Educational research and development in the United Kingdom: Framework,impact and future prospects

Three forms of research activity are defined: free, policy-oriented and development. In the United Kingdom, structures for each of these have developed rapidly in the past twenty years; and there is now a variety of research organisations, different in pattern, function and funding. The present need is to sustain a vigorous programme of research and development through these organisations, but their level of funding is relatively low (less than one per cent of all educational expenditure), contrary to an OECD, 1972, forecast of continuing growth.Research-based knowledge has influenced educational policy, but its effect is not fully recognised. Research seldom has direct impact but influences policy indirectly, through interaction and by aggregation, penetrating public consciousness.Present weaknesses are the lack of collaboration between research institutions (though there are advantages in a plurality of organisations), and in the small scale of financial support for research, which reflects a lack of public will or confidence in the use of research in education.

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Zusammenfassung Drei Arten von Forschung werden definiert: freie, Bildungspolitik-orientierte und Entwicklung. Im Vereinigten Königreich haben sich Institutionen für jede dieser Arten rapide entwickelt, so daß es jetzt eine Vielfalt von Forschungsorganisationen gibt, die sich in Aufbau, Funktion und Finanzierung unterscheiden. Benötigt wird ein reichhaltiges Programm für Forschungs- und Entwicklungsarbeit; dennoch erhalten diese Organisationen, im Gegensatz zu dem im Jahre 1972 von der OECD vorausgesagten ständigen Wachstum, nur verhältnismäßig geringe Finanzmittel (unter 1% der Gesamtausgaben für das Bildungswesen).Auf Forschung beruhende Erkenntnisse haben die Bildungspolitik beeinflußt, doch ist ihre Wirkung wenig augenfällig. Nur selten hat die Forschung direkte Auswirkungen; sie beeinflußt die Politik auf indirektem Wege, indem sie durch Wechselwirkung und Summierung ins Bewußtsein der Öffentlichkeit dringt.Schwachstellen sind unzureichende Zusammenarbeit der Forschungsinstitutionen (obwohl eine Pluralität von Organisationen ihre Vorteile hat) und geringe finanzielle Unterstützung der Forschung, eine Reflektion fehlenden öffentlichen Interesses oder Glaubens an den praktischen Wert der pädagogischen Forschung.

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Résumé Trois types d'activité de recherche sont définis: la recherche indépendante, la recherche visant à répondre à une politique, et le développement. Au Royaume-Uni, les structures de chacune d'elles se sont rapidement développées au cours de ces vingt dernières années; il existe maintenant toute une variété d'organisations de recherche, différant quant à la forme, la fonction et le financement. Ce qui est nécessaire, désormais, c'est de mener un vigoureux programme de recherche et de développement grâce à ces organisations, mais leur financement est relativement faible (moins de 1% du budget total de l'éducation), bien que les prévisions de l'OCDE en 1972 aient envisagé un développement croissant.La connaissance basée sur la recherche a influencé la politique de l'éducation, mais son effet n'est pas pleinement reconnu. La recherche a rarement un impact direct; son influence sur la politique de l'éducation se fait sentir indirectement, par un phénomène d'interaction et d'agrégation accumulative, en pénétrant progressivement la conscience publique.Les présentes faiblesses sont imputables au manque de collaboration des institutions de recherche (bien qu'une pluralité d'organismes présente des avantages) et aussi à la modicité des moyens financiers mis à la disposition de la recherche, reflet du manque de volonté ou de confiance de la part de la société en ce qui concerne l'utilisation de la recherche dans le domaine de l'éducation.

     

Responses to Interpersonal and Physically Provoking Situations: The utility and application of an observation schedule for school‐aged students with and without attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

The present research describes the development and pilot testing of a new instrument, the Responses to Interpersonal and Physically Provoking Situations Schedule (RIPPS), designed to measure the reactivity of students with and without attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) in the naturalistic setting of the classroom. For this study, 29 pre‐service teachers from one university graduate school of education conducted structured observations on two students each, one clinically diagnosed student with AD/HD and the other with no diagnosed disorder, resulting in 58 Year 8–11 students (aged 13–17 years) participating in the study. Each student pair was observed for 40 minutes, with alternating observational blocks of two minutes per student. Observational data in the form of responses to emotionally provoking events and the triggers to the responses were clustered together and systematically coded, resulting in four distinct categories for responses and four distinct categories for triggers. Students with AD/HD exhibited significantly more solitary off‐task behaviours, interactional off‐task behaviours, and challenging behaviours than their non‐AD/HD peers. There were no differences between the students in the perceived severity of responses. For triggers, failure to begin assigned tasks and peer‐initiated triggers were the most common, with nearly half of the solitary off‐task behaviours being attributed to environmental distractions and over a quarter attributed to teacher behaviours. While the RIPPS is a relatively new instrument, important data have been gathered in ecologically valid contexts and provide the framework for further development of an instrument of this nature.     

Choice of operation in verbal problems with decimal numbers

This article examines the conceptual problems that children experience when attempting to solve verbal problems which contain decimal numbers. After discussing the existing research, we then describe an experiment that was designed in three phases:

1. Exploratory interviews to discover existing conceptions and difficulties and to discover how pupils made use of diagrams, simpler numbers, and strategies. These interviews exposed difficulties with the understanding of place value, the effect of multiplying and dividing by a positive number less than one, the symbolisms of division and its noncommutative nature, the units associated with the numbers and also with familiar names for the operations. The three strategies were all found to be unfamiliar to pupils and their difficulties are discussed.
2. The design and administration of a diagnostic test, based on the results of these interviews, to a class of less able 14 year olds.
3. The preparation and use of calculator enriched teaching materials designed to remedy the identified misconceptions. From the pre- and post-test results we note the dramatic success of the teaching in improving pupils' understanding of place value, although there is a more modest improvement in enabling pupils to choose the correct operation by drawing diagrams, using easier numbers and estimating.

     

Outdoor play in early childhood education settings: Is it safe and healthy for children?

Outdoor play is an important and integral part of a high-quality early childhood education curriculum. Outdoor play environments should have equipment that is safe and developmentally appropriate for the children served. The appropriate adult-child ratio should be maintained to prevent unnecessary accidents as well as provide the interaction needed to assist children in developing outdoor physical, social, and language skills. Each facility should have teachers with up-to-date CPR and first-aid training to take care of emergency situations.     

An Introduction to Menstrual Management for Women who have an Intellectual Disability and High Support Needs

This paper describes a project researching the management of menstruation for women who have severe or profound intellectual disability (high support needs). Its mandate was to develop materials, processes and resources to support menstrual management for women who have high support needs. Intervention processes are described via an illustrative case study. The impact of care providers’ attitudes on menstrual management for these women is considered. Partial participation in menstrual self‐care is discussed. Reference is made to a ruling by the High Court of Australia which requires the consent of the Family Court of Australia for surgeryresulting in sterilisation of young women under the age of 18 years.     

Extent,Type, Preferences and Consequences of Crisis Intervention Training for Teachers

This study addresses the issue of including crisis intervention training as a component of teacher preparation programs. Results demonstrated that (a) few teachers receive training as a component of formal coursework, but the substantive majority are expected to perform crisis intervention at varying levels of involvement; (b) measurable improvements in self‐efficacy to perform interventions were achieved with short‐term training; (c) recognition and delivery training produced higher self‐efficacy than recognition training alone; and (d) recognition training using behavioral cues, rather than life events, was the preferred approach. Noting the important need for training of this type in teacher preparation programs, it was concluded that, if mental health instruction cannot be expanded generally, crisis intervention training should be provided specifically.     

Understanding stories of professional formation during early childhood education and care practice placements

Narrative inquiry as a methodological approach enables us to examine how people represent their experiences and selves through storytelling (Chase, S. E. 2005. ‘Narrative Inquiry: Multiple Lenses, Approaches, Voices.’ In The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln, 651–679. London: Sage). To understand these constructions, other kinds of knowledge are required. Theories of social life, for example, help to interpret areas which narrative inquiry is good at revealing about human experiences such as the animation of temporality, sociality and place (Clandinin, J., V. Caine, A. Estefan, J. Huber, M. S. Murphy, and P. Steeves. 2015. ‘Places of Practice: Learning to Think Narratively.’ Narrative Works 5 (1). Accessed November 30, 2017. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/NW/issue/view/1799). Drawing on interviews with practice educators and final-year undergraduate early childhood education and care (ECEC) students in North-West Ireland, this paper considers how narrative inquiry and education theories work together to illuminate key learning experiences of ECEC undergraduate students during 12-week practice placements. In this paper I attempt to show how two education theories – ‘Threshold Concepts’ and ‘Communities of Practice’ – shed light on the nature of these key learning experiences. The paper suggests that narrative inquiry offers an emancipatory research approach by uncovering human and reflective elements of learning journeys made by ECEC students during their practice placements.     

Learning to see the familiar: Technological assemblages in a higher education (non)classroom setting

If an objective of public higher education is to engage with a diversity of communities, then coursework should be less insulated within classrooms. This work describes and analyzes a university course design that supports undergraduate students to experience learning as relational and transformational via Site Visits within various communities. We focus on “technological assemblages” as a way to understand students’ reorientation to the process and purpose of learning (and teaching). We analyze experiences within the course as moments of disorientation, reassembly and stabilization in which students use their mobile devices, bodies and interactions-in-place to understand familiar locations as socially and historically contingent sites of learning (and teaching). We argue that this instructional model does important work of putting students at the nexus of building relationships between the university and other community settings around the city.