that this complex process cannot be hurried: inservicing teachers in an area that has been so neglected in the school curriculum requires an approach that fully recognises this.     

A logic of appropriation: enacting national testing (NAPLAN) in Australia

This paper explores how the strong policy push to improve students’ results on national literacy and numeracy tests – the National Assessment Program, Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) – in the Australian state of Queensland influenced schooling practices, including teachers’ learning. The paper argues the focus upon improved test scores on NAPLAN within schools was the result of sustained policy pressure for increased attention to such foci at national and state levels, and a broader political context in which rapid improvement in test results was considered imperative. However, implementation, (or what this paper describes more accurately as ‘enactment’) of the policy also revealed NAPLAN as providing evidence of students’ learning, as useful for grouping students to help improve their literacy and numeracy capabilities, and as a stimulus for teacher professional development. Drawing upon the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, the paper argues that even as more political concerns about comparing NAPLAN results with other states were recognised by educators, the field of schooling practices was characterised by a logic of active appropriation of political concerns about improved test scores by teachers, for more educative purposes. In this way, policy enactment in schools is characterised by competing interests, and involving not just interpretation, translation and critique but active appropriation of political concerns by teachers.     

The ‘doublethink’ of data: educational performativity and the field of schooling practices

This article provides insights into teachers’ and school administrators’ responses to the current ‘fetishisation’ of school performance data in Australian schooling. Specifically, the research investigates the accountability practices that emerged in a Queensland metropolitan primary school in response to this broader focus upon performance data. Drawing upon interviews with teachers and school administrators, literature and theorising on educational performativity and data, and Bourdieu’s theory of practice, the article reveals how performative, data-driven practices play out at the level of the school. This process reveals a ‘field of schooling practices’ characterised by contradictory and contested logics of deifying, delivering and denying data. We describe this as the ‘doublethink of data’, involving teachers engaging with performative processes for purposes of compliance but without any real sense of the value of doing so. The research reveals the extraordinary energy involved in this work, and cautions against these performative practices and associated technologies.