Towards a whole-school approach to the pastoral care module in a Postgraduate Certificate of Education programme: a South African experience

This study explores the potential of adopting a whole-school approach to the pastoral care module in a Postgraduate Certificate of Education Programme to ensure that all newly qualified teachers practice effective pastoral care in their classrooms and promote the learners’ academic engagement and performance. A non-experimental survey research design involving quantitative data was used. A group-administered questionnaire was used to collect the sampled student teachers’ (n?=?59) opinion on the competencies they obtain from the module. The student teachers ranked knowledge first, beliefs and values second and skills third. For the student teachers to perform their academic and pastoral roles constructively together in a challenged education system, it is recommended that, in the short term, a learning unit, which is grounded in Best’s needs-focused model of pastoral care, be included in the module; and, in the long term, given the context of the South African schooling system, the nurturer professional model of teacher education be implemented. This article reports the outcomes of a follow-up study of an earlier preliminary study.     

WHO WANTS A VOICE IN SCIENCE ISSUES—AND WHY?

This paper makes a preliminary exploration of new opportunities for journalists and media to establish relevance and audiences through engagement with science issues. It looks at developments in the “democratisation” of science and, in the light of an analysis of a recent Eurobarometer survey, attempts to discover how a largely untapped active audience for the media may be attracted.     

Play to learn: a case-study of parent/carer and child engagement with a physical activity website resource

In 2007, Sport Wales produced guidance for practitioners delivering the new Foundation Phase curriculum for children aged three to seven years. A focus was on physical development and in 2009 a resource entitled Play to Learn was developed supported by a website launched in 2011. The present study addresses (non-)engagement with the website. Based on a qualitative study (interviews and focus groups) with a small cohort of parents from a primary school in South Wales, the findings revealed some of the reasons for only low levels of engagement from parents/carers. ‘Hard copy’ resource materials were considered more useful than electronic media.     

Research engagement in English language teaching

Despite the substantial amount of work which has been conducted into teachers’ research engagement in mainstream education, this topic has been awarded scant attention in the field of English language teaching. This paper presents the results of a survey representing the first stage of multi-method investigation of research engagement in ELT. Moderate levels of reading and doing research were reported by the sample studied here, and this level of research engagement is analysed in relation to two key factors also examined in the survey: teacher's conceptions of research and their perceptions of the institutional research culture.     

Benefits of Collaborative Philosophical Inquiry in Schools

In the past decade well‐designed research studies have shown that the practice of collaborative philosophical inquiry in schools can have marked cognitive and social benefits. Student academic performance improves, and so too does the social dimension of schooling. These findings are timely, as many countries in Asia and the Pacific are now contemplating introducing Philosophy into their curricula. This paper gives a brief history of collaborative philosophical inquiry before surveying the evidence as to its effectiveness. The evidence is canvassed under two categories: schooling and thinking skills; and schooling, socialisation and values. In both categories there is clear evidence that even short‐term teaching of collaborative philosophical inquiry has marked positive effects on students. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research and a final claim that the presently‐available research evidence is strong enough to warrant implementing collaborative philosophical inquiry as part of a long‐term policy.     

关于大学生学习投人状况的调查研究——X大学与清华大学的比较分析

通过使用NSSE-China调查工具，对X大学本科教学主要教育环节和学生收获与清华大学的表现进行比较，结果表明两校并没有本质差异，进而通过比较研究发现X大学本科教育方面存在的问题，并就问题进行分析，提出改进建议。     

Adolescent moral motivations for civic engagement: Clues to the political gender gap?

This study explored gender differences in moral motivations and civic engagement among adolescents to add to existing explanations for the gender gap in political engagement in the US. We examined moral motivations for civic engagement in a sample of 1578 high school seniors, using a mixed-methods analysis of survey and interview data. Multiple regression confirmed that girls were more civically involved and expressed greater future civic intention. However, analysis of motivations suggested that differences in moral motivations might impact ongoing political development, as girls were more likely to take political action out of desire to help, while boys were more often motivated to act on values. Case studies of two interviewees—one male and one female—were analyzed to examine how civic commitment emerges in the interaction of desire to help, to act on civic values and another moral motivation that emerged in the qualitative analysis—to empower others.     

Logging in and dropping out: exploring student non‐completion in higher education using electronic footprint analysis

Student retention in higher education might be prioritised by funding authorities and universities but robust measurement of non‐completion is elusive. This investigation explores untapped data sources to enrich understanding of non‐completion. The analysis features the main undergraduate course in a part of a large UK university with retention concerns. Three data sources were explored; Registry, course administration and electronic information systems. Discrepancies emerged in data from them, with students' electronic engagement data revealing withdrawal patterns not evident in the other sources. The departures profile revealed by the information systems data is used to conjecture association between type of departure and stage of departure drawing on time‐based retention models. The analysis also draws on material from focus groups of course administrators and tutors. The results demonstrate a new way of pinpointing and quantifying non‐completion over time, electronic footprint analysis, which provides an additional basis for formulating and monitoring retention strategies. While not explaining why individuals withdraw, they reveal more about when they appear more likely to do so. Using data already captured they constitute feasible means of improving retention.     

The Arts Council England's “Arts Debate”

This article examines the methodology and thinking behind Arts Council England's “Arts Debate”, a public value inquiry conducted from October 2006 to September 2007. It considers the ways in which methodology might have been shaped by the current discourse of public value, examines the different stages of the debate, and asks how the findings might inform future policy and research.