留下或离开:某农村地区少数民族初中生的学生角色冲突研究

研究采用田野调查法对云南省一个农村地区的少数民族初中生辍学现象的成因作了家庭调查,立足于学生个人在复杂的角色中面临的角色冲突,分析了学生辍学过程中的推力、拉力因素以及反推力和反拉力因素。     

Challenging the ‘distance education deficit’ through ‘motivational emails’

Graduation rates in distance higher education are low compared with full-time higher education – often less than 20% compared with full-time UK rates of around 80% – the ‘distance education deficit’. In the University of London International Programmes, the difference between the face-to-face graduation rate of 61.5% and the distance version at 15.7% is particularly marked. A previous paper in Open Learning reported evidence that ‘proactive motivational support’ to distance students had some effect on their success rates. This paper reports an attempt in the International Programmes to use proactive motivational support in the form of ‘motivational emails’ which found an increase in retention of 2.3%. Although this increase was small, it had a positive financial return on investment to the institution. The paper suggests that motivational emails could be made more effective through the use of interactivity, nudging and priming. However, it also argues that distance student retention will always depend less on technology and more on personal human support.     

Rethinking Learner Support: The challenge of collaborative online learning

The use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) as an integral part of the design of distance taught courses raises interesting challenges to our thinking about course design and learner support. These have typically been conceptualised as two complementary but distinct systems in distance education, characterised by different practices often carried out by different groups of staff. Where CMC is designed as an integral part of the course, with collaborative learning as essential to assessment and study, this separation breaks down. The design of online activities is integral to both learner support and the course content, with new possibilities for open and distance learning as a result. Where the learning group itself is a resource for study and personal development, it also becomes feasible to orientate courses and programmes towards local teams and communities. Online tutors play a key role and need to develop 'the technology of conversation' and expertise in the design of activities, as part of their facilitator role.     

Dropout from Secondary Education: all's well that begins well

Despite the increased attention to students leaving secondary education without a diploma numerous students still dropout yearly. This paper makes a distinction between the ‘individual perspective’ and the ‘institutional perspective’ of dropping out. The former is explored by multinominal logit models. We observe that particularly motivation of the student and interest in schooling of his/her parents are crucial predictors of the individual dropout decision. The institutional perspective is examined by ordered logit models. In particular, we discuss the influence of the first year of secondary education by analyzing the large differences in the number of dropouts in Dutch first year classes. We observe that, more than motivation, the first year of secondary education is crucial in shaping the dropping out decision.     

‘Teaching could be a fantastic job but …’: three stories of student teacher withdrawal from initial teacher preparation programmes in England

Retention in initial teacher preparation (ITP) and the teaching profession, in England and elsewhere, has been the subject of numerous articles in academic and professional journals. Whilst a number of common findings are beginning to emerge from research on this subject, notably on the causes of student teacher withdrawal, studies have tended to neglect the difficulties experienced by the individuals who have lived through the process of embarking upon and withdrawing from ITP programmes. Having conducted in‐depth interviews, the authors attempt in this paper to understand the experiences, emotions and decisions of three people who committed themselves to ITP, invested much energy and time, but in the end withdrew. The reasons for their decision are numerous and complex. The impact on each individual was considerable. The experience was painful.     

重庆贫困地区农村儿童失学情况调查及分析--以2005年对武隆县浩口乡的调查为例

本文以重庆武隆县浩口乡儿童失学情况为例,说明重庆市部分贫困地区农村儿童在一定程度上并未享有充分的受教育权。究其原因,是受地区经济、文化、学校及环境等因素的影响。要改变重庆贫困地区农村儿童的失学状况,应加大扶贫力度,促进地方经济发展,改善贫困地区农村教育教学环境。     

为什么辍学——对远程开放教育学习者的访谈调查

本文以网络访谈的形式,探寻远程开放教育学习者辍学的影响因素。通过对辍学生、好学生两个组别的对比访谈,研究发现,辍学者相比在学者可能面临更不利的处境。影响学习者放弃学业的原因主要有工学矛盾、经济压力、自主学习能力低,以及学习困难,而且这几个要素之间并不相互独立,它们之间有着密切的联系与影响。研究针对发现的关键要素,提出了远程教育机构的政策取向与作为方向。     

No particular way to go

This article aims to deepen understanding of the trajectories through school and into adulthood of people who did not attain valued qualifications from upper secondary school (‘non-completers’), and explore the fruitfulness of careership theory for such analysis. It is based on interviews with 100 young Swedes: 81 non-completers and 19 who had attended special upper secondary schools catering for young people with mild cognitive disability. Their narratives portray sparse socio-economic resources and difficult family situations, learning problems and marginalisation processes in school. They commonly learned to perceive themselves as failures and ‘different’. Framed by narrow horizons of action, these young people’s careers were mostly characterised by enforced rather than self-initiated turning points. Often leading to unemployment and economic problems, leaving secondary school was less of a turning point than a continuation of failure, even if completing adult education and getting a job were regarded as self-initiated, positive shifts. We conclude that careership theory was useful for analysing and understanding the careers of the young people concerned. However, distinguishing between ‘routines’ and ‘turning points’ became especially difficult when studying lives of these young people hemmed in by sparser resources, fewer choices and less stable career trajectories than their peers.     

Why do primary school students drop out in poor,rural China? A portrait sketched in a remote mountain village

In this paper we consider why students in poor and rural regions of China are dropping out of school in numbers that may be greater than official statistics admit. With questions about education quality among the most intractable in Education for All initiatives across the developing world, we sketch a portrait of education in a remote mountain village community as it might be painted from the perspective of a primary school dropout: a portrait in which education quality is well in the shadows. We indicate the limits of the view that commonly relates the phenomenon of school dropout primarily with poverty, a lack of school resources and inequities in resource distribution, suggesting that the picture is more nuanced and subtly shaded at local levels. Our research indicates that the education system in the radically transitional society that China is today brings with it values that clash with those of its citizens, particularly those who are marginalized and cannot easily adjust, perhaps because of their disadvantaged socio-economic, cultural and geographic location. In an ethnographic study in a poor, rural area in Yunnan province, we found significant disjunctions in values: between those of the school system and those of parents with regard to the aims and purposes of education; between those of the curriculum and those of teachers with regard to their role in the classroom vis-à-vis knowledge as represented in textbooks; between those of government education policy and the concerns of the remote rural poor with regard to resource distribution; and between those of a newly market-oriented society and educational ideals about teachers’ and students’ abilities. We also offer some insight into the scale and complexity of the problems associated with a lack of education quality and students’ dropping out of school as a consequence, which cannot be revealed by the official 1% dropout rate.     

Effective Schools for All

The study investigated the relation between district culture, student achievement, and student attitudes about their schools. Perceptions of students as expressed in more than 2,000 essays written about their schools were explored. Seven cultural categories were examined for differences across grade levels and districts. Statistical differences were found for 3 categories (Social/People, Education/Curriculum, and Extra-curricular Activities) for writing achievement, for whether the district culture were rated as positive or negative, and for whether student's comments revealed a positive or negative view of their schools. This study suggests that district culture has a noticeable effect on school culture and on student achievement.