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Data walls are a data use practice increasingly being adopted in western, Anglophone countries to display student academic achievement data. The purpose of data walls is to improve teaching and learning by helping teachers and/or students to identify patterns of growth and achievement, set goals, and plan instructional interventions or self-regulate. This paper presents a systematic review of 30 empirical studies to explore how data wall use affectively impacts students and teachers, as well as related effects on their privacy and motivation. The review found that data wall displays elicited a range of positive and negative emotional responses, depending on variables such as the display’s location, contents, and associated social practices. Data walls were reported as enhancing motivation by helping stakeholders to sustain focus on and track progress towards goals, or by fostering comparison and competition. Data walls where class and/or individual students’ data could be identified, for example, through names, pictures, or small sample size, also generated concerns around privacy. These issues highlight the need to consider how data wall use aligns not only with relevant legislation, but also community expectations.

This paper examined Australian distance education teachers’ perspectives about how they drew on technological tools to support their primary and secondary students’ learning. Via two focus groups (n = 9, n = 7), teachers identified that technology greatly assisted them in relation to developing relationships with students and families, creating interactive lessons, differentiating learning, providing quality feedback, and connecting peers. However, they also reported experiencing ongoing challenges and constraints related to gaining technology expertise, overcoming technology faults, and coping with additional accountability. Data made it clear that teacher use of technology was driven by specific student needs and that teachers drew heavily on both core pedagogical knowledge and technological pedagogical content knowledge. Findings suggest the need for more distance education specific professional development to ensure that teachers have the knowledges needed to support diverse learners in this context.

While the affordances of the digital age certainly enable more diverse students to access higher education, higher education assessment is often underpinned by notions of equality rather than equity. Drawing together key literature and data from interviews with 53 first year undergraduate students from low socio-economic status backgrounds, this chapter identifies three potential causes of assessment inequity which appear to persist into the digital age: student assessment self-efficacy, prior preparation, and external pressures. It then identifies how the affordances of modern technology can be used to help combat these challenges.

Compulsory distance education has always sought to be inclusive, providing educational opportunities for K-12 students unable to attend mainstream, face-to-face schools for medical, geographical, or personal reasons. However, how to effectively engage these diverse learners has remained a perpetual challenge, with a need for further investigation into the nature of student engagement with compulsory school distance contexts and how teachers can best support it. This qualitative study used focus groups (n = 2 groups, n = 16 participants) to examine teacher definitions and student engagement strategies within eKindy-12 distance education in Queensland, Australia. Categorical analysis was conducted using a priori codes for definitions, focusing on four previously established engagement types (i.e. behavioural, emotional, cognitive, and agentic engagement), and in vivo codes for strategies. Teacher definitions focused strongly on behavioural engagement, but most also contained elements of emotional and cognitive engagement; agentic engagement was only occasionally evidenced via practice descriptions. Teachers described engaging students by: building relationships, creating a safe classroom environment through differentiation, using inclusive technological tools to facilitate interaction and monitor progress, making learning fun and relevant, drawing on school-wide pedagogical frameworks and teaching strategies, and encourage self-regulation. Findings suggest distance education teachers face unique challenges around evidencing engagement and supporting student agency.

Data walls, used to display student data within schools, are a growing phenomenon internationally. Drawing on a conceptual model of data use, this systematic review examined 32 empirical sources from compulsory education settings to evaluate claims about the impact of data walls on teaching and learning. The review found details regarding goals for data walls and the displayed information, but there was limited evidence of how data analysis was used to guide improvement action and evaluation of impact. The review concluded that there is currently insufficient empirical research evidence to substantiate or refute claims about their educational effects.

While online courses provide opportunities for a range of assessment tools and resources, little is known about how lecturers might best provide assessment cues to support diverse cohorts. This study explored how lecturers communicate messages about assessment expectations to first-year students in two courses at an Australian regional university (Nursing, n = 323; Engineering, n = 153), and how students accessed the assessment resources. A comparative case study methodology was used. Data included interviews with course coordinators to identify the assessment cues provided, course online content related to assessment and data recording student access of assessment resources. Diverse messaging systems were observed and verbal and written cues were abundant and embedded throughout both courses; however, not all students accessed all cues. What remains unclear is how students might bring together these cues in a productive way. Further research must explore the extent to which students can be better supported to improve their learning.

This paper explores the acceptance of a “silent period” as a stage in second language development for children acquiring English as an Additional Language in Early Years settings. Current views suggest that it is normal for children to very quickly stop using their mother tongue and enter a period of silence. A positive perspective on this is that children may be using this time to observe and grow in understanding of the second language. However, there may also be negative effects, as children may become withdrawn and miss out on opportunities to develop relationships and language. It is the argument of this paper that if this silent period is normalised, there is potential for ambivalence around the well-being of the child which may run counter to best Early Years practice. This study consisted of a qualitative content analysis which drew on twenty case studies collected by Early Years Educators documenting children’s progress over the initial weeks and months in Early Years settings. The main findings were that some children did indeed enter a silent period and shyness was a risk factor for this being prolonged. Non-verbal communication was used positively by some children to develop relationships with other children, but negatively by others, in the form of aggression and frustration, until they developed enough language to communicate. The children who did best continued to use their home language and non-verbal communication which enabled them to form relationships. Over time this became a bridge into the second language. Strategies used by educators included supporting children in small groups and bringing the home language into the setting in keeping with recommendations of policy documents in Ireland. Ultimately, this paper argues that the normalisation of a silent period may infringe on children’s rights to be active participants in their own learning. Moreover, it may limit the extent to which they are meaningfully valued, respected, empowered, cared for and included in Early Years settings.

Peer- and self-assessment (PASA) can lead to increased student self-regulation and achievement. However, few studies have examined the content of the feedback students in primary and secondary schools provide themselves and their peers. This study used Hattie and Timperley’s task, process, self-regulation and self feedback categories from their Review of Educational Research article ‘The power of feedback’ to (1) examine the content of a sample of naturally occurring student-written PASA comments (n = 471 utterances) and (2) explore the feasibility of using this model with student-generated feedback. Students provided primarily task feedback to both themselves and their peers, with self-regulation feedback only found in self-assessment. Students in higher grades tended to provide more task and process feedback, while giving less self feedback during self-assessment and more during peer assessment. More refinement of the model is recommended for both research and professional development purposes to better capture the quality and complexity of student-led feedback comments.

This article is the third in a series reporting the process and findings of a realist synthesis of interprofessional teamwork in health and social care. The synthesis articulated and tested four "mechanisms" (processes) of teamwork related to communication and found variable evidence to support them. Evidence was strongest for "efficient, open and equitable communication" and "tactical communication", but lacking for the shared responsibility element of the "shared responsibility and influence" mechanism. Little evidence was found to support or oppose the mechanism, "team behavioural norms", so its status as a mechanism of interprofessional teamwork is unclear. A striking finding for all the mechanisms was the dearth of information on how they affected patient clinical outcomes and experiences.

While feedback is a key factor for improving student learning, little is known about how students understand and experience feedback within the classroom. This study analysed 193 New Zealand primary and secondary students’ survey responses alongside drawings of their understandings and experiences of feedback to examine how they experience, understand, and respond to feedback. It found that despite New Zealand’s strong commitment to student-centred Assessment for Learning practices, the majority of students still drew, selected, and endorsed teacher-led feedback practices, with pictures dominated by written comments or grades. However, they generally depicted and described this feedback as positive and constructive, suggesting that negative emotional responses to evaluative comments and grades may be lessened if students perceive such feedback will help them improve.

Peer- and self-assessment (PASA) are student-led assessment practices with the potential to positively affect achievement. Case studies of three New Zealand classrooms were examined to explore teacher and student perspectives of and purposes for PASA. Four themes (i.e., improvement, accountability, social interaction, and accuracy) were identified. Teachers cited mainly improvement purposes for PASA, with students primarily focused on accuracy and social interaction concerns. Data indicated that these teachers and students needed deeper understanding of how to use PASA for improvement and self-regulation purposes. This suggests teachers must provide concrete instruction in PASA and carefully manage interpersonal issues for successful implementation.

Teachers’ understandings of feedback probably influence the type and quality of feedback that they provide. The beliefs of 518 New Zealand practicing teachers about feedback were evaluated with the Teachers’ Conceptions of Feedback (TCoF) inventory and related to practices these teachers considered to be feedback. Nine feedback factors and four practices factors were found and models were statistically invariant between primary and secondary teachers. New Zealand teachers’ understandings of feedback were strongly focused on improving learning instead of enhancing student well-being. Similar factors are expected in other contexts, though agreement rates should reflect local policy priorities and cultural values.

Within the Asia-Pacific community, the New Zealand Ministry of Education has been one of few educational authorities to adopt an Assessment for Learning (AfL) framework and actively promote formative uses of assessment. This paper reports the results of a qualitative study in which eleven New Zealand secondary teachers in two focus groups discussed their conceptions of assessment and feedback. These data were examined to see how teachers defined and understood assessment and feedback processes to identify how these conceptions related to AfL perspectives on assessment. Categorical analysis of these data found teachers identified three types of assessment (formative, classroom teacher–controlled summative and external summative) with three distinct purposes (improvement, reporting and compliance, irrelevance). Feedback was seen as being about learning, grades and marks, or behaviour and effort; these types served the same purposes as assessment with the addition of an encouragement purpose. This study showed that although these New Zealand teachers appeared committed to AfL, there was still disagreement amongst teachers as to what practices could be deemed formative and how to best implement these types of assessment. Additionally, even in this relatively low-stakes environment, they noted tension between improvement and accountability purposes for assessment.

Teacher actions can influence how students engage at school, making it relevant to understand their conceptions of student engagement and how to facilitate it. Reviews of existing literature suggested that a distinction between engagement in schooling and engagement in learning might help differentiate between social and academic outcomes. Data from a phenomenographic study of 20 Australian teachers were analysed to show how teacher thinking related to this distinction. While some teachers held complex conceptions centred on promoting cognitive engagement and student learning, others aligned with engagement in schooling, focusing on generating participation and emphasising positive student affective experiences.

Phenomenographers have developed two frameworks to enhance the study of conceptions. The first framework creates a distinction between what and how aspects; the second level of this framework also includes the act, direct object, and indirect object. This framework allows the conception to be analysed separately from the actions and intentions related to it. The second framework creates a distinction between referential and structural aspects which allows the parts and contexts of the conception to be identified; its second level includes the internal and external horizons. This article traces the origins of these frameworks and reviews 56 studies that have utilised them, examining similarities and differences in their usage. The review found heterogeneous definitions and usages of these frameworks, often with weak links to theory. It concluded by evaluating the utility of these frameworks, identifying that while they may not be strongly grounded in theory, when clearly defined, they can provide a method to ‘think apart’ important distinctions within conceptions.

Across Australia, recent policy initiatives have focused on student engagement in school and in learning. Although teachers play a significant role in the implementation of these policy reforms, little research has looked at student engagement from teachers’ perspectives or sought to identify and understand the strategies teachers report using to promote engagement in their classrooms. The study reported in this paper utilised a phenomenographic approach to investigate teacher conceptions of how to facilitate student engagement. Semi‐structured interviews were used to gather data and a phenomenographic process of analysis was employed to identify qualitative differences between participant understandings. The data from this qualitative study indicated that teachers hold diverse understandings about how to facilitate student engagement; three categories described teachers’ ways of engaging students. In the first category, teachers conceptualised delivering set activities and discipline to students to promo...

Teachers’ conceptions of assessment are important as they shape their usage of assessment practices. This study used a phenomenographic approach to examine the various purposes a sample of 26 New Z...

Internationally, educational stakeholders are concerned with the high levels of student disengagement, evidenced by early school leaving, poor student behaviour, and low levels of academic achievement. The solution, student engagement, is a contested concept, theorised in a variety of different ways within academic literature. To further understand this concept, a phenomenographic study was conducted to map secondary school teachers’ conceptions of student engagement. Six qualitatively different ways of understanding student engagement were found. This research indicates that teachers do not hold similar understandings of what student engagement means. If the concept of engagement is to become educationally fruitful, the term must be more explicitly defined in educational research and government policy documents to promote shared understandings amongst stakeholder groups.

This study utilised role theory to investigate teacher aide roles within regional schools in Queensland, Australia. Twenty primary schoolteacher aides were interviewed; data were triangulated with 27 teacher aides' responses to a follow-up questionnaire and interviews with 6 administrative staff. Data suggest that classroom instructional support roles and small group instruction dominate teacher aide work; they also perform many non-instructional roles and work individually with students with diverse needs. School leaders must reconsider the roles expected of these professionals given their position, professional training and remuneration, better supporting teacher aides through improved communication, collaboration and sustained professional learning opportunities.

While teacher aides often provide individual and group reading instruction for at-risk readers, research suggests these interventions may not always bring about reading gains. This Australian study investigated upper primary school teacher aides’ definitions of reading, drawing on semi-structured interview responses and written definitions examined via categorical analysis. The analysis identified six categories classifying participant understandings: Translating, Making sense, Contextualising meaning, Generating an affective response, Using texts for practical purposes, and Growing as a person, with Making sense the most prevalent actual definition. Definitions did not include critical understandings of reading or digital reading practices. The study identifies that teacher aides require better conceptual understandings of reading, especially within upper primary or secondary contexts. However, if teacher aides are expected to obtain further educational credentials or professional learning, careful consideration is also needed about how these increased expectations should impact teacher aide status, working conditions, and remuneration in schools.

Interprofessional teamwork is seen in healthcare policy and practice as a key strategy for providing safe, efficient and holistic healthcare and is an accepted part of evidence-based stroke care. The impact of interprofessional teamwork on patient and carer experience(s) of care is unknown, although some research suggests a relationship might exist. This study aimed to explore patient and carer perceptions of good and poor teamwork and its impact on experiences of care. Critical incident interviews were conducted with 50 patients and 33 carers in acute, inpatient rehabilitation and community phases of care within two UK stroke care pathways. An analytical framework, derived from a realist synthesis of 13 'mechanisms' (processes) of interprofessional teamwork, was used to identify positive and negative 'indicators' of teamwork. Participants identified several mechanisms of teamwork, but it was not a subject most talked about readily. This suggests that interprofessional teamwork is not a concept that is particularly important to stroke patients and carers; they do not readily perceive any impacts of teamwork on their experiences. These findings are a salient reminder that what might be expected by healthcare professionals to be important influences on experience may not be perceived to be so by patients and carers.

Formative assessment policies and self-regulation theories argue that student selfassessment of their own work and processes are useful for raising academic performance and self-regulatory skills. However, research into student self-evaluation raises serious doubts about the quality of self-assessment as an assessment process and identifies conditions which must be met if students’ judgments are to be useful, valid, and reliable. This paper recommends that student self-assessment should no longer be treated as an assessment, but instead as an essential competence for self-regulation. As such, we describe a potential curriculum approach that could guide teachers to appropriate use of self-assessment tools.

The students we deal with in Colleges of technology often show strong tendencies towards passiveness in their attitude to learning a foreign language. It would appear that this is due largely to bad habits acquired during their secondary school studies. The problem which we as lecturers face is to take a close look at their past learning experience, pointing out to the students the weaknesses in their language competence and to motivate them to acquire active language competence instead. Our students will need above all communicative language competence if they are to be useful to their future employers, and this has to be borne in mind when deciding on a language teaching strategy., Les étudiants à qui nous avons affaire dans le contexte d’un IUT présentent souvent des symptômes de passivité dans leur apprentissage d’une langue étrangère. Ceci serait dû à de mauvaises habitudes acquises pendant leurs études secondaires. Le problème qui se pose est donc de rectifier la situation en analysant leur vécu linguistique, en montrant aux étudiants les lacunes qui existent dans leurs compétences linguistiques et en les motivant à acquérir des compétences actives. Tout cela dans un contexte professionnel où l’étudiant aura surtout besoin de compétences communicatives pour être utile à son employeur. Ceci doit être considéré comme primordial lors de l’élaboration d’une stratégie d’enseignement de langue., Harris Ruth. D’un apprentissage passif à un apprentissage actif. In: Cahiers de l'APLIUT, volume 13, numéro 4, 1994. Les Langues de spécialité dans l’enseignement supérieur technologique des pays de la Communauté européenne (II) pp. 20-30.

This presents a theoretical approach to talent development in emerging nations, with focus on curricular intervention derived from qualitative research. Elements of culturally appropriate curricular design are discussed in connection with practical educational application and viable options in the light of the special problems of developing countries. The implementation of qualitatively derived curricular intervention in Ebeye, Marshall Islands, an economically and educationally disadvantaged population in the throes of conflict and change, is utilized to illustrate the technique. An account of evalution processes incorporating qualitative and quantitative assessment is discussed, along with initial preliminary results of a follow-up investigation. The article concludes with suggested adaptations of the approach to a wide spectrum of cultures with similar economic constraints and political conflicts. Guidelines to qualitatively derived intervention are outlined along with implications of broader concomitant educational problems, issues and related research.

A series of televised public service announcements (PSAs) about acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) was evaluated with 100 black participants attending a Sexually Transmitted Diseases Clinic in Atlanta, Georgia. Since the literacy level of the participants was suspected to be low, questions were administered orally and an electronic data collection technique was used which permitted the participants to push buttons, as opposed to speaking or writing responses. In this way, data were collected regarding: (i) the participants’ demographics; (ii) their self‐perceived AIDS knowledge and awareness; and (iii) their second‐by‐second continuous responses to the video presentation. Participants who perceived themselves to be at high risk of contracting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection gave more positive continuous responses to the PSA sequence than did self‐perceived low‐risk participants. Men gave more approving responses than women. The results were considered in relation to previous ...

BACKGROUND Little is known about the frequency with which information from the Internet is presented by patients within primary care consultations or the subsequent impact that it may have on those consultations. OBJECTIVES The aims of this study were to describe the frequency with which Internet information was presented within primary care consultations in one inner-city health authority and to describe the characteristics of the subsequent consultation from the perspective of the health professionals involved. METHODS A postal survey was used to estimate the frequency of Internet information presentation and eight in-depth interviews were used to obtain health professionals' perceptions of the consultations that followed. RESULTS Presentation of information from the Internet was relatively infrequent within primary care at the time of the survey (November 2000 to March 2001), but frequencies of presentation were higher for GPs than for any other health professional group. Health professionals have stereotypical views of Internet users and fear for their own professional status in relation to the Internet-informed patient or client. CONCLUSIONS Although presentation of information from the Internet to date remains relatively infrequent, health professionals appear to feel threatened by it and adopt strategies that minimize its impact on the subsequent consultation.

Emerging nations stand in greater need of valuable human resources than of measures aimed at the reduction of problems. Developing countries depend upon indigenous talent for lasting measures which ensure growth and independent functioning. The gifted, who provide a source for future growth and strength, for leadership, and for role models, are frequently neglected, providing a self-perpetuated cycle of dependency upon outside talent. A low cultural self-image, pervasive in sub-dominant societies, which contributes to the reluctance to support education for the gifted, can be effectively tempered by practical demonstrations of workable programs. Such programs as those demonstrated in Micronesia, avail themselves of existing resources and provide examples of effective implementation with concrete, visible results. The working programs could be replicated and expanded into a network and provide an arena for sustained effort, offering a viable solution for the problems of development of indigenous talent.

Since the summer of 1975 the Gifted Department of the Rockford Public Schools has provided a pre-school program for pre-kindergarteners who are potentially able learners (P.A.L.s). The program has been for identified gifted children and their parents attending co-joint sessions with preschoolers in a classroom environment directed by a teacher and parents in a discussion/work group with a psychologist. Identification techniques have ranged from nomination of children by the district's elementary school staffs after pre-kindergarten screening in the Spring to individual testing with the Slosson Intelligence Test. Children have participated in a center-based classroom with some academic emphases. Parents met to discuss topics which included understanding the gifted child, parenting, further enrichment techniques, developing at-home learning experiences, and expressing feelings about topics of personal relevance.

This program for parents of preschool potentially gifted children provides the parent group with information about giftedness and child development, and shows parents how to enrich their child's experience at home and in the community.

A school district's program for gifted students, grades kindergarten through sixth grade, is designed around self‐contained grade level groupings at one school.