Primary grade students engage in creative word play through traditional and hands-on methods

Word play is an important skill allowing product names, show titles, jokes, poetry and other writings or orations to be interesting, entertaining and well-remembered. This pretest–posttest counterbalanced study compared two instructional approaches for teaching second and third grade students (n = 71) word play skills. Students at a public elementary school in Iowa, United States studied vowel patterns and rhyming as part of the regular school curriculum for literacy through two conditions: a traditional format of reading, pocket charts, worksheets and oral discussion; versus a more concrete approach of arranging objects and corresponding word cards in a chart-like formation. There was no significant difference in student performance between the conditions but an attitude survey indicated that a large majority of students preferred the object boxes for understanding of word play concepts and task enjoyment.     

‘We believe in every child as an individual’: Nursery school head teachers’ understandings of ‘quality’ in early years education

This article addresses the issue of ‘quality’ in early years education, with the aim of highlighting the voices of nursery school head teachers. Government early years achievement statistics display a reductive and de-contextualised focus on young children’s developmental outcomes, with measures of the percentage of 5-year-olds achieving a ‘good level of development’ at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Early years practitioner understandings of ‘quality’ are more sophisticated and multi-dimensional, and yet are marginalised in debates around what constitutes ‘quality’ early years provision and around what are desired outcomes for young children and how these can be achieved. Using qualitative data from interviews with nursery school head teachers and classroom teachers from across England, the article analyses these participants’ understandings of ‘quality’ early years provision. The study finds a consensus amongst these teachers that quality provision emanates from the professional skills of staff providing education for the whole child and their wellbeing: they conceive of ‘quality’ as relating to a depth of understanding of each child as an individual, enabling the child to progress in their learning.     

Uncomfortable curricula? A survey of academic practices and attitudes to delivering Indigenous content in health professional degrees

Unacceptable inequity in health status between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians remains despite much work in the area. The imperative for graduating health professionals capable and ready to work with urban and rural Indigenous communities has led to a focus on curriculum development, but less focus has thus far been applied to academic staff capability to deliver the content. We surveyed academic staff at a large multi-campus Australian university on their practices and attitudes towards teaching Indigenous content in health professional programs. Indigenous and non-Indigenous academic staff were surveyed online about whether Indigenous content was included in the curricula they taught; whether they felt confident and capable of delivering curricula related to Indigenous issues; what challenges they found in including Indigenous content; and what, if any, supports and resources they felt were needed. Sixty-three per cent of respondents said that they included Indigenous content in their curricula, but 43% said that they did not access Indigenous resources; 60% reported feeling awkward, unsure or avoided teaching Indigenous content; most (74%) were comfortable teaching discipline-specific content to Indigenous students but only 26% felt comfortable teaching Indigenous content to Indigenous students. The findings reflect a level of discomfort experienced by some academic staff when teaching Indigenous content in health professional degrees. Reasons for this include being worried they would make mistakes, not knowing what to teach and finding it ‘too hard’. We suggest that three levels of action are required within universities to address this discomfort in academic staff: (i) provide a rationale (‘why’ teach Indigenous content); (ii) develop a plan (‘where’ and ‘what’ Indigenous content to teach) and (iii) develop capability in academic staff regarding ‘how’ to teach Indigenous content.     

Method as a journey: a narrative dialogic partnership illuminating decision-making in qualitative educational research

Qualitative education research is an inherently complex landscape, presenting the qualitative researcher with constant ethical and reasoned decision-making. Presented as a narrative dialogic, this paper traces and juxtaposes the method stories of two qualitative researchers who focused their work around education phenomena, but in different contexts and in different ways. One researcher’s narrative study of phenomena via interviews is juxtaposed with the other’s phenomenographical investigation utilizing Facebook status updates. Seeing researcher thinking side-by-side provides a comparison that teases out the ways in which researchers might consciously grapple with thinking around method. These twin method stories offer ways for other qualitative researchers to think about their own decision-making as they address the challenges of balancing subjectivity and rigour, authenticity of reported data, and protection of participants. This dialogic partnership points to the malleability of method. It also encourages further exploration of the complexities of qualitative education research in which the researcher is often insider–outsider or outsider–insider.