Educational Research, Volume 52 Issue 3 2010

Educational Research, Volume 52 Issue 3 2010

Articles

Self-rating and respondent anonymity
Jonathan W. P. Goh; Ong Kim Lee; Hairon Salleh
Pages 229 – 245
Background: Most empirical investigations in survey research have been conducted using self-reported or self-evaluated item responses. Such measures are common because they are relatively easy to obtain and are often the only feasible way to assess constructs of interest. In order to improve on the validity of self-reports it has become a common practice to disguise the identities of respondents or to assure them of the confidentiality of their responses.
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of anonymity on teachers' perceptions of their own teaching skills (i.e. curriculum, pedagogical and assessment skills). Their reporting officers' perceptions of the teachers' teaching skills were used as the reference criterion against which anonymous and identified teachers' perceptions were compared.
Sample: A total of 171 teachers and 39 reporting officers from eight schools in Singapore participated in the study. The teachers were randomly assigned into the two groups of teachers (anonymous and non-anonymous teachers) of equivalent teaching skills.
Design and methods: To ensure validity of comparisons, measures of perceptions must necessarily be made on the same scale for each of the three teaching skills components. Hence Rasch analysis was done using linear Rasch measures in logits rather than the non-linear raw scores. The measures of perceptions obtained from the Rasch analysis for the three groups of respondents were compared using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Least Significance Difference (LSD) test.
Results: The findings indicate that there is no statistically significant difference between the anonymous and non-anonymous teachers' and the reporting officers' perceptions of their teachers' teaching skills.
Conclusions: This study has provided empirical evidence that the effect of anonymity is absent in teachers' perceptions of their own teaching skills, namely curriculum, pedagogical and assessment skills. It was also found that the reporting officers' perceptions of their teachers' teaching skills did not differ significantly from the two teacher groups (anonymous and non-anonymous). It is evident that clarity in roles and responsibilities in the appraisal system may work together with national cultural values (such as Asian abasement and moderation) to explain the teachers' self-rating response behaviours.

To be or not to be? Pupils' explanations of the malleability of their academic competencies
Hannu Räty; Riitta Kärkkäinen; Kati Kasanen
Pages 247 – 261
Purpose: The present study set out to examine the grounds on which pupils explain their possibilities of improving their competencies in mathematics and Finnish.
Sample: A total of 103 girls and boys of the third grade (age nine years) and the sixth grade (age 12 years), children of academically and vocationally educated parents, were interviewed.
Design and method: The children were asked to rate their potential for improving their academic competencies on both intrapersonal and normative criteria and to give reasons for their ratings. The reasons given were content-analysed based on the data itself.
Results: Effort was the most frequently cited explanation by far, and the ratings on intrapersonal criteria were explained with partly different factors and in more variable ways than those on normative criteria.
Conclusions: The findings suggest that reference to effort is an explanation that helps the pupil to deal with the threat of a low academic self-concept determined on normative grounds and thus to retain a quantum of hope in regard to her/his prospects of personal development.

Pupil and staff perceptions of bullying in secondary schools: comparing behavioural definitions and their perceived seriousness
Rachel E. Maunder; Alex Harrop; Andrew J. Tattersall
Pages 263 – 282
Background: How bullying is understood by members of the school community is important because differences in definitions could result in an inconsistent approach and affect the success of intervention work. Research evidence suggests that pupils and teachers may have different interpretations of what constitutes bullying. This evidence has, however, been largely obtained from investigations in which the two groups have been questioned in different ways. This means that some of the differences obtained could be functions of methodology, rather than functions of differing perceptions. In addition, the perceptions of support staff have been largely neglected in the literature to date.
Purpose: This study examines the perceptions of bullying of pupils held by pupils, teachers and school support staff in English secondary schools by the use of identical questionnaires for each group.
Sample: A total of 1302 individuals participated in the research from four urban secondary schools. These four schools came from the same Local Education Authority in North West England. The sample consisted of 685 Year 8 pupils aged 12-13 years (341 males, 324 females, 20 unspecified), 415 Year 11 pupils aged 15-16 years (212 males, 187 females, 16 unspecified), 144 teachers (59 males, 81 females, 4 unspecified) and 58 support staff (14 males, 37 females, 7 unspecified).
Design and methods: The study utilised a survey design whereby written responses to scenario-based questionnaires were scored. The scenarios described a range of direct bullying, indirect bullying and ambiguous behaviours. Respondents were asked whether they thought the behaviour described was bullying and how serious it was if experienced by a male or a female pupil. Questionnaires were completed by pupils during supervised class time. Staff questionnaires were distributed to staff members individually and completed independently.
Results: Indirect bullying behaviours were less likely to be defined as bullying and were regarded as less serious than direct bullying behaviours. Scenarios with a female victim were rated more seriously than those with a male victim, and female respondents rated the behaviours more seriously than males. Teachers and support staff considered a wider range of scenarios to constitute bullying compared to pupils and also rated these to be more serious. Differences between schools indicated that perceptions could be affected by school factors.
Conclusions: The differences in perceptions of bullying between pupils and staff indicate that teachers need to invest more time in talking with pupils about the nature of bullying. Indirect behaviours in particular need more attention to ensure they are included in definitions of bullying, and taken seriously. Further research is needed to investigate how school factors may influence perceptions of bullying.

Enhancing the student learning experience: the perspective of academic staff
Jo Cahill; Jan Turner; Helen Barefoot
Pages 283 – 295
Background: Quality enhancement in higher education is essentially a planned process of change that leads to continuous improvement in the effectiveness of the learning experience of students and the students' experience of higher education. Published literature that explores the concept in the reality of practice is sparse.
Purpose: The overall aims of this study were to explore academic staffs' experience of enhancing the student learning experience and gain an understanding of the factors which create opportunities for, and barriers to, the promotion of quality enhancement activity.
Design/method/sample: A qualitative research design was employed to capture a range of academic staffs' views from within one faculty in a higher education organisation. Data was collected by way of three digital voice recorded focus group interviews (n = 26). Informants were from a range of subject disciplines and professional groups including nursing, midwifery, social work, radiography, physiotherapy, psychology, pharmacy and life sciences. A modified version of the data analysis method advocated by Chenitz and Swanson (From practice to grounded theory: Qualitative research nursing; Sydney: Addison-Wesley, 1986) was used to analyse the data.
Findings: The analysis suggests the existence of three conceptual categories: 'Establishing Readiness', and 'Connecting with the Students' and 'Developing a Work and Learning Environment'. The emergent categories are discussed and considered within the broader context of higher education and extant literature.

Virtual history: a socially networked pedagogy of enlightenment
Katherine Ellison; Carol Matthews
Pages 297 – 307
Background: Twenty-first-century undergraduates often find eighteenth-century culture difficult to access and, influenced by popular assumptions about the period in current media theory, characterise the century as individualist, underestimating the cultural significance of social networking in literary and political history.
Purpose: This study set out to teach the history of social networking as culturally significant in the production of literary texts during the eighteenth century as well as to demonstrate the intellectual and compositional potential of today's social networking technologies. A virtual reconstruction of eighteenth-century London in Second Life and a semester project requiring the student recreation of 3D social spaces like coffee houses and gardens tested the uses of social networking tools to teach research methods and build disciplinary knowledge.
Sources of evidence: Evidence of student learning outcomes is provided by three undergraduate courses in eighteenth-century culture, with 68 students total, that participated in Second Life re-enactment assignments on Island 18 during the autumn of 2008 and spring of 2009. The results of the student projects as well as student-completed evaluations and self-reflective essays about their experiences using virtual reality to learn history are consulted. Theoretical evidence by scholars of new media, eighteenth-century history and education provides a background for the study's impetus and goals.
Main argument: Virtual reality provides an opportunity for educators of eighteenth-century culture to teach students, through the reflective and critical use of the social networking tools Second Life makes available, the significance of social networking in the history of ideas of that period. We dismantle the generalisations of scholars working outside of the period who characterise the eighteenth century as a solely individualist era, during which singular genius defined the enlightenment and propose a more culturally viable model of social collaboration, supported by communication technologies not so different from twenty-first-century instant messaging, blogging, twittering and emailing.
Conclusions: Contrary to the recent findings of humanities educators who claim that digital social networking tools are distracting undergraduates from more valuable academic writing, we find that a task-oriented semester project requiring the construction of 3D historical social spaces teaches investigative research skills, deterritorialises disciplinary knowledge and promotes revision as an ongoing process.

Realising the potential of school-based networks
Christopher Chapman; Mark Hadfield
Pages 309 – 323
Background: Formalised networks have become integral features of many education systems. Some networks have emerged organically as practitioners have sought to share and improve practice while others have been systematically planned and supported by policy makers in an attempt to raise the overall effectiveness of entire systems. However, despite their rising popularity the literature pertaining to their purposes, design and function remains limited. Furthermore, their impact on schools, teachers and students is even less clear.
Purpose and sources of evidence: This article draws on the literature and the authors' research on school-based networks to explore their nature and contribution to school improvement.
Main argument and conclusions: In conclusion, it is argued three specific areas warrant further investigation. First, the constitution or mix and balance of those involved in the network, second, the relationships or the interactions between those involved in the network, and third, the purpose and identity or the aims and objectives of the network and the identity those involved create for the network, and that a deeper understanding of these areas will go some way to realise the potential of school-based networks.

A response to an article published in Educational Research's Special Issue on Assessment (June 2009). What can be inferred about classification accuracy from classification consistency?
Tom Bramley
Pages 325 – 330
Background: A recent article published in Educational Research on the reliability of results in National Curriculum testing in England (Newton, The reliability of results from national curriculum testing in England, Educational Research 51, no. 2: 181-212, 2009) suggested that: (1) classification accuracy can be calculated from classification consistency; and (2) classification accuracy on a single test administration is higher than classification consistency across two tests.
Purpose: This article shows that it is not possible to calculate classification accuracy from classification consistency. It then shows that, given reasonable assumptions about the distribution of measurement error, the expected classification accuracy on a single test administration is higher than the expected classification consistency across two tests only in the case of a pass-fail test, but not necessarily for tests that classify test-takers into more than two categories.
Main argument and conclusion: Classification accuracy is defined in terms of a 'true score' specified in a psychometric model. Three things must be known or hypothesised in order to derive a value for classification accuracy: (1) a psychometric model relating observed scores to true scores; (2) the location of the cut-scores on the score scale; and (3) the distribution of true scores in the group of test-takers.