Flirting Competence: An Experimental Study on Appropriate and Effective Opening Lines     

Keith Weber  Alan K. Goodboy  Jacob L. Cayanus 《Communication Research Reports》2013,30(2):184-191

An experiment was conducted to examine the appropriateness and effectiveness of five flirtatious opening lines enacted by a male participant to initiate conversation with a female participant. Video messages were constructed to represent the following opening lines: direct introductions, direct compliments, humor attempts, cute–flippant lines, and third-party introductions. Participants were 642 college students who viewed one of these five videos and reported on the appropriateness and effectiveness of an opening line after controlling for perceptions of actor physical attractiveness. Results indicated that participants rated the third-party introduction and direct introduction opening lines as the most appropriate, whereas the third-party introduction was perceived as the most effective. Direct compliments, humor attempts, and cute–flippant lines were rated as equally inappropriate and ineffective.  相似文献   

A hierarchical approach to Students’ Assessments of Instruction     

Alan Socha 《Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education》2013,38(1):94-113

A teacher evaluation system can be threatening to faculty, especially if used for summative decisions. Therefore, it is important to obtain valid and pertinent information. Since students are extensively exposed to course elements, students’ evaluation of instruction should be one of several components in the teacher evaluation system. Since traditional methods, such as Cronbach’s alpha and ordinary least squares regression, do not address the hierarchical data of the classroom, the current study used the statistical techniques of confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical linear modelling in order to properly investigate the reliability and validity of the Students’ Assessment of Instruction (SAI) instrument. Use of hierarchical linear modelling to analyse teacher evaluation instruments could not be found in the literature, although it has been used in educational settings. This study will illustrate its usefulness in determining what measures are related, either as evidence of validity or as a bias, to instructional effectiveness. Student responses were also compared with faculty self-evaluations, one indicator of effective teaching, in order to determine if the SAI does measure instructional effectiveness. Overall, the SAI was found to have good reliability and validity with relatively few biases and could be used to extract five distinguishable traits of instructional effectiveness.  相似文献   

Student Progress in Distance Education: Kember's model re-visited     

Alan Woodley  Paul de Lange  George Tanewski 《Open Learning》2013,28(2):113-131

This investigation replicates Kember's [(1995) Open Learning Courses for Adults: a model of student progress (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Education Technology)] model of student progress, using students enrolled on four business courses at the Open University of the United Kingdom. Kember's model identified four key constructs: social integration, academic integration, external attribution, and academic incompatibility. Kember built these constructs, together with background characteristics, into a causal model of student progress and then tested it using path analysis. He concluded that the model was robust, accounting for 80% of the variance in adult student persistence. However, the empirical findings from the present study showed little internal consistency in the sub-scales for the key constructs in Kember's model. Furthermore, few of the causal relationships achieved statistical significance. These results suggest that Kember's path model did not fit the data derived from the present sample. While Kember's recommendations for reducing student dropout have intuitive appeal, their empirical foundations are questionable.  相似文献   

Problem-Based Learning for Foundation Computer Science Courses   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

Judy Kay  Michael Barg  Alan Fekete  Tony Greening  Owen Hollands  Jeffrey H. Kingston 《Computer Science Education》2013,23(2):109-128

The foundation courses in computer science pose particular challenges for teacher and learner alike. This paper describes some of these challenges and how we have designed problem-based learning (PBL) courses to address them. We discuss the particular problems we were keen to overcome: the purely technical focus of many courses; the problems of individual learning and the need to establish foundations in a range of areas which are important for computer science graduates. We then outline our course design, showing how we have created problem-based learning courses. The paper reports our evaluation of the approach. This has two parts: assessment of a trial, with a three-year longitudinal follow-up of the students; reports of student learning improve-ment after we had become experienced in full implementation of PBL. We conclude with a summary of our experience over three years of PBL teaching and discuss some of the pragmatic issues around introducing the radical change in teaching, maintaining staff support, and continuing refinement of our PBL teaching. We also discuss some of our approaches to the commonly acknowledged challenges of PBL teaching.  相似文献   

The teaching and learning of pupils in low-attainment sets     

Máiréad Dunne  Sara Humphreys  Alan Dyson  Judy Sebba  Frances Gallannaugh  Daniel Muijs 《Curriculum Journal》2013,24(4):485-513

This study explored the ways in which schools addressed the needs of pupils in low-attainment class groups, or sets, in the context of multiple and contrary government policy directives and inconclusive research findings about setting. In this article we have focused on school and classroom practices as well as the organisational processes through which low-attaining pupils were identified, grouped and reviewed within schools. The empirical data reported here predominantly refer to case studies involving classroom observations and interviews with teachers, pupils and other staff in 13 schools – both primary and secondary – from four local authorities (LAs).

In the latter part of the article, however, we also draw on survey data collected from a larger sample of schools in 12 LAs in England. Although the study found ample evidence of innovative school practices and efforts by individual teachers aimed at optimising the learning opportunities for children in low-attainment class groups, the findings also raise important questions about some of the processes of set allocation, the lack of mobility between sets, and the over-representation of particular social groups in low-attainment classes. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for equity and inclusion that moves beyond an emphasis on classroom practice to include questions about the in-school processes of social selection and educational mobility for pupils identified as low-attaining.  相似文献   

Analysis of Covariance and Randomized Block Design with Heterogeneous Slopes     

Alan J. Klockars  S. Natasha Beretvas 《Journal of Experimental Education》2013,81(4):393-410

The authors compared the Type I error rate and the power to detect differences in slopes and additive treatment effects of analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and randomized block (RB) designs with a Monte Carlo simulation. For testing differences in slopes, 3 methods were compared: the test of slopes from ANCOVA, the omnibus Block × Treatment interaction, and the linear component of the Block × Treatment interaction of RB. In the test for adjusted means, 2 variations of both ANCOVA and RB were used. The power of the omnibus test of the interaction decreased dramatically as the number of blocks used increased and was always considerably smaller than the specific test of differences in slopes found in ANCOVA. Tests for means when there were concomitant differences in slopes showed that only ANCOVA uniformly controlled Type I error under all configurations of design variables. The most powerful option in almost all simulations for tests of both slopes and means was ANCOVA.  相似文献   

Attitude toward Christianity among secondary school pupils in Northern Ireland: shifts in denominational differences     

Leslie J. Francis  Mandy Robbins  Christopher Alan Lewis  L. Philip Barnes  Tania ap Siôn 《Educational research; a review for teachers and all concerned with progress in education》2013,55(4):431-436

Background Northern Ireland is a province that remains deeply divided between Protestants and Catholics and maintains a segregated system of schools.

Purpose The research builds on a series of studies conducted in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to monitor the attitude toward Christianity of males and females educated in Protestant and Catholic schools.

Sample A sample of 2359 16- to 18-year-old pupils attending Catholic and Protestant schools in Northern Ireland.

Design and methods A random sample of seven Protestant and nine Catholic schools invited all pupils attending their lower and upper sixth-form classes to participate in the survey and to complete the Francis scale of attitude toward Christianity.

Results The data demonstrate that, while males attending Catholic schools maintained a more positive attitude towards Christianity than males attending Protestant schools, females attending Catholic schools reported a less positive attitude toward Christianity than females attending Protestant schools. These findings are compared with studies conducted during the 1970s and 1980s when both males and females attending Catholic schools recorded a more positive attitude toward Christianity than their peers attending Protestant schools.

Conclusions Repeated cross-sectional studies of this nature help to profile the changing religious climate of Northern Ireland.  相似文献   

Management of bullying in Northern Ireland schools: a pre-legislative survey     

Conor McGuckin  Christopher Alan Lewis 《Educational research; a review for teachers and all concerned with progress in education》2013,55(1):9-23

Background:?Unlike the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland has only recently (2003) implemented legislation regarding the requirement for anti-bullying policies in the province's school system.

Purpose:?The purpose of the study was to ascertain the nature of the management of bully/victim problems across Northern Ireland schools prior to the enactment of legislation.

Sample:?From an exhaustive sampling frame of all 1329 schools in Northern Ireland (96 nursery, 910 primary, 167 secondary, 73 grammar, 54 special, 29 further education), a total of 285 schools replied to a questionnaire (20 nursery, 181 primary, 41 secondary, 26 grammar, 13 special, 3 further education, 1 non-specified), a return rate of 23.11%.

Design and methods:?A review of the literature and consultation with educational experts in Northern Ireland resulted in the development of an ‘Audit’ questionnaire designed to examine dissemination and implementation (or not) of Department of Education, or bespoke, discipline and anti-bullying policies; components of anti-bullying programmes; the communication of anti-bullying policies to the school community; staff training; reporting and management of claims of staff victimisation; sanctions against bullies; and homophobic bullying.

Results:?It was found that, in a legislative vacuum, the schools in Northern Ireland had been acting in a proactive manner regarding the management of such bully/victim problems (e.g., development and implementation of policies, effective communication strategies).

Conclusions:?These results provide a baseline from which the efficacy of subsequent legislation in Northern Ireland can be evaluated. Utilisation of the methodology adopted in this study would be beneficial in other jurisdictions in evaluations of knowledge, attitudes and management of bully/victim problems, either pre- or post-implementation of legislation.  相似文献   

An Environmental Approach to Marine Science K-12     

Alan Rabinowitz 《The Journal of environmental education》2013,44(1):26-27

Abstract

Providing professional development for science teachers, Teachers in the Woods is a 6-week summer research experience in the national forests of the Pacific Northwest. Participants contributed to the scientific understanding of forest ecosystem functioning and later created local projects as forest ecology fieldwork for their students. Teachers were surveyed 3 times during the year and interviewed onsite. A standardized performance assessment measured student progress. The project changed teachers' approach to teaching and created greater motivation, confidence, knowledge, and skills in teaching biology and environmental science using field projects. Teachers attributed their success to enduring professional contacts with scientists and to their field experience. Evaluations also revealed major factors that affect the success of student field projects.  相似文献   

Doing teacher research: a qualitative analysis of purposes,processes and experiences   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

Sharon Gewirtz  Jan Shapiro  Meg Maguire  Pat Mahony  Alan Cribb 《Educational Action Research》2013,21(4):567-583

In this paper we draw upon 14 semi‐structured interviews with the participants in a teacher‐researcher project on the theme of ‘ensuring African Caribbean attainment’ with the aim of shedding light on the purposes, processes and lived experiences of teacher research in a difficult and contentious intellectual and practical domain. After briefly reviewing the history and policy background of teacher research in England, we introduce the project and the specific purposes and motivations of its various stakeholders. In the second half of the paper we analyse the challenges and the rewards of participating in the project, including the challenges of facilitating teacher research, and we review the key implications of the research for policy and practice. We conclude that, in trying to make teacher research happen in a way that is meaningful and productive for those involved (whether as facilitators or teacher researchers), three things have to be negotiated at once: new roles for academic facilitators, new dimensions of teacher roles, and a viable conception of research that is authentically teacher research. All of these things involve rethinking assumptions about what it means to be a teacher and an academic and what is meant by research. Drawing on the lessons of this project, we suggest that the central challenge of building successful teacher research is the creation of genuine partnerships, characterised by respectful and critical dialogue, between university staff and teacher researchers.  相似文献