PERSPECTIVES ON ACADEMIC LIFE: AN APOLOGIA FOR MESO‐QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

The point of this article is to suggest that there are worthwhile but hitherto largely unexploited opportunities for research on higher education in the style which the author defines as meso‐qualitative investigation. Some examples of the genre are given as is also a consideration of characteristic methods and techniques as well as of associated difficulties, validity, data analysis, and presentation. A discussion of the rationale behind the development of middle‐range grounded theories follows, including a justification for such work in terms of the intrinsic satisfaction which it imparts to the researcher himself, its contribution to the state of knowledge about higher education, and its practical utility. Some suggestions for future research in terms of topics and possible lines of approach are given. Although studies of this sort cannot be replicated in the strictly scientific sense, this apparent limitation is, in humanistic terms, in fact, a strength which indeed becomes even stronger if such studies are given an international scope.     

Putting back the ‘E’ in ‘EBD’

This paper argues that recent developments in the curriculum and in administrative structures for pupils with special educational needs have fended to marginalise the term ‘emotional’ or to combine it loosely with ‘behavioural’. It looks at the influence of forty years of behavioural psychology on the UK Code of Practice for children with SEN and related government circulars and suggests an alternative model for conceptualising emotional difficulties. This is not only current with mainstream psychology but can be fraced back to pre-Christian thinking. If the term ‘emotional’ is to be used in statements and IEPs in the future, the paper suggests, then appropriate ways of defining, assessing and providing for these will have to be found.     

‘Reading’ the nursery classroom: A Foucauldian perspective

This paper examines ways in which styles of language usage mediate attempts at describing classroom practice. The authors' particular focus centres on discursive power and they seek to illustrate some of the effects and consequences of applying certain Foucauldian concepts and analytical procedures within depictions of interactions between children and with the teacher in a nursery classroom. The paper begins by introducing an example of children's play. To this are applied analyses which stem from readings of Foucault. In so doing, it is shown how power both permeates and defines subjective positionings and where, as a consequence, individuals experience themselves as both powerful and powerless. A second example is offered in which a teacher talks to a child. The authors' analyses of this can, they believe, be perceived as a reflexive act, where the teacher's own beliefs, including her feminism, are critiqued and redefined.     

The third place from truth: Plato's paradoxical attack on writing

This paper examines Eric Havelock's view of Plato's works as a turning point in the transition from a predominantly oral society to a predominantly written culture. There is a paradox between the influence of written abstraction on Plato's thought and the Platonic attack upon writing in the Phaedrus. Havelock's consideration of the influence of written technology upon Plato's thought is outlined and is contrasted with the view of writing expressed by Socrates in the Phaedrus and elsewhere. The essential paradox in associating Plato with the written tradition is that Plato criticizes the written word in the Phaedrus for the same faults attributed to the poets in the Republic. The dimensions of the paradox are considered along five lines. First, it is clear that writing and abstract thought are related in Havelock's view, and yet Plato attacks writing for being “the third place from truth.”; Secondly, memory is associated with the oral tradition which Plato attacks so strongly in the Republic, and yet memory is vital to Plato's epistemology. A third paradox is that Plato condemns the self‐identification of the individual with the poets of the oral tradition, and yet the dialectic which is the approved approach to truth takes place in oral dialogue. In addition, while Plato clearly expected his attack upon poetry to be unpopular, there is evidence that his attack on writing—on the same epistemological grounds—was an accurate reflection of popular sentiment. Finally, the poets appear to have been singled out in the Republic for special attention due to their relationship with the oral tradition, but the rhetoricians, logographers, and sophists associated with writing are criticized upon the same grounds as the poets and rhapsodes. The study concludes that these apparent paradoxes are consistent with Plato's pivotal position in the transition from a predominantly oral to a predominantly written culture as outlined by Havelock. Plato's paradoxical attack upon writing provides a remarkable paradigm of the employment of the strengths of both the written and the oral traditions, and urges us by example to consider the impact of modern media upon the quality of our thought.     

Get ‘Real’: Does Practicing Speeches Before an Audience Improve Performance?

Public speaking texts and instructors typically encourage students to practice speeches as a means of managing anxiety and enhancing performance. The effectiveness of various speech practice methods has received little attention. Participants completed the PRCA-24 and PRPSA-34, and indicated the number of times they used a variety of practice methods to prepare for a speech. Upon completing this questionnaire, participants delivered a videotaped speech. Students who practiced their speech before an audience received higher evaluation scores than did students who practiced without an audience. In addition, students who practiced their speech before larger audiences received higher evaluation scores than students who practiced before smaller audiences.