Exploring the Usefulness of Kelly's Personal Construct Theory in Assessing Student Learning in Science Courses

We explore the utility of George Kelly's Personal Construct Theory, specifically his repertory grid technique, to the assessment of student learning in undergraduate science courses. We provide an in-depth review of the assumptions underlying Personal Construct Theory and how these were reflected in the repertory grid technique Kelly developed. We explain how an adapted version of the repertory grid, sharing some yet not all of Kelly's assumptions, was utilised as a research tool in a recent study involving science instructors and their students. We argue that as well as having applicability as an innovative research tool, an adapted version of Kelly's repertory grid is a useful heuristic for university teachers when used as a classroom assessment technique (CAT) and indicate several features it shares with the more widely-known conceptual mapping technique, which has been used in the study of science teaching and learning for many years. We conclude by highlighting several advantages the use of repertory grids has for both students and instructors.     

Working with ‘Diverse Bodies,Diverse Identities’: an approach to professional education about ‘diversity’

The complexity and diversity of populations in contemporary Western societies is becoming a significant public policy issue. The concept of ‘diversity’ has come to represent cultural, ethnic, racial and religious differences between the ‘dominant group’ and immigrant and indigenous populations. ‘Diversity training’ is amongst many strategies being implemented to address social and economic objectives in complex societies. This paper discusses and critically evaluates a professional education programme, ‘Diverse Bodies, Diverse Identities’, that is offered to human service practitioners and social work students in Victoria, Australia. It is concluded that a range of approaches is needed to address ‘diversity’ in contemporary societies.     

Student–Faculty Collaborative Research: A Qualitative Study of Experiences with the Authorship Determination Process

Mentoring students through collaborative research can be an effective method for cultivating student development as scholars; but negotiating the division of responsibilities and recognition may be difficult due to the inherent complexities of the relationship between collaborators and the research process itself. A national sample of 440 students and faculty in education and social science disciplines described their positive and negative experiences with authorship determination in student–faculty collaborative research. Qualitative analysis of these responses revealed important themes and informed the development of suggestions for articulating authorship to avoid potential difficulties.     

Children with Behavioural and Emotional Difficulties: Complex Children,Complex Training for Teachers

This paper consists of two parents’ accounts of their experiences of having children with AD/HD. The article is divided into three distinct sections. In the first section the mother of ‘Simon’ describes her experience of bringing up a child who, from early infancy, presented challenging behaviour. She describes the effect of this on her family and her self esteem as a parent. She goes on to give an account of the process by which ‘Simon’ came to be diagnosed as having AD/HD and the effects of the ensuing treatment programme. In the second section the same writer describes the impact of her experience on her relationships with the extended family. The third section of the paper is provided by a second writer, who is also the mother of a child with AD/HD. This section focuses on the difficulties she experienced in dealing with her child's educational needs and the conflicts which arose between her and staff in her child's school.     

Understanding disorganised attachment: theory and practice for working with children and adults,by David Shemmings and Yvonne Shemmings

Preschoolers with autism face a number of challenges in integrating into different community activities owing to behavioural, communication and emotional concerns. Since the year 2009, the Hong Kong Heep Hong Society has developed a training programme for enhancing community participation among individuals with autism. The current project reports findings of a qualitative study of special education teachers’ perceptions concerning a range of issues with regard to the programme. Semi-structured one-to-one interviews were conducted to gather information from eight teachers who used the community participation programme. The results indicated that teachers perceived the programme as a useful tool for promoting community participation among preschoolers with autism. However, participants pointed out a number of barriers to implementing the programme effectively. The participants suggested ways to improve the quality of community participation programmes. Implications for teachers and other professionals are discussed.     

Factors associated with middle school students' perceptions of the quality of school-based sexual health education

This paper examines factors associated with middle school students' perceptions of the quality of the sexual health education (SHE) they received at school. Participants were 478 predominately White young people (256 girls, 222 boys) in grades 6–8 who completed a survey assessing their demographic characteristics; dating and sexual experience; and perceptions of the content, delivery and quality of the SHE they had received. Boys and students in a lower grade and with less sexual experience rated the quality of their SHE more positively. After accounting for student characteristics, students who more strongly agreed that their SHE matched their interests and covered sexual health topics more adequately, as well as who viewed their teacher as being more comfortable talking about sexual topics and doing a better job answering questions, reported higher quality SHE. Students' perceptions of the adequacy of coverage of 10 sexual health topics were also positively correlated with their reports of higher quality SHE, although only two topics (correct names for genitals and puberty/physical development) contributed uniquely to the prediction of this variable. These results reinforce the need for a comprehensive SHE curriculum as well as adequate preparation of teachers if SHE is to be engaging to students.     

Problems & Prospects Revisited: Bursik’s Mark on Chicago‐Style Criminology

It has been 20 years since Robert J. Bursik Jr. published his seminal article outlining some of the problems and prospects in the social disorganization perspective on crime and delinquency. In this study, we review the content of approximately 200 published articles that cite Bursik’s 1988 piece. These studies are systematically examined in terms of their efforts to overcome the problems and pursue the prospects that Bursik outlined. In addition to content analysis, we survey the authors who cite this work. That is, we gather data from the authors directly to assess the influence of Bursik’s article on their own published work. Our research finds that Bursik’s work played a significant role in the revitalization and expansion of social disorganization theory.     

Assessment for Effective Intervention: Enrichment Science Academic Program

Israel suffers from a growing problem of socio-economic gaps between those who live in the center of the country and residents of outlying areas. As a result, there is a low level of accessibility to higher education among the peripheral population. The goal of the Sidney Warren Science Education Center for Youth at Tel-Hai College is to strengthen the potential of middle and high school students and encourage them to pursue higher education, with an emphasis on majoring in science and technology. This study investigated the implementation and evaluation of the enrichment science academic program, as an example of informal learning environment, with an emphasis on physics studies. About 500 students conducted feedback survey after participating in science activities in four domains: biology, chemistry, physics, and computer science. Results indicated high level of satisfaction among the students. No differences were found with respect to gender excluding in physics with a positive attitudes advantage among boys. In order to get a deeper understanding of this finding, about 70 additional students conducted special questionnaires, both 1 week before the physics enrichment day and at the end of that day. Questionnaires were intended to assess both their attitudes toward physics and their knowledge and conceptions of the physical concept “pressure.” We found that the activity moderately improved boys’ attitudes toward physics, but that girls displayed decreased interest in and lower self-efficacy toward physics. Research results were used to the improvement of the instructional design of the physics activity demonstrating internal evaluation process for effective intervention.