Participation,financial support and the marginal student

This paper examines differences between the decision-making of marginal and nonmarginal students about participation in higher education (HE). We distinguish between two kinds of marginality: being ‘borderline’ on account of prior achievements in school and being ‘unsure’ after taking prior achievement into account. We identify a significant minority of students in their final year of schooling who are unsure about participation in higher education even though they have prior school achievements typical of entrants to HE. Being ‘unsure’ is found to be unrelated to socioeconomic background, but it is associated with significantly different attitudes towards the potential benefits and risks of participation, different levels of knowledge about financial support that is available and different approaches to information search about participation in HE.

Employing the five‐factor mentoring instrument: analysing mentoring practices for teaching primary science

Primary science education is a concern around the world and quality mentoring within schools can develop pre‐service teachers' practices. A five‐factor model for mentoring has been identified, namely, personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modelling, and feedback. Final‐year pre‐service teachers (mentees, n = 211) from three Turkish universities were administered a previously validated instrument to gather perceptions of their mentoring in primary science teaching. ANOVA indicated that each of these five factors was statistically significant (p<.001) with mean scale scores ranging from 3.36 to 4.12. Although mentees perceived their mentors to provide evaluation feedback (95%), model classroom management (88%), guide their preparation (96%), and outline the science curriculum (92%), the majority of mentors were perceived not to assist their mentees in 10 of the 34 survey items. Professional development programmes that target the specific needs of these mentors may further enhance mentoring practices for advancing primary science teaching.     

Teacher epistemology and scientific inquiry in computerized classroom environments

A 20-week classroom-based study was conducted to investigate the extent to which a computerized learning environment could facilitate students' development of higher-level thinking skills associated with scientific inquiry. In two classes students' interactions with a scientific data base—Birds of Antarctica—were closely monitored, and the mediating roles of the teachers' epistemologies were examined. Interpretive data were generated and analyzed in relation to a constructivist perspective on learning. In the class where the teacher implemented a constructivist-oriented pedagogy, students took advantage of enhanced opportunities to generate creative questions and conduct complex scientific investigations. These higher-level thinking skills were much less evident in the class in which a more transmissionist-oriented pedagogy prevailed. The results of the study suggest that it is not the computer itself that facilitates inquiry learning; the teacher's epistemology is a key mediating influence on students' use of the computer as a tool of scientific inquiry.     

Personality of elite male and female chess players and its relation to chess skill

Whereas a lot of studies examine cognitive processes in chess players, personality profiles of elite chess players are still not described well. The aim of this study was to examine personality of strong chess experts and its influence on chess skill. We tested elite male and female chess players with Freiburg Personality Inventory Revised (FPI-R), which also provides population norms for males and females. Elite male players' personality profile did not significantly differ from the population norms. Female players were more satisfied with life, had less physical complaints and higher achievement motivation in comparison with female population norms. Personality was also related with chess skill but showed different patterns in males and females. Stronger male players were more introverted, while we found the opposite pattern in female players. These results indicate that personality plays an important role in the highest level of complex intellectual activities.     

Predicting Two Components of Career Maturity in School Based Adolescents

Three hundred and sixty-seven secondary school students across five year levels (8–12) were assessed for levels of career maturity (attitude and knowledge), work commitment, work value, career decidedness (indecision and certainty), career decision-making self-efficacy and self-esteem, and indicated their age, gender, socioeconomic status, school achievement and work experience. Using two multiple regression analyses, the predictor variables were able to account for 52% of the variance of career maturity attitude, and account for 41% of the variance of career maturity knowledge. Self-efficacy, age, career decidedness (certainty) and work commitment were the main predictors of career maturity attitude. Age, gender, career decidedness (certainty), work commitment and career decidedness (indecision) were the main predictors of career maturity knowledge. Results demonstrated the importance of examining two aspects of career maturity (attitude and knowledge), and were discussed in the context of Super's (1957, 1990) theory of career development.     

Support and Challenge in Learning to Teach: the role of the mentor

The increased emphasis on school‐based programmes as part of initial teacher education has resulted in renewed efforts to forge more effective partnerships between higher education institutions and schools. The University of Bath has established a mentor development programme to ensure that subject mentors have an opportunity to examine ways to engage novice teachers in critical reflection about their practice while providing the support and challenge necessary to help them develop as teachers. This study is based on experienced mentors’ and their perspective on their work with novice teachers and it is a follow‐up to earlier research based on Daloz’ model (1986, Effective Teaching and Mentoring, San Francisco, Jossey Bass) of support and challenge. It examines an emerging mentoring pedagogy through which experienced mentors attempt to engage novice teachers in shaping their own vision of teaching. Three mentor profiles are discussed—the laissez‐faire, the collaborative and the imperial mentor.     

The effect of culture on the learning of science in non‐western countries: the results of an integrated research review

Abstract

An increasing number of researchers are investigating the effect of students’ prior knowledge and beliefs on their development of scientific concepts. Much of this research is taking place within the framework of constructivism, and is attracting the attention of science educators in non‐western countries. This integrative research review has been undertaken to help researchers and practitioners to identify issues for further investigation and reflection. The results suggest that ‘cosmetic’ attempts to nationalize western science curricula in non‐western countries are likely to prove ineffective because the problem, from the students’ perspective, is one of poor ‘fit’ between their world‐views, language meanings and prior beliefs and those inherent in the subject. A constructivist paradigm seems to offer good prospects for both understanding the problem and formulating learning strategies in science education which are better suited to non‐western cultures. Nevertheless, constructivist pedagogies imported from the West should be examined for their cultural appropriateness.     

The search for the complicit native: Epistemic violence,historical amnesia,and the anthropologist as ideologue of empire

This essay analyzes a number of issues surrounding the Menchu/Stoll dispute. In locating Stoll's criticism of Rigoberta within a larger referential arena that includes an attack on the North American academic left and an unbridled anti-Marxism, the authors attempt to reveal how Stoll's ideological agenda is functionally compatible with the larger political agenda of the New Right. The authors also attempt to reveal Stoll's distortions of Guatemalan guerrilla history as well as problems with his analysis and collection of the data.