Molecular mechanism of heterogeneous catalysis

Gerhard Ertl, the German physical chemist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the year 2007, for his contributions in the area of surface science. His painstaking work led to a microscopic understanding of heterogeneous catalysis in industrially important chemical reactions. These include the Haber-Bosch process for the production of ammonia, and the catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide. (left) R S Swathi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry, working with Prof. K L Sebastian. Her research interests include theoretical study of resonance energy transfer involving various donor-acceptor systems. (right) K L Sebastian is a Professor at the Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science. His area of interest is theoretical chemistry.     

Using Complexity Metrics to Assess Silent Reading Fluency: A Cross-Sectional Study Comparing Oral and Silent Reading

Reading typically undergoes a qualitative shift around Grade 4, becoming more fluent and silent, but there is no established measure for fluency in children’s silent reading. The present study presents a measure of self-paced reading in children, examining the use of complexity measures for time-series analyses recently established with adults. Cross-sectional groups of adults and children in Grades 2, 4, and 6 read the same passage of a Grade 2-level story, either silently or aloud. The dynamical structure of fluency in reading times was explored with fractal and recurrence quantification analysis. Results revealed that more fluent reading (with increasing age) was marked by greater structure and stability and that oral reading compared with silent reading showed less fractal structure, indicating silent reading as a more flexibly stable, adaptive coordinated behavior. The complexity metrics show promise for an alternate way to characterize reading fluency.     

Vergleichsarbeiten und schulische Personalentwicklung – Ausmaß und Voraussetzungen der Datennutzung

The introduction of comparative tests in a low-stakes system was carried out in the expectation that the data feedback to schools would act as a stimulus for the development of the schools and the standard of classroom teaching. By contrast with the use of data to develop teaching, the use of data for personnel development has not yet been studied in Germany. On the basis of an on-line survey of head teachers and a paper-and-pencil survey of teaching staff, the study examines for the first time the extent to which comparative test data is used by head teachers for personnel development and as a means to plan in-service training in subject conferences, and what factors influence whether the data is used in this way. Of the head teacher characteristics which were studied (attitude in relation to the perceived usefulness of the data, qualifications, organisation and age of the head teacher), usefulness is the only characteristic which has a positive effect on the use of the data. The use of comparative test data to plan in-service training in subject conferences is positively influenced by data-wise leadership by the head teacher and by collaborative evaluation.     

‘I think a lot of it is common sense. …’ Early years students,professionalism and the development of a ‘vocational habitus’

This paper reports on research from a small-scale project investigating the vocational training of students in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in England. We draw on data from interviews with 42 students and five tutors in order to explore the students’ understandings of professionalism in early years. In the paper, we discuss first, the then Labour Government’s drive to ‘professionalise’ the workforce and second, critically analyse the concept of professionalism, drawing on sociological literature. We then turn to the data, and argue that students’ understandings of professionalism are limited to generic understandings of ‘professional’ behaviour (reliability, politeness, punctuality and so on). The idea of their occupation being a repository of a particular knowledge and skills set is undercut by the students’ emphasis on work with young children being largely a matter of ‘common sense’. Our fourth point is to highlight the processes by which students are inducted into a respectable and responsible carer identity, as illustrated by an emphasis on clothes and appearance. We conclude that the version of professionalism offered to students training at this level is highly constrained, and discuss the implications of this.     

Being ‘fun’ at work: emotional labour,class, gender and childcare

This paper reports on data drawn from an Economic and Social Research Council‐funded project investigating the experiences of UK‐based students training on level‐2 and level‐3 childcare courses. We focus on the concept of emotional labour in relation to learning to care for and educate young children and the ways in which the students’ experiences of emotional labour and the expectations placed upon their behaviour and attitudes are shaped by class and gender. We consider the ways in which students are encouraged to manage their own and the children's emotions and we identify a number of ‘feeling rules’ that demarcate the vocational habitus of care work with young children. We conclude by emphasising the importance of specific contexts of employment in order to understand workers’ emotional labour and argue for more recognition of the intense demands of emotional labour in early childhood education and care work.     

Technical expertise and teacher growth: results of a teacher evaluation policy impact study

This research examines educational stratification cross‐nationally through the context of German division and unity. Drawing upon representative German Social Survey (ALLBUS) data from 1991 to 1998 on cohorts schooled in the 1980s and 1990s, the analysis explores educational inequality at the secondary school level with respect to social origins and gender in four settings: the late state socialist German Democratic Republic, the immediate pre‐unification Federal Republic of Germany, and the two halves of a now‐united Germany. The pre‐unification settings differ structurally—in the extent and timing of educational differentiation—and ideologically. Post‐unification eastern Germany is a case of sudden, top‐down structural reform, with a high degree both of cultural continuity and continuity of teaching personnel. The study finds that women’ s disadvantage in educational attainment has disappeared at the secondary level; indeed, men now face a disadvantage at this level. However, no major changes have occurred with respect to social origins. The children of workers and less educated parents were extremely disadvantaged in both East and West Germany prior to unification, surprisingly, perhaps, even more so in East Germany. Despite dramatic reform and expansion of the university‐preparatory curriculum in eastern states since unification, inequality in educational attainment remains stable. Interestingly, the children of small‐scale proprietors were particularly advantaged under German state socialism, and in eastern states in the 1990s they maintain a substantial but more moderate advantage over working‐class peers. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible underlying reasons for the lack of variation in the parameters of educational inequality in the face of such varied and changing institutions and ideologies.     

Exploring the Development of Conceptual Understanding through Structured Problem‐solving in Physics

A study on the effect of a structured problem‐solving strategy on problem‐solving skills and conceptual understanding of physics was undertaken with 189 students in 16 disadvantaged South African schools. This paper focuses on the development of conceptual understanding. New instruments, namely a solutions map and a conceptual index, are introduced to assess conceptual understanding demonstrated in students’ written solutions to examination problems. The process of the development of conceptual understanding is then explored within the framework of Greeno’s model of scientific problem‐solving and reasoning. It was found that students who had been exposed to the structured problem‐solving strategy demonstrated better conceptual understanding of physics and tended to adopt a conceptual approach to problem‐solving.