The entrepreneurial researcher: Re-formations of identity in the research marketplace

This article seeks to consider the nature and impact of managerialism on Higher Education with particular reference to research. Managerialism will be addressed here primarily as a transmission system of economic rationalism into the body politic of the university, by that it is meant that competitiveness is assumed to improve performance and only the financial calculation of benefit is recognised. This agenda is developed through consideration of the changing management of research work and draws on the wider literature on work and organisations to look at the impact of changing material conditions and social relations on the identity formation of researchers. In general, the article seeks to promote reflexivity both in the style of presentation and in the focus on research and managerialism in Higher Education. The salience of Barry Troyna's strictures about reflexivity (Troyna, 1994) is acknowledged but it is suggested that if we seek to understand how the values and cultures of the public sector are being transformed, in particular through the formation of new subjectivities, then our own experience as workers within higher education offers a valuable and useful resource. It is also possible that subjecting this process to self-critical scrutiny may alert us to its invidiousness and so assist in the retrieval and re-formation of alternative formations of research work. For some of us, including the author, this may extend into consideration of the effects of managerialism on our own identities as managers and on our own management practice.     

Valued and performed or not? Teachers’ ratings of transition activities for young children with learning disability

Stakeholder collaboration has been identified as a facilitator for positive transition outcomes for all children, and especially for children in need of special support. However, the type and extent of stakeholder collaboration have shown to be related to teachers’ view of their transition practises. Thus, this study set out to examine the transition activities reported by 253 teachers in Compulsory School for Students with Learning Disabilities in Sweden. The purpose was to study the type of transition activities performed and how important teachers regarded these activities to be. The results show that overall teachers are engaged in transition activities that can be described as mainly traditional, as they do not differ from transition activities carried out in other educational settings. The results also show that untraditional transition activities, such as home visits and joint parent meetings with preschools, are viewed as important, but rarely executed. The results are discussed from an ecological systems perspective, emphasising the interconnectedness of individuals and their environment. Focus is given to individualised transition processes and developmentally appropriate transition activities for young children with learning disability.     

Maintaining Inequality Despite Expansion: Evidence of the Link between Parents' Education and Qualitative Differences in Educational Attainment

The restructuring of the Australian labour market decreased demand for low‐skilled workers and increased demand for highly skilled workers and professionals further strengthening the relationship between educational and occupational attainment. To satisfy the demand for highly educated workers, the government reorganised the higher education sector increasing the number of universities and trebling the number of places for domestic undergraduate students. Analysing data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, this paper examines the association between parents' education and the likelihood of graduating from university for six birth cohorts of Australians. Overall, the findings suggest that although the expansion of the higher education sector in Australia provided alternative pathways into university, differences in educational attainment, on both quantitative and qualitative dimensions, persist.     

The identification and assessment of dyslexiaClass teachers' perceptions of the usefulness of the dyslexia screening test for seven to eight year-old pupils

Many teachers are concerned about the problems of identifying and assessing dyslexia in their own schools, but lack time during the school day to assess the accuracy of new tests. In the last ten years dyslexia has moved from being a hidden disability to one that is acknowledged in academic, intellectual and professional fields, through advances in genetics and psychological research. Non-recognition can lead to severe problems for a pupil in school and in later life, as well as for teachers, in particular, attempting to devise learning programmes and for schools, in general, facing litigation for not addressing a particular child's specific needs.     

Diane Ravitch Revised?

Long associated with conservative views on education, Diane Ravitch recently has won wide acclaim from educators and others who do not identify with conservatism. The publication of The Death and Life of the Great American School System has been central to her newfound popularity because it is an effective critique of the market-based reforms she previously championed and because it defends both public schools and their teachers. As attractive as these stances are to defenders of public education, Ravitch’s book offers little evidence that she has backed away from an underlying conservatism that is complacent about inequalities inside and outside of public schools.     

Cueing complex animations: Does direction of attention foster learning processes?

The time course of learners’ processing of a complex animation was studied using a dynamic diagram of a piano mechanism. Over successive repetitions of the material, two forms of cueing (standard colour cueing and anti-cueing) were administered either before or during the animated segment of the presentation. An uncued group and two other control conditions were also employed. Development of an internal representation of the movements depicted in the animation was evaluated through participant demonstrations of the mechanism’s operation on a replica piano mechanism. Eye tracking (fixation lengths) indicated that overall, conventional visuospatially-based cueing was largely ineffective for directing attention across the presentations of the animation. Demonstration scores from cued animations were no better than those produced from the uncued version. Cue obedience for standard colour cueing was initially superior to that for anti-cues but fell away after the animation’s first exposure. Contrary to expectations, there was no difference in cue obedience for cueing applied before or during animation of the display. The findings suggest that alternatives to visuospatial cues are needed to help learners process complex animations more effectively.     

Are there long-term effects of early child care?

Effects of early child care on children's functioning from 4(1/2) years through the end of 6th grade (M age=12.0 years) were examined in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n=1,364). The results indicated that although parenting was a stronger and more consistent predictor of children's development than early child-care experience, higher quality care predicted higher vocabulary scores and more exposure to center care predicted more teacher-reported externalizing problems. Discussion focuses on mechanisms responsible for these effects, the potential collective consequences of small child-care effects, and the importance of the ongoing follow-up at age 15.     

QuickSmart: a basic academic skills intervention for middle school students with learning difficulties

QuickSmart is a basic academic skills intervention designed for persistently low-achieving students in the middle years of schooling that aims to improve the automaticity of basic skills to improve higher-order processes, such as problem solving and comprehension, as measured on standardized tests. The QuickSmart instructional program consists of three structured, teacher- or teacher aide-directed, 30-minute, small-group lessons each week for approximately 26 weeks. In this study, 42 middle school students experiencing learning difficulties (LD) completed the QuickSmart reading program, and a further 42 students with LD took part in the QuickSmart mathematics program. To investigate the effects of the intervention, comparisons were made between the reading and mathematics progress of the intervention group and a group of 10 high-achieving and 10 average-achieving peers. The results indicated that although the standardized reading comprehension and mathematics scores of QuickSmart students remained below those of comparison students, they improved significantly from pretest to posttest. In contrast, the standardized scores of comparison students were not significantly different from pretest to posttest. On measures of response speed and accuracy gathered using the Cognitive Aptitude Assessment System (CAAS), QuickSmart students were able to narrow the gap between their performance and that of their high- and average-achieving peers. Implications are drawn regarding the importance of interventions that emphasize the automaticity of basic academic skills for students with learning difficulties.     

Golfers do not respond to changes in shaft mass properties in a mechanically predictable way

A common belief in the golf community is that a lighter shaft allows the golfer to swing the club faster. From a mechanical point of view, reducing the mass of the shaft would result in a faster swing. However, a golfer is not a purely mechanical system, and so it is simplistic to assume that identical loads will be applied when swinging different clubs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that golfers behave similar to a mechanical model when swinging clubs of varying mass. A torque driven model estimated the effects caused by the addition of 22?g to the shaft. Twelve golfers hit balls with a standard driver as well as a driver fitted with the same 22?g increase in mass. Club kinematics were collected with a high-speed motion capture system. The model predicted a 1.7?% lower club head speed for the club with additional mass. One subject showed a similar reduction (1.4?%), but one subject showed an increase in club head speed by 3.0?%. Ten subjects did not show any significant differences. These results suggest that golfers do not respond to changes in club mass in a mechanically predictable way.