Overreporting and underreporting of child abuse: teachers' use of professional discretion

OBJECTIVE: According to mandatory reporting laws for professionals, the relationship between initial recognition that a child may have been abused and the subsequent reporting of that suspected case of child abuse to the responsible agency would, at first glance, appear to be clear. However, this relationship has developed into one of the major social policy controversies of the recent past. Our major goal is to present research findings that address this social policy debate concerning the problems of underreporting and overreporting, focusing specifically on teachers. METHOD: A factorial survey design, that combines the advantages of the factorial experiment with those of surveys, was employed in a probability sample of teachers (N=480) who responded to vignettes in which case characteristics were systematically manipulated. Teachers responded with judgments about whether the vignette was child abuse and the likelihood that they would report this suspected case. Characteristics of the teachers and their work setting (school) were also measured. RESULTS: When comparing the teachers' recognition and reporting scores, we found that they gave the same score for 63% of the vignettes they judged, gave higher reporting than recognition scores (overreporting) for 4% of the vignettes, and gave higher recognition than reporting scores (underreporting) for 33% of the vignettes. Discrepancies between recognition and reporting (over and under reporting) were related to characteristics of the case, teacher, and school where the teacher was employed. CONCLUSIONS: Teachers in our Ohio sample evidence the use of professional discretion in making judgments about the recognition and reporting of child abuse and do not appear to make these judgments with equal certainty. Their use of discretion is more likely to result in underreporting than overreporting.     

I liked your course because you taught me well: The influence of grades,workload, expectations and goals on students' evaluations of teaching

There has been considerable debate as to whether course evaluations are valid measures of teaching quality, or whether students instead reward tutors who give them high grades and assign low levels of work. To assess the factors that influence course evaluations, we measured university students' achievement goals and expectations at the beginning of the semester and also obtained information on grades and workload. Although grades and course difficulty did have a small influence on end‐of‐semester course ratings, structural modelling revealed that ratings were largely determined by how much students enjoyed or felt stimulated by the course content, which in turn depended on the perceived quality of teaching. Students with a mastery goal were more likely to look forward to the course, and this also contributed to positive course evaluations, but the effect was small. Overall, the results suggested that by far the largest determinant of student evaluation of courses is the quality of the teaching.     

Students’ intentions towards studying science at upper-secondary school: the differential effects of under-confidence and over-confidence

Understanding students’ intentions to study science at upper-secondary school, at university, and to follow science careers continues as a central concern for international science education. Prior research has highlighted that students’ science confidence has been associated with their intentions to study science further, although under-confidence and over-confidence (lower or higher confidence than expected, given someone’s attainment) have not been considered in detail. Accordingly, this study explored whether under-confident, accurately evaluating, and over-confident students expressed different attitudes towards their science education, and explored how under-confidence and over-confidence might influence students’ science intentions. The questionnaire responses of 1523 students from 12 secondary schools in England were considered through analysis of variance and predictive modelling. Under-confident students expressed consistently lower science attitudes than accurately evaluating and over-confident students, despite reporting the same science grades as accurately evaluating students. Students’ intentions to study science were predicted by different factors in different ways, depending on whether the students were under-confident, accurate, or over-confident. For accurately evaluating and over-confident students, science intentions were predicted by their self-efficacy beliefs (their confidence in their expected future science attainment). For under-confident students, science intentions were predicted by their self-concept beliefs (their confidence in currently ‘doing well’ or ‘being good’ at science). Many other differences were also apparent. Fundamentally, under-confidence may be detrimental not simply through associating with lower attitudes, but through students considering their choices in different ways. Under-confidence may accordingly require attention to help ensure that students’ future choices are not unnecessarily constrained.     

Gospel Values and Catholic Education: Revitalizing the Faith Community in a Culture of “Whatever”

The Second Vatican Council introduced a new narrative for Catholic school. Rather than serving a primarily catechetical purpose, Catholic schools were to share in the Church's evangelizing mission by embodying an ideal learning community in a manner rooted in Gospel values. This paper argues that Gospel values are not exported from the Bible and applied to Catholic schools. Instead, they emerge in the experience of teaching-learning as a humanly liberating activity in relation to the human reality of God's Kingdom realized in Jesus of Nazareth and explores revitalizing Catholic education through Gospel values, without at the same time being sectarian.     

Students’ science attitudes,beliefs, and context: associations with science and chemistry aspirations

There is a widespread concern that relatively few students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, continue to study chemistry and other science subjects after compulsory education. Yet it remains unclear how different aspects of students’ background and home context, their own attitudes and beliefs, and their experiences of particular teaching approaches in school might limit or facilitate their studying aspirations; concurrently, less research has specifically focused on and surveyed disadvantaged students. In order to gain more insight, 4780 students were surveyed, covering those in Year 7 (age 11–12 years) and in Year 8 (age 12–13) from schools in England with high proportions of those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Predictive modelling highlighted that the students’ aspirations to study non-compulsory science in the future, and to study the particular subject of chemistry, were strongly associated with their extrinsic motivation towards science (their perceived utility of science, considered as a means to gain particular careers or skills), their intrinsic interest in science, and their engagement in extra-curricular activities. Additionally, their self-concept beliefs (their confidence in their own abilities in science), some teaching approaches, and encouragement from teachers and family alongside family science capital had smaller but still relevant associations.     

We reap what we sew: perpetuating biblical illiteracy in new English Religious Studies exams and the proof text binary question

ABSTRACT

This article draws on three sources of evidence that together indicate hermeneutical weaknesses in exam courses on Christianity in English Religious Education (RE). It scrutinises a single exam paper and an associated text book from a recent authorised course. It conceptually explores features of a new style of long Religious Studies (RS) exam question that is commonly set for the majority of students studying for a RS qualification at 15–16 years old. It combines these documentary sources with a focus group interview of teachers in the first year of teaching the new GCSE Religious Studies. The findings from the document analysis, conceptual analysis and focus group interview, together concur that there is a problem related to the use of fragmentary texts and the promotion of a particularly propositional conception of religion. These features are structured in by systemic elements. A small proportion of students follow text-based GCSE routes include a more detailed study of Biblical texts but the majority of 15–16-year-old students do not and so are exposed to this problem. These weaknesses could be ‘designed out’ of exams with smarter questions and mitigated against by curriculum content that specified the study of how texts are interpreted, as well as teacher expertise in the teaching and practise of hermeneutics.     

我是传奇(英文)

在一次可怕的疫病传遍世界后,人们变成了夜间活动的嗜血魔物(bloodthirsty,nocturnal creatures),只有罗伯特·奈维尔幸免于难,但同时也成为变种人的猎物。白天,他四处奔波,努力寻找可能的生存者并消灭被感染的吸血鬼们(stalking the infected monstrosities);夜晚,他蜷缩在家中祈祷黎明赶快到来(barricades himself in his home and prays for dawn)……这部恐怖小说(horror)的同名电影由威尔·史密斯主演,刚上映,就获得周票房冠军;同时,小说也获得了一致好评。下面这一段就是我们唯一的幸存者白天的活动情况。     

Strategies for success in education: Time management is more important for part-time than full-time community college students

This paper examines relationships between the Big Five personality factors, time management, and grade-point-average in 556 community colleges students. A path model controlling for vocabulary, gender, and demographic covariates demonstrated that time management mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and students' academic achievement at community college. Separate modeling for part-time (n = 147) and full-time students (n = 409) showed that this mediation was moderated by enrollment status. Thus, time management was a significant mediator for part-time students but not for full-time students. The greater importance of time management for part- versus full-time students suggests that noncognitive constructs such as time management may be more critical for non-traditional students. These findings gather fresh currency as ever increasing numbers of students are enrolling part-time in post-secondary education across the globe.     

Undergraduate orientations towards higher education in Germany and England: problematizing the notion of ‘student as customer’

There is a great deal of discussion in the academic literature around how the current conditions in higher education frame students as customers. Observers are of the view that rankings and marketing, an increased focus on student satisfaction, and particularly tuition fees, encourage an instrumental, passive attitude towards a university education. Given the volume of attention directed towards this topic, it is perhaps surprising that there is relatively little scholarship that examines it empirically. Some who have addressed it presumed a customer/consumer orientation in students and have been somewhat—but not entirely successful—in generating evidence to confirm those assumptions. It appears that the expectations of this instrumental, passive orientation are being realised in part, but that this is also mediated by other dispositions. What could be considered to be missing from the analysis thus far is an exploration of how students make university-related decisions (not simply what choices are based on) and how they understand the respective roles of the student and university. This study begins to fill that gap, exploring the orientations towards university of undergraduates in Germany and England, two countries where the diffusion of market conditions in higher education policies has been somewhat contrasting. Distinctions between the German and English students did emerge, but these were less based on those countries’ unequal engagement with tuition fees and rankings and more to do with other aspects of their university cultures and the world beyond their degrees. This suggests that how people approach their time as students is more complex than some of the literature assumes. Furthermore, at the very least, any consideration of this topic must include an analysis of how students themselves understand and experience their higher education and broader social contexts.