Evaluation of Students’ Understanding of Thermal Concepts in Everyday Contexts

The aims of this study were to determine the underlying conceptual structure of the thermal concept evaluation (TCE) questionnaire, a pencil-and-paper instrument about everyday contexts of heat, temperature, and heat transfer, to investigate students’ conceptual understanding of thermal concepts in everyday contexts across several school years and to analyse the variables—school year, science subjects currently being studied, and science subjects previously studied in thermal energy—that influence students’ thermal conceptual understanding. The TCE, which was administered to 515 Korean students from years 10–12, was developed in Australia, using students’ alternative conceptions derived from the research literature. The conceptual structure comprised four groups—heat transfer and temperature changes, boiling, heat conductivity and equilibrium, and freezing and melting—using 19 of the 26 items in the original questionnaire. Depending on the year group, 25–55% of students experienced difficulties in applying scientific concepts in everyday contexts. Years of schooling, science subjects currently studied and physics topics previously studied correlated with development of students’ conceptual understanding, especially in topics relating to heat transfer, temperature scales, specific heat capacity, homeostasis, and thermodynamics. Although students did improve their conceptual understandings in later years of schooling, they still had difficulties in relating the scientific concepts to their experiences in everyday contexts. The study illustrates the utility of using a pencil-and-paper questionnaire to identify students’ understanding of thermal concepts in everyday situations and provides a baseline for Korean students’ achievement in terms of physics in everyday contexts, one of the objectives of the Korean national curriculum reforms.     

教育情境与社会赞许性对小学生诚实性行为的影响

运用修订的儿童社会期望量表(CSD),采用多因素实验设计,测查了1-5年级高、中、低三类社会赞许性水平的197名小学生在积极、消极、中立三种教育情境下诚实性行为的差异.结果表明:(1)社会赞许性的高低会对被试的诚实性行为造成显著影响.社会赞许性越高,儿童发生不诚实行为的可能性就越大.(2)教育情境与年级因素存在交互作用.在积极的教育情境下,年级因素对诚实行为的作用显著.随着年级升高,儿童出现不诚实行为的概率增加.在消极与中立的教育情境下,年级因素的作用不显著.(3)教育情境与社会赞许性存在交互作用.在消极情境下,社会赞许性的高低会对儿童的诚实性行为造成显著影响,儿童的社会赞许性越高,其发生不诚实行为的概率越大.在积极和中立的教育情境下,社会赞许性的高低对诚实性行为不会造成显著影响.(4)社会赞许性与年级存在交互作用.高社会赞许性儿童中,儿童的不诚实行为随着年级的增高而变大.中等和低社会赞许性儿童的诚实性行为不会随年级发生显著变化.     

The criteria of effective teaching in a changing higher education context

The criteria of effective teaching in higher education are understood to comprise particular skills and practices applied within particular contexts. Drawing on the literature and using Australia’s understanding of effective teaching, this paper examines the notion of effective teaching. The paper specifically compares dimensions derived from robust research and psychometric processes with the Australian Learning and Teaching Council’s criteria for effective teaching and observes the criteria of effective teaching in higher education to have evolved. While the paper suggests some areas in which future considerations of the notion of effective teaching might usefully focus, it also argues that context is critical and that it is subject to continuous and multiple changes imposed by forces from within and outside universities. The paper maintains that our collective understanding of competent, professional and effective teaching must continually evolve in order that it accurately reflects and continually responds to the contexts in which learning and teaching is undertaken. The paper also calls for an ongoing agenda that continuously investigates and articulates the meaning of effective teaching in a changed, and changing, context.     

School cultures as contexts for informal teacher learning

This study profiles and compares international social contexts for teacher workplace informal learning from the teachers' perspectives. Set in elementary schools in the U.S. and Lithuania, the study illustrates how teachers make sense of and engage in professional learning within their historical, political and administrative contexts. A socio-cultural framework brings into view different opportunities for teacher informal learning. These evolve from comparing teacher interviews about their learning to ethnographic case studies of the school's cultures that include schools' missions, building structures, classroom environments, organizational arrangements, traditions, and professional relationships. The study illustrates key interrelated cultural qualities of schools that support and hinder informal learning; argues for the importance of acknowledging teacher informal learning as a method of career-long professional development, and suggests further research about how to build and sustain the school infrastructure necessary to maintain such development.     

Excellence gaps: what they are,why they are bad,and how smart contexts can address them … or make them worse

Every country – and even every community – has populations of students who severely underperform relative to other groups and to their own potential. These performance differences are generally called achievement gaps, and they tend to focus on gaps at basic levels of academic proficiency. But such gaps also exist among the highest levels of achievement, a problem labeled excellence gaps. Recent research provides evidence that these differential achievement effects are due – at least in part – to debilitating contextual factors, such as poverty, negative peer pressure, and discrimination. Given the increasingly recognizable “digital turn” in the classroom, access to and thoughtful use of emergent technologies could play a role in shrinking excellence gaps. Unfortunately, research shows such technologies disproportionately exist in relatively wealthy, predominantly white schools. We identify the potential relationship between lack of availability to technology and widening excellence gaps.     

闽南俗语图像语境的现实意义--以惠女阿芳画说闽南为个案研究

随着闽南文化大力发展的需求,对于如何有效的保护与传播闽南文化,已经成为当下研究的重点,本文通过对闽南俗语推广的研究,以近年出现的惠女阿芳画说闽南为个案研究,围绕其“闽南俗语”这一艺术创新语境而展开,其内容的通俗、生动与时代感气息,充满了浓郁的人性生活与艺术特色,吸引了广大读者的视觉感知,这恰好是当下保护与传播闽南文化必要的传递形式。以图像诠释文化的现实意义,无疑是值得我们研究的重点。     

Teacher knowledge about oral English instruction and teacher profiles: an EFL perspective

Teacher knowledge, as an important cognitive basis of teaching, has attracted tremendous attention in educational research in the last few decades. This study examines whether teachers’ self-perceived knowledge about oral English teaching differs with regard to their professional profiles in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context in China. A sample of 527 teachers from 56 universities in 29 cities across the country responded to a self-report questionnaire. Thirty teachers were interviewed. Teachers’ self-perceived knowledge was assessed by two factors: pedagogical content knowledge about oral English teaching (PCK) and knowledge of students’ oral English characteristics (KOS). The reliability and validity of the instrument are tested and presented. Results showed that EFL teachers generally reported having insufficient PCK and KOS. ANOVA and t-tests revealed no significant knowledge difference among teachers with different teaching experiences, training and overseas exposure. However, teachers’ learning experiences, self-perceived speaking ability and familiarity with teaching methodologies were found to influence teacher knowledge in a significant way. The findings highlight the need for the development of teacher knowledge about oral English teaching in the EFL contexts. Suggestions for further research are provided.     

Policy enactment,context and performativity: ontological politics and researching Australian National Partnership policies

Recently, critical policy scholars have used the concepts of enactment, context and performativity as an analytic toolkit to illuminate the complex processes of the policy cycle, in particular, the ways in which a multitude of official education reform policies are taken up, challenged and/or resisted by actors in local, situation-specific practices. This set of theoretical tools are usually deployed to analyse interview data collected from a single school or cluster of schools to draw findings or conclusions about the complex processes of policy enactment. We aim to build on this critical policy studies work by, firstly, highlighting key aspects of these theoretical/methodological constructs, secondly, exploring the performative role of research in the materiality of specific contexts and, thirdly, theorising education policy research in terms of ontological politics. We ground this work in a recent collaborative enquiry research project undertaken in Queensland, Australia. This research project emerged in the Australian policy context of National Partnership Agreement policies which were designed to reform public or government-funded schools servicing low socio-economic communities, in order to improve student learning outcomes, specifically in literacy and numeracy as measured by high-stakes national testing.     

战略导向国内外研究述评与未来展望

战略导向领域的文献已经非常丰富,然而综述性文献及整合框架的缺失阻碍了该领域未来的发展。因此,本文通过系统梳理战略导向的内涵与分类、多种战略导向之间的相互作用、战略导向研究的后果变量、不同情境下战略导向研究结果比较、战略导向影响后果变量的内在机理,构建了一个战略导向研究领域的整合框架,力图揭示目前研究的不足以及未来具体的研究方向。     

Including migrant worker children in the learning and social context of the rural primary school

Many of the larger towns and cities within the UK have long experienced a cosmopolitan mix of cultures, resulting in ethnically and linguistically diverse schools. However, the wider expansion of the European Union in 2004 has brought about significant changes and challenges for many schools, particularly for those in more rural areas. This article arises out of a 3-year qualitative study (January 2008–December 2010), which focused on identifying the experiences of stake-holders (children and parents of Eastern European heritage and their teachers), where migrant children enter primary schools which have previously had limited exposure to cultural and linguistic diversity. Although many migrant children settle successfully and progress within the UK education system, much can be done in terms of educational policy and practice to ensure that these learners are appropriately supported. This article examines some of the factors impacting upon migrant children's learning and well-being, and offers guidance to practitioners as how to develop inclusive and individualised learning and social contexts for these learners.