The study sought to investigate Hong Kong secondary school vice-principals' job facets leading to overall job satisfaction, and to differentiate the satisfaction of vice-principals of different career orientations and gender groups. The findings indicated that there are four main facets of satisfaction, in rank order of influence on overall…

Theoretical and political perspectives on the nature of professionalism in teaching are abundant, but little is known about the views of teachers themselves. We asked primary and secondary school teachers in England what teacher professionalism means to them. We explored what teachers think about professionalism, on what dimensions their thinking…

Assessment has been dominated by Classical Test Theory for the last half century although the radically different approach known as Rasch measurement briefly blossomed in England during the 1960s and 1970s. Its open development was stopped dead in the 1980s, whilst some work has continued almost surreptitiously. Elsewhere Rasch has assumed…

The paper examines studies based on the theory of expansive learning, formulated in 1987. In recent years the theory has been used in a wide variety of studies and interventions. The theory builds on foundational ideas put forward by Vygotsky, Leont'ev, Il'enkov, and Davydov, key figures in the Russian school of cultural-historical activity…

The authors aimed to propose a valid and reliable diagnostic instrument by developing a three-tier test on simple electric circuits. Based on findings from the interviews, open-ended questions, and the related literature, the test was developed and administered to 124 high school students. In addition to some qualitative techniques for…

Studies of student risk of school dropout have shown that present predictors of at-risk status do not accurately identify a large percentage of students who eventually drop out. Through the analysis of the entire Grade 1-12 longitudinal cohort-based grading histories of the class of 2006 for two school districts in the United States, the author…

The author examined purposes for doing homework as perceived by 969 eighth-grade students from 52 classes and 831 11th-grade students from 45 classes. Through an exploratory factor analysis, 15 homework purposes were reduced to a 3-factor structure: peer-oriented, adult-oriented, and learning-oriented reasons. A series of 3 multilevel models were…

The authors employed a qualitative research design to explore issues of trust in family-professional relationships. They specifically focused on the nature of trust between mothers of children with disabilities and school principals. Analysis of the mothers' responses to face-to-face interview questions yielded two primary categories related to…

The authors explored how prior student achievement, through school types, predicted teacher self- and collective efficacy and perceived academic climate of 222 middle school teachers in Singapore. Teachers assigned to high-track and regular middle schools differed in their perception of self- and collective efficacy to promote organizational…

This experimental study directly compared the effects of two prevalent forms of classroom writing instruction, interactive writing and writing workshop, on kindergarten students' acquisition of early reading skills. Repeated measures data was collected at four points over 16 weeks to monitor growth of 151 kindergarten students in phonological…

The aim of the study was to examine the impact of a self-determined motivational climate including support of autonomy, relatedness, task involvement, and ego-involving climate on students' affective responses and effort in physical education. The sample involved 338 sixth-grade students (11-12 years old) who completed a questionnaire battery…

This randomized control trial study evaluated the effectiveness of the solution-focused approach in addressing academic, motivational, and socioemotional needs of 14 children with reading difficulties. The intervention group received five 40-min solution-focused sessions. The control group received academic homework support. Results showed…

The present investigation was designed to determine if the learning benefits of metaphors and graphics could be combined into one instructional device--a metaphorical graphic--to aid in the acquisition of difficult concepts of chemistry. The authors further sought to determine if metaphorical graphics could foster greater retention of the basic…

The aims of the study were to (a) examine the factor structure of measures of teachers' collective efficacy (TCE), job stress, and job satisfaction, and (b) explore the mediating effect of collective efficacy on the relationship between job stress and job satisfaction. The sample consisted of 951 teachers from elementary and secondary schools in…

This article aims to demonstrate the interplay between the individual's negotiation of his/her identity in compulsory school and the systems of communication and practice of professionals in the welfare state. It looks at the case of "Tom," whose custody has been taken over by the Child Welfare Service and who now lives in a child welfare…