Motivations and Barriers for Adult Learner Achievement: Recommendations for Institutions of Higher Education

Recent trends in higher education indicate a steady increase in the number of adult and non-traditional learners returning to complete college degrees. Though higher education can provide numerous economic and career enhancement opportunities, adult learners experience several challenges when they return to college. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to gather and analyze data from employees from companies in the Midwest to determine the challenges and motivations of adult learners who plan to return to higher education. The results highlight that it is important for institutions of higher education to collaborate with employers to identify ways to modify their student recruitment methods to attract more adult student learners and identify supportive resources to help them complete their degrees successfully.

Evidencing creativity and curiosity in IB schools

There is growing recognition of the importance of learners gaining transversal or 21st-century attributes in order to thrive in the contemporary world. This poses a number of challenges for educators. First, to what extent are transversal attributes innate, or do they include a combination of traits and skills? Second, what can teachers do to help nurture these attributes in learners? Third, how can the existence or strengthening of attributes be recognised? In this paper, we draw on work that we are doing for the International Baccalaureate Organisation to define conceptual frameworks for creativity and curiosity. Our goal is to enable learners to evidence achievement in each of these attributes, and for teachers to be able to recognise it. The frameworks draw on extensive scholarly literature to define the core components of both curiosity and creativity and the skills that are inherent in each one. This is the first step towards the development of a ‘transversal résumé’ that will allow learner achievement to be recorded. This includes a focus on the extent to which schools and teachers can provide learners with opportunities to gain, practice or enhance the skills that contribute to transversal attributes and a scaffold that enables learners to reflect on the extent to which they have evidenced creativity or curiosity in sustained pieces of work. The paper raises some key questions that have arisen as we have grappled with both conceptual and practical issues in this project. These provide valuable insights into the nurturing of transversal attributes, and the implications for educational professionals.

Policy for enhancing Pasifika learner achievement in New Zealand: Supports and challenges

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Policy for enhancing Pasifika learner achievement in New Zealand: Supports and challenges

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Revisiting Robert Axelrod: Cooperation, School Management and Teacher Unions

The militancy of teacher unions is frequently associated with the disruption in schools where unions are antagonistic to management. The objective of this qualitative study was to examine the impact of cooperation between teacher unions and school management. Using Axelrod’s theory of the Evolution of Cooperation, the instrument explored whether school principals can forge successful cooperation between school managers and union site committees. Several studies are showing that cooperation among staff is critical for learner achievement and collegiality. Furthermore, cooperation enables the school’s role-players to work towards a shared vision. The conclusions point out that school managers should consciously engender cooperation to run successful schools where teachers would not betray one another. A methodical cooperation plan could be the missing tool required to turn unsuccessful schools around to become successful.

Exploring the Effectiveness of DDL in an L2 Context through a Non-control-group Asynchronous Experimental Design

This study aims at a rediscovery of the extent to which a DDL-based intervention could become instrumental in facilitating grammar instruction with a specific focus on EAP and learner autonomy and reducing the number of repeating learners in a preparatory program participated mostly by Turkish-L1 learners studying EAP. It also provides a context-restricted longitudinal depiction of the effectiveness of a DDL-based grammar instruction endorsed by teacher (also referred to as the researcher) mentorship across groups asynchronously, thus re-testing the limits of DDL-oriented corpus pedagogy in contexts where a control group is not available, unlike the traditional control-group study design. To this end, a corpus was compiled out of the existing reading and listening materials in use ad hoc by the name of the Alternative Corpus of Academic Texts (ACAT), and a total of 19 grammar lessons covering topics in the curriculum of the second level of the grammar course taught were developed using the ACAT. Blind pre and post-test procedures were administered with all four experimental groups independent of each other to gradually build up a local understanding of the governing pattern of learner achievement through DDL and corpus-based teacher-prepared materials at the end of each intervention period. The data analysis demonstrated a rise in student achievement across all groups despite the lack of a teacher disseminating knowledge to students in class in the traditional sense, thus showing that a sense of autonomy could be gained through DDL-enhanced teaching. With the design being unorthodox compared to most other DDL studies in the literature, this study shows that the triple powers of DDL, self-discovery, occasional teacher supervision, and corpus-based teaching materials, could help learners of English survive autonomously no matter how hectic the curriculum run at an institution is. All in all, further research is needed to deepen this insight so that this sort of DDL practices could be implemented at the institutional level.

AN EXPLORATION OF THE PROGRESSION POLICY AND ITS EF

This article examines the Progression Policy and its effects on learner achievement in the Further Education and Training Phase (Grades 10 to 12) amongst five underperforming public secondary schools in Pinetown. Since the adoption of the Progression Policy, the pass rate noticeable declined between 2014 and 2016. Thus, the Progression Policy is used in this study as an analytical framework, whilst the qualitative research design was used to gather data. The faceto-face semi-structured interviews, as well as focus group discussions with educators and principals, served as data collection methods. This study emphasized challenges attributed to the implementation of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement and the Progression Policy in the Pinetown District. The study further revealed that the South African education system, from the Foundation Phase level all the way up, is plagued by serious challenges. The identified challenges include a lack of parental support, learner absenteeism, learner indiscipline, learner demotivation, resource allocation, and teacher-learner ratios. The results also revealed that the socioeconomic environment contributes to a dysfunctional condition in schools, which has a negative influence on the teaching and learning experience amongst educators and learners. Thus, the study proposes the reconfiguration of the Progression Policy alongside practicable and relatable recommendations inconsonance to study.

Linking pre-service teachers’ enacted topic specific pedagogical content knowledge to learner achievement in organic chemistry

This paper reports on the relationship between the pre-service teachers’ enacted Topic Specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge (eTSPCK) observable in the classroom teaching of Organic Chemistry and learner achievement in the topic. The study employed a mixed-methods research design with a sample of 17 pre-service teachers (PSTs). The PSTs were drawn from a Chemistry methodology class exposed to an intervention which focused on the pedagogical transformation of content knowledge of Organic Chemistry at a South African University. A sub-set of 4 of the PSTs was followed during a teaching practicum where the PSTs conducted lessons on Organic Chemistry with 88 Grade 12 Secondary School physical sciences learners in South Africa. Data collected were the video-recordings of the 4 PSTs’ classroom teachings, lesson plans, pre-and post-lesson interviews, and learners’ content knowledge pre-and post-achievement tests on Organic Chemistry prior to and immediately after the PSTs’ teachings, respectively. The video recorded lessons were analysed using an in-depth qualitative method of identifying TSPCK episodes and the interviews were analysed using content analysis. The learners’ achievement tests were scored using a memorandum of correct responses. The Rasch Model Analysis, Analysis of Covariance and Correlation analysis were employed in determining the relationship between PSTs’ eTSPCK and learner achievement. The analysis revealed a statistically significant difference across the means of the learners’ pre/post-tests, as well as a significant positive correlation between pre-service teachers’ eTSPCK and learners’ post-test achievement following the teaching. The correlation was found to increase in positive strength with the displayed higher quality categories of TSPCK episodes. The implications and recommendations for science teacher education are discussed.