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This paper discusses the challenges facing a national evaluation of an early years intervention programme, Sure Start Children's Centres (SSCCs), that was implemented across England in the first decade of the 21st century. The paper describes the rationale for the evaluation's mixed methods research design and the ecological theoretical approach adopted. It investigates the SSCC policy aim of combatting the 'impact' of multiple disadvantage on outcomes for families, parents and children. Based on a clustered sample (2,600 families) it provides evidence of statistical effects for different user groups, including non-users. It points to the complexities in evaluation in non-experimental interventions where there was an emphasis on services to meet local needs and where families could choose which services to access and change patterns of service use over time. The paper synthesises findings and considers how complex, volatile and uncertain environments affected SSCC provision, particularly linked to a change of government and austerity policies after 2010. The paper identifies lessons learned, explores implications for future early years interventions in uncertain times, and proposes alternative approaches to evaluation (a realist approach based on mixed methods and theoretically driven models) where randomised experimental designs are inappropriate for the evaluation of certain complex policies.

Marketisation has brought complex changes to the education sector that have become a concern both in the literature and among the public. However, few studies have empirically investigated how private school teachers' professional identities might differ from those of state school teachers. This study compares how 16 teachers in two state schools and two private schools negotiate their professional identities in County Nanqi (a pseudonym) in China. A constructivist perspective guided the choice to employ a qualitative approach in this study. The research findings suggested both common and differing teacher professional identity (TPI) characteristics among state and private school teachers and developed a typology of professional identities based on the analysis. This article focuses on the two 'positive' types of professional identities, namely, developmental and structural, to extend the existing forms of professional identity construction and discuss the comparative characteristics of teachers' work and lives in state and private schools in China. The results reveal the need for longitudinal research to further facilitate the comparative perspective and contextualisation of both 'positive' and 'negative' TPIs in diversifying school contexts.

Mixed-methods (MM) designs have gained increasing interest in educational research. Still, many studies collect quantitative and qualitative data but report these data separately and do not attempt to integrate them in practice. The aim of this article is to discuss the purposes and processes of integrating qualitative and quantitative data in an MM classroom interaction study. Issues regarding mixing and integration, including how to overcome integration barriers, are discussed. Based on this outline, the study then presents details about the various integration processes adopted in a recent MM study on classroom interaction in Norway. The possibilities and challenges of integration to produce new knowledge and a deeper understanding throughout the research process in classroom studies are illustrated with a specific focus on points of interface. A key issue is whether the new knowledge obtained in an MM study is more than the sum of the individual quantitative and qualitative parts. Using selected questions from the MM alphabet proved a helpful heuristic for guiding the iterative processes of integration and provided richer explanations and an enhanced understanding of the implementation and impact of a complex classroom intervention initiative. The study provides a new methodological contribution to the MM literature by examining the integration processes and challenges faced in a specific study.

Going beyond previous studies, we investigated differential effects of teacher self-efficacy (TSE) across the three basic dimensions of educational equality in student engagement, instructional strategies and classroom management in East and South-East Asian, Anglo-Saxon and Nordic country clusters in a cross-cultural analysis. It was found that all three domains of TSE show different patterns of associations in relation to teacher, classroom, principal and school predictors across the three country clusters. Most variation occurred within the classroom and principal predictors, whereas the teacher and school predictors were more homogeneously related to the three country clusters and the three domains of TSE. However, there were more similarities between the Nordic and Anglo-Saxon clusters than the East and South-East Asian clusters and any of the other two. Cultural values, as found in the GLOBE study and by Hofstede, were used as a cultural framework to interpret the differences occurring in the country clusters.

This article presents one substantive and illustrative school case study to explore in depth practitioners' engagement with Pathways--an online school improvement resource provided by the Oxford University Press (OUP). Launched in 2013, the 'four-step system' comprises the following phases: 'audit', 'strategic planning', 'take action' and 'evaluate impact' and aims to support primary schools through a range of whole school improvement and teaching and learning tasks. The wider research project studied primary school practitioner perceptions and attitudes towards Pathways and both collective and individual improvement practice via an embedded multimethod case study comprising a purposive sample of five primary schools that signed up to use Pathways. It followed the evolution of Pathways using a 'design-based research' (DBR) framework that focuses on bridging the realms of academia and more practical contexts, and promoting research impact through user engagement and active participation. The growth and use of Pathways by schools was investigated through the theoretical lenses of the Dynamic Approach to School Improvement (DASI) and Guskey's five-level model of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) evaluation (2002). The Pathways research and case study in this article focus uniquely on how "teaching practitioners" engage with and perceive technology in their school improvement practice and professional development experiences in one particular school context. Pathways tools seemed to offer opportunities for teachers to work collaboratively, individually and autonomously--with their work being partially 'mediated' by Pathways itself, and specific 'hospitable conditions' cultivated by senior leadership such as professional support and trust.

Specialized preschool programs can enhance the development of vulnerable young children at risk of special educational needs (SEN). Less is known about the potential of early childhood education and care (ECEC) provided for the general population. This study includes 2,857 children attending 141 ECEC centres in England and 310 with no ECEC. ECEC quality and effectiveness were assessed. Children's scores on assessments of cognitive development, numeracy, and literacy, and teacher reports of socio-emotional problems at ages 5, 7, 11, and 16 years were used to identify risk of SEN (1 standard deviation beyond the mean). Trend analyses (none vs. low, medium, and high ECEC quality or effectiveness) examined impact of ECEC on risk for cognitive or socio-emotional SEN. Better quality and more effective ECEC reduced risk of cognitive SEN at 5, 11, and 16 years of age, with similar results for socio-emotional SEN. The discussion considers the consistency of the association between children's ECEC experience and risk for SEN, which is found for alternative measures of ECEC, quality derived from observations and effectiveness derived from progress in child outcomes. These different sources for the ECEC measures add credibility to the results. Also the implications for policy and practice are discussed including the recommendation for universal provision of high quality ECEC and ensuring that the most at-risk populations receive the best ECEC available.

Teacher effectiveness, which impacts student attainment even when controlling for student characteristics, is of key importance as a factor in educational effectiveness and improvement. Improving the quality of teaching is thus the primary means by which we can enhance student learning outcomes. Thus there has long been great interest in the development of classroom observation measures in the field of educational effectiveness research (EER). The International System for Teacher Observation and Feedback (ISTOF) is a unique instrument in the field, as it was developed by a team from 20 countries using an iterative Delphi process to ensure cross-cultural relevance and validity. While previous studies have looked at psychometric properties of the instrument, they have not interrogated the extent to which ISTOF is useful for evaluating individual lessons and providing feedback to teachers. In this study, we observed three grade 4 mathematics lessons taken from the NCTE video library at Harvard University for this purpose. Findings show that ISTOF can provide a highly differentiated and fine-grained picture of individual lessons, but that the strengths of the generic approach in terms of breadth are to an extent counterbalanced by limitations such as the lack of attention to content richness.

Teacher professional identities are considered crucial to link teachers’ personal experiences with the social and professional changes needed for improved learning in schools. In this research study, we aim to investigate teachers’ identity tensions and coping strategies in four different school contexts in Nanqi (a pseudonym) County in China. A constructivist perspective guided the choice of a qualitative approach to inquiry in this study. Ambiguities, tensions, and culturally specific references coexisted in teacher professional identities and individual teachers’ ethical and emotional pursuit of integrity and purpose at work. Employing the research strategy of narrative inquiry, this study suggested forms of tensions when teachers attempt to align their multiple and often conflicting sub identities in changing and diversifying school contexts, namely, emotional tensions, social tensions, developmental tensions and ethical tensions. Our research findings detail the circumstances that trigger different types of identity tension and how teachers experience and respond to them in different ways, which link with different working contexts and teachers’ focus of professional development. The results also reveal the need for greater recognition of ‘negative’ aspects of teachers’ professional identity development and the value of longitudinal research designs to further facilitate the exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a review of the family services that were offered by a sample of 121 English Sure Start Children's Centres in 2011 and 2012. Children's Centres are community based facilities that aim to improve outcomes for at-risk families and children through the delivery of a range of services largely aimed at families with young children. Services commonly offered include: health advice, childcare and early education, employment advice, informal drop-in facilities, and specialist support on parenting. This paper provides a snapshot of Children's Centre service provision in 2011 and 2012 and documents the extent of change. A picture of broad stability was observed in the numbers of services that centres reported offering (from a list of 47 services grouped into 11 categories). However, some Children's Centres also appeared to be changing the focus of the services that they provided. Some centres seemed to be shifting towards providing greater outreach (rather than parent-support) and services which were targeted (rather than universal).

Understanding how we can support children through their learning life course has become a policy imperative, particularly those children from poor homes who would normally be facing a low achiever trajectory. The paper reports on 50 in-depth Child and Family Case Studies (CFCS) that were conducted as part of the Effective Provision of Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE 3-16) research project. The CFCS was designed as a mixed methods study in order to look at why and when certain children manage to succeed "against the odds" while others do not. Using in-depth interviews with students, parents and teachers, quantitative data available from EPPSE and a literature review on risk and resilience, the CFCS provides "thick descriptions" and explanations of how child, family and school factors interact and contribute to children succeeding against the odds of disadvantage. The study uses over 13 years of data collected from the 50 families and shows that in families with children "succeeding against the odds", parenting is characterised by "active cultivation" and that schools, teachers, peers and the wider community contribute to children's academic success by providing emotional, practical and relational support. As a result these children are facilitated and encouraged to develop a combination of positive cognitive and sociobehavioural characteristics that helps them become active agents in their learning life course. The CFCS provide information that can be of use to both policymakers and practitioners. It has implications for parenting and home-school relations and may serve to inform policies and practices that aim to increase the chances of children "at risk" and help in closing the gap between those who are academically and socially advantaged and disadvantaged.

The introduction of the Foundation Stage and its associated legislation has constituted a radical innovation that is transforming early childhood education. In this paper we show how the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) research programme continues to contribute towards achieving these improvements in practice. In focusing upon the EPPE programme's influence upon pedagogic practice in particular, the paper draws predominantly upon the research findings and recommendations associated with our qualitative case studies. This work was first published in the Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) report in 2002, and in the EPPE Technical Paper 10 in 2003. Practitioners respond positively to research when it is focused on specific teaching and learning contexts and practices. The EPPE project therefore applied Environment Rating Scales to identify the quality of educational provision, and used multilevel analysis to isolate the independent variables of most significance in explaining variations in the progress and development of young children during their time in pre-school. The multi-level analysis identified 'good' and 'excellent' centres, based on measurable child outcomes. Twelve of these centres were selected for in-depth qualitative case study enquiries that both extended and triangulated the quantitative analysis. This paper shows how the qualitative findings, as well as some of the data that they have been drawn from, have subsequently been applied to provide the practical guidance and exemplar resources needed in the development and improvement of early years educational practice.

This article continues the analyses of the impact of an innovative teacher education programme aimed at school improvement in a developing country context (A. Khamis, P. Sammons, 2004. The development of a cadre of teacher educators: some lessons from Pakistan. International Journal of Educational Development, 24(3), 255-268). Building on recent publications that have analysed outcomes of the teacher education programme and how the cadre of teacher educators has worked to initiate improvement in schools in Pakistan. The article considers the "teacher education for school improvement model" based on findings from the case studies of nine co-operating school. Lessons are presented to further inform the development of teacher education programmes and the measurement of effectiveness of such programmes in developing country contexts. The article further considers relevant international research on educational change and reform to draw further lessons. These lessons include the need to pay greater attention to the cultural contexts and milieu in Pakistan, and the need to create models of school improvement and teacher education that originate within developing country contexts rather than the adaptation of European/North American models that are based on sources of data in those contexts. The article concludes by arguing for the need to develop better theoretical understandings from the current innovations underway and placing the onus on intervening agencies to better inform educational change strategies promoted in developing country contexts.

This paper discusses the challenges facing a national evaluation of an early years intervention programme, Sure Start Children's Centres (SSCCs), that was implemented across England in the first decade of the 21st century. The paper describes the rationale for the evaluation's mixed methods research design and the ecological theoretical approach adopted. It investigates the SSCC policy aim of combatting the 'impact' of multiple disadvantage on outcomes for families, parents and children. Based on a clustered sample (2,600 families) it provides evidence of statistical effects for different user groups, including non-users. It points to the complexities in evaluation in non-experimental interventions where there was an emphasis on services to meet local needs and where families could choose which services to access and change patterns of service use over time. The paper synthesises findings and considers how complex, volatile and uncertain environments affected SSCC provision, particularly linked to a change of government and austerity policies after 2010. The paper identifies lessons learned, explores implications for future early years interventions in uncertain times, and proposes alternative approaches to evaluation (a realist approach based on mixed methods and theoretically driven models) where randomised experimental designs are inappropriate for the evaluation of certain complex policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on an educational innovation, the creation of a cadre of teacher educators, in the developing world. Professional development teachers (PDT) were trained in an in-service two-year teacher education programme leading to a Masters of Education (M.Ed.) degree. The PDTs were expected to play three roles in their home schools upon completion of the degree programme: (a) exemplary teachers; (b) teacher educators; and (c) change agents within their home schools to effect improvement. This article reviews education in Pakistan and the innovations that have come to inform the need to focus on teacher education as a primary area of investment and presents findings of a three-year longitudinal study of a selection of PDTs trained at the Aga Khan University's Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED). The main findings of the study indicate that teachers benefited significantly as individuals with enhanced career prospects, identified themselves more and preferred the role of teacher educators as opposed to classroom-based teachers, and sought opportunities outside their own schools but their role as change agents was more limited. Those teachers who maintained links with their schools beyond the three-year bonding period (a condition of being admitted to study for the M.Ed.) varied in the extent to which they managed to initiate and sustain school improvement efforts as indicated by changes in the structures and relationships within schools affecting the teaching-learning offered to pupils.

The Scottish "New Community Schools" program encourages health, education, and social service agency collaboration to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children. A first-year evaluation indicates that additional funding has enabled new multi-agency initiatives, particularly in health promotion; development of students' personal learning plans and parent and community engagement initiatives has been slow; and extracurricular activities have increased. (Contains 34 references.) (TD)

Analyzes student assessment results at Key Stage 1 in three core curriculum areas and in terms of performance across these areas. Demonstrates that background factors have differential affects on various subject attainments, raw data systematically penalize disadvantaged inner-city schools, and school policies and practices measurably affect overall performance. (DSK)

Compares secondary and junior schools' influence on (British) 16 year-olds' performance on the General Certificate in Secondary Education examination. Presents a mathematical model to explain performance variations, using a cohort of 758 students in 48 junior schools and 116 secondary schools. There is a strong continuity of junior school effects for 11-year scores and GCSE outcomes. (13 references) (MLH)

Follows up an earlier age cohort study done in the 1980s. Discovered that, although differences in achievement related to gender and socioeconomic factors remained consistent and generally increased over time, greater change was found in patterns of ethnic differences. Discusses possible explanations for the findings and implications for assessment. (MJP)

Uses multilevel analyses of British students' General Certificate of Secondary Education examination results to investigate primary and secondary school effects on students' total performance scores and continuity of school effects over time. Findings show significant school effects at both levels and small, but significant continuing effects of elementary schools on later GCSE attainment. (36 references) (MLH)

Reports the results of a reanalysis of data from a major longitudinal database on school effectiveness. Finds the existence of differential effectiveness for prior measures of mathematics and reading achievement. Also finds marked differences in schools' rank positions and discusses the implications for the assessment of Britain's National Curriculum. (CFR)