Strategic Rhetoric: a constraint in changing the practice of teachers

Within the overall occupational culture of teachers, there are a number of different staff subcultures which compete for limited resources within a contracting educational system. This paper concentrates upon the subculture of physical education by focusing on one department engaged in a teacher initiated curriculum innovation where competing perspectives of change are made evident. It is suggested that coping strategies developed within the educational context of the school in order to enhance subject status may deflect teachers from considering the possibilities of change in their classroom practice.     

WebCT Role-Playing: Immediacy Versus E-Mediacy in Learning Environments

University teachers are increasingly encouraged to use e-Learning techniques to expand on- and off-campus learning environments available to students. Many e-Learning tools are attractive because of their ease of use and considerable research has demonstrated their popularity with both students and educators. Our research deviates from discourses promoting the attractiveness of the technology and instead examines the quality of learning outcomes offered by e-Mediated techniques, especially for distance learners. We outline an experiment in which e-Mediated delivery was compared to the immediacy of face-to-face teaching exercises. We demonstrate that, despite the ease of design, students in the e-Mediated environment did not retain or apply their knowledge as well as those from the face-to-face medium. We provide suggestions as to why this is the case and make recommendations for overcoming the hurdles in e-Mediated delivery identified by our research. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Interactive multimedia systems for engineering education in acoustics,synthesis and signal processing

This paper describes programmable multimedia systems, developed at the University of York, which are used extensively for teaching on a variety of music technology and mainstream engineering courses. Software and hardware systems are described for the physical modelling of acoustic spaces, and for constructing interactive synthesis and signal processing networks. Details are given on how these have been successfully integrated into higher education programmes at York.     

Parenting styles as predicators of anxiety and depression of in-school adolescents in Nigeria

The study investigates parenting styles as predictors of anxiety and depression in secondary school students in Edo State, Nigeria. It employed a correlation research design. Two hundred and forty students constituted the sample for the study. Parenting Style Scale questionnaire was used to collect data for the study. Linear regression was used to analyse the data. The findings revealed that parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative and permissive) significantly predict anxiety in adolescent secondary school students in Edo State. However, parenting styles did not significantly predict depression in adolescent secondary school students in Edo State. Based on these findings it was recommended among others that school counsellors should organise seminars and create awareness among parents and students on the influence of these parenting styles on the students and professional counselling intervention programmes were recommended for professional counselling practices.     

Changing schools: a study of primary secondary transfer using Vygotsky and Bernstein

ABSTRACT

This article is concerned with the influences that are brought to bear on the design of school buildings and the effects that the design of these buildings have on those who teach and learn in them. The article also focuses on the ways in which design is altered in and through the practices of these occupants. We argue that there is a mutual shaping of design and practice in these schools. We deploy the theory of socio-genesis developed by Lev S. Vygotsky and the sociology of pedagogy developed by Basil Bernstein in order to study the consequences for students of different trajectories of transfer between different designs and pedagogic cultures of primary and secondary schools in England. Our intention is to contribute to current debates about the effects of new school designs and the enduring concerns raised by difficulties that some students encounter in transitions between schools.     

Assessment of early handwriting skill in kindergarten children using a Chinese name writing test

Reading and Writing - This study developed and validated a Chinese name writing scale (CNWS) for evaluating early handwriting skills of kindergarten children. We then used the validated CNWS to...     

Learning bodies: Sensory experience in the information commons

Despite the digital shift, university libraries have grown in importance as places where students come to learn. Interest in designing better spaces has led to a flowering of user experience studies. Such research into how students use library space could usefully be informed by the theory of embodied cognition, which emphasises the role of the body in thinking and learning. This study explores students' embodied experience of an information commons building. Data were gathered from participatory walking interviews, where students were asked to give the interviewer a guided tour of the building. Findings revealed the way that particular combinations of sensory experience contributed to particular forms of learning. Very small movements or choices seem to reconfigure space significantly. This research also draws attention to the way that different learning atmospheres are actively constructed. The findings contribute a new perspective on inquiry into the use of library space. The potential implication for libraries is the need for more fine grained analysis of use experience from a sensory perspective and for teachers and learners to more explicitly reflect on the role of the body in learning.     

The ‘inclusion’ of elite athletes with disabilities in the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games: An exploratory analysis of British newspaper coverage

The XVII 2002 Commonwealth Games held in Manchester, England, was the first major international multi-sport event to include elite athletes with disabilities (EADs) in its main sports programme and medal table. In this exploratory article we seek to examine some of the complex issues surrounding the inclusion of EADs in the Manchester Games by analysing the coverage afforded those athletes by six national British newspapers. The results suggest that: (1) there was a tendency by the British media to discuss the performances of EADs in terms more-or-less consistent with a medicalized understanding of disability; (2) the inclusion of EADs in the Games signalled the ‘end of a sporting apartheid’ between ‘able-bodied’ athletes and EADs; and (3) that the participation of EADs in the Games was said to reflect the alleged growing ‘inclusion’ of people with disabilities in the wider society more broadly. The paper concludes by discussing some of the unintended consequences of including EADs in the Games, including those brought about by the classification system used to group athletes into events according to their particular impairment. Those which were associated with the supposed need for greater media coverage of EADs in ‘able-bodied’ sports competitions such as the Commonsealth Games.