Student perceptions of their learning and engagement in response to the use of a continuous e-assessment in an undergraduate module

Student engagement is an important issue in higher education, and is related to the quality of the student experience. Increasing student engagement is one way of enhancing quality at a higher education institution. An institution is able to influence student engagement in a number of ways, one being through curriculum design. The use of a low-stakes continuous weekly summative e-assessment had a positive influence on student engagement in an optional level 5 (second year) undergraduate geography module. Students considered their increased engagement was a direct consequence of this assessment method. It was also found that students thought they improved their learning, particularly their understanding, as a result of the continuous assessment. This study suggests that carefully designed assessments can be used to increase student engagement and learning, and, as a result, contribute to improving the quality of the overall student experience.     

Learning through Feature Prediction: An Initial Investigation into Teaching Categories to Children with Autism through Predicting Missing Features

Individuals with autism have difficulty generalising information from one situation to another, a process that requires the learning of categories and concepts. Category information may be learned through: (1) classifying items into categories, or (2) predicting missing features of category items. Predicting missing features has to this point been little used in special education. Children with autism were taught novel category information through either classification or feature prediction tasks. Both methods resulted in successful category learning. Furthermore, feature prediction learning resulted in better performance when predicting missing features of items at test. These results suggest that while both tasks are valuable tools for teaching categories to children with autism, the feature prediction task provides more successful post-learning use of the information acquired.     

The psychology of containment: (mis) representing emotional and behavioural difficulties in Australian schools

The number of students in special schools has increased at a rapid rate in some Australian states, due in part to increased enrolment under the categories of emotional disturbance (ED) and behaviour disorder (BD). Nonetheless, diagnostic distinctions between ED and BD are unclear. Moreover, despite international findings that students with particular backgrounds are over-represented in special schools, little is known about the backgrounds of students entering such settings in Australia. This study examined the government school enrolment data from New South Wales, the most populous of the Australian states. Linear and quadratic trends were used to describe the numbers and ages of students enrolled in special schools in the ED and BD categories. Changes between 1997 and 2007 were observed. Results showed an over-representation of boys that increased across the decade and a different pattern across age for boys and girls. Consistent with international findings, these results indicate that trends in special school placements are unrelated to disability prevalence in the population. Rather, it is suggested that schools act to preserve time and resources for others by removing their more challenging students: most typically, boys.     

Analysis of Readex's Serial Set MARC records: Improving the data for the library catalog

Colorado State University Libraries (CSUL) purchased the digitized United States Congressional Serial Set, 1817–1994 and American State Papers (1789–1838) from the Readex Division of NewsBank, Inc. and, once funds and records were available, the accompanying MARC records. The breadth of information found in the Serial Set is described, along with the difficulties in using the print version (incorporated in the literature review, which includes citations of announcements of the digital collections and reviews of the software). The digital version of the Serial Set has its advantages, but there are additional rewards (much greater discovery opportunities) when items in the digital collection are directly accessible from the library catalog. The purchased MARC records, while overall excellent, had problems that needed to be corrected before they were loaded into CSUL's Innovative Interfaces library catalog. Patron access impact was used as a criterion when determining which of the records would be fixed before loading. High impact problems were identified and solutions derived for: multiple 245 (title) fields; 245 s indicator zero with titles beginning with a, an, or the; dollar sign used in text; fixed field date; languages; subject headings; creating proxy URLs; classification numbers; and author authority control (e.g. corporate entries and presidential entry errors).     

Using Focus Groups to Examine the Consequential Aspect of validity

How can focus groups be used to examine issues of consequential validity in large-scale assessment? In relation to a new large-scale assessment, what are teacher concerns, and how do these concerns differ by type of school district? What are the strengths and weaknesses in this approach to looking at consequential validity?     

The effect of activity type on the engagement and interaction of young children with disabilities in inclusive childcare settings

The engagement and adult and peer interaction of 37 young children with a range of disabilities was measured in free play, group, and meal-routine activities in inclusive childcare settings. A significant effect for activity type was found for total engagement, active engagement, and passive engagement, with the children being more engaged in free-play and meal-routine activities than group activities. Free-play and meal-routine activities provided better opportunities for active engagement than did group activities, but children were more actively engaged during meal-routine activities than during free play. Passive engagement was more commonly observed during group activities. Children interacted more with their peers during free play. When children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder were compared with children with other disabilities, they were found to be significantly less engaged during free play and interacted less with their peers. The implications of these findings for inclusive practice in childcare settings are discussed.     

Linguistic capital and the linguistic field for teachers unaccustomed to linguistic difference

Teachers in classrooms throughout England are facing a shifting demographic in their pupil intake. Where the teaching of children whose first language was not English was once considered an inner-city teachers' role, more recent migration patterns have challenged this preconception. In England in particular, this change sits against an historical backdrop of centralised control of the curriculum for English. This article explores how primary school teachers responded to the arrival of Polish children in county settings following EU accession in 2004. Interviews with a small sample of teachers in schools that had previously been mainly monolingual were coded using Bourdieu's Logic of Practice. Analysis revealed a complex mix of experiences that appeared to rest on assumed pedagogical norms and professionally assimilated external pressures. Discussion centres on the author's interpretation of teachers' ownership of linguistic capital and its relationship to the linguistic field.     

Community-based environmental monitoring goes to school: translations,detours and escapes

Community-school partnerships are an established practice within environmental science education, where a focus on how local phenomena articulate with broader environmental issues and concerns brings potential benefits for schools, community organisations and local communities. This paper contributes to our understanding of such educational practices by tracing the diverse socio-material flows that constitute a community environmental monitoring project, where Australian school students became investigators of and advocates for particular sites in their neighbourhood. The theoretical resources of actor-network theory are drawn upon to describe how the project – as conceptualised by its initiators – was enacted as both human and non-human actors sought to progress their own agendas thus translating the concept-project into multiple project realities. We conclude by identifying implications for sustaining educational innovations of this kind.