Discussing Art and Design Education: Themes from Interviews with UK Design Stakeholders

This article presents discussion of art and design education in interviews conducted with 31 UK design stakeholders. To provide a coherent path through the data, quotes from interviewees are presented under the following themes: Choosing art and design; A natural talent for designing?; Developing the designer; Personal development. The author suggests that the views presented here relate to larger debates currently taking place in the field of art and design education. A particular thread running through the discussion is the intensely personal relationship that those following an art and design path have with their subject. This level of personal investment makes art and design more than just another educational or career option. Art and design education must therefore continue to develop pedagogical models which respond to the need for individual learning based on a development of personal creativity.     

The effects of a concept map-based information display in an electronic portfolio system on information processing and retention in a fifth-grade science class covering the Earth's atmosphere

An electronic portfolio system, designed to serve as a resource-based learning space, was tested in a fifth-grade science class. The control-group students accessed a traditional folder-based information display in the system and the experimental-group students accessed a concept map-based information display to review a science portfolio. The student-constructed science portfolio was a result of a collection of digital artefacts such as graphic images, instructional videos and textual files on terms and definitions relevant to the Earth's atmosphere. In the information-processing performance test, the experimental-group students scored significantly higher and spent much less time in finding answers to the questions presented. Also, in the 3-day delayed memory retention tests, the experimental-group students achieved significantly higher scores. The multiple regression models confirm that the visualisation variation is the most significant predictor for student performance (ie, comprehension and access time). Also, the regression models suggest that language-arts proficiency may reduce overall system access time; while higher math proficiency may predict retention scores.     

Understanding the relations between RAN letter subtest components and word reading in first-grade students

First-grade students (N = 221) were individually tested on a battery of cognitive and achievement measures of verbal fluency, visual attention, phonological awareness, orthographic recognition, rapid automatized naming (RAN) of letters and objects, and reading. All tests were subjected to postacquisition scoring, and all RAN measures were segregated into measures of articulation time, pause time, and consistency of the pause time. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that word reading was directly and significantly predicted by RAN letter naming and general RAN cognitive processing time of objects. Moreover, RAN letter reading constructs were significantly and directly predicted by the latent variables of phonological awareness, orthographic recognition, and general RAN object articulation and cognitive processing times. RAN letter naming constructs were also significantly and indirectly predicted by visual attention. The reading model was found to be consistent with a total mediation of the relation of phonological awareness and reading through RAN letter naming and supported the validity of the RAN letter naming subtest as a basic letter reading test. These findings supported the double-deficit hypothesis for letter reading. We suggest that phonological memory is a basic factor underlying general RAN cognitive processing time of objects and domain-specific information associated with phonemes and their graphic representations.     

Disagreement over the best way to use the word ‘validity’ and options for reaching consensus

The ability to convey shared meaning with minimal ambiguity is highly desirable for technical terms within disciplines and professions. Unfortunately, there is no widespread professional consensus over the meaning of the word ‘validity’ as it pertains to educational and psychological testing. After illustrating the nature and extent of disagreement, we consider three options for reaching consensus: to eliminate its ambiguity by agreeing a precise technical definition; to embrace its ambiguity by agreeing a catchall lay usage; and to retire ‘validity’ from the testing lexicon.     

Technology in Support of Collaborative Learning

This paper reviews the research conducted in the last 20 years on the application of technology in support of collaborative learning in higher education. The review focuses primarily on studies that use Internet-based technologies and social interaction analysis. The review provides six sets of observations/recommendations regarding methodology, empirical evidence, and research gaps and issues that may help focus future research in this emerging field of study.

Teaching history through the use of story: working with early years practitioners who do not have qualified teacher status,in settings other than schools

This article arose from a series of workshops with practitioners in early years teaching. The workshops addressed how history could be taught to very young children, three‐ to five‐years‐old. The authors were aware that there was a widely held belief that history was inappropriate for the very young child. The authors felt that this was because of a common view that history was solely concerned with facts. There was also a prevalent view that, as history was about chronology (time), it was too difficult a subject for very young children, for whom ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’ had little meaning.

This article argues that successful teaching of history is possible with very young children if the teaching concentrates on interpretation and enquiry. Through using story, young children are able to interpret the behaviour, motivation and intent of the characters. The practitioners are able to question the child as to why s/he interprets the character’s actions in the way that s/he does. In other words the practitioner asks for evidence: the essence of history. When considering time, the authors’ note that young children have a subjective understanding of time and this can be used to develop a growing awareness of chronology.     

From Design and Implementation to Impact of Quality Assurance: An Overview of Some Studies into what Impacts Improvement

Abstract

Access to university has improved following the massification of the Australian higher education sector which started in 1989, with the expansion being funded by a widening of the funding base. In the ten years from 1989, Australian universities enrolled an additional 231,000 students, including an extra 189,000 in undergraduate bachelor degrees. Specific equity policies have further attempted to increase opportunities for students previously excluded from higher education. This paper looks at changes in the composition of the student body, and in the patterns of university funding. Using aggregated national student data sets, some of the changes which have arisen from massification are identified, with particular consideration of designated equity groups.     

An alienation-based framework for student experience in higher education: new interpretations of past observations in student learning theory

This article orients a recently proposed alienation-based framework for student learning theory (SLT) to the empirical basis of the approaches to learning perspective. The proposed framework makes new macro-level interpretations of an established micro-level theory, across three levels of interpretation: (1) a context-free psychological state (alienation), (2) a context-bound psychological state (student alienation), and (3) sociological processes from which these psychological states arise. Evidence for the viability of this macro–micro framework is, however, lacking, as is a clear path to seeking such evidence due to the framework’s complexity. The dichotomy of state and process implied by the framework reflects a recognised ‘dual interpretation’ of alienation, by which micro-level experiences are linked to behaviours through mediating macro-level psychological states. We use this dual interpretation together with Seeman’s (Ann Rev Sociol, 1975) six variants of alienation to construct a clear and well-ordered overall framework, and to hypothesize comprehensive explanations for the correlations observed between surface approaches to learning and five dimensions of learning experience emphasized in SLT. These five hypotheses are presented as succinct if…then statements, and assessed according to established qualitative criteria. Overall, the article prepares the way both for empirical verification of what is a complex theoretical structure, and for other future research in this vein.     

‘To teach the natives English’: James Pope’s 1880 native schools code

From their inception in New Zealand in 1816, until the end of the century in some cases, most mission schools in the colony maintained instruction solely in the Māori language. However, from the 1840s, successive colonial governments promoted a secular schooling system in which English would be the language in which students were taught, principally because Māori was seen as an impediment to the governments’ assimilationist ideology. The 1880 Native Schools Code, devised by the first Inspector of New Zealand’s Native Schools, James Pope, was one of the final major steps in this era in advancing this assimilationist ideal through the country’s education system. Pope’s initiative was partly a continuation of state policy that had existed in some form since the 1840s, but it also served as the most explicit statement to that time of how the government intended to use schooling to incorporate Māori into colonial society.