Changes in teacher stress through participation in pre‐referral intervention teams

Teachers today face high stress that can compromise their well‐being, longevity in the profession, and the quality of their interactions with students. Pre‐referral interventions, which address individual student difficulties before consideration for special education, may help buffer teacher stress through student interventions and team support. Yet, little is known about how teacher stress changes across pre‐referral interventions. This study followed 33 elementary education teachers prospectively through their participation in a pre‐referral intervention team (PIT) program. Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that, across the pre‐referral process, teachers felt less distress related to referred students' needs, termed “dyadic stress.” Teachers' dyadic stress was partially accounted for by student progress on referral concerns. Teachers' experience of PIT support was also linked to reductions in stress and lower dyadic stress after pre‐referral interventions were implemented. The findings have implications for how school practitioners consult with teachers. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The impact of school choice and public policy on segregation: Evidence from Chile

Advocates argue that vouchers can make improved educational opportunity available to disadvantaged students. Critics contend that vouchers increase the risk of stratification. Researchers have found that Chile's voucher program has lead to increased socioeconomic school segregation. What has been overlooked, however, is segregation between schools within a sector and variation within private for-profit and non-profit school sectors. I find that public schools are more likely to serve disadvantaged students than private voucher schools. I also find that disadvantaged students are more segregated among private voucher schools than among public schools. While between and within sector segregation levels vary across private voucher school types, the differences are not always consistent with theory. The data also suggest that policies can either mitigate or exacerbate the stratifying effects of educational vouchers.     

Less than Equal: A Former Urban Schoolteacher Examines the Causes of Educational Disadvantagement

After reviewing competing explanations for the disproportionate rates of school failure experienced by poor and nonwhite populations advanced in recent decades, the author, a former urban alternative high school teacher, advances what he calls a culture-centered interactionist framework. This framework blames neither the impoverishment of students nor the ethnocentricity of middle-class educators alone for educational disadvantagement, but rather locates the problem in a more complex interaction between nonmainstream students and mainstream schools. Many poor children arrive at school well behind their more fortunate peers academically, but chronic school-based inequities such as low teacher expectations and unexamined ability-grouping practices clearly exacerbate these differences. The minority view that racial differences in academic performance are hereditary in nature is also addressed and critiqued.     

Reliance to Independence: Approaches to learning in peer‐led undergraduate science,technology, engineering,and mathematics workshops

The phenomenographic ‘approach to learning’ literature holds that students’ approaches to learning can change depending on the learning context. This implies that, by modifying the learning context, teachers can change the way students approach learning, and this can ultimately lead to a change in learning outcomes. The study presented here examines one effort to modify a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning context and the approaches to learning taken by students experiencing this environment. Using a qualitative, phenomenographic approach, we interviewed 45 students in a STEM peer‐led workshop programme at a large US research university. Similar to previous approach‐to‐learning research, the study identified three approaches students took to learning in the peer‐led programme, in which they focused on simply making it through the course, engaging more meaningfully with the material, and gaining better control over their own learning.     

Drivers and barriers to the utilisation of gamification and game-based learning in universities: A systematic review of educators' perspectives

While gamification and game-based learning have both been demonstrated to have a host of educational benefits for university students, many university educators do not routinely use these approaches in their teaching. Therefore, this systematic review, conducted using the PRISMA guidelines, sought to identify the primary drivers and barriers to the use of gamification and game-based learning by university educators. A search of multiple databases (Web of Science, Scopus and EBSCO (Business Source Complete; ERIC; Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts)) identified 1330 articles, with 1096 retained after duplicates were removed. Seventeen articles (11 quantitative, two mixed-methods and four qualitative) were included in the systematic review. The primary drivers described by the educators that positively influenced their gamification and game-based learning usage were their beliefs that it encourages student interactions and collaborative learning; provides fun and improves engagement; and can easily be used by students. Alternatively, the university educators' major barriers included a lack of time to develop gamification approaches, lack of proven benefits and classroom setting issues. Many of these and other less commonly reported drivers and barriers can be categorised as attitudinal, design-related or administrative in nature. Such categorisations may assist university educators, teaching support staff and administrators in better understanding the primary factors influencing the utilisation of gamification and game-based learning and develop more effective strategies to overcome these barriers to its successful implementation.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Gamification and game-based learning may have many benefits for university students.
• The majority of university educators do not routinely use gamification and game-based learning in their teaching.

What this paper adds

• University educators' major drivers that positively influence the use of gamification and game-based learning include their perceptions that it encourages student interactions and collaborative learning, provides fun and improves engagement and can easily be used by students.
• University educators' major barriers that negatively influence the use of gamification and game-based learning include their perceptions of a lack of time to develop gamification approaches, lack of proven benefits and classroom setting issues.
• These drivers and barriers may be classified as attitudinal, design-related and administrative, with these categories providing a useful way for universities to develop strategies to better support educators who wish to use these approaches in their teaching.

Implications for practice and policy

• Attitudinal factors such as university educators' intention to use gamification and game-based learning are influenced by a host of their perceptions including attitude, perceived usefulness and ease of use.
• A range of design-related and administrative barriers may need to be overcome to increase the use of gamification and game-based learning in the university sector.