End of the English (British?) Empire? Or Something Else?

The paper analyzes best-seller lists in seven major European book markets between April 2008 and March 2009. The paper’s authors introduce the concept of an impact factor for best-selling authors that shows how influential an author is in a given market and across the analyzed markets overall. The paper’s authors discovered that a new generation of European best-selling authors appeared in major book markets of Europe such that those not writing in English have an impact of almost twice that of the English writers. Furthermore, the authors have discovered that only veteran English or American best-selling authors tend to be published by big media conglomerates; the majority of the European best-selling authors were published by a surprising mix of big and small, independent and international publishing houses. It is striking that English as the most popular second language in the world did not play a stronger role as an intermediary language in the transmission of books from one European culture to another, as European publishers in major markets still employ editors who read a variety of languages and thus play the role of intermediaries in how books travel from one culture to another.     

Worldviews and their relation to science

Worldviews are not only about whether God exists or whether the world has a purpose. They can contain a lot more, or they can differ in excluding the existence of God and/or a purpose for the world. In this article we define worldviews as answering a variety of worldview questions, which we list. Once this is recognized, it becomes clear that scientific worldviews are also a species of worldviews that should not be dismissed categorically. We then distinguish between the project of constructing a scientific worldview and asking whether science itself has any worldview content. We argue that science, even when it is characterized quite minimally, does have worldview content. This has some important implications for science education, which we draw.     

An investigation of mathematics anxiety among sixth through eighth grade students in Turkey

The purpose of the present study is to investigate mathematics anxiety among 220 sixth through eighth grade Turkish students in terms of mathematics achievement levels, perceived enjoyment of the mathematics teaching method, perceived enjoyment of mathematics, and perceived help with mathematics from parents. The Mathematics Anxiety Scale for Primary School Students (Bindak, 2005) was used to assess the levels of mathematics anxiety. A 3 × 2 factorial analysis of variance results showed that there was not a significant interaction effect or main effect of gender; however, there was a significant main effect of grade level. Standard multiple regression analyses show that independent variables accounted for 63% to 70% of variability in the dependent variable. The results also indicate that not only the perceived enjoyment of mathematics, but also the enjoyment of the mathematics teaching method and help with mathematics from parents had a significant effect on mathematics anxiety.     

Investigating the Relationships Among Elementary School Students’ Epistemological Beliefs, Metacognition, and Constructivist Science Learning Environment

The research questions addressed in this study were: what types of epistemological beliefs do elementary students have; what types of metacognition do elementary students have; and what are the relationships among students’ perceived characteristics of constructivist learning environment, metacognition, and epistemological beliefs. A total of 626 students enrolled in sixth, seventh, and eight grades of nine elementary public schools located in Ankara, Turkey constituted the participants of this study. Constructivist learning environment survey (CLES), Junior metacognitive awareness inventory (Jr. MAI), and Schommer epistemological belief questionnaire (EB) were administered to students. Factor Analysis of Jr. MAI revealed both knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition items were loaded into one factor. Confirmatory factor analysis of EB revealed a four factor structure namely innate ability, quick learning, omniscient authority, and certain knowledge. Regression analyses revealed that metacognition and omniscient authority were significant predictors of personal relevance dimension of CLES. Metacognition was found as the only predictor of the student negotiation. Innate ability and metacognition significantly contributed to uncertainty. This study revealed that the elementary students with different mastery levels hold different epistemological beliefs and multi-faceted nature of elementary school students’ metacognition was seemed to be supported with this study. It was found that metacognition contributed to model more than epistemological beliefs for all three dimensions of CLES.     

Teaching Ecosystems and Matter Cycles with Creative Drama Activities

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of creative drama-based instruction on seventh graders’ science achievements in the ecology and matter cycles unit and their attitudes toward science. The study is an experimental study carried out in one of the public elementary schools in Turkey during 2005–2006 schooling year. An ecological concept achievement test was developed and administered to 45 students in two classes (as control and experimental group) of an elementary school before and after the treatment. The experimental group received creative drama-based instruction and the control group received traditional instruction. A guiding instruction material which contains six lesson plans in the subject was constructed for the teacher to administer creative drama-based instruction. The topics of ecosystems and matter cycles were taught to the both of groups for 3 weeks. A science attitude test was administered to both groups before and after the treatment. The results revealed a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the both groups with respect to achievement in the ecology concepts and median of the attitudes toward science in favour of the experimental group after the treatment.     

The benefit of being a big fish in a big pond: Contrast and assimilation effects on academic self-concept

This study investigates the effects of class-average ability (intelligence) and class type (gifted vs. regular) on Math academic self-concept. The sample comprised 722 fifth-grade students (376 female) in a setting of full-time ability grouping at the top track of the German secondary high school system. Students came from 34 different classes at five schools; nine of these classes were part of a gifted track (n = 179). Academic self-concept and school grades were assessed by a self-report questionnaire, intelligence by a standardized test. Higher class-average ability led to lower academic self-concepts after controlling for the positive influence of individual ability (contrast effect). Class type had a counterbalancing positive effect on self-concept (assimilation effect). For students in gifted classes, both effects were of comparable size. Thus, no evidence for a big-fish-little-pond effect (stronger contrast than assimilation effect) was found. Effects of individual and group level ability were partially mediated by school grades. Implications for educational practice of highly able students are discussed.     

Mehr als eine Mathematikstunde: Platons Menon

For the past two hundred years in German educational science the ‘maths lesson’ of Plato’s Meno has received attention – always to be celebrated as a masterpiece of Socratic teaching. Yet, by taking only the ‘maths lesson’ into account the negative ending of Meno is overlooked. Thus, because generally the ‘maths lesson’ is used as an example for a positive Socratic maieutic teaching method, a second possible medical, ‘therapeutic’ link between a midwife, with which Socrates compares himself in Plato’s Theaetetus, and a torpedo fish, with which he equates himself in Meno, is usually overlooked.     

Erstsprachförderung bei Migrantenkindern in Kindergärten

This contribution reports on an investigation into the importance of supporting first language for the command of first and second language skills using a quasi-experimental longitudinal study of migrant children in kindergarten. For two years the development of both first and second language skills was coordinated through the treatment of the same topics and stories during lessons. Furthermore, parents were asked to read their children a story or play an audio book in the first language three times a week. This extensive intervention neither had statistically significant effects on the development of language competency in the first nor the second language, German. The transfer effects between first and second language expected by the interdependency hypothesis of Cummins were only in evidence to a very limited extent.     

On the geography of accountability: Comparative analysis of teachers’ experiences across seven European countries

Different forms of accountability are part of educational restructuring across Europe. This article will focus on the different national configurations of accountability from teachers’ point of view. A comparative perspective will enlarge on commonalities and differences between teachers’ experiences in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, England, Sweden, Finland, and Greece. The results obtained demonstrate, on the one hand, that educational policy regarding state-initiated standardization and accountability measures vary highly within the EU. On the other hand, it emerged that the oft-cited discussion between a beneficial professional versus a simplistic performance-oriented form of accountability misses the general disbelief of teachers towards all forms of accountability. Although their work has been increasingly rendered visible over the recent past, teachers pinpointed the mismatch between monitored needs and available resources to effectively transform their educational practice.     

The importance of interplay between school-based and networked professional development: School professionals’ experiences of inter-school collaborations in learning networks

Previous literature has demonstrated that networks can be valuable sources of professional learning. In 2005 all Liverpool schools formed into ten Learning Networks with the aim of improving the quality, and entitlement of, continuing professional development (CPD) for staff as part of a whole-scale local authority initiative. The Liverpool Learning Networks Research explored professionals’ CPD experiences following this organizational change and whether it has enhanced their practice. Triangulated data, a large-scale survey and qualitative interviews conducted in 2007, seem to suggest that where professionals benefited from professional learning in a networked context, the quality of the networked CPD as well as a positive school culture and intra-school collaboration were all important contributors to the success of networked-CPD. This finding can usefully apply Turbill’s (Teacher learning for educational change. Open University Press, Buckingham, 94–114, 2002) model of professional learning to the intersection between school-based and networked-CPD, which suggests that it is at this intersection between internal and external domains that teacher learning can take place. Two scenarios, where this interplay between school-based and networked CPD is positive (enhancement) or negative (tension), are reported through five case studies of professionals underpinned by the survey data, where relevant.