The role of the teacher's culture in classroom management: A case study of primary schools in French Polynesia

Polynesian Languages and Culture (PLC) lessons in primary schools focus on, among other things, passing on Tahitian legends and linguistic content that is specific to the Polynesian languages (Reo mā'ohi). A co-analysis of the PLC teachers' culture of origin conducted with the teachers to identify the dimensions of their actual activity revealed a strong connivance between the teaching object and the teacher/pupils relationship (notably through gestures, postures and proxemics). This relationship was representative of the 'rapports de place' (relationships of place) found in particular in the non-school sphere. Respect for the roles and statuses of 'elders' and 'magisters', the importance of a commitment to learning, the valorisation of speaking up and the benevolence of encouraging pupils to persevere in their learning were all fundamental values of belonging in the Tahitian community. Beyond the Polynesian context, this research contributes to a conceptual enlargement of the theoretical field of 'didactique professionnelle' because it demonstrates that taking into account the influence of the context and its inherent values better identifies the resources that teachers implicitly draw on and that they refer or do not refer to in an interactive situation with learners.     

Introduction to the special section: life design interventions (counseling,guidance, education) for decent work and sustainable development

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance -     

Tackling the anxiety of learning statistics: The mystery of the red envelope

Most graduate programs in management require students to carry out a substantive research project. However, few management students have a comfortable command of the statistical techniques needed to realize such quantitative projects. This can lead to student anxiety and stress, which challenges instructors to devise ways to build students’ self-efficacy with statistical analysis. Drawing on game-based learning principles, we developed an exercise to help students in a graduate-level research methods course practice these statistical techniques. Designed around a series of four gamified challenges, students perform basic statistical analyses (correlations, t-tests, and simple linear regression) to solve puzzles and unlock a reward hidden in a mysterious red envelope. We used the exercise on seven occasions (five times in the methods course and twice in a graduate program preparatory course). After launching it in fall 2021, we observed that students were engaged and enthusiastic about the exercise. To ascertain its effectiveness more systematically, we collected data in five subsequent sections using a pretest/posttest design (N = 84) which showed that perceptions of statistics self-efficacy increased following the exercise. We conclude by suggesting that our exercise can be tailored to other learning contexts such as management and statistics-centered courses.     

Analysis of a multifaceted interactive pedagogy program in an upper limb anatomy course: A time series study

Many new methods have contributed to the learning of anatomy, including several interactive methods, increasing the effectiveness of educational programs. The effectiveness of an educational program involving several interactive learning methods such as problem-based learning and reciprocal peer teaching was researched in this study. A quasi-experimental before–after study on three consecutive groups of second-year students at the Grenoble School of Medicine was conducted. The lectures were replaced by an educational program based on the problem-based learning method and reciprocal peer teaching. The first session was dedicated to reading clinical cases illustrating the medical concept, so that the learning objectives for the second session could be set. Then, after viewing digital courses, the second session was dedicated to a synthetic presentation by the students themselves, followed by an interactive summary with the teacher. The analysis of 630 students showed a significant increase in the theory test results for those who took part in the intervention: 9.71 versus 9.19 (β = 0.57, P = 0.036). Moreover, satisfaction was high after the intervention (mean = 4.5/5), and when comparing the two pedagogical approaches the students showed a clear preference for the program implemented with the concepts highlighted such as interactivity, in-depth work, group work, and autonomy. A multifaceted interactive pedagogy program could have a significant impact on the results of the theoretical concepts presented and on satisfaction as well as increased investment by students in learning anatomy.     

Detection of explanation obstacles in scientific texts: the effect of an understanding task vs. an experiment task

The aim of this study is to analyse the effect of tasks on the detection of explanation obstacles when secondary school students read scientific texts. Students were instructed to read short passages under different task conditions, and to ask questions if necessary. Obstacle detection was operationalised in terms of the type of questions asked by the students. The experiment examined the influence of goals associated with the task of reading to understand a text vs. reading to perform a procedure described by the text (a science experiment). Significantly, more explanation obstacles were found in the understanding condition than in the experiment condition. Scientific text also had an effect on the explanation obstacles detected.     

Priorities for primary education? From subjects to life-skills and children's social and emotional development

To what needs and purposes should the primary curriculum be chiefly directed in the coming decades? In a first step towards revising the primary curriculum, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) invited responses to an open online call to ‘have your say’ on priorities for primary education. Respondents were asked to share their views in 100 words or less. Six priorities for primary education were identified across the 960 responses. These focused on developing children's life-skills; communication skills; well-being; literacy and numeracy skills; motivation and engagement; and their sense of identity and belonging. Across the priorities, there is recognition that skills learned in the primary years are related to one another and the extent to which children develop these is likely to have wide-ranging effects on their future experience as learners. Findings call for a revision of traditional, content-based curriculum subjects towards a better alignment with the needs of today's primary school children beginning with a more explicit focus on life-skills, and children's social and emotional development. Finally, we note the common ground across early childhood, primary and post-primary sectors and highlight the potential to align our values and vision for children and young people's education from the earliest years through adulthood.     

How does reading performance modulate the impact of orthographic knowledge on speech processing? A comparison of normal readers and dyslexic adults

Studies on proficient readers showed that speech processing is affected by knowledge of the orthographic code. Yet, the automaticity of the orthographic influence depends on task demand. Here, we addressed this automaticity issue in normal and dyslexic adult readers by comparing the orthographic effects obtained in two speech processing tasks that are or not sensitive to strategies developed by participants. Our finding showed that while participants’ performance in a metaphonological task, which is known to be strategy prone, was affected by their orthographic knowledge regardless of the childhood diagnosis of dyslexia or of their actual reading-related skills, this latter factor significantly modulated the orthographic influence found in a more natural speech recognition task. The finding supports the claim that while any individuals who know a reading code are able to resort to their orthographic knowledge when they process speech, a more profound modification of the speech processing system by the orthographic code takes place only in readers who have reached a certain level of reading expertise.     

Continuity and Change in the Home Literacy Environment as Predictors of Growth in Vocabulary and Reading

One hundred and ten English‐speaking children schooled in French were followed from kindergarten to Grade 2 (M_age: T1 = 5;6, T2 = 6;4, T3 = 6;11, T4 = 7;11). The findings provided strong support for the Home Literacy Model (Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002 ) because in this sample the home language was independent of the language of instruction. The informal literacy environment at home predicted growth in English receptive vocabulary from kindergarten to Grade 1, whereas parent reports of the formal literacy environment in kindergarten predicted growth in children's English early literacy between kindergarten and Grade 1 and growth in English word reading during Grade 1. Furthermore, 76% of parents adjusted their formal literacy practices according to the reading performance of their child, in support of the presence of a responsive home literacy curriculum among middle‐class parents.     

The role of nonspeech rhythm in Spanish word reading

Recent literacy research shows an increasing interest in the influence of prosody on literacy acquisition. The current study examines the relationship of nonspeech rhythmic skills to children's reading acquisition, and their possible relation to stress assignment in Spanish, a syllable‐timed language. Sixty‐six third graders with no reading difficulties were scored on measures of nonspeech rhythm, word‐level decoding skill, reading fluency and reading with correct assignment of lexical stress. After controlling for verbal intelligence and working memory, hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that nonspeech rhythm predicted unique variance in reading fluency and correct stress assignment; it did not predict decoding skills. Given that Spanish is a syllable‐timed as opposed to stress‐timed language like English, the association between nonspeech rhythm, reading fluency and stress assignment found in our study suggests that nonspeech rhythm may be a universal factor in reading acquisition, independent of the type of linguistic rhythm.