In the "Sydney Morning Herald" of 23 March 2005, Ross Gittins argued that the funding arrangements for private schools positively encourage parents to move their children from the state system. The then Federal Minister for Education, Dr Brendan Nelson, in a letter to the "Herald" of 25-27 March, responded by saying that 68% of all school pupils go to state schools, and those students receive 76% of Government funds allocated to the totality of all pupils attending schools....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Public Policy, Private Schools, Educational Finance, Foreign Countries, Educational...
Inference, or decision making, is seen in curriculum documents as the final step in a statistical investigation. For a formal statistical enquiry this may be associated with sophisticated tests involving probability distributions. For young students without the mathematical background to perform such tests, it is still possible to draw informal inferences based on data of various sorts, for example by comparing two graphical representations. In doing so it is important to be able to state the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Inferences, Probability, Prediction, Decision Making, Statistical Analysis,...
For mathematics teachers who are continually looking for ways in which to engage their students in the learning process, the capabilities offered by technology answer the call. Whether the technology comprises computer based applications or graphics calculators, often boring aspects can be bypassed so that students can work on the "good bits" and build understanding. These tools, when used effectively, have been a great benefit to improving the cognitive development of many...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Adolescents, Teaching Methods, Mathematics Teachers, Mathematical Concepts, Graphing...
This article presents the author's experiences during a 5-day tour at Reggio Emilia, Italy, that is well known for the phrase, "the hundred languages of children" (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1993). The author saw the infinite ways that children expressed their ideas in each Reggio school being visited. The author found three means by which Reggio Emilia schools encouraged children to build their languages: (1) the combination of diverse materials, (2) the respect for children's...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Reggio Emilia Approach, Second Language Learning, Cultural...
This paper discusses the functionalist perspective of stratification and institutional processes of values inculcation in schools and organizations. It is assumed that students' school-to-work transition entail certain differences in life and work expectations as the education system forms the basis of cultural reproduction and values formation. A quantitative study was conducted to investigate the variations in value priorities between managers, professionals and executives in a MNC in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Socialization, Values, Questionnaires, Surveys, Global Approach,...
Education policy has been undergoing great transformation in China since the initiation of economic reforms and the open-door policy in the late 1970s. These market-oriented reforms and the pursuit of rapid economic growth in a globalized economy have significantly impacted China's education policy and development. In line with the development of the market-oriented economy and its increasing integration with the global market, a more pragmatic perception of education has gradually taken shape...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Competition, Administrative Organization, Economic Progress,...
The aim of this present study is to expand our general understanding of bullying behaviour and to advance our knowledge about bullying among pupils. As evidenced by historical documents, the phenomenon of bullying is not a new concept. The fact that some people are frequently and systematically harassed or attacked by others is described in literary works and it also has been found most realistically in schools. Overall, considerable examples of bullying incidents among young people in earlier...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Nonverbal Communication, Bullying, Social Environment, Educational History,...
Research indicates that affective attitudes such as liking of a subject and confidence in one's ability within a subject predict academic performance. Generally, immigrant minority students have positive attitudes and often have low academic performance. This study examines the self-efficacy and liking of subjects of New Zealand students and analyses the relationship of those attitudes towards academic performance in mathematics, writing, and reading by self-reported ethnicity. Data were...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Student Attitudes, Minority Groups, Self Efficacy, Academic...
The benefits of cooperative learning strategies, such as group project work, have been advocated in a wide range of educational contexts. There is however, scant information on the outcome of such programs on students of low academic ability. In this study, interviews were conducted with four groups of low-ability students, with the aim of investigating their perceptions on the effectiveness of group project work in promoting their social and cognitive skills. Our findings show that although...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Academic Ability, Learning Strategies, Cooperative Learning, Low...
The study describes the extent of change in students' cognitive expectations after going through an Introductory Physics course. Cognitive expectations are beliefs about the learning process and the structure of knowledge. Using the Maryland Physics Expectations (MPEX) survey, the students' responses reflected the highest level of agreement with the "experts' response" in the following clusters: independence, math link, reality link, and effort link. The study has shown that students...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Liberal Arts, Physics, Business Education, Introductory Courses, Student Attitudes,...
The integrated-skills approach (ISA), which incorporates the four language skills--reading, writing, speaking, and listening--has become a dominant trend in FL college instruction in Taiwan. The purpose of the study was to examine how the ISA is being used in Taiwan's EFL college classes, develop an understanding of students' satisfaction with the integrated-skill class and authentic activities, and determine if students' views about separated-skill instruction changed during the year of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Language Skills, College Instruction, Class Activities, Student...
The core purpose of this paper is to draw together research issues and concrete problems with the use of multimedia technology at the graduate level in higher music education by examining one university's responses to the challenges posed by the use of multimedia technology as a teaching and learning aid for music education. Between June and July 2006, this study conducted a simple questionnaire and interview survey of 16 postgraduate students. The results suggest that music students are...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Student Attitudes, Learning Motivation, Educational Technology,...
The aim of this study is to provide information on the purposes, structure and operation of the process of supervision in the Turkish educational system. In this paper, the historical development of supervision services in the Turkish educational system, as well as the purposes and principles of educational supervision in Turkey and the structure of supervision in the Turkish educational system are defined. Moreover, the organization of sub-systems of the Ministry of National Education and that...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Supervision, Educational Development, Educational Technology,...
This paper addresses to the question of how to empower research competence of a kind which would lead a peripheral university like SNU to becoming a world-class university. There have been noticeable achievements in building competitive, first class universities in many developing nations, particularly in Asian countries. This paper will examine the process by which SNU can be transforming SNU into a world-class university in Korea. The analysis will focus on the internal reforms implemented at...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Developing Nations, Research Universities, Educational Change,...
This paper reports on an exploratory, longitudinal study that analyzes and interprets the evolution of teachers' beliefs regarding learning, teaching, and technology, and their instructional practices, in the context of integrating technology-based information-rich tasks in six 4th-6th grade classrooms. The study used multiple research tools, interviews, questionnaires and observations, focusing on both teachers' beliefs and classroom practices. The findings reveal that following multi-year...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Research Tools, Classrooms, Teacher Attitudes, Interviews,...
The purpose of this research study was to develop a theory-based methodology for exploring instructional computer use by faculty members in one College of Education (COE) and implementing this methodology at an Anatolian university in Turkey. Rogers' (2003) Diffusion of Innovations theory was used as the theoretical framework in the process of instrument development, data collection, and in the interpretation of the results. The faculty members in the study reported low levels of use and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Methods, Faculty Development, Educational Technology, Schools of...
This study examined the mental effort required to monitor landmarks and the effect of the type of route on mobility-route training. The results revealed that the features of landmarks and competence in travel were significantly related, indicating that some environmental factors related to height and width are more easily learned when people can travel independently. A similar result was found when types of travel were compared.
Topics: ERIC Archive, Visual Impairments, Visually Impaired Mobility, Orientation, Children, Early...
The computer-supported Project Work classroom learning environment discussed in this paper represents a paradigm shift from teacher-centered to student-centered teaching and learning in Singapore schools. Besides the face-to-face weekly lessons in existing Project Work classrooms, the students engaged in computer-supported online forum discussions. Two hundred and sixty students and 26 teachers from seven high schools participated in this study. Their perceptions of this new learning...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Educational Environment, Student Attitudes, Test Validity, Item...
We further evaluated the Virtual Lecture Hall (VLH) (Cramer, Collins, Snider, & Fawcett, in press), an instructional computer-based platform to deliver PowerPoint slides threaded with audio clips for later review. Students from either an in-class or online section (ns = 810 and 74 respectively) of introductory psychology had access to live recorded lectures via the VLH, made available through the course Web site. Approximately 45% of in-class and 78% of online students used the resource...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Psychology, Lecture Method, Online Courses, Introductory Courses, Web Sites, Student...
This study focuses on the relationship between teacher-student interpersonal behaviour and students' attitudes toward science. To investigate this relationship, student perception data have been gathered with 1021 secondary science students, located in 31 classes in Kashmir, India. Teacher interpersonal behaviour was conceptualised in terms of two behavioural dimensions, Influence (the degree of teacher control in communication with students) and Proximity (the degree of cooperativeness between...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Teacher Influence, Teacher Background, Proximity, Educational...
The study sought to investigate how pre school teachers and their pupils interact during instruction in numeracy lessons in Nigeria. The sample consisted of 2859 pupils from 72 pre-primary institutions/classrooms (selected through stratified random sampling to ensure adequate representation of private, public, urban and rural schools). The collection of data involved using two observational instruments (Classroom Interaction Sheet, CIS and Ten-Minute Interaction Instrument, TMI) to record...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Students, Language Usage, Group Activities, Data Analysis, Class...
This paper presents results of a study attempting to identify the extent to which teacher effectiveness research and research into teacher interpersonal behavior can help us collect valid and reliable evaluative data from students about their teacher behavior. The major findings of teacher effectiveness research are outlined and the process that was followed in order to design questionnaire measuring student views of their teacher behavior in the classroom is presented. The main findings of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Questionnaires, Achievement Gains, Teacher Evaluation, Content...
The Thinking Together educational approach was first developed in the UK to promote the use of exploratory talk in primary classrooms. The approach was then adapted and applied to the very different context of Mexican state primary education. This paper compares the program in Mexico with the program in the UK and concludes that, despite that fact that the relationship between teacher's practice and the approach was much closer in the UK than Mexico, the program appeared to have very similar...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Foreign Countries, Educational Innovation, Elementary Education,...
This study investigated associations between teacher-student interaction and students' attitudes towards chemistry among 497 tenth grade students from three independent schools in Singapore. Analyses supported the reliability and validity of a 48-item version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI). Statistically significant gender differences and stream differences (i.e. gifted vs. non-gifted) were observed for numerous QTI scales, but gender x stream interactions also emerged....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Teacher Student Relationship, Grade 10, Interaction, Gender...
This paper reports the results of two interventions involving the integrated study of mathematics and technology practice to girls in Years 6 and 7. The focus of the study was to look at factors that contributed to girls' disengagement with mathematics study and seek pedagogical solutions for this. The key mathematics concepts embedded in the two interventions were proportional reasoning and ratio. A design based research methodology was adopted. The study started with the assumption that by...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Research Methodology, Intervention, Females, Mathematics Education, Mathematical...
Computer-based technologies are now commonplace in classrooms, and the integration of these media into the teaching and learning of mathematics is supported by government policy in most developed countries. However, many questions about the impact of computer-based technologies on classroom mathematics learning remain unanswered, and debates about when and how they ought to be used continue. An increasing number of studies seek to identify the effects of technology usage on classroom learning,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Public Policy, Mathematics Education, Developed Nations, Educational Research,...
In this article, we have examined how historical events shape the research process, even when research is carefully planned and rigorously executed. Through an examination of our experiences conducting international data collection during a three-year SSHRC funded period in which the War on Terrorism and the War in Iraq began, we suggest that social context affects all aspects of every research project, from planning, to funding, to data collection, analysis, and dissemination. History,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Attitudes, Second Language Learning, Influences, Reliability, Social Science...
With this review, we explore the practices of arts-based educational research as documented in dissertations created and written over one decade in the Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia. We compile and describe more than thirty dissertations across methodologies and methods of inquiry, and identify three pillars of arts-based practice--literary, visual, and performative. In this review, we trace the beginnings of a new stream of practice that is interwoven in some of these...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Educational Practices, Doctoral Dissertations, Educational...
For over 20 years, educators and administrators across North America have heatedly debated the value of large-scale student assessment. Throughout the history of schooling in British Columbia, large-scale student assessment outcomes have traditionally served to inform broader societal goals. Realistically, "assessment of" group learning (as opposed to classroom-based "assessment for" individual learning) will continue as the government's key focus. We also raise several...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Student Evaluation, Measurement, Academic Achievement, Testing,...
Four typical arrangements for relating faith to schooling were developed in Canada during the nineteenth century. All resulted from compromises between the assimilating traditions of Christian Constantinianism and Enlightenment liberalism. These arrangements only reluctantly accommodate the religious diversity within society. Although scholars classify Alberta's system as non-sectarian public schooling with minority denominational districts, evidence suggests the advent of a new pragmatic...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, School Choice, Public Schools, Religion, Public Policy, Canada...
In this article, I analyse how schools in Alberta have defined the province's identity and its role in Confederation. During two eras, the 1930s and the 1980s, social studies curriculum and teaching resources contained assertions of provincial uniqueness. In the late 1930s, the progressive curriculum implemented in Alberta's schools represented the first time a strong provincial consciousness was evident. The resurgence of Western regionalism was reflected in reforms introduced in 1981. I note...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Social Studies, Educational Resources, Progressive Education,...
To apply newer philosophical approaches in education, Alberta and Ontario experimented with dramatic curriculum and pedagogic reform during the progressive era, c. 1930 to 1955. However, by the mid-1950s both provinces returned to more traditional disciplinary approaches. This comparative historical study reveals three conditions that affected reform efforts in the provinces: the need for appropriate teacher education and the development of appropriate supporting materials; the need for an...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Foreign Countries, Educational Change, Comparative Analysis,...
This article examines provision of elementary school readers in Ontario from 1850 to 1909. It traces the conflicts that arose due to the dual role of textbooks as economic commodity and democratic instrument of curriculum. It illuminates the strategies that three dominant stakeholders used in textbook provision to position themselves to best advantage in these conflicts: the Education Department, retail booksellers, and textbook publishers. (Contains 114 notes.)
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Publishing Industry, Textbooks, Elementary Education, Content...
In this article, we examine the CBC/Radio-Canada series, "Canada: A People's History," for its use of empathy, specifically with regard to its portrayal of Aboriginal people. We call the empathy promoted in the series, emotive empathy, and compare it to the concept of historical empathy constructed by researchers in history education. The emotive empathy employed in this series, while adequate for public audiences, is not sufficient for history classrooms because it lacks a cognitive...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Audiences, History Instruction, Indigenous Populations, Empathy,...
In this article, I offer a reading of the psychoanalytic concept of identification, with specific attention to its meaning in the context of children's historical learning. In educational contexts, it is not identification but historical empathy that teachers and researchers typically regard as holding pedagogical status. Using examples from my visit to "Historica's" 2004 Heritage Fair, I argue that identification is important for the way it marks the young subject's ambivalent entry...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Identification (Psychology), History Instruction, Consciousness Raising, Cultural...
First Nations people have both a Constitutional and a Treaty right to education; however, the Crown's jurisdictional obligations to provide educational services have not lead to similar educational opportunities and attainment achievement for First Nations students as compared to Canadian students in provincial schools. Canada's Auditor General, in 2000, stated that Indian and Northern Affairs Canada could not demonstrate that it reached the objective to assist First Nations students on reserve...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, American Indians, Educational Needs, Educational Attainment,...
In this article, I draw parallels between the Arab countries of the Gulf region and Canada's First Nations, focusing on how dependence on unearned income may be linked to educational underachievement. The rentier dynamics in the Gulf region has weakened ties between state and society, constructing one-way patronage flows without benefit or need for significant social consent. Despite vast investments in human capital, educational outcomes in the Gulf have fallen far short of expectations....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Canada Natives, Arabs, Income, Economics, Outcomes of Education,...
This paper reports on a study that compared the practice of corporal punishment in ten basic schools in the Greater Accra District in Ghana. Five of the ten schools were designated as inclusive project schools (IPS) and the other five as non-inclusive project schools (NIS). The primary purpose was to find out if the inclusive project schools were more effective in eradicating corporal punishment from their schools than were the non-project schools. One hundred teachers responded to a six-item...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Measures (Individuals), Inclusive Schools, Punishment, Discipline,...
Social relations are often seen as transactions between individuals. The dynamic teacher, accordingly, is one who gives energy and knowledge to students. Because this understanding fails to appreciate the relational forces at work in the lively classroom, it produces unhealthy attitudes toward education. Teachers who try to live up to it will not only burn out, they will distort their students' educational development. The vitality of the classroom comes from an energy that is created between...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Student Relationship, Phenomenology, Classroom Communication, Classroom...
This paper is set against a history of school funding policies in Australia that begins with the first public policy recognition of the disadvantages experienced by government and non-government schools in the 1973 Schools in Australia (Karmel) Report. The paper traces a history of school funding policy linking it with the current backlash against public education and retaliatory backlash constructions of public schools as the new disadvantaged in an increasingly competitive and deregulated...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Public Policy, Politics, State Schools, Public Education, Private...
The aim of this research was to examine the relationship between exposure to classroom noise and the psychological well-being of full-time teaching staff in 14 preschool settings located across Western Sydney. The participants comprised 25 teachers, each of whom was administered a range of instruments. The results indicated that 40% of teachers were subjected to daily or peak noise exposures beyond the maximum permissible levels according to the Australian Occupational Health and Safety...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Experience, Preschool Teachers, Occupational Safety and Health, Early...
Communication in society today is characterised by rapidly changing and emergent forms of meaning-making in a context of increased cultural and linguistic diversity. The need to teach these new literacy practices referred to as multiliteracies, is now embedded within systemic policies in Australia. This research paper is a response to these imperatives, releasing key findings of a critical ethnographic study concerning interactions between pedagogy and access to multiliteracies among culturally...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Ethnography, Literacy, Cultural Pluralism, Global Approach,...
Parents of children in a large primary school in New South Wales were asked questions related to their attitudes towards and beliefs about composite (multigrade) classes. Parental concerns about composite classes are commonly reported as negative and this study confirmed this concern. Issues identified as causing concern for parents were a belief that some grades and some children are more suited than others to being part of a composite class, position in the class (younger or older grade),...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Parent Attitudes, Role Models, Multigraded Classes, Elementary...
This paper is set against the backdrop of an increasing number of strategies and policies developed by the Department for Education and Skills in the U.K. regarding the promotion of positive mental health in schools and the recognition of the value of improving mental health in relation to children's learning, achievement, attendance and behaviour. The aim of the paper is to present the results from a systematic review of the research evidence on counselling children and young people and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Recognition (Achievement), Therapy, Literature, Young Adults, Health Needs, Mental...
This paper focuses on discursive practices of postgraduate research as a crucial element in constructs of international student subjectivities when they undertake postgraduate studies in Australian universities. As such, it focuses on a discursive field emerging within domains of internationalisation, globalisation, and resistance. It examines processes and protocols in a number of Australian universities' postgraduate divisions' practices in the conduct of postgraduate supervision, in the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Models, Supervisor Supervisee Relationship, Foreign Students, Graduate Students,...
In keeping with repeated calls to investigate high early career turnover within the teaching profession, the present study investigated the hypothesis that a significant positive association between burnout and turnover intention would be observed in teachers at the beginning of their careers. A sample of 112 Australian teachers working in their first or second academic year was surveyed in 2004. Respondents were administered the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI: Maslach, Jackson & Leiter...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching (Occupation), Beginning Teachers, Teacher Burnout, Foreign Countries, Labor...
This paper takes up the question of the way in which "the problem with educational research" is represented. It takes as its point of departure two recent views on "the problem"--one expressed by an educational journalist and one presented by the Australian Council of Deans of Education. It locates these within a larger frame of international debate about educational research and its problems and considers how these arise out of particular dispositions towards educational...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Fantasy, Educational Research, Problem Solving, Disadvantaged, Research Problems,...
Academic engagement with higher education research policy in Australia, and with education policy more generally, is in crisis. This time around, it is not just that our theoretical tools are blunt and irrelevant (Ball 1990), so are our politics. It seems our attention has been so consumed by "what is policy" (Ball 1994a) and with challenging its claims to authority, that we have missed or ignored imperatives to engage with its production. Even though some have attempted...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Higher Education, Politics, Cooperation, Educational Research,...
Group work is a widely used learning approach in higher education where it is seen as encouraging the development of collaborative skills and attitudes while producing an assessable product. Group assignments can, however, create dilemmas and tensions for both staff and students. Students often seek academic intervention in the form of support and dispute arbitration; and the types of interventions employed to deal with issues arising during and after group work, and the effectiveness of the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Intervention, Assignments, Cooperative Learning, Higher Education,...
This study is aimed at assessing the state of Philippine secondary school physics education using data from a nationwide survey of 464 schools and 767 physics teachers and at identifying challenges for substantive improvements. Teacher-related indicators revealed academic qualification deficiency, low continuing professional involvements, substantial physics teaching experience, and good licensure status. Academic environment indices revealed that the number of physics classes per teacher is...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Teacher Education, Instructional Materials, Educational...