Differences by degree: Evidence of the net financial rates of return to undergraduate study for England and Wales

This paper provides estimates of the impact of higher education qualifications on the earnings of graduates in the U.K. by subject studied. We use data from the recent U.K. Labour Force Surveys which provide a sufficiently large sample to consider the effects of the subject studied, class of first degree, and postgraduate qualifications. Ordinary Least Squares estimates show high average returns for women that does not differ by subject. For men, we find very large returns for Law, Economics and Management but not for other subjects. Degree class has large effects in all subjects suggesting the possibility of large returns to effort. Postgraduate study has large effects, independently of first degree class.A large rise in tuition fees across all subjects has only a modest impact on relative rates of return suggesting that little substitution across subjects would occur. The strong message that comes out of this research is that even a large rise in tuition fees makes little difference to the quality of the investment – those subjects that offer high returns (LEM for men, and all subjects for women) continue to do so. And those subjects that do not (especially OSSAH for men) will continue to offer poor returns. The effect of fee rises is dwarfed by existing cross subject differences in returns.     

Situated learning in an educational technology course for pre-service teachers

This qualitative study investigated a situated learning environment implemented in an educational technology course where pre-service teachers worked collaboratively on meaningful real-world projects, assuming the role of professional teachers. With a traditional learning environment as a critical frame of reference, we found that the students in the situated learning environment demonstrated sophisticated problem-solving skills, exhibited metacognitive awareness, produced coherent artifacts, and showed high levels of motivation. The findings implied that if we want to successfully implement situated learning, effort should be made to promote a constructive learning culture, improve individual performance, manage students’ perceptions, and foster their positive attitudes.     

Foundations of dynamic learning analytics: Using university student data to increase retention

With digitisation and the rise of e‐learning have come a range of computational tools and approaches that have allowed educators to better support the learners' experience in schools, colleges and universities. The move away from traditional paper‐based course materials, registration, admissions and support services to the mobile, always‐on and always accessible data has driven demand for information and generated new forms of data observable through consumption behaviours. These changes have led to a plethora of data sets that store learning content and track user behaviours. Most recently, new data analytics approaches are creating new ways of understanding trends and behaviours in students that can be used to improve learning design, strengthen student retention, provide early warning signals concerning individual students and help to personalise the learner's experience. This paper proposes a foundational learning analytics model (LAM) for higher education that focuses on the dynamic interaction of stakeholders with their data supported by visual analytics, such as self‐organising maps, to generate conversations, shared inquiry and solution‐seeking. The model can be applied for other educational institutions interested in using learning analytics processes to support personalised learning and support services. Further work is testing its efficacy in increasing student retention rates.     

Critical Factors in On‐Campus Clinical Experiences: Perceptions of Preservice Teachers

In this paper, I present the findings of a self‐study into my teaching practices as a sociology‐of‐education lecturer working in the pre‐service teacher education programme of a regional university in New South Wales, Australia. The principal data source is a logbook of the teaching practices which characterised several tutorial classes taught in 2007. To understand these practices, the paper draws upon Aristotle's concepts of techne and praxis, and Bourdieu's understanding of practices as socially constructed and contested. The paper situates tensions between more technicist and praxis‐oriented teaching approaches to pre‐service teacher education, within the teacher education and university contexts in which these classes were undertaken. In doing so, the paper reveals tensions between assessment‐driven and more authentic teaching practices, and more student‐ and teacher‐centred teaching practices. The paper also shows how accountability pressures within tertiary settings have led to a more instrumental approach to tertiary teaching. I conclude that there is a need for greater attention to the conditions of work which influence teacher educators' practices, rather than fetishising individualistic instantiations of such practices.     

Testing,Testing: Teacher assessment in England

In England there has been a marked increase in the assessment of teachers, culminating in the introduction of a performance management policy for schools that calibrates the occupation of teaching from the cradle to the grave. In this article, we raise a number of issues about the consequences of this policy for teachers and teaching in relation to the value system underpinning it, its likely impact on issues of equity and social justice, its implications for accountability and governance, and its potential for reshaping the culture of teaching in ways that will impact negatively on the nature of future community and social relations.     

Positive experiences as input for reflection by student teachers

In many teacher training courses, reflection upon practice plays a very important role in learning to teach. A number of strategies have been developed to help student teachers learn to reflect. Current reflection strategies often focus on problematic instead of on positive experiences. Ideas from positive psychology and solution‐based therapy have inspired us to question whether problematic experiences should always be taken as starting point for reflection. Instead, teachers might learn even more from reflecting on positive experiences. Thus, the aim of the current study is to compare the outcomes of reflecting on difficult, problematic experiences with those of reflecting on positive experiences. We focused on three outcome areas: (1) the content of teachers’ resolutions after reflecting because decisions need to be productive, (2) their motivation to act on their decision because teachers need to implement their resolutions, and (3) the emotions they have during the process of reflection because emotions are very influential to thinking and learning. In an exploratory study, 16 student biology teachers were asked to reflect on two problematic and two positive teaching experiences and to take notes during the reflection process. Subsequently, these student teachers indicated their motivation for implementing their resolutions and they reported their emotions evoked by the reflection processes. In order to gain insight into results with respect to the three outcome areas, the content of the teachers’ resolutions was categorized, motivation scores were averaged, and emotions were scored and calculated. Our investigation showed that student teachers who reflected on positive experiences made more innovative resolutions, were more highly motivated to implement these resolutions and had more positive feelings compared to when reflecting on problematic experiences. Implications of the findings include the use of reflection methods based on positive experiences for experience‐based learning and for developing adaptive expertise in teacher education. We also present some avenues for further research.     

Developing new academic developers: doing before being?

A small group of new academic developers reflected on their induction into the profession and wondered if things could have been done differently. The researchers decided to question the directors of three tertiary academic development units about how they recruited new developers, what skills and competences they looked for and how they inducted new appointees into the role. This article interrogates the interview data, employing Winter’s ‘dilemma analysis’ to tease out the ambiguities, judgments and problems inherent in the issues of employing new academic developers. Finally, the authors discuss ways of enhancing the induction experience for new academic developers.     

BOOK REVIEW

With the advent of circular 9/92 it became clear that students on secondary ITT courses would have to spend at least one hundred and twenty days in schools. This clearly requires a very high level of cooperation between teachers in schools and tutors in Colleges.

Ian Wood, a College Tutor, and Philip Wood, a school teacher, both of whom had been working together in ITT for several years, decided to improve on their levels of co‐operation by swapping roles for one day per week for the Easter Term 1995. This article is an account of some of their feelings and findings during this term.     

The Effects of ‘Falling Rolls’ on the 16–19 Curriculum

This article offers a critique of the concept of ownership central to contemporary theorising about professional development in education. The theorising was tested against data from a national programme of professional development projects for 185 primary headteachers, in which a strong sense of ownership had been embedded. In four areas, i.e. the focus of the projects, funding priorities, capacity building and impact on pupils, the theory appeared to be paradoxical. The concluding discussion examines some explanations for the paradoxes, including the possibility that theorising has developed ahead of empirical data and that pragmatism has high salience for headteachers.