Abstract
Dear Readers,
Welcome to this last issue of the AJE in 2016. The Rio Olympics have finished, and the world has seen another impressive competition of athletes in all sorts of disciplines.
Large-scale assessments (LSAs) in education are often seen as an Olympic race with the attention of the media and the public frequently focused on which countries are at the top and where in the rankings the home country can be found. The upcoming release of the results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 cycles will be no exception.
However, data from LSAs provide information on hundreds of other variables and constructs that can be analysed to disentangle the complex network of factors which relate to educational outcomes. In the first article in this issue, Laura Perry, Christopher Lubienski and James Ladwig use data from the PISA 2009 cycle to examine the degree to which students’ perception of their teachers’ instructional engagement, relationship with their teachers, classroom disciplinary climate and general attitude towards school varies by school sector and socioeconomic composition. Results show that students’ perceptions of instructional strategies such as structuring and scaffolding techniques vary little between public and private schools or between schools of differing socioeconomic composition. However, students in private schools perceive the classroom climate to be more positive than students in public schools even after the socioeconomic composition of the school has been taken into account.
LSAs are often designed to provide system-level information. However, individual schools require information and processes which assist them in their quest for continuous improvement at the local level. Panayiotis Antoniou, Jacqui Myburgh-Louw and Peter Gronn describe a framework and tools which have been developed to assist schools in this process by way of self-evaluation. The framework has four pillars, namely Listen to stakeholders, Evaluate what is said, Act on this knowledge and Deliver better outcomes (LEAD). The tools include surveys of parents, general and teaching staff, students in general and Year 12 in particular as well as school governing bodies. Results show good psychometric properties of all tools in terms of face, content and construct validity as well as the reliability of the scales involved. The article also illustrates how the data obtained can be analysed using diagnostic and reporting tools that provide longitudinal and benchmarked performance measures for school leadership teams to analyse their school’s performance against key effectiveness indicators and facilitate the development of informed school-level policies and actions aimed at school improvement.
While much is known about the low attendance rates of Indigenous students in schools in rural and remote areas, school attendance and educational experience of Indigenous students in urban areas are less well researched. In their article, Lindy Baxter and Noel Meyers examine the factors contributing to a relatively high attendance rate of Indigenous students in an urban school in Victoria, Australia. Results show that these factors include an Indigenous Education Worker, a playgroup for pre-school-aged children, an Indigenous mathematics program for use at home, a breakfast program as well as organising and provision of uniforms and transport to and from school free of charge where needed.
High rates of teacher attrition are undesirable, not only from a macro-economic point of view in terms of lost return on investment in teacher education but also from the point of view of the individual teacher and student learning outcomes. In their article, Jessica Arnup and Terence Bowles explore factors associated with the intention to leave the teaching profession. Results show that teachers with higher levels of resilience in terms of personal strength, social competence, structured style, family cohesion and social resources are less likely to consider leaving the profession than others. In addition, customised programs to support beginning teachers are found to increase the likelihood of teachers staying in the profession.
John Malouff and Einar Thorsteinsson report on a meta-analysis of experimental research findings on the existence of bias in subjective grading of student work such as essay writing. Results show that information about the ethnic backgrounds, education-related deficiencies, physical unattractiveness and poor quality of prior performance of the student whose work is graded does make a difference to the grade assigned to a student’s work. Interestingly, the bias is sometimes found in the direction opposite to the one expected which is attributed to the experimental nature of the studies in the review. In other words, graders might have picked up on the aim of the study and consciously tried to work against expected biases. While not conclusive, some results are indicative of less bias occurring where scoring rubrics and more experienced scorers are used.
In the final article in this issue, Hui Meng emphasises that international research education should be a two-way rather than a one-way street. She describes that, at present in Australian research education, students from non-Western backgrounds are frequently supervised by monolingual English speaking faculty and expected to adopt the currently dominating Western approaches to knowledge generation and development. The author argues that students bring valuable approaches to learning and knowledge building from their home countries. Using two constructs as examples, she illustrates how these approaches can be used as pedagogical strategies during the research education process and how this integration of Eastern and Western approaches to knowledge generation and development can contribute to the genuine internationalisation of research education.
As you can see, the topics covered in this issue of the AJE are as eclectic as the disciplines at the Olympics. I trust that you will find a few that are worth reading.