Towards a Methodology for Teacher‐Based Classroom Research

Educational research and evaluation for the purpose of improving practice is becoming increasingly common. The teacher‐researcher movement, LEA sponsored self‐evaluation schemes, for example, both involve teachers in reviewing their own practice or the practices of the school as an organization, with the express purpose of utilizing the review data for professional or school improvement. Unfortunately, the methodology for research and evaluation in schools is problematic; one reason for this is the difficulty in deriving valid inferences from data that are often qualitative in kind and subjective in manner. Although there is a body of literature that describes ways of collecting data on the functioning of schools and classrooms, there is little guidance as to how to analyse it. This presents particular difficulties for the teacher or school staff who, for example, are trying to make sense out of a mass of data accumulated from a self‐evaluation exercise. The following paper is an attempt to provide support for teachers and schools in such a predicament: it suggests a method for analysing qualitative data emerging from school‐based research efforts that draws on the traditions of sociological and anthropological field work.     

Moving on and Moving up: Confronting the Complexities of School Improvement in the Improving Schools Project

Despite recent advances, the research literature on school effectiveness, school improvement and educational change has relatively little to say about how schools become effective over time, and what strategies or combination of strategies work best to improve schools at different levels of effectiveness. A recent British research study – ‘The Improving Schools’ project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council – has been designed to explore these (and other) issues. This article describes the rationale for the fieldwork aspect of the project, which includes 13 secondary schools from 3 English local education authorities and presents 4 themes that have emerged from the first phase of the research that cast some light on the phenomena of the ‘improving school’. These themes – multiple starting points, the complex interactive and intuitive nature of school improvement strategies, the missing instructional level, and the importance of context – are described. The article concludes that given the non-linear and unpredictable nature of improvement seen in the case studies, schools need to become more skilled in ‘change agentry’ in order to continue to improve.     

Broadcasting

Jack Lyle's The People Look at Public Television: 1974 (Washington: Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1975—$1.00, paper)

Ken Coleman's So You Want to be a Sportscaster (New York: Hawthron Books, 1973—$5.95)

Joseph Fletcher Littell (ed.) Coping with Television (Evanston, Ill.: McDougal, Littell, 1973— cost not given, paper)

Joseph Julian's This Was Radio: A Personal Memoir (New York: Viking, 1975—$8.85)

Dick Cavett and Christopher Porterfield's Cavett (New York: Harcourt, Brace Jevanovich, 1974—$8.95)     

Progression and variability of competitive performance of Olympic swimmers

Estimates of progression and variability of athletic performance in competitions are useful for researchers and practitioners interested in factors that affect performance. We used repeated-measures mixed modelling to analyse 676 official race times of 26 US and 25 Australian Olympic swimmers in the 12-month period leading up to the 2000 Olympic Games. Progression was expressed as percent changes in mean performance; variability was expressed as the coefficient of variation in performance of an individual swimmer between races. Within competitions, both nations showed similar improvements in mean time from heats through finals (overall 1.2%; 95% confidence limits 1.1 to 1.3%). Mean competition time also improved over 12 months by a similar amount in both nations (0.9%; 95% confidence limits 0.6 to 1.2%). The US swimmers showed a greater improvement between the finals (a difference of 0.5%; 95% confidence limits ?0.2 to 1.1%), which paralleled changes in the medal haul of the two nations. The coefficient of variation in performance time for a swimmer between races was 0.60% (95% confidence limits 0.56 to 0.65%) within a competition and 0.80% (95% confidence limits 0.73 to 0.86%) between competitions. Our results show that: (a) to stay in contention for a medal, an Olympic swimmer should improve his or her performance by ～1% within a competition and by ～1% within the year leading up to the Olympics; (b) an additional enhancement of ～0.4% (one-half the between-competition variability) would substantially increase the swimmer's chances of a medal.     

Factor Analysis of Selected Basketball Skill Tests

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factor structure of the sports skill domain of basketball and to identify test items to measure in this skill domain. A theoretical model of the hypothesized dimensions of basketball playing ability was developed based on a review of literature concerning basketball skill testing from 1906 to the present day. These dimensions were: (a) shooting, (b) passing, (c) jumping, (d) movement without the ball and (e) movement with the ball. Twenty-one items, including the nine items in the AAHPER basketball skill test for boys, were selected to sample these hypothesized dimensions. The tests were administered to 70 male junior high and high school students enrolled in the University of Minnesota, Duluth basketball camp during the summer of 1975. The hypothesized dimensions were analyzed by use of the following: (a) alpha factor analysis; (b) canonical factor analysis; (c) image analysis; and (d) principal components analysis. Both oblique and orthogonal rotations were performed with each of the four analyses. The hypothesized model was partially substantiated in that the results confirmed three of the factors: (a) shooting, (b) passing and (c) jumping with the only difference being that the factors of movement with the ball and movement without the ball combined into one. Since the following test items best represented the dimensions, it appeared that a battery comprised of these items would provide a quick and objective measure of basketball skill: (a) jump and reach, (b) dribble, (c) speed pass, and (d) front shot.     

Linking School Effectiveness Knowledge and School Improvement Practice: Towards a Synergy

A survey is undertaken of the ‘paradigms’ of the academic communities of school effectiveness and school improvement researchers, practitioners and scholars. It is argued that the two ‘paradigms’ are very different, and that this has hindered the improvement of educational practice. Examples are given of programmes which are a ‘blend’ of the two different approaches, and detail is given as to how the school effectiveness and school improvement communities can meet the knowledge needs necessary for improving the quality of schooling.     

Progressive Education,After-School Programs and their Impact on the Lives of African American Males: An Introduction

This edition of the Peabody Journal of Education analyzes the historical and contemporary role of after-school programs in the development of African American males. In this introduction, the author places after-school programs within an historical context of progressivism, progressive education and social change in 19th-century America. As these new ideas of children and childhood were conceptualized, four significant social changes in America—industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and an “American reformation”—sparked the implementation of remedies for social ills within urban settings. This article suggests that the early 20th-century focus on after-school programs for African Americans were the results of lessons learned from early “remedies” targeting “new” immigrants. Moreover, the later desire to assist African American youth through these national and local youth development organizations was spurred by the rapid migration of African Americans to the urban northeast and Midwest during the first quarter of the 20th century. Moreover, the failed efforts of African Americans to acquire decent housing, the resulting crowding into segregated neighborhoods, and the deteriorating conditions of these urban, African American neighborhoods drew the attention of progressives, both African American and White, who were knowledgeable of and/or serving immigrant communities to provide similar services in urban, African American communities. ¹ This statement does not suggest that the African American community lacked interest in the development of organizations to serve their youth; however, these conditions did spark the interest of the larger community to act. View all notes     

The Integrating and Segregating Effects of School Choice

We evaluate the integrating and segregating effects of three distinct school choice programs in San Diego. We go beyond the traditional question of racial integration and examine the integration of students by test scores, parental education levels, and language status. In addition to measuring the net integrative effects of school choice, we also examine the underlying motives behind student participation in school choice programs and the limiting influence of supply-side constraints. Two of the programs that we consider are rooted in 1970s integration-based reforms that provide public transportation for program participants. The third program is a state-mandated, open-enrollment program that requires participants to find their own transportation to and from their choice schools. We find that the two programs with underlying integrative objectives do indeed integrate the district, but the open-enrollment program segregates the district along most dimensions. Provision of busing and geographic preferences appear to be important factors in promoting integration.     

Moving feedback forward: theory to practice

There is substantial research interest in tutor feedback and students’ perception and use of such feedback. This paper considers some of the major issues raised in relation to tutor feedback and student learning. We explore some of the current feedback drivers, most notably the need for feedback to move away from simply a monologue from a tutor to a student to a valuable tutor–student dialogue. In relation to moving feedback forward the notions of self regulation, dialogue and social learning are explored and then considered in relation to how such theory can translate into practice. The paper proposes a framework (GOALS) as a tool through which tutors can move theory into practice with the aim of improving student learning from feedback.