John Sharp

VAK or VAK-uous? Towards the Trivialisation of Learning and the Death of Scholarship.

Developments within education, psychology and the neurosciences have shed a great deal of light on how we learn while, at the same time, confirming for us all that learning is a profoundly complex process and far from understood. Against this background, and in this position article, we consider the recent rise in interest in the concept of learning styles as VAK (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic) in primary schools in England and Wales and begin to identify and interrogate some of the more unorthodox claims frequently used to legitimise and lend support to its validity. Through the casual acceptance and promotion of VAK, and its often wider association with the notions of accelerated and brain‐based learning, it is our assertion that the complexity of learning is becoming increasingly trivialised and scholarship at all levels within certain sectors of the education community compromised.

Teacher preparation and the national primary science curriculum: a twentieth‐anniversary perspective

In 1989, the progressive introduction of a National Curriculum of subjects to all maintained schools in England and Wales brought compulsory science education into the primary sectors of these two countries for the first time. Such was its considered importance, science was placed alongside English and mathematics in what became known simply as ‘the core’. As a result of its elevated profile and an immense amount of hard work and effort by teachers and other professionals responding to requirements, science education provision appeared to benefit enormously. Successive revisions of the national primary science curriculum have brought about many changes, however, each impacting on the primary profession individually in different ways and as a whole. Findings from a recently completed ‘preparation to teach’ survey across several geographically distinct regions of England are presented here which contribute to our ongoing understanding of the overall status of science teaching within primary schools. Twenty years on from when the national primary science curriculum was first introduced and independently evaluated, attention is drawn to the continued progress being made at the ‘chalk‐face’ and to those factors widely perceived as continuing to inhibit delivery.

Beyond shape and gravity : children's ideas about the Earth in space reconsidered

Children’s ideas about the Earth in space have been of interest to science educators and cognitive psychologists for some time. By focusing almost exclusively on shape and gravity alone, however, other important Earth attributes have been largely neglected or overlooked. Findings from a quasi‐experimental study of knowledge acquisition and concept learning in astronomy among 9‐ to 11‐year‐olds attending a single primary school in England are presented which not only begin to address the situation but challenge some of the common assertions in this field. The processes of weak and radical knowledge restructuring and conceptual extension as well as conceptual change are exemplified.

Teacher perceptions of science in the National Curriculum: findings from an application of the Science Curriculum Implementation Questionnaire in English primary schools

This article presents and discusses outcomes arising from a recently completed National Primary Science Survey (England) intended, in part, to elicit how teachers and others perceive the effectiveness of colleagues and the schools in which they work to implement and deliver primary science within the National Curriculum. While the majority view among respondents was found to be generally positive and encouraging, particularly so in terms of school ethos and regard for science as a curriculum area, certain personal or ‘intrinsic’ and environmental or ‘extrinsic’ elements were nevertheless identified as more inhibiting than others and for certain subgroups within the sample of participants itself. The majority of findings reported here were obtained using a seven-scale, 49-item diagnostic research instrument originally developed for use in New Zealand and subsequently transported to other locations around the world. In its first fully documented use within the UK, the validity, reliability and potential of this instrument to provide teachers and others with a means of evaluating science education provision together with providing an evidence-base for professional dialogue, strategic planning and decision-making for overall school improvement are considered.

An Application of the Revised "Lecturer Self-Efficacy Questionnaire": An Evidence-Based Route for Initiating Transformational Change.

This article presents findings arising from the first UK application of a revised 70-item lecturer self-efficacy questionnaire recently developed for use in the Australian higher education context. Intended to probe and systematically measure confidence in the core functions of research, teaching and other academic or service-related activities among lecturers, the institutional case-study presented here suggests that this instrument has considerable diagnostic potential for leaders, managers and administrators wishing to explore operational aspects of policy, evaluate strategy and initiate professional dialogue at a variety of levels. Its indicated value as a diagnostic tool suggests a relevance not only to higher but also to further education, where degree-level provision is established and likely to increase. Following an earlier rigorous reassessment and re-evaluation of the questionnaire’s validity and reliability, including a robust statistical analysis of its associated scales and subscales, findings indicate that respondents felt most confident across all aspects of teaching – the core function which also occupied most of their time. Perhaps surprisingly for the institution involved in the case study, research – which occupied the least amount of time – generally displayed the most pronounced confidence hierarchy, from activities attached to data collection and analysis to leading funded research projects. Outcomes for other academic or service-related activities were generally mixed, but confidence attached to internal academic events was higher than that linked to external ones. Taken together, the findings, including the effects of career stage, qualifications, gender, research output and workload distribution, were considered sufficient to initiate an appropriate strategic response directed towards transformational change. The limitations of the questionnaire are considered in detail.

When worlds collide: identity, culture and the lived experiences of research when ‘teaching-led’

This article presents detailed findings from the qualitative or interpretive phase of a mixed-methods case study focusing on the professional identities and lived experiences of research among six lecturers working in different capacities across the field of education in a ‘teaching-led’ higher education institution. Building upon the quantitative phase published earlier in this journal, factors both facilitating (e.g. research infrastructure, support for doctoral study) and constraining (e.g. time, space, workload, critical mass, ‘practitioner bond professionalism’, ‘organisational socialisation’, networks, roles and responsibilities, power relationships) research activity are identified. These are considered in the context of an institution often recruiting staff with ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds from within ‘the professions’ (e.g. from schools and colleges without doctorates) looking to become more ‘research-informed’ and establish a more vibrant and sustainable research culture. Recommendations for further development focus on ‘identity transitions’ and ‘cultural transformation’, emphasising the importance of research leadership and its distribution throughout the organisation. With current trends towards the apparent intensification and prioritisation of research activity over teaching, findings are considered particularly important for institutions of a similar nature to the one described here, for education departments in larger institutions also on similar journeys, and in light of an anticipated increase in demand for research activity arising from the expansion of higher education provision in further education and the private sector, where recruitment from within ‘the professions’ to teach across ‘vocational’ programmes is common.

Towards a model for the assessment of student boredom and boredom proneness in the UK higher education context

Recently identified as an academic ‘achievement emotion’, boredom has long been implicated as a factor contributing adversely to student attainment across a diverse range of formal educational settings. Despite this, the study of boredom, particularly among students in higher education, remains a relatively neglected and underdeveloped field. In this article, and following a systematic review of the research literature, we present details of a new research instrument and diagnostic tool derived from Farmer and Sundberg’s Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS), specifically intended to assess or measure the recurring propensity or habitual disposition of students to becoming bored particularly within the UK higher education context (e.g. further education, university college and university provision). Referred to here as the BPS-UKHE, to distinguish it from its predecessor, the statistical validity and reliability as well as educational relevance and meaningfulness of the BPS-UKHE is established, confirming its multidimensional nature with subscales (Tedium, Time, Challenge, Concentration and Patience) reflecting boredom’s acknowledged cognitive, affective, motivational and behavioural components. Full-scale, five-factor and three-factor ‘short-form’ solutions are offered, the immediate utility of which in identifying students more prone to boredom than others and gauging emotional response is demonstrated. The BPS-UKHE has application in many areas and is considered a valuable tool in relation to the UK student engagement agenda, its scales and potential, as well as theoretical underpinning, available for empirical use and critical comment.

Research Experiences of Staff within a Specialist UK Higher Education Institution: Challenges, Opportunities and Priorities.

The study discussed here was based on a collective case approach involving a specialist UK higher education institution. Six individual interviews were carried out with a cross-sectional sample of the institution’s staff members. Additional information was gained through observations and examination of relevant documents. These data were interrogated with the purpose of exploring how the institution had made the transition from a teacher training college to a teaching-led higher education institution with a particular commitment to developing research capacity. This analysis yielded a number of key findings: first, the institution had experienced a cultural shift, with research forming a more noticeable profile; second, practitioner-oriented research was the dominant research endeavour; and third, there appeared to be an incomplete understanding of the potential of research to change a staff member’s career and teaching practice. The article concludes by giving consideration to the implications of the findings.

A transnational comparison of lecturer self-efficacy

Benchmarking within higher education is now relatively commonplace, as institutions increasingly compete directly with one another to improve the overall ‘quality’ of what they do and attempt to establish and better their position among peers as measured against sector standards. The benchmarking of confidence among academic staff in relation to the skills associated with teaching, research and service tasks, at least as far as these three core functions are traditionally conceived and understood, is, however, an underdeveloped and somewhat sensitive field. In this article, findings from just such a self-efficacy benchmark study involving colleagues in the Education and Arts disciplines of one large Australian university and one relatively small English university college are presented for the first time. Responses were obtained from 132 participating lecturers across these institutions using a recently introduced 70-item self-efficacy questionnaire founded in social cognitive theory. Despite their obvious differences in size and cultural context, outcomes both within and between institutions/disciplines were remarkably similar in their apparent ‘strengths’ and ‘weaknesses’, particularly so in Education, with reported greater self-efficacy for teaching than for research and service tasks, which together lagged some distance behind. Within the various subscales and individual items of the questionnaire, particular challenges were observed in many of the more fundamental skills attached to research. As institutions which recognise the varied contributions their academic staff make towards achieving their missions, albeit with an eye on ‘performance’, the diagnostic value of the self-efficacy questionnaire as a transnational benchmarking tool is considered and outcomes are discussed in terms of their individual and departmental implications, particularly with regard to informing strategic decision-making in resource allocation and continuing professional development.

Children's views of collaborative learning

Collaborative learning is a widely used and popular strategy in many primary schools. In this article, the authors review the nature and purpose of collaborative learning and present a summary of how one small group of Year 5/6 children view its effectiveness.