The Methodology of the 'Views and Visions Project' of Land Use-UK: Practices,issues, decisions and experiences

The Land Use-UK Project was conducted with the support of teachers and students in schools throughout the UK. At the time they acted as surveyors of the landscape and, as well as mapping the land use, students recorded their perceptions of what they had seen together with their views for the future. Referred to now as the 'Views and Visions Project', these collective opinions from mostly whole class groups of students provide a database of 1287 responses. Along with the richness of discovery and meaning which the readings of these narratives of landscape experience provide, there have been many decisions to be made regarding the appropriate style and strategies needed for development of the data and interpretation and analysis of the research. This paper provides a reflection on the methodological decisions taken from the personal perspective of the authors as well as some critical comment on the limitations and possibilities of this essentially qualitative research approach.     

The relation between reading ability and morphological skills: Evidence from derivational suffixes

The English orthography represents both phonemes and morphemes, implying that sensitivity to each of these units could play a role in the acquisition of decoding skills. This study offers some new evidence about sensitivity to morphemes and the decoding skills of American children in grades three to six. It focuses on knowledge of derivational suffixes, which is examined with sentence completion and sentence acceptability tasks that manipulate the suffixes in real words (e.g., electric, electricity) and nonsense derived forms (e.g., froodly, froodness). Both written and spoken materials are considered over the course of two experiments in which the children also received various reading tests, as well as tests of phonological awareness, vocabulary and intelligence. The results indicate that knowledge of derivational suffixes increases with grade level, along with decoding ability and phoneme awareness. Path analyses further reveal that, although there is a consistent correlation between performance on the derivational suffix materials and phoneme awareness and decoding ability, performance on the derivational suffix materials makes an independent and increasing contribution to decoding ability throughout the higher elementary grades.     

Pupil and parent attitudes towards bullying in primary schools

This paper describes an investigation of pupil and parent attitudes towards bullying, comparing attitudes with bullying behaviour. 747 parents and 326 children aged 6 to 11 from four primary schools completed the Parental Attitudes to Bullying Scale and the Children’s Attitudes to Bullying Scale. Most were found to be largely sympathetic towards victims, supportive of intervention, but less understanding towards bullies. There was little association between parental and children’s attitudes, nor did parent attitudes predict children’s behaviour, although there was a link between the children’s attitudes and their behaviour. Mothers were more sympathetic than fathers, but there were no sex differences among children. Children with more siblings were more likely to bully others.     

The archiving of online journals

The present lack of trusted archiving of electronic periodicals is probably one of the main factors preventing a faster move away from the printed journal. This article considers – from a publisher's and a librarian's perspective – all aspects of the electronic archiving, from what should be archived, to who should carry out the archiving.     

Creating classroom contexts that support young children's development of self-regulated learning

The purpose of the research reported in this chapter is twofold: first, to identify features of classroom environments that promote self-regulated approaches to reading and writing in young children; and second, to work collaboratively with teachers, helping them become proficient at designing tasks and structuring interactions with students that promote self-regulated learning (SRL). Five primary (kindergarten — grade 3) teachers and their students were involved in the study. Evidence from classroom observations indicates that these five teachers consistently involved their students in complex reading and writing activities, choosing what to read and write about, modifying tasks to control challenge, and evaluating their reading and writing processes and products. Also, these teachers provided support that was instrumental to students’ development of SRL, and employed non-threatening evaluation practices. Consistent with previous research that characterizes self-regulated learners, students in these classrooms demonstrated high levels of metacognition, intrinsic motivation, and strategic action.     

古代中医医德规范及其思想政治教育功能探析

中国古代医学包含了丰富而完整的医学道德规范体系。"十全为上"的医德评价标准,"严谨求精"的行业责任要求,"博施济众"的医患关系要求,"重义轻利"的从业价值取向,这些思想与大学生思想政治教育具有相同的价值追求。基于责任公民、"建设者和接班人"培养的逻辑之上,应该使二者有机结合,发挥其合理效应。     

Religion and the media in GCSE and A-level syllabuses: a regrettable gap and proposals to fill it

Existing GCSE and A-level syllabuses include modules on religion and the media, but these have not been widely or well studied for a variety of reasons. The modules may be considered difficult to teach well, and teachers have few good resources to use in comparison with more popular topics such as medical or environmental ethics. The newly launched specifications for RS GCSE and A-level examinations have eliminated, almost entirely, any study of religion and the media. The absence of this theme is troubling. There is a strong case to be made that critical appreciation of the ways media depicts religion is especially important for forming responsible, educated citizens in modern Britain, many of whom will not participate directly in religious communities but will see much depiction of such communities and their ideologies in the media. We propose key principles and questions that might help equip teachers to tackle critically and intelligently issues about religion in the media as they arise. We illustrate this approach by considering media responses to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.