Different Stages Of Schooling Research Articles

The development of the cycle model and its effect on mathematics learning using GeoGebra mathematical software

ABSTRACT This article presents an instructional technology-based cycle model intended to support and facilitate the teaching and learning of mathematics, particularly calculus. The study used quantitative methods with quasi-experimental research that uses non-randomised assignments of the study group that are categorised into experimental and control groups including 36 and 30 students in the control and experimental groups, respectively, at a university in Ethiopia. A pre-test was administered to the experimental and control groups before the intervention (statistical control over the groups) to identify students’ abilities in the two groups. Based on nine steps, Vygotsky’s theory of learning model was implemented in the classroom using GeoGebra software. The findings suggest that the GeoGebra classroom-oriented approach to learning differential calculus, using the cycle model, had a positive effect on students’ conceptual understanding and a very positive effect on their procedural understanding. The article recommends that using the cycle model of instruction in the teaching and learning of calculus can bring important benefits to different stages of schooling in the Ethiopian context and beyond.

Education Interrupted: Enrollment, Attainment, and Dropout of Syrian Refugees in Jordan

The children affected by the Syrian conflict, including the large population of Syrian refugee children hosted in neighboring countries, are at risk of becoming a ‘lost generation’ due to interruptions in their schooling. This paper examines how educational outcomes of Syrian refugees in Jordan have evolved from pre-conflict to during conflict and displacement. We rely on nationally representative survey data from Jordan in 2016 and in-depth interviews with Syrian refugee youth. We use discrete-time hazard models and compare dropout pre-conflict, during the conflict, and during displacement for different stages of schooling. Syrian refugees in Jordan faced disrupted schooling in Syria due to the conflict, followed by several multidimensional supply- and demand-side barriers to education in Jordan. Yet ultimately enrollment rates, at least through 2016, have recovered to pre-conflict levels for basic education among the group of Syrians in Jordan, with important lessons for other countries struggling to protect refugee children’s education. Host countries’ policy response to refugee education plays a critical role in whether and for how long refugee children resume schooling after displacement.

Тенденції розвитку самооцінки дітей з інтелектуальною недостатністю на різних етапах шкільного навчання

Тенденції розвитку самооцінки дітей з інтелектуальною недостатністю на різних етапах шкільного навчання

Evolving micro-level processes of demand for private supplementary tutoring: patterns and implications at primary and lower secondary levels in China

ABSTRACTRecent decades have brought global expansion of private supplementary tutoring, and China is among countries in which patterns have been especially dramatic. National survey data indicate that 29.8% of primary and lower secondary students had received private supplementary tutoring in 2014, with proportions rising at higher levels of the school system. However, such statistics present only a snapshot of demand and might suggest that decisions to invest in tutoring are one-off in nature. This paper draws on interviews to show changing patterns of demand by individual parents at different times. Factors influencing parental choices include not only cost and availability of time but also children’s academic performance, children’s different stages of schooling and education system reforms. Over time parents may expand or reduce their demand, change balances between academic and non-academic tutoring, and switch between different types and providers of tutoring. This paper thus shows that analyses of demand need to be more nuanced than tends to be the case in analyses of large-scale survey data. The paper is grounded in the Chinese context, but has conceptual implications of wider relevance.

Changes in attitude: Evaluative language in secondary school and university history textbooks

There is much disagreement among education specialists about how history textbooks should represent the past and engage with alternative perspectives toward it at different stages of schooling. This article reports findings from a quantitative study comparing the ways explicit evaluative language is used in secondary school and university history textbooks. The study examines various types of evaluative acts including judgments of people, construals of their emotions, and evaluations of inanimate historical entities. It also groups evaluative acts in terms of the discourse entities that are performing them (i.e., historical actors, the authorial voice, or other historians/interpreters of the past). Key findings include a higher overall occurrence of explicit evaluation in the secondary school texts, extensive reliance on emotional language in both groups of texts, and little difference between the two groups in their engagement with other members of the history discipline.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STATISTICAL LITERACY AT SCHOOL

Statistical literacy increasingly is considered an important outcome of schooling. There is little information, however, about appropriate expectations of students at different stages of schooling. Some progress towards this goal was made by Watson and Callingham (2005), who identified an empirical 6-level hierarchy of statistical literacy and the distribution of middle school students across the levels, using archived data from 1993-2000. There is interest in reconsidering these outcomes a decade later, during which statistics and probability has become a recognised strand of the Australian mathematics curriculum. Using a new data-set of over 7000 student responses from middle-years students in different parts of Australia during the period 2007-2009, the nature of the hierarchy was confirmed. Longitudinal analysis identified how students performed across time against the hierarchy. Suggestions are made for systems and teachers about realistic expectations for middle-years students, and possible curriculum challenges. First published May 2017 at Statistics Education Research Journal Archives

Current practices in schooling transitions of students with developmental disabilities

This article examines the planning processes involved for students with developmental disabilities (i.e., intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorders) as they transition through different stages of schooling in the United States. In order to obtain an understanding of current practices in this area, 167 teachers from three states (California, Texas and North Carolina) were surveyed about transition practices for students with developmental disabilities. The transitions from primary to middle school, middle to high school, and high school to post-school life, as well as home-school collaboration, were the focus. The teachers responded to demographic and open-ended survey questions. Findings indicated that the lack of active student involvement in transition planning remains a serious concern across all three transitions.

Education and its Impact on Social Change in Punjab

<div><p><em>Significance of education in the development process has been well recognized by the educational planners, economists and development planners the world over. Based on empirical evidences of connection between education and socio-economic development, this paper posits that education is instrumental in the socio-economic development. Specifically, this paper examines the impact of educational progress on fertility rate, population growth rate, child/infant mortality rate, life expectancy, gender disparity, poverty of the state. The analysis is based on information of the entire state on various variables such as literacy rate, enrolment, per capita income, fertility rate, population growth rate, incidence of poverty, etc. gathered from the secondary sources from 1966 onward. To sort out the strength and direction of relationships between education and various components of social developments, data have been analyzed by employing simple regression models. </em></p><p><em>The findings show that female education at all levels has been found to be highly significant in lowering infant mortality. Male and female life expectancy at birth and at specific ages have been found to be positively related with enrolment at different educational levels.</em></p><p><em>In line with the research conducted in different parts of the world, this study also confirms that increased female education at all the stages (i.e. primary, elementary, secondary and for all education levels put together) consistently lowers fertility rates. </em></p><p><em> Our regression results show positive relationship between the progress of education at different stages and the gender disparity in infant mortality. Further, The poverty reduction effect of education has been confirmed from the inverse relationship of the educational progress at different stages of schooling with the incidence of deprivation (poverty). </em></p></div>

Relationships between perceived parental involvement in homework, student homework behaviors, and academic achievement: differences among elementary, junior high, and high school students

This study aims to produce a deeper understanding of the relationship between perceived parental homework involvement (i.e., parental homework control and parental homework support), student homework behaviors (i.e., time spend on homework completion, time management, and amount of homework completed), and student academic achievement. Using Mplus5.1, a structural equation model was fit for 1683 students at different stages of schooling (i.e., elementary school − 5th and 6th grades; junior high school − 7th and 8th grades; and high school − 9th and 10th grades). The data showed that student homework behaviors, perceived parental homework involvement, and academic achievement are significantly related. However, results vary depending on the students’ grade level: (a) in junior high and high school, perceived parental homework involvement is related to students’ homework behaviors, but not in elementary school; and (b) although students’ homework behaviors are related to academic achievement at each school level, the direction and magnitude of the relationships vary. Specifically, the relationship between perceived parental homework involvement and academic achievement is stronger in junior high and high school than in elementary school; and student homework behaviors mediate the association between perceived parental homework involvement (control and support) and academic achievement only in junior high and high school.

Pre-teens’ informal learning with ICT and Web 2.0

Information and communication technology (ICT) and Web 2.0 have the potential to impact on learning by supporting inquiry, literacies, collaboration and publication. Restrictions on the use of these tools within schools, primarily due to concerns about discipline and child safety, make it difficult to make full use of this potential in formal educational contexts. Studies of children at different stages of schooling have highlighted a wider range of ICT use outside school, where it can be used to support informal learning. The study reported here looks beyond the broad categories of primary and secondary education and investigates distinctive elements of pre-teens’ use of ICT to support informal learning. Nineteen children aged 10 and 11 participated in focus groups and produced visual representations of ICT and Web 2.0 resources they used to support their informal learning. Thematic analysis of this data showed that pre-teens respond to a range of age-related constraints on their use of ICT. Inside formal education, these constraints appear similar at primary and secondary levels. Out of school, regulation is more age specific, contributing to the development of tensions around use of ICT as children approach their teenage years. These tensions and constraints shape the ways in which children aged 10–11 engage in formal and informal learning, particularly their methods of communication and their pressing need to develop evaluation skills.

Education for Sustainability at a Montessori Primary School: From Silos to Systems Thinking

AbstractThis research investigated Education for Sustainability (EfS) at an independent Montessori primary school, located in the Perth metropolitan area of Western Australia. A longitudinal case study involving analysis of data from a 20-year period was conducted to determine the effectiveness of EfS. Historical information about EfS at the school from 1990 to 2005 was examined, with the main focus of the study being on the impact of the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI) between 2005 and 2009. AuSSI promotes a whole school, whole systems thinking approach to EfS.Three school-based issues in EfS were studied. First, the research aimed to determine what elements of EfS were in operation in the school prior to involvement in AuSSI. Second, student outcomes including engagement with whole systems thinking, attitudes and values, knowledge and understandings, and skills and behaviours related to EfS, were investigated during the first 5 years of participation in AuSSI. Third, teacher perceptions of the EfS program, including engagement with whole systems thinking, were examined during this same time period.A case study approach was employed to enable in-depth investigation of EfS in the life of the school prior to, during and post implementation of AuSSI. This approach facilitated revelation of participants’ lived experiences, their perceptions and understandings of EfS, as well as detailed information about student outcomes in EfS. Case study methodology was also compatible with the culture and processes of the participating school and provided an opportunity for utilising a whole systems thinking approach. Data was gathered from a range of sources, through surveys, interviews, observation and document analysis over a 5-year period. The total participants included 11 teachers and 75 students.The research identified particular antecedents of EfS in the Montessori method of education that existed in the school prior to AuSSI, including the whole child approach, together with the Montessori learning environment, curriculum and values. Following participation in AuSSI, student attitudes and values, knowledge and understandings, and skills and behaviours related to EfS were enhanced for all year levels. However, after 3 years, when specific EfS actions and projects ceased, student EfS outcomes were limited. Furthermore, students’ thinking and behaviour indicated a ‘silo’, rather than whole systems thinking approach to EfS. Teachers perceived the EfS program as highly effective in the initial 3 years after joining AuSSI. Key elements that enhanced EfS included EfS staff champions who had access to EfS networks, leadership support, and active school community involvement in all EfS processes. However, after 3 years of being an AuSSI school, the culmination of reduced leadership support for EfS, lack of staff training, vague designation of staff with EfS responsibilities and inadequate community involvement, resulted in cessation of the EfS program. Teacher perceptions on whole systems thinking revealed alignment between Montessori philosophy, EfS and whole system thinking was more in theory than in practice.Through an in-depth longitudinal case study of a school this research highlighted the importance of whole school EfS professional learning, embedding EfS and whole systems thinking across the curriculum at all year levels, whole school support, and the usefulness of a sustainability continuum that recognises the complex, dynamic interplay of issues involved in a school's EfS journey. It is strongly recommended that improvements to pre-service teacher education in EfS are implemented, and a review of the AuSSI toolkit is conducted to refine EfS evaluation processes and to target the specific EfS needs of teachers at different stages of schooling, as well as to enhance understanding and implementation of the whole systems thinking approach. Finally, EfS professional learning for all school staff in all schools is warranted to enhance depth of EfS engagement.

EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF SCHOOL SYSTEMS AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF SCHOOLING

In educating students national public school systems use different methods of grouping students by ability across schools. We consider four different school systems of student allocation at different stages of schooling and their educational implications. Our two-period model suggests that both frequency and sequence of ability grouping play an important role in producing educational implications. As different households prefer different combinations of school systems, the overall performance of a school system is determined by how households are distributed over income and a child's ability and the voting of households.

Response: Statistical Models of Educational Stratification—Hauser and Andrew's Models for School Transitions

Hauser and Andrew marry two good ideas that emerged within quanti tative social science during the 1970s-namely, the multiple-indicator multiple-cause (MIMIC) model for multivariate responses and the logistic response model for transitions between stages of educational attainment. The MIMIC model, now part of standard textbooks for structural equation models with latent variables (e. g., Bollen 1989), is a natural, rigorous, and efficient way to represent the effects of exogenous variables on multiple endogenous variables (Hauser and Goldberger 1971). It is also a tool for testing whether a set of variables behave as a scale in their relationship to other variables in a multivariate model and thus for avoiding ad hoc, unsubstantiated index construction (e. g., Hauser 1973). As Hauser and Andrew note, the logistic response model for school transitions is a widely used tool for the analysis of educational stratification, allowing investigators of family background effects on ed ucational attainment to recognize that schooling is a sequence of events in time rather than a single status, and that the sources of inequality of educational opportunity and outcome may be different at different stages of schooling. It is gratifying to see that these ideas have contin ued to inspire application, discussion, and improvement approximately 30 years after they were introduced. In this comment, I place my

Counting and dis-counting learner group variation

Australia is a multilingual multicultural country with an impressive record of educational provision for students from language other than English (LOTE) backgrounds. The recent widespread development of common standards and benchmarks in English language and literacy in schools can be seen as a valuable component of this provision. However, care needs to be taken to avoid projecting a false picture of linguistic homogeneity by ignoring variation between English-speaking background (ESB) and English as a Second Language (ESL) learner groups. This paper demonstrates how the recent introduction of national Literacy Benchmarks, unlike the earlier development of curriculum and standards frameworks, has dis-counted ESL achievement by failing to take sufficient account of learner variation. Problems have also occurred in balancing the conflicting motivations for benchmarking: assessment, accountability and education, which result in different “standards” for standard-setting being assumed by the various stakeholders. The paper concludes that real accountability and progress in ESL learning and teaching can only be shown effectively through the use of a complementary but distinctive set of standards or benchmarks for ESL learners at different stages of schooling.

Guidelines for the treatment of solar energy topics in the unified science curricula of the Gulf Arab States

The authors defined the main topics and sub-topics in the area of solar energy, which need to be included in pre-university science curricula. In view of these findings, a content analysis of 29 “Unified Gulf Arab States Science Books” was conducted, in order to define the depth of the material which they contained in the area of solar energy education. Consequently, the authors presented a proposed guideline treatment to help in incorporating, within the unified school science curricula of the Gulf Arab States, the appropriate and adequate topics in the area of solar energy. These are to be introduced in the science curricula in a graded sequence throughout the different stages of schooling.

A comparative critique of several methods of collecting data for cognitive mapping

Cognitive mapping by learners for various research purposes is assisted if the appropriate technique is used with learners at different stages of schooling and with varying degrees of understanding of a content field and of related content fields. There are however, techniques now available which appear to be usable by learners in primary, secondary and tertiary education.