Table des matires / Contents

Articles W. John Harker Michle Houde et Claude Dumas Adel Safty Abdellah Marzouk et Jean Brunelle 1 12 Framing the Text: The Year 2000 in British Columbia Matrise des schmes opratoires chez des adolescents avec et sans difficults dapprentissage Effectiveness and French Immersion: A Socio-Political Analysis Perceptions des matres de stage sur les comportements des stagiaires favorisant plus ou moins la participation des lves dans les cours dducation physique Teacher Efficacy and the Effects of Coaching on Student Achievement Stratgies de planification et contenu de lducation physique dans des coles secondaires

23 33

John A. Ross Brou Nzi et Pauline Desrosiers

51 66

Dbats / Discussion Notes Uri Zoller Michael F. Kompf Anne L. Jefferson M. Rai Kapoor, K. Hung Chan, & Herbert L. Jensen 86 92 95 100 The Technology/Education Interface: STES Education for All Volunteers in Schools: A Renewal Financing Education and the Retention of Students Academic Achievement and Professional Examination Performance

Recensions / Book Reviews Nicole van Grunderbeeck Ken Osborne 107 109 La comprehension en lecture par Jocelyne Giasson Alex Lords British Columbia: Recollections of a Rural School Inspector, 19151936, edited by John Calam Le muse et lcole par Michel Allard et Suzanne Boucher Canadian Education: Historical Themes and Contemporary Issues, by E. Brian Titley Inventing Secondary Education: The Rise of the High School in NineteenthCentury Ontario, by R.D. Gidney & W.P.J. Millar The Educational Legacy of Romanticism, edited by John Willinsky Foundations of Literacy Policy in Canada, edited by S.P. Norris & L.M. Phillips Literacy and Orality, edited by David R. Olson & Nancy Torrance Science cognitive et formation par Robert Brien Educational Psychology: Canadian Perspectives, edited by Robert H. Short, Leonard L. Stewin, & Stewart J.H. McCann Critical Psychology and Pedagogy: Interpretation of the Personal World, by Edmund Sullivan Crocus Hill Notebook, by Garry Jones

Bernard Lefebvre Chad Gaffield

112 115

Robert Carney

116

June Sturrock Robert J. Graham

118 119

Laurie Walker Rolland Viau Dan G.Bachor

121 123 125

Ann Manicom

126

J.L.K. Latshaw

129

Errata: At CJE/RCE volume 16, number 4 (1991), pages iii and 486, Jane Gaskell, Arlene Tigar McLaren, and Myra Novogrodsky are not editors but authors of Claiming an Education: Feminism and Canadian Schools.

Framing the Text: The Year 2000 in British Columbia

W. John Harker
university of victoria
This paper presents an analysis of the text, intertext, and subtext of the Year 2000 document, a comprehensive statement of policies and objectives for education in British Columbia issued by the Ministry of Education in 1990. Examination of the relationships between the text and intertext of the Year 2000 reveals a subtext that fundamentally contradicts the stated objectives of the document itself. Rather than encouraging the development of students individuality, as the text of the Year 2000 document frequently advocates, its subtext reveals an educational agenda that would maintain social stability and economic prosperity at the expense of students individuality. The impossibility of a text imposing such control is discussed. Cet article prsente une analyse du texte, de lintertexte et du sous-texte de Year 2000, un document prpar en 1990 par le ministre de lducation de la Colombie-Britannique et dans lequel sont nonces de faon dtaille ses politiques et objectifs pdagogiques. Lexamen des relations entre le texte et lintertexte rvle un sous-texte qui contredit fondamentalement les objectifs noncs dans le document lui-mme. Plutt que dencourager lpanouissement de lindividualit des lves, comme le prne maintes reprises le texte de Year 2000, le sous-texte rvle un programme ducatif qui maintient la stabilit sociale et la prosprit conomique aux dpens de lindividualit des lves.

In May 1990, the Ministry of Education of the Province of British Columbia published the Year 2000 document. In the words of the then Minister of Education, this document was to describe the broad principles, characteristics and policies toward which all educational activities should strive (p. v) in future educational planning in the province. This paper does not analyze the Year 2000 document from the perspective of the organizational structures it proposes or the program descriptions it contains, but rather as a piece of discourse exhibiting a text, an intertext, and a subtext. The analysis leads to conclusions about the stability of texts and the possibilities of their influence.
TEXT, INTERTEXT, AND SUBTEXT

The notion of text is relatively straightforward. For example, Brown and Yule (1983) in their discussion of discourse define a text as the verbal
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W. JOHN HARKER

record of a communicative act (p. 6). Similarly, Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) define a text as a communicative occurrence (p. 3). It is this characteristic of a text, its existence as a communicative act or occurrence, that identifies a piece of discourse as a text. As Brown and Yule (1983) have put it, a text is evidence of an attempt by a producer (speaker/writer) to communicate his message to a recipient (speaker/reader) (p. 24). The Year 2000 document fits this description of text well: its intent is clearly communicative to articulate for others educational policy. However, any text exists in a condition of intertextuality, of reference to other texts that, although constraining it, also make it possible. No text exists alone. In the discourse community of which it is a member, any text exists in a constant state of multiple references to other texts. It is through these references that a text takes on its identity. Foucault (1972) has put the notion of intertextuality this way:
The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full-stop, beyond its internal configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network. (p. 165)

But the question arises as to where this intertextuality ends. Logically speaking, if every text exists in reference to other texts and these texts themselves exist in reference to still other texts, intertextuality is endless, and no text can be examined independently of all others. This condition produces what Derrida (1977) has described as a break with every given context, engendering an infinity of new contexts in a manner which is absolutely illimitable (p. 185). Derrida (1979b) addressed this illimitability in his notion of the parergon, the concept of framing the text. To analyze a text, Derrida argues, we must know what we are talking about (p. 12): the text must be identified, made to stand still the process of its seemingly limitless referral must be arrested, albeit arbitrarily and artificially, if the text is to be isolated as a separate entity in the matrix of intertextuality of which it is a part. Through the act of framing this arrest is achieved. As Culler (1983) has put it, framing a text can be regarded as an interpretive imposition that restricts an object by establishing boundaries (p. 196). Establishment of these boundaries holds the text constant for the purpose of analysis within the unending flux of its intertextuality. However, once established, these boundaries tend to disappear. The frame, rather than simply circumscribing the text, becomes both a boundary around the text and a part of the text contained within the boundary. For this reason, Derrida (1979b) contends there is framing, but the frame does not exist (p. 39). Derrida (1979a) elaborates this notion in his discussion of what he terms invagination (p. 97), the process by which, through its folding in on the text, the frame becomes indistinguishable from the text. Through invagination, what was once perceived to be exterior to the text

FRAMING THE TEXT

becomes interior to it; what was once peripheral becomes central. While the intertext may have first seemed to exist on the margins of the text, it now can be found at its centre, part of the text itself. Framing a text within its intertext reveals its subtext. Eagleton (1983) describes the subtext of a novel, for instance, as a text which runs within it, visible at certain symptomatic points of ambiguity, evasion or overemphasis, and which we as readers are able to write even if the novel itself does not (p. 178). Through its subtext, therefore, a text reveals its possibilities of meaning, possibilities which may be denied by what it appears to communicate. In this sense, as Dranch (1983) puts it, the subtext consists of the clearly stated unsaid, or more precisely of the inter-said [inter-dit: forbidden] (p. 177). Yet this unsaid is often central to the texts meaning; it is what the text intends to say but prevents itself from saying. In this way, as Eagleton (1983) argues, the subtext reveals the unconscious (p. 178) of the text, the manner in which the text is not quite identical with itself (p. 179). It is as if the text reveals fault lines, fissures on its surface which, if traced to the centre, illuminate the subtext lying beneath its surface. Where these fault lines appear at these points of disjunction, rupture, and stress the inconsistencies, contradictions, evasions, and obfuscations of the text show themselves, however unwillingly, as clues to a meaning which the text forbids itself, at least on its surface.
THE YEAR

2000: ITS TEXT, INTERTEXT, AND SUBTEXT

The most prominently displayed portion of the text of the Year 2000 document is what it calls the Mission Statement for education in British Columbia. Printed in large, boldface type on a separate page immediately following the title page, the statement reads as follows:
The purpose of the British Columbia school system is to enable learners to develop their individual potential and to acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to contribute to a healthy society and a prosperous and sustainable economy. (p. ii)

The central themes of this statement the development of students individuality and the maintenance of social order and economic prosperity reverberate throughout the document. However, it is through the contradictions and inconsistencies that emerge between these two themes, and the fault lines in the text that these contradictions and inconsistencies reveal, that the subtext of the Year 2000 can be seen within the context of its intertext. The Text The declared intent of the Year 2000 is to provide a broad policy description for all program development, student assessment and evaluation, and

W. JOHN HARKER

reporting activities (p. v) throughout the province of British Columbia. Echoing its Mission Statement, the document states that the central aim of both provincial and local policies and programs is to enable learners in the school system to be the best they can be, both as individuals and as contributing members of society and the economy (p. 1). But, as the text of the Year 2000 unfolds, there appears a dislocation in its consistency, a rupture in its logic. Despite frequent mention of the need for schools to develop students individuality through the encouragement of their critical thinking, creativity, and flexibility, the development of this individuality is constantly subordinated to the need to maintain social stability and economic prosperity. This emphasis is clear in the definition of what the document establishes as an educated citizen, one who is skilled and able to contribute to society generally, including the world of work (in order to help support the society and economy), and who is aware of the rights and prepared to exercise the responsibilities of an individual within the family, the community, Canada, and the world (in order to ensure the improvement of society and the economy) (pp. 34). In the Year 2000, individuals are placed in opposition to the societal and economic expectations held for them. Although there is no necessary incompatibility between the development of students individuality and the maintenance of social and economic stability, by linking these two themes as it does, the Year 2000, rather than harmonizing them, renders them discordant. In this way, a fundamental rupture in the text occurs. This rupture is further revealed in the treatment of student assessment. Assessment is defined in highly behaviouristic terms as the systematic process of gathering evidence of what the child can do (p. 8). Its methods are to include all the procedures used to synthesize the collected information for the purpose of describing and categorizing student learning performance (pp. 89). Midway through their school years, all students are to be given a realistic assessment (p. 26) in terms of how their performance up to that point has prepared them for the successful completion (p. 26) of the various program options that lie ahead. Moreover, student learning in the upper years of school is to be reported using the symbols (A, B, C, . . .) indicated in Minister of Education Orders (p. 28), and all provincial assessment information is to be reported consistently (p. 11). Evidence thus gathered is seen to provide information that learners, and their parents, need in order to make informed choices about directions for future learning, and that teachers and counsellors need in order to provide advice (p. 11) about students future educational and vocational choices. Moreover, all students will write common government examinations at the conclusion of their schooling. In all of this, assessment can be seen as the means by which schools are to regulate students in their progress toward the social and economic agenda in the Year 2000 document. Despite its frequently stated concern with students individual development, the Year 2000 sets out a

FRAMING THE TEXT

pervasive and structured system of monitoring student progress that denies recognition of this individuality. The Intertext For the purpose of this analysis, the Year 2000 document will be framed within the intertextuality of those documents that directly preceded its announcement, that accompanied it, that have followed it, and that have been overtly linked to it. Although this, like any act of framing, is arbitrary, it is also necessary if the Year 2000 is to be held constant for examination within its illimitable intertextual space. The most prominent component of the Year 2000s intertext is the Report of the Royal Commission on Education, released in August 1988. Given a broad mandate to inquire into and . . . report on education in the Province from kindergarten through grade 12 (Sullivan, 1988, p. 3), the Commission was established in March 1987 and headed by Barry Sullivan, a lawyer. The Report revealed two overriding concerns. The first was a perception of dramatic change in the society and economy of British Columbia, and the second was a questioning of the place and function of schools within this climate of change. Regarding the society and economy of British Columbia, the Report displays an anxious preoccupation with the future in terms of what it perceives to be a fundamentally changing present. Speaking of students already in schools, the Report expresses an abiding concern for what values and traditions we preserve, what ideas and knowledge we will hold, and, ultimately, what we as a society and as a province represent (p. 7) when these students reach adulthood. The Report constantly refers to specific changes including the impact of shifting employment patterns as the province moves from a resource-based to a technological economy; the economic, political, and social implications of British Columbias geographical location on the Pacific Rim; the effects of immigration; and the decline of the family as a social unit. The Commission concluded that British Columbia is in the midst of a profound and, some would argue, radical shift in the foundations of its economic and social life (p. 34). This conclusion led the Commission to focus on the social function of schools. This, in turn, raised what is referred to as the school mandate issue (p. 8), the question of what schools should be doing and what schools cannot be expected to do. In reviewing what they interpret to be the broad range of diverse and essentially non-educational social functions schools have recently come to provide, the Commission concluded that imposing such responsibilities on schools . . . has generally obscured their primary function as institutions for learning and, in turn, has led to questions about their general educational effectiveness (p. 8). The Commissioners responded by recommending that the mandate of schools be narrowed to one that is educational in nature and . . . preserved as such (p. 8). They argued that to expect the school to satisfy all but the most severe social and develop-

W. JOHN HARKER

mental needs of the young is to weaken, in fundamental ways, its ability to discharge its primary educational objectives (p. 72). These objectives were not neutrally conceived, however. The Report refers to students as human resources, whose education is to be free from the weight of conflict and uncertainty (p. 220). In achieving this end, schools are seen as parts of a system that seeks to protect the public good through structures and processes designed to ensure that certain standards are maintained, certain skills and bodies of knowledge are learned, and certain protections are afforded youngsters, parents, teachers, school personnel, and the community in general (p. 220). In the Report of the Royal Commission, this theme of protectionof an anxious concern that schools help to preserve what seemed to be the immutable social and economic stability of the past as a changing presentwas portrayed as a movement into an uncertain future. That theme, central to its own text, contributed significantly to the intertext of the Year 2000 document. Other texts reflecting this theme followed the release of the Royal Commissions Report. In an address to the British Columbia School Trustees Association on 27 January 1989, the Minister of Education announced that Government sees very clearly the link between education and the social and economic health of the province (Brummet, 1989c, p. 3). That same day, two Ministers Papers were tabled in the provincial legislature and described in an accompanying news release as showing the high priority which Government has given to education (Ministry of Education, 1989, p. 1). In the first of these papers, Mandate for the School System (Brummet, 1989a), the Minister introduced the Ministry of Educations Mission Statement, now a frontispiece in all government documents having to do with the Year 2000 and prominently displayed in the Ministrys two most recent annual reports (1990a, 1991). In Policy Directions (Brummet, 1989b), the Minister clearly stated that the school curriculum will focus on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that learners will need in order to develop their potential and to contribute to society and the economy in the future (p. 10). And, in anticipation of the emphasis on assessment in the Year 2000, this same document also announced that in the schools of British Columbia there will be increased emphasis on regular assessment of student performance (p. 15). So it was that the intertextual framework for the Year 2000 document was established. Beginning with the Royal Commissions anxious perception of fundamental changes in British Columbias society and economy, and the narrowed mandate for education that it set down in response to this perception, and continuing through the subsequent ministerial documents relating to the Year 2000, clear anticipations of the shape and substance of the Year 2000 appear. Schools are to be instruments for maintaining social stability and economic prosperity, and the individuality of the learner is to be subordinated to this objective as the learners progress toward the acquisition of the skills and abilities required for the achievement of the social and economic agenda of the Year 2000 are pursued. Moreover, this

FRAMING THE TEXT

progress is to be monitored through a comprehensive and pervasive program of assessment. The Subtext The subtext of the Year 2000 displays itself, however reluctantly, by means of what Derrida has called grafts on the surface of its text, points of contact between its text and its intertext. Derrida (1982) posits grafting as a metaphor for the mechanism by which texts expose themselves through their relations with other texts. Where grafts occur, fissures, fault lines, and ruptures in the text reveal its subtext. Through these textual grafts (Derrida, 1982, p. 202), text and intertext are invaginated. At points of intertextual joining, a text reveals itself and submits to a reading not of what it says on its surface, but of what it fears saying, what it forbids itself to say, but what at the same time it betrays itself by saying through its subtext. The relationships between the text of the Year 2000 document and those other texts that form its intertext are better conceived as synchronic rather than diachronic. Although the various texts that make up the intertext of the Year 2000 appeared linearly through time, they graft themselves onto the Year 2000, and, at their points of contact, are invaginated within it so as to co-exist with it rather than relate to it chronologically. Through grafts, these texts become part of the Year 2000 at any given moment in its time, irrespective of their time-ordered relationships to it. The Year 2000 thus is a composite text built from its synchronic relationships with its intertext. And through these relationships, revealed by their grafts, and the fissures and fault lines they leave on the text at their points of stress, of disrupted continuity, of ill-fitting forms and structures, and of contradiction, the subtext begins to appear. The anxious concern with maintenance of social and economic stability that characterizes the Report of the Royal Commission, and the narrowed mandate for education that this anxiety produced, constitutes the dominant graft onto the text of the Year 2000 document, a graft reinscribed repeatedly by the other documents that make up its intertext, and one through which its subtext is revealed. Although the text of the Year 2000 espouses enfranchising learners by acknowledging their individuality, its subtext reveals a highly structured, regulated, and controlled education system wherein student progress toward narrowly conceived educational goals is monitored through a pervasive system of assessment that categorizes students according to their future roles as workers in support of a stable society and a sustained economy. Students are not to be streamed in fact, the document resolutely denies this intention, arguing that it is important that learners are able to leave their options open (p. 17). Yet the reporting of student achievement is to be conducted so parents and students, under the influence of students counsellors, develop realistic (p. 26) program plans. Moreover, this reporting is to be standardized throughout the province, and, in the senior

W. JOHN HARKER

grades, it is to use a system of letter grades. Students are thus to be described and categorized in terms of their proper place in a society where, despite overt textual gestures toward individuality and individual learning, all is aimed at maintaining stability and economic prosperity. Rather than being a liberal agenda for education, one wherein the individuality of the learner is recognized and learners are in fact encouraged to be the best they can be, the subtext of the Year 2000 reveals a highly repressive document, one that runs counter to the very notions of individuality and empowerment it espouses. If, as Frank Lentricchia argues, society should be a function of education (cited in Johnson, 1987, p. 25), then Lentricchias argument is betrayed by the Year 2000 document. Rather than permitting changes in the social and economic stratification of society, through education the Year 2000 seeks to conserve a static social order and an economy which supports this order. The Year 2000 represents a movement from the expressed anxiety of the Royal Commission report to a determined attempt to impose a paternalistic notion of social and economic security on British Columbia through its school system and the assessment program embodied within this system. Its interdiction is therefore against itself: its subtext forbids what its text states, and it is through the machinations of its intertext grafted onto its text that this subtext is revealed.
DISCUSSION

Tuen van Dijk (1987) has described discourse as being about objects or people, about their properties and relations, about events or actions, or about complex episodes of these, that is, about some fragment of the world which we call a situation (p. 161). This description takes discourse beyond the confines of itself and inserts it into the world. Without such a context, language disappears, it refers to nothing, its possibilities of meaning cease to exist. Bakhtin (1981) has made this point in arguing that the sign can never be separated from the social situation without relinquishing its nature as sign (p. 95). This notion of the social inscription of text, the manner in which its meaning is realized in use, has come to dominate contemporary thinking about interpretation. Stanley Fish (1980, 1989), for instance, in denying the objectivity of the text, posits the notion of interpretive communities. These are communities of like-minded readers who, rather than finding similar meanings in texts, approach texts with a communal set of expectations about meaning which they then read to confirm. As Fish (1976) puts it, interpretive communities are made up of those who share interpretive strategies not for reading (in the conventional sense) but for writing texts, for constituting their properties and assigning their intentions (p. 171). In this formulation, meaning is made by readers, not found in texts. Moreover, meaning is a function of the social context within which interpretation takes place.

FRAMING THE TEXT

Interpretation considered in this way reintroduces the notion of framing. Barthes (1977) refers to a text as that social space which leaves no language safe (p. 158). Although framing the text is to make it stand still within its intertext, arresting its movement in the intertextual space of which it is part, framing itself is never innocent. Framing involves using socially determined discretionary moves, and for this reason the act of framing is an integral element of the construction of meaning. As Culler (1988) has put it, frames are mechanisms of signification (p. vii); they are mechanisms by which interpretive space is both delimited and defined. But what is included and what is left out result from interpretive acts of the reader: it is the reader as a member of an interpretive community who determines the intertextual boundaries that are established as well as the meaning specified within these boundaries. It is tempting to impose a Marxist frame on the text of the Year 2000. In its apparent linkage of education with the maintenance of a bourgeois social order and the economy by which this order is sustained, through the categorization of students in terms of their anticipated social and economic utility, the Year 2000 could be framed as a document in the class struggle. Such a frame can be taken from Apple (1988), for example:
Schools assist in the process of capital accumulation by providing some of the necessary conditions for recreating an unequally responsive economy. They do this in part through their internal sorting and selecting of students by talent, thus through their integration into a credential market and a system of urban segregation roughly reproducing a hierarchically organized labor force. (p. 193)

But this is a frame-up (as are all acts of framing, including the one being practised here). It limits the interpretation of the text to a particular stance, a limited set of moves, and it demands membership in one particular interpretive community to do this in the case of Apple, the community made up of fellow Marxists. Moreover, it ends there it produces a closed text, a sense of certitude, of having figured it out. But it is not as simple as this. The subtext of the Year 2000 document reveals, if nothing else, the ideational volatility of its text. This volatility and the insecurity it produces prevent closure. Instead of standing still within any one frame, through its encounters with different readers representing different interpretive communities, a text constantly tests the boundaries of any frame within which it is placed. For this reason, as Foucault (1975) has maintained, a text can be characterized by the struggles that traverse it (p. 135), and not by any certainty it represents or makes possible. A text becomes a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings . . . blend and clash (Barthes, 1977, p. 146). Even when held still by a frame, interpretive machinations set in motion in the frame (and which account for the frame being imposed in the first place) encourage competing interpretations among different readers and provide possibilities for varying and renewed interpretations by the same reader. The interpretation of the Year

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2000 given here does not escape this process. Rather than achieving closure, in establishing a fixed and inviolate meaning for the Year 2000, this text can only expose itself to the readers encountering mind. For this reason, it can never remain secure. This condition should not be found threatening; it should be found exhilarating. It permits and encourages the kind of combative discourse that texts such as the Year 2000 inevitably generate. And if texts like the Year 2000 produce social empowerment through the encouragement of interpretive practice, then the capacity of these texts to serve as vehicles for social transformation (no matter how conceived) is assured. Through its volatility, the interpretive space it opens up and the possibilities for meaning it provides, the Year 2000 makes impossible the imposition of social stasis it attempts to establish. No effort to force closure on a text, either from within or from without, can succeed, since it is in the relationships among the text, its intertext, and its subtext, and the interpretive moves of the reader through which these relationships are set in motion, that a text is able to reconfigure society. Foucault (1980) argues that power is everywhere . . . it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society (p. 94). Because it is everywhere, because of its complex social constitution, power manifests itself through the way texts are framed and interpreted in different ways by different readers. Power resides in readers, not in texts. No text can remain safe since none can remain closed. Perhaps one should not forget that the subtitle of the Year 2000 document is A Framework for Learning.
REFERENCES

Apple, M. (1988). Social crisis and curriculum accords. Educational Theory, 38, 191201. Bakhtin, M. (1973). Marxism and the philosophy of language (L. Matejka & I.R. Titunik, Trans.). New York: Seminar Press. Barthes, R. (1977). Image, music, text (S. Heath, Trans.). New York: Hill and Wang. Beaugrande, R., & Dressler, W. (1981). Introduction to text linguistics. London: Longman. British Columbia. Legislative Assembly. (1989, September 1). School Act. Victoria, BC: Queens Printer. British Columbia. Ministry of Education. (1989, January 27). Major changes to education announced (News release). Victoria, BC: Queens Printer. British Columbia. Ministry of Education. (1990a). Annual Report. Victoria, BC. British Columbia. Ministry of Education. [1990b]. Year 2000: A framework for learning. Victoria, BC: British Columbia, Ministry of Education. British Columbia. Ministry of Education. (1991). Annual Report. Victoria, BC. Brown, G., & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse analysis. London: Cambridge Univer. sity Press. Brummet, A.J. (1989a). Mandate for the school system, Province of British Columbia. Vancouver, BC: British Columbia, Ministry of Education.

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Brummet, A.J. (1989b). Policy directions: A response to the Sullivan Royal Commission on Education by the Government of British Columbia. Vancouver, BC: British Columbia, Ministry of Education. Brummet, A.J. (1989c). Presentation by the Honourable A.J. Brummet to the British Columbia School Trustees Association. Unpublished manuscript. Culler, J. (1983). On deconstruction. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Culler, J. (1988). Framing the sign. Oxford: Blackwell. Derrida, J. (1977). Signature event context. Glyph, 1, 172197. Derrida, J. (1979a). Living on: Border lines. In H. Bloom (Ed.), Deconstruction and criticism (pp. 75175). New York: Seabury. Derrida, J. (1979b). The parergon. October, 9, 340. Derrida, J. (1982). Dissemination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dranch, S.A. (1983). Reading through the veiled text: Colettes The Pure and the Impure. Contemporary Literature, 24, 176189. Eagleton, T. (1983). Literary theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Fish, S.E. (1976). Interpreting the Variorum. Critical Inquiry, 2, 465485. Fish, S. (1980). Is there a text in this class? The authority of interpretive communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Fish, S. (1989). Doing what comes naturally: Change, rhetoric, and the practice of theory in literary and legal studies. Durham: Duke University Press. Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language (A.M.S. Smith, Trans.). New York: Pantheon. Foucault, M. (1980). The history of sexuality (Vol. 1). New York: Random House. Johnson, B. (1987). A world of difference. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Sullivan, B.M. (1988). A Legacy for learners: The report of the Royal Commission on Education. Victoria, BC: Queens Printer. van Dijk, T.A. (1987). Episodic models in discourse processing. In R. Horowitz & S.J. Samuels (Eds.), Comprehending oral and written language (pp. 161196). New York: Academic Press. W. John Harker is in the Department of Communications and Social Foundations, Faculty of Education, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3010, Victoria, BC, V8W 3N4.

Matrise des schmes opratoires chez des adolescents avec et sans difficults dapprentissage
Michle Houde Claude Dumas
universit du qubec montral
Dix-sept adolescents en difficults dapprentissage et 17 adolescents en classe rgulire ont t apparis sur la base du QI suite ladministration dune preuve dintelligence, soit lchelle dintelligence Revise pour Enfants de Weschler (WISCR). Par la suite les sujets ont t valus laide dune preuve de raisonnement logique: The Piagetian Logical Operation Test (PLOT). Ce test comprend cinq preuves mesurant un schme opratoire concret et trois schmes opratoires formels. Les rsultats indiquent que les lves en classe spciale obtiennent un score significativement plus faible que les lves en classe rgulire aux preuves mesurant le niveau opratoire formel mais non lpreuve mesurant le niveau opratoire concret. De plus, les lves en classe spciale ont plus de difficults justifier leur rponse que les lves en classe rgulire. Ces rsultats suggrent galement que lcart observ dans les tudes antrieures entre lves avec et sans difficults dapprentissage au dbut de ladolescence se maintient jusqu la fin de ladolescence. La discussion porte sur la pertinence de lutilisation des preuves piagtiennes dans lvaluation des lves en difficults dapprentissage. Two groups of 17 adolescents, one with learning difficulties and one not, were matched on IQ results using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Revised (WISCR), then tested for logical reasoning ability using the Piagetian Logical Operation Test (PLOT). The PLOT includes five measures of a single concrete operation and three formal operations. Pupils in special classes obtained scores on formal operations significantly lower than their colleagues in regular classesbut not in the concrete operation. Further, special classes children had more difficulty in justifying their answers than those in regular classes. Previous research had shown this difference in early adolescence and our findings suggest the difference continues through to late adolescence. We end with a discussion of the use of Piagetian tests in evaluating children with learning difficulties.

On reconnat gnralement que les lves en difficults dapprentissage possdent des habilets intellectuelles normales telles que mesures laide des tests de rendement intellectuel (Coplin & Morgan, 1988). Le niveau de QI est alors considr comme un critre dterminant dans la dfinition
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MATRISE DES SCHMES OPRATOIRES

13

mme des difficults dapprentissage ainsi que dans le diagnostic diffrentiel des difficults dapprentissage et de la dficience intellectuelle. Toutefois, le QI seul est dune utilit limite lorsquil sagit de diffrencier les lves en difficults dapprentissage des lves sans difficult dapprentissage. Habituellement, les chercheurs ont alors recours une procdure consistant calculer lcart entre le potentiel de russite acadmique, tel que mesur par les tests de rendement intellectuel (QI), et la performance acadmique relle. Depuis quelques annes, plusieurs auteurs (Graham & Harris, 1989; Siegel, 1989; Stanovich, 1989) soutiennent que lutilisation dun tel cart entre le potentiel de russite et la performance acadmique pose certaines difficults: 1) la prsence dun tel cart nest pas spcifique la population des sujets en difficults dapprentissage, 2) la faon de calculer un tel cart varie dun auteur lautre, et 3) le choix des preuves servant valuer la performance acadmique ou le rendement intellectuel varie aussi dun chercheur lautre. En outre, selon Siegel (1989), la pertinence mme de lemploi du QI dans la dfinition des difficults dapprentissage peut galement tre remise en question. En effet, selon cette auteure, les preuves traditionnelles dintelligence permettant de mesurer le QI feraient davantage appel aux acquisitions ralises au cours du cheminement scolaire plutt quaux habilets gnrales de rsolution de problmes. Par consquent, ce type dpreuves (i.e. tests de QI) pourrait sous-estimer ou mal valuer le potentiel rel des sujets en difficults dapprentissage. Siegel suggre mme de ne plus recourir la notion de QI quant la dfinition des difficults dapprentissage, moins que lon puisse crer un test gnral dintelligence qui soit exempt de tout biais culturel ou ducatif. Mais, selon Siegel, llaboration dun tel test apparat difficilement ralisable tant donn la complexit et la multidimensionnalit du fonctionnement intellectuel, ce qui laisse entier le problme de lvaluation intellectuelle des lves en difficults dapprentissage. Certains chercheurs ont choisi dapprhender la relation entre les difficults dapprentissage et lintelligence non par le biais de la mesure du QI, mais plutt laide dpreuves opratoires piagtiennes. Deux raisons semblent justifier un tel choix. Dune part, il est dmontr que les preuves piagtiennes sont corrles de faon significative avec les tests de QI (Lim, 1988). Dautre part, ces preuves permettraient dvaluer des processus intellectuels auxquels les tests de QI seraient moins sensibles. Bien que les raisons motivant le recours aux preuves piagtiennes soient rarement formules de faon explicite, il nen demeure pas moins que ces recherches dmontrent que les lves avec difficults dapprentissage ont une performance plus faible aux preuves piagtiennes de raisonnement que les lves sans difficult dapprentissage. Ainsi, les recherches ont montr quun telle diffrence existait non seulement chez les enfants (Riley, 1989; Speece, McKinney, & Appelbaum, 1986), mais aussi chez les adolescents. Toutefois, les rsultats des tudes faites chez des adolescents apparaissent contradictoires. Larrive et Normandeau (1985) administrent une preuve opratoire formelle relevant

14

MICHLE HOUDE ET CLAUDE DUMAS

du schme gnral de la combinatoire (permutations) 30 adolescents en classe du rgulier, 30 adolescents en classe de transition, et 30 adolescents en classe dappoint. Lge moyen des trois groupes est 14,3 ans. Les rsultats indiquent que les adolescents en classe de transition et en classe dappoint se situent au niveau opratoire concret dans un proportion de 96,6% et de 86,3%. Quant aux adolescents en classe du rgulier, 46,6% sont au niveau opratoire concret, 26,6% sont au stade opratoire formel, et 26,6% se situent un stade intermdiaire entre le stade concret et le stade formel. Les auteurs concluent donc quil y a un retard opratoire entre les adolescents en classe de transition et en classe dappoint par rapport ceux en classe rgulire. Dans une autre tude, Molenaar (1985) administre lpreuve de la balance ainsi que trois preuves de contrle de variables 66 adolescents gs entre 13 et 17 ans dont la moiti sont en classe spciale. Tous les sujets sont valus individuellement. Les rsultats indiquent une diffrence significative entre les deux groupes aux tches de contrle de variables mais aucune diffrence significative lpreuve de la balance. Par ailleurs, Molenaar rapporte que seulement 9% des sujets en classe spciale ont atteint le stade terminal formel alors que 24% des lves en classe du rgulier atteignent cette limite suprieure. Enfin, Skrtic (1980) observe galement la prsence dun retard opratoire chez des lves en classe spciale par rapport des lves du rgulier chez des adolescents gs entre 12 et 14 ans, mais cette fois laide dune preuve collective de raisonnement formel (Classroom Test of Formal Reasoning). Dautres chercheurs (Harkabus, 1976; Rejd & Knight-Arest, 1981; White, 1980) rapportent cependant des rsultats qui ne permettent pas de confirmer lexistence dun retard cognitif chez les adolescents en difficults dapprentissage. Ces auteurs ont utilis soit des preuves individuelles, soit des preuves collectives. Toutefois, une seule de ces preuves est similaire lune des preuves utilises par les chercheurs prcdents, soit lpreuve de la balance utilise par Molenaar (1985). Par contre, selon ces auteurs, les adolescents en difficults dapprentissage manifesteraient tout de mme des difficults au niveau de lorganisation et de la planification lors de la rsolution des problmes opratoires. En outre, ces adolescents fonctionneraient selon un mode perceptuel et figuratif contrairement aux adolescents en classe du rgulier, qui adopteraient un mode de fonctionnement verbal et opratif. Un tel mode de fonctionnement perceptif et figuratif suggre quune procdure impliquant uniquement une consigne verbale, cest--dire sans matriel concret permettant dillustrer ce qui est demand aux lves, serait dfavorable aux adolescents en difficults dapprentissage. En rsum, les rsultats contradictoires observs dans lensemble des recherches pourraient sexpliquer en partie par des diffrences dordre mthodologique lies au choix des preuves et des schmes opratoires formels mesurs. En effet, Larrive, Pelletier et Gagnon (1986) ainsi que Lawson (1977) soulignent que lutilisation dune seule preuve ou de deux preuves diffrentes relevant dun mme schme opratoire est insuffisante

MATRISE DES SCHMES OPRATOIRES

15

pour valuer le niveau de performance relle des sujets, et ce, plus particulirement au cours de la phase de transition des oprations concrtes aux oprations formelles en raison dun grand nombre de dcalages horizontaux observs au cours de cette priode. En dautres termes, les trois caractristiques fondamentales de la pense formelle, soit la systmatisation des possibles, le raisonnement hypothtico-dductif, et la structure INRC, nont pas t vritablement tudies de faon systmatique chez les adolescents en difficult dapprentissage. Toute nouvelle recherche devrait donc recourir un ventail plus large dans le choix des preuves et des schmes opratoires mesurs. En dernier lieu, il importe de souligner quune telle diffrence entre adolescents avec et sans difficults dapprentissage peut tout simplement sexpliquer par une diffrence de QI moyen entre les deux groupes. Bien que cette interprtation paraisse quelque peu vidente, seuls quelques chercheurs ont systmatiquement contrl cette variable. Par exemple, Rejd et Knight-Arest (1981) et White (1980) se sont assurs que tous les sujets ayant particip leur recherche avaient un QI dit normal. Toutefois, aucune procdure statistique nayant t utilise pour sassurer de lquivalence du QI entre les groupes, il est toujours possible que la diffrence de raisonnement logique observe entre les groupes puisse tre explique par un QI moyen plus faible chez les adolescents en difficult dapprentissage. Il importe donc, ici aussi, de sassurer que la variable QI soit bien contrle. Le but de la prsente recherche consiste donc comparer le niveau de raisonnement formel dadolescents en difficults dapprentissage placs en classe spciale avec celui dadolescents en classe rgulire tout en contrlant de faon systmatique la variable QI. De plus, une preuve collective de raisonnement mesurant plusieurs schmes opratoires, et faisant appel lutilisation de matriel audio-visuel pour illustrer les consignes, est utilise. Enfin, puisque les recherches antrieures montrent que non seulement le retard opratoire des lves en difficults dapprentissage est observ la fin de lenfance mais aussi au dbut de ladolescence, il apparat pertinent de vrifier dans quelle mesure il est possible dobserver ce retard chez des adolescents plus gs.
MTHODE

Sujets Trente quatre sujets, 17 en classe spciale et 17 en classe rgulire, ont particip la recherche. Les sujets sont gs entre 15 et 18 ans. La moyenne dge des lves en classe rgulire est de 17,07 ans (E.T.=0,56) et celle des lves en classe spciale est de 16,58 ans (E.T.=0,65). Tous les sujets en classe rgulire suivent le programme habituel de niveau secondaire V. Treize des lves placs en classe spciale manifestent des troubles lgers

16

MICHLE HOUDE ET CLAUDE DUMAS

dapprentissage (TLA) et suivent le programme de cheminement de formation temporaire du niveau de la 3me secondaire. Ces lves prsentent un retard global de un deux ans pour lensemble des matires scolaires ou des retards spcifiques pour les matires de base: le franais, langlais et les mathmatiques. Ils manifestent galement, pour la plupart, des troubles dadaptation scolaire. Le ratio lves/professeur pour les lves en TLA est semblable celui en classe rgulire. Puisque certains lves en TLA nont pu complter la passation de lpreuve collective de raisonnement logique (absence, abandon scolaire), quatre autres sujets ont t choisis sur la base de leur QI pour complter lchantillon. Ces quatre sujets manifestent des troubles graves dapprentissage (TGA) et ils prsentent un retard moyen de un deux ans comparable celui des lves en TLA. Tous les sujets, tant ceux du rgulier que ceux en classe spciale, prsentent un QI normal, cest--dire suprieur 85 pour les fins de cette recherche. Matriel Le matriel utilis comporte une preuve individuelle dintelligence, soit lchelle dintelligence Revise pour Enfants de Weschler (WISCR), ainsi quune preuve collective de raisonnement logique, The Piagetian Logical Operational Test (PLOT) (Staver, 1982). La performance intellectuelle est mesure laide dune approximation du QI global selon la procdure recommande par Tellegen et Briggs (1967). La combinaison des sous-tests Vocabulaire, Similitude, et Blocs (VSB) du WISCR est utilise. Lutilisation des ces trois sous-tests est justifie par 1) la forte corrlation quils prsentent avec lchelle globale du WISCR, et ce, tous les ges, et 2) leur forte saturation en facteur G (Sattler, 1988). La performance de raisonnement logique est mesure laide dune mesure collective de type papier-crayon, le PLOT. Cette preuve est un test choix multiples accompagn dune dmonstration audio-visuelle illustrant de faon concrte le matriel et les donnes de chaque tche de rsolution de problmes. En comparaison avec la mthode clinique piagtienne, cette procdure permet une meilleure standardisation de la situation exprimentale. De plus, elle permet, tout comme la mthode clinique, la stimulation intellectuelle par la visualisation du matriel concret servant la rsolution des problmes. Le PLOT comprend cinq preuves mesurant quatre schmes piagtiens: 1) la dissociation poids/volume (conservation du volume), 2) la flexibilit des tiges (contrle de variables), 3) la combinaison des corps chimiques (combinatoire), 4) Mr. TallMr. Short et la balance (proportions). La conservation du volume est un schme apparaissant la fin de la priode opratoire concrte (Karplus & Lavatelli, 1969) alors que les trois autres schmes apparaissent seulement au stade formel (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). Chacun des schmes formels utiliss fait appel lune des trois structures

MATRISE DES SCHMES OPRATOIRES

17

fondamentales de la pense formelle: 1) contrle de variables (logique propositionnelle), 2) combinatoire (analyse combinatoire) et 3) proportions (groupe INRC). Chaque preuve comprend des questions dinformation, de dcision et dexplication. Les questions dinformation permettent de vrifier si les sujets ont bien compris les consignes relies chacune des cinq preuves. Les questions de dcision et dexplication valuent le niveau de raisonnement des sujets. De plus, les questions dexplication permettent aussi dvaluer la justification des rponses donnes aux questions de dcision. Chaque question de dcision et dexplication est accompagne de quatre choix de rponses, dont une seule implique lutilisation dun schme piagtien soit concret (preuve de la conservation du volume), soit formel (quatre autres preuves). Chaque rponse est cote bonne ou mauvaise. La cote globale est obtenue en calculant le nombre de bonnes rponses aux questions de dcision et dexplication pour chaque schme opratoire. La validit de construit du PLOT a t dmontre principalement par deux types danalyse statistique diffrents (Staver & Gabel, 1979; voir aussi Pelletier, Larrive, Coutu et Parent, 1989). Premirement, lanalyse de la matrice dinter-corrlations de Campbell et Fiske indique une relation significative entre la performance globale au PLOT et celle obtenue laide de la mthode clinique piagtienne (r=0,59, p<0,05). Deuximement, lanalyse factorielle rvle que le PLOT est davantage satur par un facteur dintelligence gnrale ainsi quun facteur appel dveloppement cognitif tel que mesur par le PLOT, alors que la mthode clinique est surtout sature par un facteur appel dveloppement cognitif tel que mesur par la mthode clinique. Selon Pelletier et al. (1989), le PLOT constitue une preuve collective dont le contenu est typiquement piagtien et qui comprend aussi une composante importante dintelligence gnrale. Dans ce sens, cette preuve nous est apparue adquate aux fins de notre tude malgr les diffrences observes avec la mthode clinique. En outre, le coefficient Alpha obtenu pour le score total au PLOT est de 0,85 et rvle une bonne consistance interne des items de lpreuve. Procdure Les sujets des deux groupes (i.e. classe du rgulier et classe spciale) reoivent dabord lpreuve individuelle dintelligence. Ensuite ils sont apparis sur la base du QI. Un critre dappariement ayant un maximum de 5 points dcart tolr entre deux sujets est utilis. Un tel critre de 5 points est justifi puisque lerreur de mesure associe lpreuve dintelligence est de 5,8 points. Toutefois, pour lensemble des 17 paires de sujets (voir tableau 1) lcart moyen lintrieur de chaque paire de sujets nest que de 1,88 points (E.T.=1,29). Suite cette procdure dappariement, lpreuve collective de raisonnement logique est administre chacun des deux groupes.

18

MICHLE HOUDE ET CLAUDE DUMAS

TABLEAU 1 Composition de lchantillon en fonction du QI QI Paire 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Spciale 90 92 92 92 92 94 98 96 98 Rgulier 86 86 90 92 96 98 98 98 98 Paire 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Spciale 98 100 102 102 104 106 110 112 QI Rgulier 100 100 102 104 106 108 110 116

RSULTATS

Avant de rpondre aux items de dcision et dexplication relatifs chaque preuve du PLOT, chaque sujet doit rpondre aux items dinformation. Les rsultats indiquent que les lves en classe spciale ont eu une moins bonne performance (t=2,57, dl=16, p<0,01) que ceux en classe rgulire. Nanmoins, il faut noter quen dpit de cette diffrence, les lves en classe spciale ont conserv un pourcentage de russite de 83% aux items dinformation, ce qui est tout de mme trs lev. Les rsultats (tableau 2) indiquent que les lves en classe spciale ont eu une moins bonne performance de raisonnement logique que les tudiants en classe rgulire, ce que confirme une analyse statistique (t=4,00, dl=16, p<0,01) effectue sur le score total de raisonnement. Une analyse plus dtaille (tant donn le nombre de comparaisons, le seuil de signification a t ramen de ,05 ,01) a rvl que les deux groupes diffraient de faon significative au schme du contrle de variables (t=3,97, dl=16, p<0,01), au schme de la combinatoire (t=2,72, dl=16, p<0,01), et au schme des proportions (t=2,72, dl=16, p<0,01). Toutefois, il ny a aucune diffrence significative (t=0,69, dl=16, p>0,10) entre les deux groupes au schme opratoire concret de conservation du volume.

MATRISE DES SCHMES OPRATOIRES

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TABLEAU 2 Scores moyens et carts-types de raisonnement logique (items dcision + explication) en fonction des groupes et des schmes opratoires
Concret Groupe M Spcial E.T. M. Rgulier E.T. Note:
A: schme de conservation du volume; B: schme du contrle des variables; C: schme de la combinatoire; D: schme des proportions. Maximum possible: A=6; B=9; C=15; D=8.

Formel B 3,52 (1,41) 5,47 (1,46) C 6,64 (2,37) 9,41 (3,12) D 2,41 (1,17) 3,94 (1,78)

Score Total 16,15 (3,76) 22,93 (5,43)

A 3,58 (2,12) 4,11 (2,42)

Puisque le score global de raisonnement logique rsulte de laddition des scores aux items de raisonnement (dcision) et de justification (explication), il savre pertinent de vrifier si le pourcentage de russite est comparable entre les items de dcision et dexplication pour chacun des deux groupes. Les rsultats indiquent que les items de dcision sont significativement mieux russis que les items dexplication tant chez le groupe en classe spciale (t=4,59, dl=16, p<0,01) que chez le groupe en classe rgulire (t=5,23, dl=16, p<0,01). Par consquent, il semble plus difficile pour les sujets de justifier leur raisonnement que deffectuer simplement le dit raisonnement. En dernier lieu, une analyse rvle que parmi tous les sujets ayant obtenu un pourcentage de russite suprieur 50% pour lensemble des items de dcision (soit 14 au rgulier et 7 en classe spciale), il y a significativement (test de Fischer, p=,025) plus de sujets en classe spciale (6) qui ont obtenu un score dexplication infrieur 50% comparativement aux lves en classe rgulire (4). Ainsi, les lves en classe spciale ont non seulement un score de raisonnement moins lev, mais ils ont aussi plus de difficults justifier leurs rponses.
DISCUSSION

Lobjectif de notre recherche consistait vrifier, laide dun test de raisonnement piagtien comportant plusieurs preuves et mesurant plusieurs schmes opratoires, et suite une procdure dappariement sur la base du

20

MICHLE HOUDE ET CLAUDE DUMAS

QI, dans quelle mesure les adolescents en difficults dapprentissage ont une moins bonne performance de raisonnement que les lves sans difficult dapprentissage. De plus, il apparaissait pertinent de vrifier ce phnomne chez des adolescents un peu plus gs que ceux des tudes antrieures. Les rsultats rvlent que les adolescents en difficults dapprentissage russissent aussi bien que ceux en classe rgulire lpreuve opratoire concrte, mais russissent significativement moins bien chacune des trois preuves opratoires formelles. Ces rsultats confirment ceux de Larrive et Normandeau (1985), Molenaar (1985), Rejd et Knight-Arest (1981) et Skrtic (1980). Ils suggrent par ailleurs que le retard observ ds lenfance se retrouve non seulement au dbut de ladolescence, mais galement une tape plus avance de ladolescence. Toutefois, on ne saurait trop insister sur la ncessit de privilgier, dans les recherches futures, lutilisation dune approche longitudinale afin de mieux saisir lvolution relle des lves en difficults dapprentissage. Dans une perspective thorique, les rsultats de cette recherche permettent dlargir notre comprhension de ltendue des dficits du fonctionnement cognitif caractrisant les sujets en difficults dapprentissage. Lanalyse des rsultats aux items de dcision et dexplication rvle quil est plus difficile pour les lves de justifier leur raisonnement que deffectuer simplement le dit raisonnement. Toutefois, cette tendance est plus marque chez les lves en difficults dapprentissage. Ces rsultats confirment les donnes de White (1980) et Rejd et Knight-Arest (1981) selon lesquelles les sujets en difficults dapprentissage manifestent: 1) une faible connaissance des stratgies de rsolution de problmes utilises (connaissance mtacognitive), 2) une faible habilet traduire en mots les stratgies adoptes, et 3) une difficult planifier et organiser des stratgies de rsolutions de problmes selon une thorie initiale. Bien que les items dexplication ne constituent pas une mesure directe de ces habilets, ils semblent toutefois sen rapprocher dun point de vue conceptuel. Par ailleurs, il faut remarquer que les preuves opratoires, surtout formelles, semblent davantage lies aux habilets de planification et dorganisation propres aux fonctions excutives, que ne le sont les tests de QI. La russite des preuves de logique formelle implique que le sujet organise selon les rgles de la logique les informations recueillies et quil planifie sa dmarche de rsolution de problmes en fonction des hypothses formules initialement. Les preuves de QI semblent plutt lies au rappel de donnes factuelles et la mise en action de processus cognitifs plus lmentaires. De tels rsultats semblent nouveau suggrer les limites du QI en tant quoutil dvaluation diagnostique quant la problmatique des difficults dapprentissage. Il semble donc, dans ce sens, que les preuves piagtiennes de raisonnement logique constituent un outil valable et plus sensible la complexit de certains processus intellectuels, notamment la rsolution de problmes, que ne le sont les tests de QI. Toutefois, nous tenons souligner quil serait prsomptueux de ne vouloir recourir quaux preuves piag-

MATRISE DES SCHMES OPRATOIRES

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tiennes en ce qui a trait la problmatique des difficults dapprentissage. tant donn la complexit mme de ce quest lintelligence (Ceci, 1990; Gardner, 1983) et la diversit des sous-groupes de difficults dapprentissage, il apparat plus juste de soutenir que les preuves piagtiennes ne constituent quun instrument dvaluation possible parmi dautres. En dernier lieu, tant donn la faible influence exerce actuellement par la structure scolaire lgard de lacquisition des schmes opratoires (Larrive, 1981), il est possible de supposer avec Larrive et Normandeau (1985), et tenant compte de nos propres donnes, quune activit scolaire base dabord sur le dveloppement des fonctions excutives et des connaissances mtacognitives favoriserait davantage le dveloppement opratoire que celle encourageant surtout lacquisition de connaissances factuelles, et ce particulirement chez les adolescents en difficults dapprentissage.
RFRENCES

Ceci, S.J. (1990). On intelligence . . . more or less: A Bio-ecological treatise on intellectual development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Coplin, J.W., & Morgan, S.B. (1988). Learning disabilities: A multidimensional perspective. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 21, 614622. Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind. New York: Basic Books. Graham, S., & Harris, K.R. (1989). The relevance of IQ in the determination of learning disabilities: Abandoning score as decision makers. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 22, 500503. Harkabus, R.J. (1976). The development of logical thought in adolescents with reading retardation. Dissertation Abstracts International 270A, 7713. Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. (1958). The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence. New York: Basic Books. Karplus, R., & Lavatelli, C. (1969). The development theory of Piaget: formal thought. San Francisco: John Davidson Film Producers. Larrive, S. (1981). Le schme de la combinatoire: un schme adaptatif. Bulletin A.M.Q., 21(1), 311. Larrive, S. et Normandeau, S. (1985). Matrise du schme de la combinatoire (permutations) chez des adolescents en classes spciales. Revue canadienne de lducation, 10, 345361. Larrive, S., Pelletier, D. et Gagnon, C. (1986). Tests papier-crayon et mesure des oprations formelles. Revue de psychologie appliqu, 36, 151180. Lawson, A.E. (1977). Relationships among performances on three formal operations tasks. Journal of Psychology, 96, 235241. Lim, T.K. (1988). Relationships between standardized psychometric and piagetian measures of intelligence at the formal level. Intelligence, 12, 167182. Molenaar, M.A. (1985). Piagetian formal operations and the learning disabled adolescent male. Dissertation Abstracts International, 46A, 2662. Pelletier, D., Larrive, S., Coutu, S. et Parent, S. (1989). Limpact de la slection et du profil acadmique sur la performance cognitive dtudiants universitaires. La revue canadienne denseignement suprieur, 19, 2339. Rejd, D.K., & Knight-Arest, I. (1981). Cognitive processing in learning disabled and normally achieving boys in a goal-oriented task. In M.P. Friedman & D.

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OConnor (Eds.), Intelligence and learning (pp. 503405). New York: Plenum Press . Riley, N.J. (1989). Piagetian cognitive functioning in student with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 22, 444451. Sattler, J.M. (1988). Assessment of children (3e d.). San Diego: Jerome M. Sattler. Siegel, L.S. (1989). IQ is irrelevant to the definition of LD. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 22, 469478. Skrtic, T.M. (1980). Formal reasoning abilities for learning disabled adolescents: Implications for mathematics instructions. Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities, 7, 131. Speece, D.L., McKinney, J.D., & Appelbaum, M.I. (1986). Longitudinal development of conservation skills in learning disabled children. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 19, 302307. Stanovich, K.E. (1989). Has the learning disabilities field lost its intelligence? Journal of Learning Disabilities, 22, 487491. Staver, J.R. (1982). The piagetian logical operations test: A group assessment method for measuring formal reasoning patterns. School Science and Mathematics, 82, 169173. Staver, J.R., & Gabel, D.L. (1979). The development and construct validation of a group administered test of formal thought. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 16, 535544. Tellegan, A., & Briggs, P.F. (1967). Oldwin in new skins: Grouping Weschler subtests into new scales. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 31, 499506. White, J.M., (1980). Cognitive processes indicative of readiness for hypothetico-deductive thought: A comparison of learning disabled and normal adolescents. Dissertation Abstracts International, 41A, 3500. Claude Dumas est professeur au Dpartement de psychologie, Universit du Qubec Montral, Case postale 8888, Succursale A, Montral (Qubec), H3C 3P8. Michle Houde a complet sa matrise lUniversit du Qubec Montral.

Effectiveness and French Immersion: A Socio-Political Analysis

Adel Safty
university of british columbia
In the American view of educational effectiveness, a school is effective if it provides all children, regardless of social background, with an education. For over two decades, the effectiveness of the French immersion program in Canada has been measured almost solely in terms of the linguistic and educational achievements of its population. French immersion programs are educational and should be submitted to the test of effectiveness under educational criteria. We must learn what French immersion is, examine its organizational setting, probe its social environment, consider the programs academic and linguistic leadership, examine the responsibility of administrators and educators in ensuring accessibility to the program, and study the relationship between traditional unilingual programs and the growing alternative. Selon la vision amricaine de lefficacit pdagogique, une cole est efficace si elle fournit une ducation tous les enfants, peu importe leur milieu social. Depuis plus de deux dcennies, lefficacit du programme dimmersion franaise au Canada est value presque exclusivement en termes des acquis linguistiques et pdagogiques de la population qui y participe. Les programmes dimmersion franaise sont pdagogiques et devront donc tre soumis des tests defficacit fonds sur des critres pdagogiques. Nous devons cerner la dfinition mme de limmersion franaise, nous pencher sur son cadre organisationnel, prciser son environnement social, tenir compte du leadership pdagogique et linguistique du programme, examiner la responsabilit des administrateurs et des ducateurs eu gard au maintien de laccessibilit au programme et tudier la relation entre les programmes unilingues traditionnels et la solution de rechange de plus en plus rpandue que constituent les programmes dimmersion.

INTRODUCTION

In North America, school districts continue to accept the underlying assumptions and prescriptions of effective schooling. The message of the school effectiveness movement was and is that schools can and do make a difference, and this on three grounds: first, certain American urban schools have been unusually effective in helping poor children and minority children to master basic skills as measured by standardized tests; second, these successful schools exhibited common characteristics highly correlated with
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instructional progress; and third, these characteristics could form a prescriptive basis for school effectiveness programs (Bickel, 1984, p. 3). The movement began as a counter-reaction to studies in the 1960s, particularly that of Coleman et al. (1966), that claimed inherent disabilities among the poor accounted for poor childrens low educational achievements (Clark, Lotto, & Astuto, 1984). Weber (1971) studied four urban schools attended by poor children who had achieved a national grade norm score as a median. He found all four had strong educational leaders, high teacher expectations of student achievement, an emphasis on acquiring basic skills, a system for regular evaluation of student progress, and an orderly and pleasant atmosphere. In 1974 the State of New Yorks office of Education Performance Review confirmed Webers major findings on effectiveness and reinforced the strong correlation between student achievement and the elements of leadership, teacher behaviour, and school climate. Other studies reached similar conclusions (Edmonds, 1979, p. 20). Edmonds (1979) defined effectiveness so as to link education to social progress. He argued schools should contribute to a more equitable social order and to making a just society. I measure our progress as a social order, he wrote, by our willingness to advance the equity interest of the least privileged among us (p. 15). He cogently formulated what became the central assumption of the school effectiveness movement, namely that All children are eminently educable and that the behaviour of the schools is critical in determining the quality of that education (p. 20). I argue that this central assumption is appropriate in studying the effectiveness of French immersion. French immersion effectiveness, defined in linguistic and academic outcomes, has usually excluded school organization and level of integration (defined as the cohesiveness of school culture in pursuit of common goals), teachers behaviours, and principals leadership. Indeed, most researchers in French immersion were preoccupied with second-language achievements, the possible negative impact of the program on first language development, and academic achievements in subject matters taught in French. As I have shown elsewhere (Safty, 1988), French immersion evaluation and research studies generally produce positive findings. French immersion students readily develop in their first language as a result of being in a French immersion program; their intellectual development and educational achievements are comparable to those of their counterparts in regular English programs, and in the case of early total French immersion, these pupils learning may even be enhanced by immersion. French immersion methods have succeeded in promoting acquisition of advanced French language skills and in imparting functional bilingual competency. Social and psychological findings on French immersion (Edwards & Smyth, 1976, cited in Swain & Lapkin, 1982; Lambert & Tucker, 1972) suggest French immersion students are satisfied with their programs, adjust readily to its challenging environment, and see less social distance between themselves and French Canadians, particularly bilingual French Canadians.

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The effectiveness of French immersion programs should, then, be evaluated in part by considering accessibility to the program, its organizational setting (especially the degree of its integration with other school programs), teachers behaviour in bilingual classes, and the principals leadership role. In short, I propose French immersion education be redefined.
A NEW CONTEXT FOR EXAMINING FRENCH IMMERSION EFFECTIVENESS

The Canadian Education Association study French Immersion and School Boards (1983) identifies difficulties in establishing and maintaining a French immersion program. These include school boards reluctance to meet parental demand for French immersion, indifference, the occasional resentment of regular program teachers and school and district administrators toward the program, and scarcity of qualified teachers and suitable instructional materials. Some researchers claim that as it has been implemented French immersion has functioned as a service to the elite (Olson & Burns, 1983, p. 7). All these factors show how important contextsocial, political, legalis in a study of immersion programs. In a case on school boards legal obligation to offer French immersion, The Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled on 2 September 1987 that French immersion enjoyed no constitutional protection. Ruling on a suit brought by parents against the Saanich school board, Madam Justice Proudfoot argued that only programs for the minority have constitutional protection, The English majority in British Columbia has no such rights. . . . Optional programs, such as French immersion, carry no constitutional rights. The decision shows that access and social accountability in French immersion do not have the same legal and social meanings as in regular programs. An effective French immersion program would, then, be recognized as complete and bilingual. Its accessibility would be measured in part by the extent of school board intervention to ensure that invisible restrictions do not hinder parents wishing to enrol their children. Its integration into the school culture would be measured by the degree to which teachers from the regular and the bilingual programs cooperate, collaborate, and show commitment to the schools mission. (The level of integration of a bilingual program may also be measured by the degree to which regular program teachers perceptions of professional threats and related resentments have been successfully dealt with. The tone of the school and its prevailing ethos will be a good indicator of the level of integration achieved by its various members and school programs.) Integration into the mainstream of professional development would increase professional benefits to immersion teachers and enhance their accountability to the school mission. It would also encourage administrative and curricular leadership at the school. The principals leadership role is crucial in deciding level of staff integration as well as school climate,

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teacher effectiveness, and the quality of education children receive. In bilingual education, unilingual administrators will necessarily be handicapped in providing effective curriculum leadership. I come to the question of school boards responsibility to provide universal access to bilingual education, and to do so effectively. Boards have escaped tests of organizational and social accountability partly because of such organizational difficulties as shortages of qualified teachers and administrators, and partly because of political considerations (the power of representatives of established unilingual educational programs who fear expansion of bilingual programs would be detrimental to their professional interests). French immersion has not yet enough allies among parent groups to compel more democratization.
FRENCH IMMERSION AND INTEGRATION

Schools are dynamic social institutions (Purkey & Smith, 1983) whose effective functioning depends on adaptability to the changing environment and social demands, academic goals, and level of integration (cooperation and collaboration among staff and administration and personal commitment to the general mission). The introduction of a French immersion program in a school previously operated as an all-English school raises especially the question of integration. First, most French immersion teachers in English Canada are Francophones whose degree of integration into the school culture depends on their ability to adapt to the prevailing environment, and on the attitudes and perceptions of teachers and administrators in the regular English program (Heck & Williams, 1984). The Canadian Education Association study mentioned above showed that 23% of the boards with immersion programs said teachers layoffs were caused by French immersion (p. 23). Supporters of French immersion argue this is inevitable given the tremendous changes consequent upon introduction of this popular program, but critics prefer to emphasize a French immersion threat to teacher employment in regular programs. Other possible sources of resentment, and therefore obstacles to integration, include the general belief that French immersion programs attract the brightest students and leave regular English programs with average to below-average students, with the resulting charge that French immersion is elitist. There is also class-based resentment fostered by the perception that middle- and upper-class children are learning to speak French, and thus acquiring more socio-economic mobility. As a professional class, regular program teachers benefit from the established order; the arrival of a new professional class with interests of its own, a growing constituency, and the potential to cause dislocation and to disrupt the established order, cannot be expected to leave the established professional class indifferent. French immersion is also perceived as a threat to the established social class hierarchy through its cultural and economic valorization of bilingual-

EFFECTIVENESS AND FRENCH IMMERSION

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ism. Although teachers as a social group are middle class, divergence of interest and conflict within the group will result if a segment is perceived as having acquired prestige and social mobility not previously available or accessible to the rest. A relationship once based on socio-political solidarity will become under these conditions, as Webers analysis of the subjective meaning of social relationship would suggest, a relationship of conflict. Francophones, traditionally an underclass in the historic Canadian context, benefit economically from French immersion through greater employment opportunities in English Canada, and benefit culturally from recognition of French culture, language, and contributions to Canada. Bilingualism is thus perceived, socially speaking, as disturbing the established social order, reshuffling its hierarchical structures by acting as a mediating agent of social mobility both for learners and their families, and for Francophone teachers in the program. Thus the sociology of the French immersion culture puts French immersion teachers, Francophones and others, in a privileged and envied position in the micro-social environment of an immersion school. This is reinforced by uneven distribution of resources, differences in class sizes, and the availability of French money in the form of federal grants. But in truth, distribution of power between French immersion teachers and regular program teachers is unfavourable to immersion teachers, since most French immersion programs and schools are controlled and administered by nonFrenchspeaking Anglophone administrators (Guttman, 1983; Singh, 1986; Wilton, Obadia, Roy, Saunders, & Taffler, 1984). These administrators set the tone of the school and decide the distribution of power in the school. All these factors stand in the way of integration, leading, for example, to out-of-province Francophone teachers first-year drop-out rate of 25% to 30% (B. Sherrington, personal communication, 1988). Questions of integration and effectiveness acquire crucial relevance in dual-track schools offering education with two functional-linguistic orientations served by two identifiable cultural groups. Such groups are expected to subordinate their individual preferences, political beliefs, professional interests, class loyalty, and group relationship with the social environment to the larger imperative of an integrated school culture. McGillivray (1984) advocates, in light of these forces, the establishment of French centres in which only French immersion would be offered, for the two programs are not compatible, and they co-exist with difficulty (p. 27). Others, in particular Lapkin and Swain (1984) favour immersion centres because of their potential to enhance immersion students linguistic skills.
THE IMMERSION TEACHER

Few researchers have concerned themselves with French immersion teacherstheir linguistic and academic training, their integration into the school culture, or their professional and socio-emotional needs. Some school

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boards have introduced a linguistic competency test in response to criticisms of the French language proficiency of some immersion teachers. But many school boards have no way of determining the linguistic competency of teachers they hire, either because recruiters are unilingual, or theoretically bilingual but with poor effective command of the language, or because the competitive environment forces on them measures of expediency. Moreover, considerations of teacher preparation, pedagogical training, methodological approaches, and teaching skills are either lost in the search for linguistic competency, or are thought to have been covered with vague references to the communicative approach. French immersion, in the eyes of many practitioners and administrators, is nothing more than a second language learning methodology with primary emphasis on acquisition of linguistic skills in the second language. Inadequate human and material resources, poor planning, and absence of a guiding vision at the district and at the school levels have helped to create an unfavourable intellectual environment. This environment is usually characterized by a want of leadership, by reactive approaches to problem solving, by improvisation, and by absence of adequate recognition of individuals initiatives and achievements. Besides making it hard to diagnose weaknesses, to provide appropriate support, and to promote talented leaders, the unfavourable environment encourages research on programsbut not on human resources or ecological and socio-organizational support. Although most school districts in North America try to keep abreast with issues in school effectiveness, school ethos, critical thinking, and directversus-indirect teaching, the French immersion culture is still groping with the communicative approach and with split-grade teaching. Questions of teachers expectations, time on task, emphasis on cognitive objectives, and similar aspects of effective teaching have yet to be discussed, absorbed, and subjected to a critique in the French immersion movement. Perhaps more significantly, given the emphasis on oral expression in immersion, no one has defined or measured effective teaching in the French immersion classroom.
THE LEADERSHIP ROLE OF THE PRINCIPAL

Researchers agree leadership plays a catalyst role in what was felt to be the breakthrough in effective school research (Mackenzie, 1983). There is also agreement on the significant influence a principal can have on the school (Lortie, 1975). The effective administrative and educational leader is expected to involve teachers in decision making, provide curriculum leadership and facilitate successful implementation of school programs, while attending to staff personal needs. Few boards, however, have asked how non-Frenchspeaking school administrators can provide effective instructional leadership for French immersion teachers, the majority of whom are Francophones. Olson and

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Burns (1983) argued the school leadership role of unilingual French immersion principals is jeopardized by their inability to understand and communicate in French. Guttman (1983) spoke of a leadership crisis in French immersion caused partly by the fact that most boards have placed the traditional school principal without any French language skills or specialized training (p. 20) in charge of French immersion programs. In evaluating teachers, the non-Frenchspeaking principal often has to rely on non-content based observation clues such as class tone, time on task, variety of activities presented to the students, and so forth. But the nature of the task and the quality and pedagogical usefulness of teaching activities are subordinated to an artificial observation of students and of teachers doing something. Observations of conceptual clarification, tasks, analysis, questioning techniques, and varieties of communication are necessarily deduced. Since many a conflict is the result of misunderstanding and poor communication between people speaking the same language, one can easily imagine the potential for conflict in a power relationship between two individuals having different cultural codes, different social status, different professional interests, wielding unevenly proportioned power, and speaking two different languages. Parents sustained and active interest in the program encourages the unilingual administrators alertness to situations of potential conflict. To the immersion teacher this means greater politicization of evaluation, since parents become indirect participants in evaluation. Good classroom immersion teachers may be judged political liabilities because of poor public relations skills. Immersion teachers have little or no independent political power as a group. Although they are members of their local and provincial associations they do not get wholehearted support since it is thought that advancing the interest of immersion teachers as a groupfor instance, hiring more immersion teachers or promoting immersion teachers to leadership positions would not be compatible with the associations collective interests. All of this contributes to a situation where French immersion teachers operate in a politicized environment, with more than usual potential for conflict, but without significant power. Although most school boards are by policy wedded to the principle of formative evaluation (that is, an evaluation procedure that will improve performance rather than pronounce a summative judgement), the unilingual principal and the immersion teacher teaching entirely in French approach evaluation with trepidation. Although most unilingual administrators would try to be useful and helpful to the immersion teacher, there are instances when feelings of lack of qualifications and of linguistic competency would make it expedient to rely on political ingredients of the power relationship. One teacher told me that on the recommendation of her high school unilingual principal, her contract was not renewed after four months of successful classroom immersion teaching. During that time the principal did

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not set foot in her classroom to observe her teaching but was allegedly sensitive to complaints about excessive amounts of homework. At the other extreme, a recently arrived Francophone teacher was subjected by his unilingual high school principal to 17 evaluation visits in the space of three weeks only two months after he started his first teaching assignment. Three people participated in this unusual evaluation process, the unilingual principal, a unilingual district consultant, and a theoretically bilingual language coordinator (the School Act in British Columbia does not provide for participation of the latter two in evaluation). The three people involved did not meet with the teacher to coordinate overall strategies or to explain the reasons for their frequent visits. The result was tragi-comical. I quote from the teachers letter of complaint addressed to his principal and carbon-copied to the superintendent, upon learning of the final negative report. The passage is indicative of pitfalls that characterize the immersion teacherunilingual administrator relationship. The names have been modified to protect the identities of the people involved:
You explained to me that the three of you did not meet with me because you felt that there was no need to do so since you, Mr. Smith and Mr. Boileau were all heading in the same direction. This information came as yet another surprise to me, and I daresay that it would not have occurred to me that you were all going in the same direction. . . . Dont you think that I would have benefited from knowing what that direction was anyway? This way I would have known that Mr. Smiths advice to me to ask the students to stand up when answering questions would displease you; that Mr. Boileaus injunction to do more direct teaching would be dismissed by Mr. Smith who wanted indirect teaching. I would have realized that Mr. Smiths silent sponge activity would not go very well with Mr. Boileau who wanted an interactive sponge. And I would have learned that Madeleine Hunter was a controversial persona.

The unilingual principals negative report found this teachers knowledge of French language and French literature just acceptable, although the teacher held a Masters degree from a French university in French literature. The teacher had a nervous breakdown and left the profession. The principal was promoted a year later as district principal in charge of providing leadership to immersion and non-immersion schools. My interviews with Canadian immersion teachers suggest that nonFrenchspeaking evaluators of French immersion teachers feel ambivalent about their situation. They have mixed feelings not only about the logic of the situation but also about their competency to exercise leadership responsibility. Stephen Krashen (1982) argues that the success of French immersion is largely the result of putting methodological emphasis on the message, not on the form; on what is being said, not on how it is being said. French immersion is successful because it offers a comprehensible input. In their present forms, most French immersion programs deprive immersion teachers of

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adequate supervisory help because unilingual principals are unable fairly to judge and to evaluate. The comprehensible output of the program is largely incomprehensible to the majority of those whose responsibility it is to evaluate the teaching in, and the effectiveness of the program.
CONCLUSION

Ten years ago the dangers facing French immersion came from opponents of bilingualism, who saw in it a Trudeauian master plan (Andrew, 1977) to Francize Canada through the accumulation of French power (Allison, 1978). It was a socio-political danger of possible rejection of bilingualism by the Canadian people. Although there remain questions about the nature and direction of official bilingualism, as well as about the constitutional nature of the socio-political co-existence of the two largest cultural groups in the country, French immersion is acquiring momentum. When it comes of age as an educational program, it will have to be considered as a bilingual educational program subject to effectiveness criteria commonly accepted in the field. In summary, the effectiveness of a French immersion program must be measured by broader educational criteria. Measurement should take into account the degree of accessibility in the bilingual program, organizational setting and integration, teacher behaviour in bilingual classes, and the leadership role of the bilingual school principal. French immersion meanwhile continues to face obstacles to integration as a regular bilingual program. We should not underestimate the power of educational bureaucratization and compartmentalization, and what Marx perceptively called the sordid materialism of bureaucracy. French immersion should be understood in a new context, an organizational and socio-political context that recognizes French immersions character as a complete bilingual education and that links education to social progress. Effective French immersion programs could then expand to offer bilingual instruction to students of all social class backgrounds, providing teachers with rewarding professional opportunities in an environment free of anxiety, effectively and bilingually led, placing people before the organization. The effective school of the not-too-distant future may not be called an immersion school, but rather a bilingual or even multilingual school, offering bilingual education in English and French, and providing an immersion program in one of the many heritage languages that enrich this societys cultural diversity.
REFERENCES

Allison, S. (1978). French power, the Francization of Canada. Richmond Hill, ON: BMG. Andrew, J.V. (1977). Bilingual today, French tomorrow: Trudeaus master plan and how it can be stopped. Richmond Hill, ON: BMG. Bickel, W.E. (1984). Effective schools. Educational Researcher, 12(4), 35.

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Canadian Education Association. (1983). French immersion and school boards: Issues and effects. Toronto, ON: CEA. Clark, D.L., Lotto, L.S., & Astuto, T.A. (1984). Effective schools and school improvement: A comparative analysis of two lines of inquiry. Educational Administration Quarterly, 20(3), 4168. Coleman, J.S., Campbell, E.Q., Hobson, C.J., McPartland, J., Mood, A.M., Weinfeld, F.D., & York, R.L. (1966). Equality of education opportunity. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Edmonds, R. (1979). Effective schools for the urban poor. Educational Leadership, 37(1), 1621. Edwards, H.P., & Smythe, F. (1976). Evaluation of second language programs and some alternatives for teaching French as a second language in grades five to eight. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education. Guttman, M.A.J. (1983). Theres more to French immersion than social class. Interchange, 41(1), 1722. Heck, S.F., & Williams, C.R. (1984). The complex roles of the teacher: An ecological perspective. New York: Columbia University, Teachers College. Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second-language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Lambert, W.E., & Tucker, G.R. (1972). Bilingual education of children. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Lapkin, S., & Swain, M. (1984). Research update. Language and Society, 12(1), 4854. Lortie, D. (1975). School teacher: A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mackenzie, D.M. (1983). Research for school improvement: An appraisal of some recent trends. Educational Researcher, 12(4), 517. McGillivray, R. (1984). School systems make it work. Language and Society, 12(1), 2629. Olson, P., & Burns, G. (1983). Politics, class, and happenstance: French immersion in a Canadian context. Interchange, 14(1), 116. Purkey, S.C., & Smith, M. (1983). Effective schools: A review. Elementary School Journal, 83, 427452. Safty, A. (1988). French immersion and the making of a bilingual society. Canadian Journal of Education, 13, 243262. Safty, A. (1990). Lefficacit. In A. Safty (Ed.), Pour un enseignement dynamique et efficace (pp. 237284). Montreal: Presses de lUniversit du Qubec. Singh, R. (1986). Immersion: Problems and principles. Canadian Modern Language Review, 42, 559569. Weber, G. (1971). Inter-city children can be taught to read: Four successful schools. Washington, DC: Council for Basic Education. Wilton, F., Obadia, A., Roy, R., Saunders, B., & Taffler, R. (1984). National study of French immersion teacher training and professional development. Ottawa: Canadian Association of Immersion Teachers. Adel Safty is in the Department of Language Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z4.

Perceptions des matres de stage sur les comportements des stagiaires favorisant plus ou moins la participation des lves dans les cours dducation physique
Abdellah Marzouk Jean Brunelle
universit laval
Cette tude identifie, partir danalyses inductives dentrevues semi-structures, les comportements de stagiaire favorisant plus ou moins la participation des lves dans les cours dducation physique. Plus dun tiers des vnements dcrits concernent les comportements de stagiaire associs aux fonctions dinformation. Les matres de stage (Mds) rapportent plus dvnements jugs ngatifs que positifs. Ils signalent en particulier que les stagiaires font des erreurs dans la transmission du contenu de la matire, prennent de mauvaises dcisions et font des erreurs dans la dmonstration des tches dapprentissage. Les rsultats incitent les Mds et les formateurs largir leur cadre de rfrence personnelle pour valuer l-propos des comportements des stagiaires. This research concerns student teachers behaviours affecting pupil participation in physical education. Analysis of interviews with sponsor teachers shows that more than a third of such behaviours involve giving information, but that sponsor teachers see the overall majority of behaviours negatively. Sponsors note in particular that student teachers make mistakes in transmitting subject-matter content, take poor decisions, and incorrectly model certain learning tasks. The results of the study suggest that sponsor teachers should broaden their frame of reference in evaluating the appropriateness of student-teacher behaviours.
PROBLMATIQUE

Les programmes de formation initiale des enseignants comptent souvent parmi les situations dapprentissage un ou plusieurs stages denseignement. Ceux-ci constituent pour les stagiaires une premire prise de contact avec les ralits de lenseignement. Bien que reconnus comme une source importante de formation et dapprentissage, les stages constituent pour les stagiaires et les formateurs une situation complexe quil est difficile parfois dy reprer de manire claire le rle quils jouent dans la formation des futurs enseignants. Malgr la valeur intrinsque qui est gnralement accorde cette pratique pdagogique, une certaine remise en question de la valeur mme du stage sest fait jour ces dernires annes (Zeichner, 1986; Zeichner et
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Tabachnick, 1985). Les propos de Zeichner (1980) paraissent bien rsumer la question:
Most criticism of present practice centers around the argument that field-based experiences are conservative institutions which serve merely to socialize prospective teachers into established patterns of school practice. (Zeichner, 1980, p. 45)

Locke (1984) quant lui rend compte du grand nombre de recherches faites sur le stage en ducation physique entre 1960 et 1980. Il signale toutefois:
It is amazing therefore to discover that the litterature reveals very little about the realities of student teaching as they are experienced by the participants. (Locke, 1984, p. 28)

Des divergences dopinions existent propos de lefficacit des stages. Plusieurs auteurs appuient lexistence de cette pratique pdagogique et signalent son apport bnfique pour les stagiaires (Fuller et Bown, 1975; Griffin et al., 1983). Dautres auteurs se questionnent sur la pertinence dune telle activit (Locke, 1985; Zeichner, 1984; Zeichner et Tabachnick, 1985). Les stagiaires considrent le stage comme le point culminant de leur prparation (Ryan et al., 1980). Les formateurs universitaires voient le stage comme une occasion pour les stagiaires de mettre en pratique les thories quils ont apprises durant les cours luniversit. Quant aux matres de stage, peu de choses sont connues sur leur perception propos des comportements de leur stagiaire en situation relle denseignement. Quelques tudes ont fourni des donnes parses sur les attitudes et les comportements des stagiaires vus par les matres de stage. La plupart du temps le processus utilis pour la cueillette de ces donnes reste peu systmatique et produit des rsultats souvent contradictoires portant sur les problmes de discipline et danxit des stagiaires (Appelgate et Lasley, 1982; Copeland, 1978). Par ailleurs, dautres tudes qui ont port sur linteraction entre le matre de stages et le stagiaire rvlent que les premiers influencent normment les attitudes et les comportements des seconds (Barnes et Edwards, 1984; Corbett, 1980; Locke, 1984; Koehler, 1986; Yee, 1969). Karmos et Jacko (1977) ont trouv que le matre de stage est la personne la plus importante pour les futurs enseignants durant le stage pratique de formation initiale. On sait comment les matres de stage ont de linfluence sur les stagiaires. Ils privilgient les comportements quils jugent efficaces et donnent du feed-back sur ce quils jugent important (ONeal, 1983). Par contre, ce que les matres de stage pensent de lefficacit de leur stagiaire en terme de ce qui se passe quand ils sont en interaction avec leurs lves est beaucoup moins connu. Les recherches rcentes utilisant les perceptions des enseignants comme source dinformation ont contribu comprendre lefficacit de lenseignement (Arrighi, 1983; Harootunian et Yarger, 1981). Il y a un lien vident

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35

entre ce que pensent les enseignants et la faon dont ils se comportent en situation denseignement (Shulman et Lanier, 1977). Fenstermacher (1979) signale que les perceptions des enseignants concernant leur efficacit et leur comportement fournissent la base de leurs croyances et de leur action. Il ajoute:
The things people say about themselves and other people should be taken as seriously as reports of data relevant to phenomena that really exist and which are relevant to the explanation of behavior. (p. 7)

Limportance des perceptions est clairement dfinie dans les rsultats de ltude dArrighi et Young (1987) concernant lefficacit et le succs de lenseignement des enseignants en formation et des enseignants en cours de service. Les auteurs concluent leur tude en mentionnant que lefficacit de lenseignement est plus quune srie de comportements directs et observables au moyen de mesures directes et spcifiques. Les perceptions des enseignants propos de leur propre comportement est une image rflexive de leurs croyances, en autant quils les traduisent en termes daction. Dans le cas de la prsente tude, le prlvement des perceptions qui porte sur le processus denseignement des stagiaires doit nous permettre de raliser, le plus possible, une analyse fine et objective de leur comportement denseignement. Au moment o plusieurs chercheurs identifient lefficacit de lenseignement au degr de participation des lves dans les tches dapprentissage (Brunelle, Drouin, Godbout et Tousignant, 1988; Placek, 1983; Siedentop, 1983), il apparat important didentifier daprs les perceptions des matres de stage les comportements des stagiaires qui favorisent plus ou moins la participation enthousiaste de leurs lves. Dans le cadre de cet tude, la participation enthousiaste concerne lintensit avec laquelle les apprenants engagent leur intrt et leur ardeur dans les activits dapprentissage, ce qui dtermine une bonne partie de leur niveau de russite (Cheffers, Brunelle et VonKelsh, 1980; Martel, 1990). cet gard, les conclusions des programmes de recherche rvlent que plus les lves ont des occasions de pratiquer les tches proposes dans un climat favorable en obtenant un bon degr de succs, plus ils ont des chances de raliser des gains en apprentissage. Ainsi, il serait raisonnable de penser que lefficacit des stagiaires repose sur ce que font les lves pendant les cours dducation physique. La prsente tude cherche donc identifier, daprs les perceptions des matres de stage, les interventions des stagiaires qui favorisent la participation enthousiaste des lves et celles qui selon leur perception ont le plus besoin dtre amliores. Dans la formation pratique, il est rare quon se serve de lexprience des matres de stages pour prlever leur perception sur lefficacit de lenseignement des stagiaires sous langle de la participation enthousiaste des lves. En ce sens, ltude se propose de mieux comprendre un des aspects de la ralit auxquels sont confronts les stagiaires partir du point de vue des

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ABDELLAH MARZOUK ET JEAN BRUNELLE

intervenants qui les observent quotidiennement, les assistent et les guident dans leur dmarche pdagogique. La prsente tude a permis aux matres de stages dexprimer leur point de vue sur lefficacit des stagiaires partir dun aspect primordial du processus enseignement-apprentissage, cest--dire la participation enthousiaste des lves. Les perceptions des matres de stage sur lefficacit des stagiaires reprsentent une contribution unique venant de lexpertise professionnelle. Les rsultats de cette tude sinscrivent donc dans une perspective de valorisation du vcu professionnel comme source dinformation privilgier dans la formation du stagiaire. Par ailleurs, cette connaissance mergeant du praticien constitue un matriel didactique que les formateurs universitaires auraient avantage utiliser dans la formation des enseignants. But de ltude Cette tude descriptive qualitative a pour but didentifier, selon des matres de stages, les comportements des futurs enseignants qui favorisent plus ou moins la participation enthousiaste des lves dans les cours dducation physique. Cette tude qui sappuie sur une dmarche inductive vise donc rpondre aux deux questions suivantes:
1. Quels sont daprs les matres de stage, les comportements denseignement des stagiaires qui favorisent plus ou moins la participation enthousiaste de leurs lves dans les cours dducation physique. 2. Quels sont daprs les sujets de ltude, les ractions des lves par rapport aux comportements des stagiaires?

Pour classer les comportements identifis par les matres de stage dans plusieurs fonctions denseignement, nous nous sommes inspirs des travaux de De Landsheere et Bayer (1969) qui dfinissent par fonction tout acte verbal denseignement produit par le professeur (p. 24). Dans le contexte de la prsente tude, le concept de fonction dsigne tous les comportements observables ou tous les actes raliss par le stagiaire en situation relle denseignement avec un ou plusieurs de ses lves.
MTHODOLOGIE

Contexte de ltude Cette tude a t ralise dans le cadre du Stage pratique denseignement de lducation physique effectu par les tudiants universitaires dans les coles secondaires. Il sagissait dune activit dune dure de 3 4 semaines qui visait permettre aux futurs enseignants une prise en charge de plus en plus

PERCEPTIONS DES MATRES DE STAGE

37

autonome de lenseignement de lducation physique avec des groupes dlves du secondaire. Pendant cette priode, les stagiaires devaient accomplir les tches habituelles du matre de stage et assumer les diffrentes phases de lenseignement de lducation physique: planifier, organiser, interagir et valuer. Sujets Les matres de stage consults taient au nombre de 21 (19 hommes et 2 femmes). Leur ge variait entre 30 et 50 ans. Ils possdaient une longue exprience denseignement (de 8 25 ans) et avaient supervis plusieurs stagiaires auparavant. Technique de cueillette des donnes Une technique dentrevue semi-directive fut utilise pour recueillir les perceptions des matres de stage concernant les comportements des stagiaires qui favorisent ou risquent de nuire la participation des lves aux cours dducation physique. Cette technique fut choisie parce quelle assurait les rpondants de la confidentialit de leurs rponses en favorisant chez eux lexpression la plus libre possible. Cette technique privilgie par les approches qualitatives convient parfaitement la cueillette des donnes auprs dun nombre restreint de sujets. De plus, elle permet linterviewer de mieux contrler lentretien dans le but davoir les informations recherches. Le choix et la formulation des questions pour guider lentretien savrent primordiaux pour atteindre lobjectif poursuivi. Cette proccupation nous a conduit prparer un guide de lentretien et lexprimenter auprs de trois matres de stage avant darrter la formulation dfinitive des questions. Au pralable, deux experts en intervention furent consults pour dterminer le contenu des questions. Les consultations et une prexprimentation auprs de trois matres de stage ont permis de formuler les questions suivantes:
Pendant cette priode de stage, vous avez eu loccasion dobserver beaucoup vos stagiaires; pensez plus particulirement leur comportement quand ils interagissent avec les lves. 1. Dcrivez des vnements qui se sont drouls durant les sances dducation physique qui vous portent penser que le comportement adopt par le stagiaire (ce quil a fait ou ce quil a dit) a amen les lves participer avec plus denthousiasme au cours dducation physique. Quelle tait la situation? Questce que le stagiaire a fait ou dit ce moment-l? Quelle fut la raction des tudiants face ce comportement que vous jugez efficace en terme dintervention. 2. Dcrivez des vnements qui se sont drouls durant les sances dducation physique qui vous portent penser que le comportement adopt par le stagiaire (ce quil a fait ou ce quil a dit) a amen les lves avoir moins le got de

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ABDELLAH MARZOUK ET JEAN BRUNELLE

participer au cours dducation physique. Quelle tait la situation? Quest-ce que le stagiaire a fait ou a dit ce moment-l? Quelle fut la raction des lves face ce comportement que vous jugez peu efficace en terme dintervention.

Stratgie de cueillette des donnes Lauteur de cette tude a effectu toutes les entrevues avec les matres de stage leur lieu de travail. Chaque entrevue a dur en moyenne 35 minutes et a t enregistre sur magntophone. Toutes les entrevues ont eu lieu vers la fin du stage pratique afin de sassurer que les rpondants avaient observ suffisamment dvnements en rapport avec les comportements des stagiaires qui favorisent ou non la participation des lves. De plus, dans le but de standardiser la stratgie de cueillette de donnes, les matres de stage ont accept les directives suivantes:
Les comportements dcrits doivent se rapporter aux objectifs de ltude pralablement dfinis, savoir: identifier des comportements des stagiaires qui favorisent la participation des lves aux cours dducation physique et ceux qui ne la favorisent pas. Les vnements rapports doivent dcrire des incidents critiques, cest--dire sinsrer dans la dfinition propose par Flanagan (1954): vnement observable, vrifi par une situation donne dont le but est suffisamment clair pour lobservateur et dont les consquences sont videntes. viter de dcrire des traits de personnalit ou de caractre ou des impressions gnrales.

Analyse des donnes La mthode choisie pour traiter les diverses rponses est lanalyse de contenu. Berlson (1952), lun des premiers thoriciens de la mthode de lanalyse de contenu, en donne la dfinition suivante: Lanalyse de contenu est une technique de recherche pour la description objective, systmatique et quantitative du contenu manifeste de la communication. Krippendorff (1982, p. 39) stipule que la dfinition de Berlson ne dit pas ce quest le contenu et ce qui devrait tre lobjet de lanalyse de contenu. Il propose une dfinition qui se veut plus explicite. Content analysis is a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from data to their context. 1. Analyse prliminaire a. Audition attentive de chaque entrevue enregistre sur cassette. b. Transcription de lentrevue en prenant soin dinscrire chaque vnement sur une feuille distincte et de les sparer selon leur connotation positive ou ngative. c. Lecture et relecture des contenus pour vrifier la pertinence des rponses en rapport avec la problmatique de ltude.

PERCEPTIONS DES MATRES DE STAGE

39

d.

Identification des points marquants de chaque vnement pour dgager: (i) le comportement du stagiaire qui favorise ou non la participation enthousiaste des lves en situation relle denseignement, (ii) la raction des lves par rapport ce comportement.

2. tape de catgorisation des donnes Le contenu des entrevues une fois retranscrit a t soumis une analyse qualitative en sinspirant de la technique de la relation smantique de Spradley (1980). Cette technique permet de regrouper de faon inductive des caractristiques ayant les mmes affinits. Elle fut utilise pour faire ressortir les perceptions des matres de stage concernant les comportements de leur stagiaire en situation relle denseignement tout en sacrifiant le moins possible de la spcificit et de la validit de leurs rponses. La stratgie de catgorisation a permis: (1) De regrouper les noncs qui prsentaient des similitudes en sinspirant du cadre danalyse de De Landsheere et Bayer (1969). Cette premire tape a conduit lidentification de cinq catgories de fonctions: fonctions dinformation, fonctions dvaluation, fonctions daffectivit positive et ngative, fonctions dorganisation, et fonctions de personnalisation. (2) Dveloppement de sous-catgories lintrieur des catgories de fonctions. (3) Vrification de la cohrence et de lexhaustivit du schme de classification par un spcialiste de lanalyse qualitative. (4) Identification, dans les commentaires des matres de stage, des ractions des lves en rapport avec les comportements des stagiaires. Il ny a pas eu danalyse systmatique des ractions des lves. (5) Vrification de la fidlit inter-analystes. Une cinquantaine dincidents puiss au hasard dans les 5 catgories de fonctions furent classifis sparment par deux analystes. Le jugement de ces deux analystes a donn des pourcentages daccord de lordre de 83% et 85% pour chacune des fonctions prises sparment. (6) Analyse quantitative en termes de pourcentage et de nombre dvnements.
RSULTATS ET DISCUSSION

Lanalyse inductive des 394 incidents a permis dlaborer une taxonomie regroupant en cinq catgories de fonctions denseignement les comportements des stagiaires perus par les matres de stage comme favorisant plus ou moins la participation enthousiaste de leurs lves.

TABLEAU 1 Types de fonctions permettant de regrouper les comportements efficaces et peu efficaces des stagiaires daprs les perceptions des matres de stage

vnements associs aux comportements efficaces Fonctions Nombre % Nombre %

vnements associs aux comportements peu efficaces

Total/par catgorie de fonctions Nombre %

Catgorie

Souscatgories

Fonctions dinformation - explication du contenu - prsentation des explications - synthse du contenu - questionnement sur la tche - ordonnance des ducatifs - dmonstration de la tche - formulation des objectifs

52 22 08 07 08 07

33 42 16 13 15 13

85 32 15 06 17 08 07

36 38 18 07 20 09

137 54 15 08 13 17 16 14

35 39 11 06 09 12 12 10

Catgorie

Souscatgories

Fonctions dvaluation - feed-back sur les apprentissages - observation des lves - modalits dvaluation - ajustement de la tche

41 15 07 08 11

26 37 17 19 26

50 17 13 05 15

21 34 26 10 30

91 32 20 13 26

23 35 22 14 29

TABLEAU 1 (continu) Types de fonctions permettant de regrouper les comportements efficaces et peu efficaces des stagiaires daprs les perceptions des matres de stage
vnements associs aux comportements efficaces Fonctions Nombre 16 07 09 21 08 06 07 27 157 29 33 17 100 14 38 56 44 17 43 21 13 09 9 237 33 10 50 21 66 34 18 49 30 21 4 100 % Nombre % vnements associs aux comportements peu efficaces Total/par catgorie de fonctions Nombre 66 33 24 09 64 29 19 16 36 394 % 17 50 36 14 16 45 30 25 9 100

Catgorie

Souscatgories

Fonctions daffectivit positive et ngative - absence de ractions aux comportements inappropris - ractions aux comportements inappropris - valorisation des comportements

Catgorie

Souscatgories

Fonctions dorganisation - placement du groupe lors des explications - dplacement des lves entre les activits - placement du matriel Fonctions de personnalisation Total

Catgorie

42

ABDELLAH MARZOUK ET JEAN BRUNELLE

Lanalyse inductive des 394 incidents a permis dlaborer une taxonomie regroupant en cinq catgories de fonctions denseignement les comportements des stagiaires perus par les matres de stage comme favorisant plus ou moins la participation enthousiaste de leurs lves. La lecture du tableau 1 rvle que les principales catgories de fonctions recouvrent les vnements gnralement associs lenseignement de lducation physique dans le gymnase. En effet, les comportements se rapportent (1) aux fonctions dinformation (prsentation de la matire), (2) aux fonctions dvaluation des apprentissages, (3) aux fonctions daffectivit positive et ngative, (4) aux fonctions dorganisation des activits dapprentissage, et (5) aux fonctions de personnalisation ayant trait au climat de la classe. Le tableau 1 permet de constater que les rponses fournies par les matres de stage sont sensiblement dans les mmes proportions, quil sagisse des comportements perus ngativement ou positivement. Par contre, lensemble des matres de stage identifie un plus grand nombre dvnements en rapport avec les comportements peu efficaces quavec les comportements efficaces des stagiaires (237 pour les premiers et 157 pour les deuximes). Fonctions dinformation (prsentation de la matire) Plus dun tiers de tous les comportements dcrits (35%) par les matres de stage concernent la catgorie des fonctions dinformation (tableau 1). Cette catgorie touche directement le contenu de la matire denseignement et regroupe les comportements du stagiaire visant (1) lexplication du contenu de la matire, (2) la prsentation des explications, (3) la synthse du contenu, (4) le questionnement des lves, (5) lordonnance des ducatifs dans le temps et dans lespace, (6) la dmonstration des tches dapprentissage, et (7) la formulation des objectifs, des critres de ralisation des tches. Il importe de signaler que cette catgorie de fonctions revt une grande importance pour les matres de stage (tableau 1) puisquelle regroupe le plus grand nombre dvnements rapports autant pour les comportements jugs efficaces que pour ceux jugs peu efficaces (52 contre 85). Les rsultats obtenus font ressortir limportance que les matres de stage ont accord certains comportements en relation avec cette catgorie de fonctions. En effet, la sous-catgorie explication du contenu de la matire accapare le plus grand nombre dvnements positifs et ngatifs. On enregistre le plus grand nombre dvnements en relation avec les comportements des stagiaires qui nuisent la participation des apprenants. Les matres de stage rapportent que les stagiaires donnent parfois des explications claires et concises, reviennent sur les explications, rpondent aux questions des lves et dautres fois induisent les lves en erreur en mlant les explications et en utilisant une terminologie complique. Dune faon gnrale, les avis des matres de stage sont partags au sujet de cette catgorie, mais ils la peroivent comme la plus importante parmi toutes les

PERCEPTIONS DES MATRES DE STAGE

43

catgories de fonctions compte tenu du nombre total dvnements identifis. Piron (1986) rapporte que 15% 25% des interventions de lenseignant concernent la prsentation de la matire et la manire dexpliquer le contenu. Les rsutlats obtenus dans cette tude en rapport avec cette catgorie vont dans le mme sens que ceux trouvs par Piron. Ils rvlent les inquitudes des matres de stage quant aux difficults quprouvent certains stagiaires prsenter la matire et expliquer le contenu. En effet, cette habilet ne simprovise pas, elle ncessite un apprentissage pour les stagiaires afin de transmettre un contenu clair et prcis aux lves. Dans ces fonctions dinformation, il est intressant de noter les diffrentes ractions des lves face aux comportements efficaces et peu efficaces des stagiaires. Les matres de stage rapportent avoir not une participation effective des lves quand la leon est bien prsente avec des explications claires et un agencement appropri des exercices. Ils disent par exemple que: les lves suivent le droulement des explications avec attention, fournissent la plupart du temps des rponses motrices appropries, rflchissent avant de rpondre et prennent mme parfois linitiative de questionner. Dun autre ct, lun deux affirme: quand les explications sont arides, confuses, les objectifs ne sont pas identifis, les ducatifs ne sont pas dmontrs, les lves ragissent soit passivement par lattente, soit par ladoption de comportements inappropris, tels que la dviance et le refus de participation au cours. Fonctions dvaluation Cette catgorie regroupe les comportements des stagiaires en relation avec les feed-back sur les apprentissages, lobservation des lves, le choix des modalits de lvaluation et lajustement des tches dapprentissage au degr dhabilet des lves (tableau 1). Presque un quart (23%) des comportements rapports par les matres de stage concernent les fonctions dvaluation (tableau 1). Cette catgorie est perue comme un des lments dterminants du processus enseignementapprentissage, car elle occupe la deuxime place parmi les fonctions. Un coup doeil sur le tableau 1 montre que les matres de stage rapportent un peu plus dincidents en rapport avec les comportements qui favorisent la participation des lves que leur dsengagement (26% 21%). Lanalyse des rsultats rvle que plus du tiers des comportements des stagiaires dcrits par les matres de stage concernent la sous-catgorie feed-back sur les apprentissages. On retrouve des rponses du genre: corrige rgulirement les erreurs des lves, porte des jugements rapides et spcifiques sur les gestes effectus, ou des commentaires ngatifs tels que: le stagiaire ne corrige pas les lves en difficult, approuve les performances des lves de manire strotype ou donne trs peu de feed-back pendant la sance. Il est galement intressant de noter le pourcentage lev des com-

44

ABDELLAH MARZOUK ET JEAN BRUNELLE

portements perus comme tant associs aux sous-catgories observation des lves et ajustement des tches au niveau dhabilet des participants. Cette constatation est valable aussi bien pour les comportements favorisant lengagement que le dsengagement des lves. Il importe de remarquer que trs peu de rpondants ont choisi de raconter des vnements en rapport avec les comportements peu efficaces associs aux modalits dvaluation (10% des incidents). Par contre, les matres de stage observent que les stagiaires impliquent avec succs leurs lves pour sauto-valuer et pour valuer leurs coquipiers (19% des comportements efficaces ayant trait aux fonctions dvaluation). Lexamen des ractions des lves face aux comportements des stagiaires indique que les matres de stage apprcient que ces derniers donnent une place essentielle lactivit de llve. Les matres de stage rapportent ce sujet les commentaires suivants: les lves ragissent positivement quand le stagiaire donne des feed-back appropris, observe leur comportement moteur et ajuste les tches leur niveau dhabilet. En effet, ils disent avoir observ que les participants sappliquent dans la ralisation des tches et font des progrs en amliorant leur performance. Ils sont plus actifs, prennent en charge leur cheminement en sauto-valuant et en reprant les difficults inhrentes leur apprentissage. Les comportements peu efficaces identifis par les matres de stage mettent en relief lextrme passivit des lves, leur dsintrt total, leur mcontentement et leur erreur dans lexcution des tches dapprentissage. En rsum, lvaluation est perue par les matres de stage comme une variable importante parmi lensemble des actes denseignement des stagiaires. Ceux-ci doivent aider les lves sapproprier la matire en dpistant leurs erreurs et leurs faiblesses et en donnant beaucoup de feed-back appropris. Le nombre de comportements favorisant lengagement des lves relis cette catgorie montre la proccupation des matres de stage et des stagiaires lvaluation formative des apprentissages. Fonctions daffectivit positive et ngative Les fonctions daffectivit positive et ngative concernent dans une large mesure le contrle de la classe et le maintien de lordre dans le gymnase pour crer un climat propice lapprentissage. Les comportements inclus dans cette catgorie concernent directement la prsence ou labsence de raction aux comportements inappropris des lves et la valorisation de leur comportement appropri. La lecture du tableau 1 rvle que les matres de stage ont rapport, ce titre, trois fois plus de comportements peu efficaces que de comportements efficaces (50 contre 16). Les conduites daffectivit ngative perues par les matres de stage concernent particulirement labsence de raction des stagiaires aux comportements inappropris des lves avec 33 vnements. ce sujet, les rpondants rapportent que: les stagiaires ne se font pas

PERCEPTIONS DES MATRES DE STAGE

45

couter quand ils sadressent aux lves et narrtent pas ceux qui drangent. Dans 34% des rponses des matres de stage concernant cette catgorie, le stagiaire ragit de faon autoritaire aux comportements inappropris des lves. Les rpondants peroivent de frquentes interventions dsapprobatrices de la part du stagiaire, ou observent des rponses telles que: exigent le silence de faon autoritaire, rprimandent svrement le comportement dviant, punissent et menacent les lves de punition. Lanalyse des rsultats montre que le nombre dvnements reli aux fonctions daffectivit positive est le moins important par comparaisn avec les autres fonctions. En effet, les matres de stage rapportent une faible proportion dvnements o les stagiaires russissent ragir aux comportements inappropris et valoriser le comportement des apprenants. On retrouve peu de rponses telles que: les stagiaires se font obir quand ils ragissent fermement auprs des lves qui drangent, ils incitent les lves par des paroles faire toujours plus, ou encouragent les lves travailler fort. Dune faon gnrale, il est intressant de constater que les matres de stage sont enclins rapporter des comportements peu efficaces des stagiaires pour instaurer un climat propice lapprentissage. Les ractions ngatives des lves perues par les matres de stage sont nombreuses. Elles vont dune dsobissance caractrise (refus dlibr de pratiquer) une sensation dhumiliation et de dnigrement. Par contre, ils ont observ que lorsque les lves sont encourags par les stagiaires, ils dveloppent des attitudes positives, simpliquent davantage dans les tches dapprentissage et russissent mieux ce qui leur est demand. Fonctions dorganisation Cette catgorie runit tous les comportements des stagiaires qui rglent la vie dans le gymnase et crent les conditions matrielles ncessaires lenseignement de lactivit physique. On y retrouve les comportements du stagiaire relis au dplacement du groupe lors des explications, aux dplacements des lves entre les activits et au placement du matriel. Il importe de signaler que ces fonctions dorganisation revtent une importance moyenne pour les matres de stage puisquelles occupent la quatrime place parmi lensemble des autres catgories de fonctions (tableau 1). Lexamen du tableau 1 rvle que les matres de stage rapportent un peu plus dincidents en rapport avec les comportements des stagiaires qui dfavorisent la participation des lves que leur engagement dans les tches dapprentissage (18% 14%). La moiti des incidents se rapportant aux comportements peu efficaces des stagiaires concernent le placement du groupe lors des explications. Dans cette sous-catgorie de fonctions, les principaux comportements cits par les matres de stage sont les suivants: (1) ne pas regrouper les lves pour donner des consignes, (2) interrompre souvent le droulement de lactivit. Les autres sous-catgories associes aux fonctions

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ABDELLAH MARZOUK ET JEAN BRUNELLE

dorganisation concernent le dplacement des lves entre les activits et le placement du matriel. Malgr la place occupe par la catgorie des fonctions dorganisation, elle ne manque pas dattirer lattention sur son importance dans le processus denseignement-apprentissage. Dailleurs, les auteurs traitant de lenseignement efficace rfrent souvent lorganisation de la classe pour valuer un enseignant. Dans lenseignement en gnral, Brophy (1982) conclut notamment que les bons professeurs se rvlent souvent de bons managers. Parmi les habilets denseignement en relation avec la production du temps valable dapprentissage en ducation physique, Brunelle (1980) cite plusieurs lments ayant trait lorganisation de la classe tels que donner des consignes dorganisation et concises et rduire au minimum le temps de transition. Lanalyse des ractions des tudiants rapportes par les matre de stage quant aux comportements des stagiaires relis aux fonctions dorganisation met en exergue le rle important jou par cette catgorie dans lapprentissage des lves. Les matres de stage rapportent quavec une organisation minutieuse: les lves savent o aller, coutent attentivement les explications, se prcipitent pour rejoindre lendroit indiqu par le stagiaire, etc. . . . En somme, ils disent: les lves respectent les consignes dorganisation et manifestent un engagement appropri. Par contre, daprs les vnements ngatifs relats, on retrouve les commentaires suivants: le fait de perdre lintrt suite aux arrts frquents, de se mler pour se dplacer, ou dattendre tout bonnement pour commencer lactivit, rduit considrablement lengagement appropri des participants. Les matres de stages dans leur rponses semblent trs proccups par les difficults quprouvent certains stagiaires organiser leur classe de manire efficace. Fonctions de personnalisation Cette catgorie concerne les comportements des stagiaires relis ou non la cration dun climat amical et de relations interpersonnelles entre le stagiaire et les lves. la lecture des rsultats, on saperoit que trs peu de rpondants ont choisi de raconter des vnements qui se rapportent cette catgorie. En effet, les vnements en rapport avec les fonctions de personnalisation ne reprsentent que 9% de lensemble des vnements rapports par les matres de stage. Les rsultats permettent de constater que les deux-tiers des comportements dcrits dans cette catgorie concernent les comportements des stagiaires qui favorisent limplication des apprenants. Les matres de stage trouvent que les stagiaires suscitent le contact et le dialogue avec les lves, se proccupent de leurs problmes personnels et surtout participent avec eux aux diverses activits extra-scolaires. Les comportements peu efficaces des stagiaires se rapportent un manque de coopration et de dialogue avec les participants sont peu nombreux. Les matres de stage peroivent dune part, que les lves se rapprochent des stagiaires en dmontrant un comportement amical et chaleureux; dautre

PERCEPTIONS DES MATRES DE STAGE

47

part, ils se sentent ngligs, dcourags, quand les stagiaires font la sourde oreille et restent insensibles leurs problmes personnels.
CONCLUSIONS

Lobjectif de cette tude tait didentifier daprs les perceptions des matres de stage les comportements des stagiaires qui favorisent plus ou moins la participation enthousiaste des lves dans les cours dducation physique. Les rsultats de ltude montrent que les rponses fournies par les matres de stage touchent les principales fonctions associes aux vnements essentiels de lenseignement de lducation physique dans le gymnase. Parmi ces fonctions, les fonctions dinformation et les fonctions dvaluation apparaissent comme plus importantes que les autres. Les fonctions dorganisation, daffectivit et de personnalisation sont une proccupation prsente pour les matres de stage, mais les vnements qui sy rapportent sont moins nombreux. De plus, les matres de stage rapportent plus de comportements des stagiaires qui favorisent le dsintressement que de comportements qui favorisent lengagement des lves dans les tches dapprentissage. Il ne semble pas excessif de dire que le processus caractristique du stage se fonde sur la critique faite aprs les leons par le matre de stage. Une des tches traditionnelles du matre de stage consiste faire remarquer au stagiaire les fautes commises. Les rpondants ont donc peru plus particulirement les aspects ngatifs que les stagiaires devront viter au cours des interventions. Par exemple, dans la catgorie des fonctions daffectivit ngative, les matres de stage peroivent particulirement que leurs stagiaires ont des difficults majeures ragir aux comportements inappropris des lves. Ces rsultats semblent aller dans le mme sens que ceux rapports par Piron (1986) qui mentionne que le contrle de la classe entrane une plus grande anxit chez les stagiaires et un durcissement de leur attitude et de leur comportement envers les lves. En ce qui concerne les ractions des lves en rapport avec les comportements efficaces et peu efficaces des stagiaires observs par les matres de stage, on peut dire quelles sont varies et diversifies. En effet, les matres de stage rapportent que les participants sont plus actifs, sappliquent dans la ralisation des tches, russissent mieux ce qui est demand, sont lcoute quand les stagiaires adoptent des comportements qui favorisent leur participation enthousiaste. Par contre, en face des comportements dintervention peu efficaces des stagiaires, les matres de stage nous disent que les lves sont dsintresss, quils participent moins aux activits dapprentissage, prennent moins dinitiative, drangent le groupe et fournissent la plupart du temps des rponses motrices improductives. Dans le contexte de cette tude, les perceptions des matres de stage prsentent les cas les plus saillants de la pratique pdagogique des futurs enseignants en terme de comportements denseignement qui favorisent plus

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ABDELLAH MARZOUK ET JEAN BRUNELLE

ou moins lengagement des lves. Toutefois, il faut prciser que le matre de stage a comme point de repre sa propre exprience, son modle de lefficacit de lenseignement et son cadre reprsentatif. Les vnements perus objectivent les reprsentations pdagogiques des sujets qui les rapportent. Ces rsultats attirent lattention sur la varit et la spcificit des conseils que les matres de stage peuvent donner aux stagiaires. Les rsultats de ltude montrent comment des praticiens (personnes du milieu) peroivent les stagiaires en situation relle denseignement et, en ce sens, aident les futurs enseignants mieux comprendre leur action pdagogique, devenir plus conscients de leurs comportements et utiliser un plus large rpertoire dinterventions. Ces rsultats aident donc les stagiaires avoir une image plus nette sur la perception que des professionnels ont deux. Ces rsultats savrent aussi intressants pour les matres de stage, car ils peuvent devenir une source de rflexion professionnelle qui les incite largir leur cadre de rfrences personnelles pour valuer l-propos des comportements des stagiaires. Enfin, cette tude apporte pour les formateurs universitaires des indications prcises sur les comportements des stagiaires et fournit du matriel brut pour alimenter les cours de didactique en formation initiale.
RFRENCES

Appelgate, J.H., & Lasley, T.J. (1982). Cooperating teachers problems with preservice field experience students. Journal of Teacher Education, 33(2), 15 18. Arrighi, M. (1983). Physical education teachers perceptions of their own success. Proceedings of the Third Conference on Curriculum Theory in Physical Education (pp. 183197). Athnes: University of Georgia. Arrighi, M., & Young, J. (1987). Teacher perceptions about effective and successful teaching. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 6(20), 122 135. Barnes, S., & Edwards, S. (1984). Effective student teaching experience: A qualitative-quantitative study (Report No. 9060). Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Research and Development Center for Teacher Education. Berlson, B. (1952). Content analysis in communication research. New York: Free Press. Brophy, J. (1983). Classroom organization and management. Elementary School Journal, 83, 285286. Brunelle, J. (1980). Lefficacit de lintervenant dans lenseignement de lactivit physique. In C.H. Nadeau, W.R. Halliwell, K.M. Newell, & E.C. Roberts (Eds.), Psychology of motor behavior and sport (pp. 675689). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishers. Brunelle, J., Drouin, D., Godbout, P. et Tousignant, M. (1988). La supervision de lintervention en activit physique. Montral: Editions Gatan Morin. Copeland, W.D. (1978). Processes mediating the relationship between cooperating teacher behavior and student teacher classroom performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 70, 95100.

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Corbett, H.D. (1980). Using occupational socialization research to explain patterns of influence during student teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 31(6), 1113. De Landsheere, G. et Bayer, E. (1969). Comment les matres enseignent: analyse des interactions verbales en classe. Bruxelles: Ministre de lducation Nationale, Administration des tudes. Fenstermacher, G. (1979). A philosophical consideration of recent research on teacher effectiveness. In L. Shulman (Ed.), Review of research in education (Vol. 6, pp. 157186). Itasca, IL: Peacock. Flanagan, J.C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51, 327358. Fuller, F., & Bown, O. (1975). On becoming a teacher. In K. Ryan (Ed.), Teacher education (pp. 2552). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Griffin, G.A., Barnes, S., Hughes, R., ONeal, S., Defino, M., Edwards, S., & Hukill, H. (1983). Clinical preservice teacher education: Final report of a descriptive study. Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Research and Development Center for Teacher Education. Harootunian, B., & Yarger, G. (1981). Teachers conceptions of their own success. Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Teacher Education (No. SP017372). Karmos, A.H., & Jacko, C.M. (1977). The role of significant others during the student teaching experience. Journal of Teacher Education, 28(5), 5155. Koehler, V.R. (1986, April). The instructional supervision of student teachers. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco. Krippendorff, K. (1981). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Beverly Hills, CA: Academic Press. Locke, L.F. (1984). Research on teaching teachers: Where are we now? (Monograph). Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 2, 386. ONeal, S. (1983). Supervision of student teachers: Feedback and evaluation. Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Research and Development Center for Teacher Education. Piron, M. (1986). Enseignement des activits physiques et sportives: observation et recherche. Lige: Presses Universitaires de Lige. Placek, J.H. (1983). Conceptions of success in teaching: Busy, happy, good? In T.J. Templin & J.K. Olson (Eds.), Teaching in physical education (pp. 46 56). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Ryan, K., Newman, K., Mager, G., Appelgate, J., Lasley, T., Flora, R., & Johnston, J. (1980). Bitting the apple: Accounts of first year teachers. New York: Longman. Siedentop, D. (1983). Developing teaching skills in physical education (2nd ed.). Palo Alto: Mayfield Publishing. Shulman, L., & Lanier, J. (1977). The Institute for Research on Teaching: An overview. Journal of Teacher Education, 28, 4449. Spradley, J. (1980). Participant observation. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Yee, A.H. (1969). Do cooperating teachers influence attitudes of student teachers? Journal of Educational Psychology, 60, 327332. Zeichner, K.M. (1980). Myths and realities: Field-based experiences in preservice teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 31(6), 4555.

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Zeichner, K.M. (1986). Content and contexts: Neglected elements in studies of student teaching as an occasion for learning to teach. Journal of Education for Teaching, 12, 524. Zeichner, K.M., & Tabachnick, B.R. (1985). The development of teacher perspectives: Social strategies and institutional control in the socialization of beginning teachers. Journal of Education for Teaching, 11, 125. Abdellah Marzouk et Jean Brunelle sont professeurs au Dpartement deducation physique, Facult des sciences de lducation, Universit Laval, Ste-Foy (Qubec), G1K 7P4.

Teacher Efficacy and the Effects of Coaching on Student Achievement

1

John A. Ross
ontario institute for studies in education

This research considers relationships between student achievement (knowledge and cognitive skill), teacher efficacy (Gibson & Dembo, 1984), and interactions with assigned coaches (self-report measures) in a sample of 18 grade 7 and 8 history teachers in 36 classes implementing a specific innovation with the help of 6 coaches. Student achievement was higher in classrooms of teachers who had more contact with their coaches and in classrooms of teachers with greater confidence in the effectiveness of education. Teachers who relied on school administrators reported less involvement with their coaches and these teachers obtained lower student achievement. There was no interaction between efficacy and coaching, possibly because there was virtually no peer observation. Cette recherche porte sur les relations entre le rendement scolaire (connaissance et aptitude cognitive), lefficacit des enseignants (Gibson et Dembo, 1984) et les interactions avec des aidants (mesures dauto-valuation) dans un chantillon de 18 enseignants dhistoire dans 36 classes de 7e et 8e anne o tait implante une innovation avec lintervention de six aidants. Le rendement scolaire a t suprieur dans les classes des enseignants qui avaient plus de contacts avec leurs aidants et dans celles des enseignants ayant une plus grande confiance dans lefficacit de lducation. Les enseignants qui comptaient sur les administrateurs scolaires ont fait tat de contacts moins nombreux avec leurs aidants et ont obtenu un rendement scolaire infrieur. Il ny avait aucune interaction entre lefficacit et lencadrement des aidants, peut-tre parce quil ny avait presque aucune observation mutuelle.

Previous research on coaching offers consistent evidence of positive outcomes. For example, Bennetts (1987) meta-analysis showed that coaching combined with other training techniques produced implementation effects surpassing those of other methods. But what of the conditions under which coaching is most effective? Is it possible to distinguish teachers likely to benefit from coaching from those better off with some other school improvement technique? Teacher efficacy measures the extent to which teachers believe their efforts will have a positive effect on student achievement. Although most researchers have treated teacher efficacy as a unidimensional trait, others have distinguished two types, following Banduras (1977) distinction be51 17:1 (1992)

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JOHN A. ROSS

tween expectations about ones ability to implement particular strategies and expectations about the outcomes of these strategies. The most frequently used instrument (Gibson & Dembo, 1984) produces two scores: personal teaching efficacy (the expectation that the respondent will be able to bring about student learning), and general teaching efficacy (the belief that teachers ability to bring about change is limited by factors beyond their control). In most studies there is a weak positive correlation between the two measures and some researchers (for example, Hoy & Woolfolk, 1990) have argued that it is misleading to combine the scores into a single measure. Even when two scales are used, teacher efficacy measures tend to be more global than those developed to assess efficacy in other domains. Previous research has found that teacher efficacy predicts teachers implementation of innovative programs and student achievement. McLaughlin and Marsh (1978) used a single questionnaire item for each of two dimensions of teacher efficacy, Rand 1 and 2. They found evidence for an extended causal chainfrom teacher efficacy to teacher behaviour to student efficacy to student behaviour to student achievement. Ashton and Webb (1986) used the same measures, finding that Rand 1 (a measure of general teaching efficacy) was related to math scores and that Rand 2 (personal teaching efficacy) influenced language performance; both measures were linked to teachers instructional practice (avoidance of seatwork and development of a positive emotional climate in the classroom). Smylie (1988) developed three items to measure personal teaching efficacy (for example, if I really try hard I can get through to even the most difficult unmotivated students) that were positively related to implementation of an interactive teaching program. Stein and Wang (1988) measured teacher efficacy by having teachers rate how well they felt they could implement each of 22 elements of a mainstreaming program; scores were positively related to implementation. Anderson, Greene, and Loewen (1988) used the Gibson and Dembo instruments to find that personal teaching efficacy predicted student achievement in language, reading, and math in grade 3 but not in grade 6. Although no previous study has linked teacher efficacy to coaching, such a link is credible. Teachers who believe they will make a difference are more likely to see coaching as an opportunity to expand and consolidate their teaching techniques. In contrast, teachers who see student learning as swamped by uncontrollable forces might regard coaching as nothing but more work. Similarly, teachers with strong beliefs in their own effectiveness would be more willing to accept the risk of negative feedback from a coach. Coaches are more likely to be motivated by high-efficacy teachers who believe instructional improvement is worthwhile. The coaches, like the curriculum consultants studied by Alpert, Weiner, and Ludwig (1979), might be more responsive to the needs of well patientsteachers least needing help. Two studies (Poole & Okeafor, 1989 and Poole, Okeafor, & Sloan, 1989) used Gibson and Dembos instruments to explore relationships among

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teacher practice, teacher efficacy, and teacher collaboration where there was natural coaching. Neither study established formal coaching networks, but in each there was substantial informal coaching. Teacher efficacy mediated the relationship between teacher collaboration and teacher practice (defined as the extent to which curriculum guides were implemented), although the effect of efficacy varied. Poole and Okeafor (1989) found that teachers with high general teaching efficacy had higher implementation if they collaborated more with other teachers. Yet Poole, Okeafor, and Sloan (1989) found that teachers with high personal teaching efficacy were more likely to implement district curriculum guides if they collaborated less with other teachers. Although the counter-intuitive findings in the Poole et al. research may have been an artifact of subscale construction,2 it is more likely that teacher efficacy interacts with coaching in some other way. This study examines the mediating effects of teacher efficacy on the relationship between coaching and student outcomes in a small sample of grade 7 and 8 history teachers, hypothesizing that: 1. student achievement would be higher in the classrooms of teachers who interacted more extensively with their coaches; 2. student achievement would be higher in the classrooms of teachers with higher teacher efficacy beliefs; 3. coaching and teacher efficacy would interact such that high-efficacy teachers would benefit more from coaching than low-efficacy teachers.
SAMPLE

The sample consisted of 18 teachers from a small rural Ontario district who varied on a range of demographic factorsage, sex, amount of teaching experience (in the profession and in history), and formal qualifications (degrees)and in teaching assignments (number of history classes timetabled). The 18 teachers were responsible for 36 history classes. They were assisted by six coaches whom the district selected for the project because of their competence and interest in teaching history. The coaches differed on demographic and organizational variables (for example, whether the coach was in the same school as the coachee). Coaches were matched with teachers on the basis of geography.
TREATMENT

The task of teachers was to implement a new history curriculum guideline (Ontario Ministry of Education, 1986). Teachers were given three kinds of resources to meet Guideline expectations. First were curriculum materials: the Guideline itself, detailed instructional materials produced by a consortium of boards (Interboard History Project, 1987a, 1987b), texts produced by commercial publishers, and a variety of other print and nonprint materials.

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The second resource was three half-day workshops distributed over the school year. Each workshop emphasized specific strategies for meeting the cognitive skill expectations of the history program. The instructional procedures recommended to teachers in these workshops, elaborated in Robinson, Ross, and White (1985), had positive effects on problem-solving achievement in previous studies (see, for example, the meta-analyses in Ross, 1988b; Ross & Maynes, 1983) and there is evidence these effects endure over time (Ross & Maynes, 1985). The workshops followed a demonstration, practice, feedback format in which specific teaching strategies were demonstrated in a large group setting; practice activities were completed in small groups led by coaches; and, after feedback, in-class implementation schedules were developed. The third resource was contact with coaches. The number of contacts varied, ranging from a minimum of one face-to-face and one telephone contact during the year to dozens of each type. The contacts could be initiated by either party. The approach was an adaptation of the In-School Resource Coaching Model (Seller, 1987; Seller & Hannay, 1987) in which teachers (alternating roles) move through a process of analyzing program expectations, observing classroom practice, planning changes, and giving feedback on implementation. Project coaching deviated from the model in two significant ways: the relationship was less reciprocal in that the coaches were relative experts in the history program, and there was virtually no classroom observation component. No teachers invited coaches to observe and none of the coaches pushed for an invitation. Only two coaches invited teachers into their classrooms, and in each case it was for the coach to provide a demonstration lesson for the coachee. In the absence of classroom visits, coach and teacher judgments about existing practice and feedback on implementation consisted entirely of teacher reports and, where available, lesson plans, student workbooks, and assignments. At the outset of the project, coaches met as a small group for two in-service days. They worked through activities about the theory behind the In-School Resource Coaching Model, demonstrating specific coaching techniques and giving practice with feedback. The six coaches maintained a coaching network which met for a half-day on six occasions over the year to plan coaching activities and reflect on their experiences. Teachers also had an opportunity, neither encouraged nor discouraged in the project, to seek help from in-school colleagues (other teachers in the school and school administrators).
INSTRUMENTS
3

Student outcome measures were administered in September and May. The knowledge instruments consisted of multiple-choice items selected from the Ontario Assessment Instrument Pool, a public pool maintained by the provincial Ministry of Education. Items were randomly assigned to two

TEACHER EFFICACY AND THE EFFECTS OF COACHING

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forms which were rotated through the sample so that half the students in each class had form A as pretest followed by form B as posttest; the remaining students received the test forms in the reverse order. There were 15 items in each of the grade 7 forms, 20 items in the grade 8 forms. Cognitive skills were assessed with open-ended instruments developed in previous investigations (Ross, 1988a, 1990). The items were near-transfer tests involving content not used in the instruction. The comparative thinking items were in this form: Compare two famous people. The decisionmaking items were in this form: There has been a lot of concern with the way students and teachers dress in the school. Should there be a dress code for students and teachers? How should the school decide? A 50% random sample of student responses (n=429) was marked by two trained testers; the proportion of exact agreement between the two raters on a random sample of 92 items was .97. Student scores on each instrument were aggregated to the class and then to the teacher. Teacher efficacy was measured in May with a 16-item self-report instrument (Gibson & Dembo, 1984). Subjects used a six-point agree/disagree scale to respond to statements such as: When a student does better than usual, many times it is because I exerted a little extra effort. A total score and two subscale scores (personal teaching efficacy and general teaching efficacy) were produced. The coding was inverted on six of the items to ensure that high scores meant high efficacy on the total test and on both subscales. The internal consistency of the total instrument (Cronbachs Alpha) was .78; for the two subscales it was .69 and .73. Coaching was measured in two ways. In May teachers completed a self-administered questionnaire concerning how often they used various personnel resources in implementing the Guideline, with respect to three student outcomes (knowledge, comparative thinking, and decision making). Scores ranging from 3 to 12 were created for four items: use of own coach, use of other teachers in the school, use of the coaching network, and use of school administrators. Teachers and coaches were interviewed individually in June. The interview probed coach participation in teacher decision making; descriptions of curriculum deliberation were used to place teachercoach pairs on an interaction profile. For each teacher task (setting student objectives, developing lesson plans, delivering lessons, appraising the effects of instruction) there were five levels of collaboration between coach and teacher. The lowest level described a teacher functioning without specific input from the coach; the highest described an equal partnership. The placements on each dimension were summed to give a score ranging from 5 to 25.
ANALYSIS

I have produced descriptive statistics for each variable, calculating internal consistency reliabilities for teacher efficacy and student achievement vari-

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JOHN A. ROSS

ables. Since scores on the three outcome measures were highly correlated, I created a single composite achievement score by summing the measures. Pretest scores correlated with post performance. I used residualized achievement scores instead of analysis of covariance to conserve degrees of freedom.
TABLE 1 Summary of Key Variables
Standard Mean Deviation Achievement (n=397429 students) total: pre total: post knowledge: pre knowledge: post comparative: pre comparative: post decision making: pre decision making: post Teaching efficacy (n=1618 teachers) personal teaching efficacy general teaching efficacy Uses of personnel resources (n=1618 teachers) use of coach use of other teachers use of coaching network use of administrators teacher-coach interaction profile 6.88 .63 5.94 2.87 9.81 2.50 2.50 3.47 1.26 5.08 39.20 26.20 4.96 5.61 7.84 16.01 5.94 9.54 1.45 3.76 .46 2.99 3.11 5.55 -29.09, df=396, p<.001 2.67 3.81 -25.58, df=428, p<.001 1.07 1.71 -24.85, df=428, p<.001 .60 2.71 -19.09, df=428, p<.001

t-Values

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A matrix of Pearson product-moment correlations accounted for all variables in the study. Measures of achievement, teacher efficacy, and coaching were entered into a step-wise multiple regression, the order of entry determined by the size of correlation with achievement residuals. An analysis of variance helped to elaborate findings from the regression.
FINDINGS

Table 1 summarizes the results from the main measures used in the study. The table shows that student achievement significantly increased from pre to post. The sum of achievement scores for comparison, decision making, and knowledge produced a composite score; correlations of the subscores with the total were .74, .76, and .77, respectively. Since pretest scores significantly predicted post performance [F(1,470)=43.64, p<.0001], residuals from the regression of post on pre were used in subsequent analysis. Student achievement results were then averaged for each class and for each teacher. The teacher was used as the unit of analysis in subsequent procedures. None of the variables concerned with teacher and coach demographics was significantly correlated with achievement, even when the alpha level was lowered from p<.05 to p<.10 in response to the small number of cases. The same absence of relationship was observed for organizational variables. There were correlations, displayed in Table 2, among achievement, teacher efficacy, and coaching measures. The set of cells in the upper left of the matrix indicates that achievement correlated positively with all measures of teacher efficacy. The upper right set shows that the teacher efficacy subscales correlated positively with the total scale and nonsignificantly with each other. The lower left set of cells indicates that achievement correlated positively with most of the use of the personnel resources measures, including selfreported use of coach, placement on the teacher-coach interaction profile, and self-reported use of the coaching network. In contrast, self-reported use of school administrators correlated negatively with achievement. The latter correlation was substantially affected by a few outliers. Two of the highest achievement scores in the study were reported by two teachers who did not involve the principal in any way in their curriculum deliberations; one of the lowest achievement scores was recorded in the classroom of the teacher who worked with the principal the most. The lower middle cells show there were few correlations between teacher efficacy and use of personnel resources. The total scale and one of the subscales correlated positively with use of the coaching network and placement on the teacher-coach interaction profile. The lower right set of cells shows that teachers who reported more use of their coach also reported more use of other teachers and the coaching network. They also placed higher on the teacher-coach interaction profile. In contrast, teachers reporting greater use of school administrators made less use of the coaching network and placed lower on the teacher-coach interacion profile.

TABLE 2 Correlations Between Achievement, Teacher Efficacy, and Coaching

Use of personnel resources Mean Teacher student efficacy achievement (total) Coach Other teachers .70** .59** .54** .84** .23 .72** Personal teaching efficacy General teaching efficacy Coaching network Administrators

Teacher efficacy (total)

Personal teaching efficacy

General teaching efficacy

Use of personnel resources .67** .29 .48* .55** .52 .48** .32 .40 .19 .42 .43* .54** .28 .53** .00 .15 .11 .39 .39 .25 .44** .48* .49 .43* .24 .02 .09 .46 .17 .55**

coach

other teachers

coaching network

administrators

coaching profile

**p<.05 *p<.10

TEACHER EFFICACY AND THE EFFECTS OF COACHING

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TABLE 3 Summary of Step-Wise Multiple Regression

Multiple R Adjusted R square R square

Step Variable

1 2

Use of coach Personal teaching efficacy

.67 .80

.46 .64

.41 .57

10.03 9.63

.008 .004

The variables in the matrix were entered into a step-wise multiple regression. Table 3 shows that the regression equation explained 57% of the variance. The only significant predictors of student achievement were selfreported use of coach and personal teaching efficacy. There was more student growth in the classes of teachers who reported greater use of their coach and in the classes of teachers who had stronger beliefs in their personal efficacy. The regression was repeated with the total teacher efficacy scale replacing the two subscales. The results (not shown) were virtually identical. The teacher sample was bifurcated on each of the two independent variables (coaching and teacher efficacy) and the values were entered into an analysis of variance of student achievement. In the first iteration, personal teaching efficacy represented the efficacy variable. In subsequent iterations, it was replaced by general teaching efficacy and then by the total teaching efficacy score. No interactions between efficacy and coaching appeared in any of these analyses. The results for the total efficacy scale are displayed in Table 4 and Figure 1.
TABLE 4 Summary of Step-Wise Multiple Regression
SS df MS F P

Within cells Constant Teacher efficacy [TE] Use of coach TE x Coach

70.64 16.52 96.67 41.23 2.03

10 1 1 1 1

7.06 16.52 96.67 41.23 2.03 2.34 13.69 5.84 .29 .157 .004 .036 .604

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JOHN A. ROSS

FIGURE 1 Effects of Use of Coach and Teacher Efficacy on Student Achievement

DISCUSSION

The first hypothesis of the study, that student achievement would be higher in the classrooms of teachers who interacted more extensively with their coaches, was confirmed. Although it is reasonable to infer that coaching practices contributed to higher achievement, it is possible that teachers who were enjoying greater success in the classroom might have sought out their coaches and/or coaches might have responded more enthusiastically to success stories. Although the direction of causality in a correlational study cannot be determined with absolute confidence, the study adds to the growing evidence that coaching may positively affect student achievement. The second hypothesis of the study, that student achievement would be higher in the classrooms of teachers with high teacher efficacy beliefs, was also confirmed. Personal teaching efficacy, rather than general teaching efficacy, was salient. This study is one of few attempting to examine the effect of teacher efficacy on student achievement and is the only one to do so in social studies. It should be noted that efficacy was measured on a single occasion, a practice followed by virtually all previous investigators. Recently, a few researchers have proposed that teaching efficacy should be viewed as a variable state rather than as a trait. This approach is more congruent with Banduras theory and with the way in which self-efficacy is

TEACHER EFFICACY AND THE EFFECTS OF COACHING

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measured in other domains. Those who have measured teacher efficacy over time periods similar to the duration of this investigation have found some changes, particularly when preservice teachers were involved. Stein and Wang (1988) reported that teachers became more confident about their ability to implement a particular innovation in a study in which teacher efficacy was measured with a unique instrument specific to the innovation being implemented. Hoy and Woolfolk (1990) used global measures based in part on the Gibson and Dembo (1984) instruments that we used. They found that personal teaching efficacy increased and general teaching efficacy decreased after preservice teachers had experienced the initial shock of practice teaching; in contrast, no changes were observed among preservice teachers who had not practice taught. Housego (1990) also found that practice teaching had an effect on preservice teacher confidence: scores on an instrument measuring feelings of preparedness to teach increased. The only study to report changes in teacher efficacy scores using the same instrument as we used, Anderson, Greene, and Loewen (1988), found that teacher efficacy measured at the beginning and end of the year correlated strongly; r=.73 and r=.86 for the two subscales. It is possible, although unlikely given the general nature of the items in the instrument and the relative maturity of the teacher sample, that teachers feelings about their effectiveness were coloured by their perceptions of students history performance. Subsequent teacher efficacy research might be informed by studies of efficacy in other domains. First, the stability of teacher efficacy scores should be measured in experienced teacher populations, particularly when teachers are attempting curricular change. Feelings of competence might change as a new program is implemented. A curvilinear relationship might be predicted: high scores during the first rush of enthusiasm, declining as teachers try to incorporate new practices into their routines, followed by a return to higher scores as the change is institutionalized. Future research might also focus more precisely on the tasks of teaching in measuring teacher efficacy. In general, efficacy is assessed by asking subjects to report their confidence in executing a specific behaviourfor example, children might be presented with a series of arithmetic tasks (Schunk, 1981). A similar approach in teacher efficacy research might elicit teachers feelings of effectiveness in solving various curricular problems (selecting objectives, conceptualizing student growth, developing teaching strategies, assessing performance). Other teacher tasks such as managing student behaviour and reporting to parents could be addressed in similar ways. Doyle (1986) provides a framework for classroom organization and management that could be used to sample tasks to produce a multidimensional conception of teacher efficacy. The third hypothesis of the study was not confirmed: there was no interaction between coaching, teacher efficacy, and achievement. Although Figure 1 suggests there might be an ordinal interaction, one could not be

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detected due to the sample size. Poole and Okeafor (1989) found that high-efficacy teachers benefited from collaboration with other teachers, while low-efficacy teachers did not. Poole, Okeafor, and Sloan (1989) found the opposite: there were benefits for low-efficacy teachers and negative effects for others. The research reported here found that both groups of teachers were better off if they collaborated with another teacher, in this case a designated coach. The study began with the question: who benefits from coaching? The investigation found that all teachers, regardless of their level of efficacy, were more effective with increased contact with their coaches. But in this study there was no reciprocal classroom observation, a key element of most coaching models. Sparks (1986), in a controlled experiment, found that coaching without peer observation was much less effective than the full model; similar findings were reported in the meta-analyses of Wade (1984) and Yeaney and Padilla (1986). The range of coaching behaviours included in this study was substantially below the level recommended by coaching advocates, but the ideal levels are infrequently reached (Grimmett, 1987; Zahorik, 1987) and rarely endure (Galbo, 1989). In considering further research about interactions between teacher characteristics and coaching, it would make sense to specify, and systematically vary, the range of coaching behaviours: (a) low levels obtained in settings in which coaching receives no district level stimulus (as in the Poole & Okeafor studies), (b) medium levels obtained in settings in which a coaching program is partially implemented (as in the research reported here), and (c) high levels in which full implementation is achieved over an extended period of time (the ideal case). The most interesting unforeseen finding of the study was the negative correlations between reliance on school administrators and other measures. Teachers who reported making greater use of school administrators reported less involvement with their coaches, and these teachers obtained lower achievement in their classes. There were also nonsignificant negative correlations with teacher efficacy. These findings lend themselves to a number of interpretations. Some principals may be curriculum meddlers rather than curriculum leaders; for a summary of evidence about the ineffectiveness of the principal in leading curriculum improvement, see Zirkel and Greenwood (1987). It could also be that teachers who made greater use of a supervisor rather than a subject expert in implementing the program may have had greater need of reassurance from an authority figure and/or were unwilling to risk avoidable feedback from a colleague. It is also possible that principals sought out underperforming teachers and focused their resources on helping them, although if this were true one wonders why such principals would not enlist the aid of the coach and other teachers in the school to provide additional support. A fruitful focus for subsequent inquiry might be the effect of tight versus loose coupling of coaches with principals. This study was exploratory and limited in several ways, among them the small sample, the use of a correlational design, and the departure from ideal

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coaching methods. Equally noteworthy was the decision to emphasize student outcomes as the dependent variable. Despite the importance of student achievement as the ultimate criterion of school success (provided the full range of school objectives are tested), a case could be made that teacher practice is a more immediate measure of coaching effects and that classroom observation is the best evaluation tool. There is clearly need for further research in this domain. Coaching is a powerful strategy for school improvement, regardless of whether the improvement efforts are focused within or between schools. Before reformers can make best use of coaching, much more must be learned about how its effects are mediated by individual and organizational variables.
NOTES
1

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the June 1991 meeting of the Canadian Association of Educational Psychology, in Kingston. The Ontario Ministry of Education provided funding for the research through a grant to the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. The views expressed in the report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Ministry. Sue Elgie assisted with the data analysis. Poole et al. do not report recoding any of the items, a requirement if the two subscales are to be interpreted in the same way. The instruments used in the study are available from the author.

REFERENCES

Alpert, J., Weiner, L., & Ludwig, L. (1979). Evaluation of outcomes in school consultation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 17, 333338. Anderson, R., Greene, M., & Loewen, P. (1988). Relationships among teachers and students thinking skills, sense of efficacy, and student achievement. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 34, 148165. Ashton, P., & Webb, R. (1986). Making a difference: Teachers sense of efficacy and student achievement. New York: Longman. Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bennett, B. (1987). The effectiveness of staff development training practices: A meta-analysis. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon, Eugene. Doyle, W. (1986). Classroom organization and management. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed.) (pp. 392431). New York: Macmillan. Galbo, K. (1989, April). Peer coaching: Preliminary findings regarding the reality of follow through. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco. Gibson, S., & Dembo, M. (1984). Teacher efficacy: A construct validation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 569582. Grimmett, P. (1987). The role of district supervisors in the implementation of peer coaching. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 3, 328. Housego, B. (1990). A comparative study of teachers feelings of preparedness to teach. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 36, 223240.

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Hoy, W., & Woolfolk, A. (1990). Socialization of student teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 27, 279300. Interboard History Project. (1987a). Building the Canadian nation. St. Catharines, ON: Lincoln County Board of Education. Interboard History Project. (1987b). Early Canadian communities. St. Catharines, ON: Lincoln County Board of Education. McLaughlin, M., & Marsh, D. (1978). Staff development and school change. Teachers College Record, 80(1), 6994. Ontario Ministry of Education (1986). Curriculum guideline: History and contemporary studies. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education. Poole, M., & Okeafor, K. (1989). The effects of teacher efficacy and interactions among educators on curriculum implementation. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 4, 146161. Poole, M., Okeafor, K., & Sloan, E. (1989, April). Teachers interactions, personal efficacy and change implementation. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco. Robinson, F., Ross, J.A., & White, F. (1985). Curriculum development for effective instruction. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Press. Ross, J.A. (1988a). Improving social-environmental problem solving through cooperative learning. American Educational Research Journal, 25, 573592. Ross, J.A. (1988b). Controlling variables: A meta-analysis of training studies. Review of Educational Research, 58, 405437. Ross, J.A. (1990). Student achievement effects of the key teacher method of in-service. Science Education, 74, 507516. Ross, J.A., & Maynes, F.J. (1983). Teaching problem solving: An instructional design strategy. Canadian Journal of Education, 8, 155173. Ross, J.A., & Maynes, F.J. (1985). Retention of problem solving performance in school contexts. Canadian Journal of Education, 10, 383401. Schunk, D. (1981). Modelling and attributional effects on childrens achievement: A self-efficacy analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 93105. Seller, W. (1987). The in-school resource coaching model: A professional development strategy for planned change. Journal of Educational Administration and Foundations, 2(2), 3042. Seller, W., & Hannay, L. (1987). Coaching as a professional growth strategy for teachers. Final report. Toronto: OISE. Smylie, M. (1988). The enhancement function of staff development: Organizational and psychological antecedents to individual teacher change. American Educational Research Journal, 25, 130. Sparks, G. (1986). The effectiveness of alternative training activities in changing teaching practices. American Educational Research Journal, 23, 217225. Stein, M., & Wang, M. (1988). Teacher development and school improvement: The process of teacher change. Teaching and Teacher Education, 4, 171187. Wade, R. (1984). What makes a difference in inservice teacher education: A meta-analysis of the research. Educational doctorate dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Yeaney, R., & Padilla, M. (1986). Training science teachers to utilize better teaching strategies: A research synthesis. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 23(2), 8595. Zahorik, J. (1987). Teachers collegial interaction: An exploratory study. Elementary School Journal, 87, 385396.

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Zirkel, P., & Greenwood, S. (1987). Effective schools and effective principals: Effective research? Teachers College Record, 89, 255267. John A. Ross is at the Trent Valley Centre of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, P.O. Box 719, 150 OCarroll Avenue, Peterborough, Ontario, K9J 7A1.

Stratgies de planification et contenu de lducation physique dans des coles secondaires

Brou Nzi Pauline Desrosiers
universit laval
Les variations dans la faon denseigner lducation physique (EP), les hsitations manifestes par des enseignants lapplication du programme dtudes et la remise en cause du modle thorique de programmation de Tyler suscitent un besoin dinformation sur le contenu du cours dEP et la faon dont il est programm dans des coles secondaires. Ainsi, deux chefs de groupe et trois enseignants de deux coles de la rgion de Qubec ont t interviews avant le dbut dune tape. De plus les enseignants rpondaient quelques questions avant chaque sance en plus de permettre la consultation de leurs documents de travail (programme local, plans dtape et de sances). Lanalyse des donnes ainsi collectes rvle diverses stratgies de programmation, diffrents types de planification et un constat dune application partielle des recommandations officielles. Variations of teaching method in physical education (PE), teachers hesitancy in following the official curriculum, and renewed doubt about Tylers curriculum theory all are leading to a reconsideration of secondary PE curricula and practices. We interviewed two department heads and three teachers from two schools in the Quebec City area at the beginning of a reporting period. The teachers also later answered questions before each lesson in term time, and allowed a close study of their teaching materials (local curriculum, lesson and unit plans). Analysis of the evidence reveals a wide variety of curricular strategies and of planning, and shows that teachers observe the official program of studies only in part.
PROBLMATIQUE

La remise en question des principes classiques de dveloppement de programme en ducation et les problmes spcifiques relis lapplication du programme dtudes en ducation physique (Ministre de lducation du Qubec, 1981) justifient ltude des pratiques de planification denseignants du Qubec. Prcisons avant tout que le concept programme dsigne le processus de mise en place de stimuli dlibrment choisis pour resurgir une priode dtermine avec lespoir quils produiront lapprentissage chez
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les lves. Ces stimuli englobent les actions des enseignants, les documents imprims et les caractristiques de la classe (Robinson, Ross, & White, 1985). En termes plus simples, le programme dsigne le mdium par lequel lensemble des matires et des connaissances qui sont susceptibles dtre enseignes dans un cycle dtudes sont annonces. La planification, elle, est dfinie comme lensemble des dcisions que les enseignants prennent avant daller enseigner (Taylor, 1970; Zahorik, 1975). En fait, cest le processus par lequel les enseignants dterminent ce quils veulent transmettre et les moyens mettre en oeuvre pour atteindre les objectifs fixs dans les dlais prvus. Pour mieux comprendre la distinction entre ces deux concepts, il semble intressant de prsenter brivement les diffrents modles dlaboration de programme ont t mis de lavant par les spcialistes de lducation. Les modles de programmation en enseignement Plusieurs auteurs dans le domaine de lenseignement se sont illustrs par les modles thoriques quils ont labors. Cest le cas de Tyler (1950), lun des auteurs les plus connus dans le domaine de la programmation de lenseignement. La programmation dsigne la dtermination ou la codification de la suite des oprations raliser dans le processus dlaboration du programme. Pour Tyler (1950), la conception dun programme denseignement efficace exige quon dtermine dans lordre les buts et les objectifs poursuivis, les contenus et les activits dapprentissage offrir la clientle, les modes dorganisation et la dmarche valuative des diffrentes activits prvues. Cette thorie qui a t reprise par plusieurs auteurs (Annarino, Cowell, & Hazelton, 1980; Drouin, 1988; Dunkin & Biddle, 1974; Hass, 1977; Nixon & Jewett, 1964; Robinson, Ross, & White, 1985; Saylor & Alexander, 1974) accorde la priorit aux buts et aux objectifs quelle dissocie des moyens daction do lappellation dcole de pense fins-moyens non intgrs qui lui a t accole. Toutefois, selon plusieurs chercheurs, le modle de Tyler issu dun raisonnement trs linaire est difficile faire adopter dans des contextes rels denseignement. En effet, Goc-Karp et Zakrajsek (1987), aprs avoir rvis la littrature, remettent en cause le principe de la succession systmatique des actions tel que prsent dans le modle de classique de Tyler (1950). Ces auteurs admettent que selon plusieurs rapports de recherches, les deux plus importants lments dans une dmarche de programmation sont les objectifs et les procdures dvaluation. Une fois ceux-ci spcifis, chacun peut loisir dterminer les mthodes denseignement, les modes dorganisation, les activits et les ressources appropries. Dans cette mme perspective, quelques chercheurs (Jewett & Bain, 1985) insistent sur limportance primordiale des contraintes locales dans la dtermination des buts ducatifs. Les ractions les plus virulentes contre une programmation prescriptive et linaire proviennent dauteurs partisans de la thorie fins-moyens intgrs.

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Ceux-ci (Apple, 1983; Eisner, 1967; Haslam, 1988; MacDonald, 1965; May, 1986; McDiarmid, 1987; Ornstein & Hukins, 1988; Tochon, 1989; Underwood, 1983) ont fait remarquer que dissocier les objectifs des moyens qui permettent de les atteindre relve dune erreur de jugement. Ils estiment galement que fragmenter et hirarchiser les actions ducatives ne sauraient tre la meilleure faon de concevoir un enseignement efficace. Selon les partisans de lcole de pense fins-moyens intgrs, les actions que les enseignants ralisent dans le dsir dassurer une intervention efficace auprs des lves obissent une autre logique, supposment plus souple. Cette dernire repose sur des principes dadaptation, de rajustement et mme dintuition. Dans cette perspective, plusieurs travaux en ducation (Beyerbach, 1988; Borko & Niles, 1987; Campbell, 1985; Clark, 1988; Clark & Peterson, 1986; Hill & Bradley, 1983; May,1986; Shavelson, 1983; Taylor, 1970; Tochon, 1989; Vogel & Seefeldt, 1987; Yinger, 1980, 1987; Zahorik, 1970, 1975) et en ducation physique en particulier (Anderson, 1989; Arrighi & Young, 1987; Bain, 1986; Goc-Karp & Zakrajsek, 1987; Imwold, Ridet, Twardy, Oliver, Griffin, & Arsenault, 1984; Piron, 1988; Placek, 1984; Spallanzani, Tousignant et Brunelle, 1989; Twardy & Yerg, 1987) dmontrent que les enseignants procdent diffremment de ce qui leur a t enseign comme modle efficace pour concevoir et mettre en application un programme. Sil est vrai que tout programme est labor pour faciliter les actions pdagogiques afin de produire des changements, on peut alors sinterroger sur lutilit de concevoir des programmes trs dtaills quand on a la certitude que les enseignants y apporteront des modifications. Ds lors, on comprend aisment pourquoi certains chercheurs suggrent que les recherches portent davantage sur la planification des enseignants plutt que sur le concept trs gnrique de programmation (Yinger, 1980; Zahorik, 1970). Il semble donc opportun dans cette tude, de se servir de la planification comme toile de fond pour dcrire des pratiques des enseignants afin de pouvoir ventuellement en tenir compte dans les actions de formation ou de dveloppement de programme. Des difficults inhrentes lapplication du programme officiel dEP Les principales recommandations relatives lenseignement de lducation physique au Qubec sont contenues dans les quatre documents: Lcole qubcoise, nonc de politique gnrale et plan daction (MEQ, 1977), le programme dtudes (MEQ, 1981), le guide pdagogique (MEQ, 1983a) et le document de prsentation et dinformation (MEQ, 1983b). Pour les besoins de la prsente tude, il serait bon de rsumer les directives qui ont un rapport direct avec la faon dont lenseignement de lducation physique (EP) est organis et vcu dans les coles. Le programme dtudes en EP (MEQ, 1981), inspir du modle thorique de Tyler, sinscrit dans lesprit du document dorientation en matire

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dducation au Qubec intitul Lcole qubcoise (MEQ, 1977). Retenons tout simplement que pour permettre aux coles de raliser leurs missions de dveloppement, de bien-tre et de sant des lves travers des situations dapprentissage aussi varies que possible en EP, le programme dtudes spcifie des thmes dtudes, des catgories dobjectifs (gnraux, terminaux, intermdiaires) et des contenus dapprentissage par cycle denseignement, propose une approche pdagogique centre sur laction de llve, les procdures dvaluation et les conditions de ralisation. Le guide pdagogique (MEQ, 1983a) charg de prciser les dcisions relevant des comptences des diffrents paliers de ladministration scolaire stipule que les programmes des coles doivent se conformer aux directives officielles via les programmes institutionnels qui doivent leur tour reflter les options adoptes par lensemble des coles dune mme commission scolaire. Le guide pdagogique suggre dautre part que les conseillers pdagogiques, les responsables de planification et les enseignants participent la programmation institutionnelle. Les programmes locaux ainsi drivs des programmes institutionnels devraient tre labores grce une concertation entre le directeur, le chef de groupe et les enseignants dune mme cole. De faon spcifique, les programmes locaux ont pour principal souci de rpondre aux exigences propres aux coles tout en respectant les directives ministrielles. Ces directives offrent aux intervenants la possibilit de choisir les thmes, les moyens daction, les objectifs et les modalits de ralisation les plus appropries au contexte denseignement ainsi quaux comptences des enseignants. Par ailleurs, un document de prsentation et dinformation (MEQ, 1983b) indique lchancier dapplication du programme: premire anne du secondaire (1983), deuxime et troisime annes du secondaire (1984), quatrime et cinquime annes du secondaire (1985). Tous les moyens semblent tre runis pour assurer lintgration progressive du programme ministriel dans les coles. Et pourtant, les quelques donnes disponibles sur la situation de lducation physique au secondaire (Nzi, 1990; Tourangeau, 1989) dmontrent que les enseignants prouvent de la difficult comprendre le programme et arrivent difficilement intgrer lvaluation formative dans leurs pratiques. Dans la mme perspective, Tourangeau (1989) indique que les faons de planifier varient beaucoup dune cole une autre et que la mise en place des recommandations officielles suscite des hsitations, des rticences, voire mme du dsintrt chez un bon nombre denseignants. La quantit limite de donnes sur lapplication du programme dtudes et la remise en cause du modle de programmation de Tyler, qui continue dtre enseign dans les universits, incitent poser quelques questions sur la situation des programmes dans les coles, en particulier au Qubec. Le but de ltude Cette tude sinscrit dans le courant de recherche sur le processus de planification de lenseignement ou Teachers planning (Taylor, 1970;

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Yinger, 1980; Zahorik, 1970, 1975). Elle vise dcrire les stratgies de planification et le contenu en EP dans deux coles secondaires en rpondant aux interrogations suivantes: a) Comment les enseignants procdent-ils pour intgrer les recommandations du programme dtudes leurs pratiques? b) partir de quels critres et selon quelles modalits les dcisions en rapport avec la planification sont-elles prises? c) Quel est le contenu de lenseignement propos aux lves et sous quelles formes les rsolutions concernant lenseignement de lEP sont-elles consignes? d) Quels liens peut-on tablir entre les pratiques des enseignants et les recommandations officielles?
MTHODOLOGIE

Le protocole Pour tudier la planification des enseignants, un protocole descriptif dtude de cas en milieu naturel utilisant une adaptation de la technique ethnographique dobservation non participante a t utilise (Placek, 1984). Ainsi, il a t jug utile de rencontrer de vrais acteurs pdagogiques dans leur contexte habituel de travail pour discuter avec eux et prendre connaissance de leurs documents de travail. Il ne sagit donc pas de provoquer des faits ou de contrler des variables. Il est tout simplement ici question pour lobservateur de rendre compte de ce quil a appris en ctoyant quelques enseignants. Le contexte Afin de dcrire et comprendre les mcanismes de planification des enseignants, deux institutions denseignement secondaire de la rgion de Qubec ont t contactes: une cole publique (cole I) et une cole prive (cole II). Les deux tablissements ont t choisis partir de critres pratiques: facilit de transport public, disponibilit et intrt des membres des quipes denseignants participer ltude. Pour sauvegarder lanonymat, les participants ltude sont dsigns par des noms fictifs. Lcole I Deux des huit enseignants spcialistes en ducation physique dont les emplois du temps concidaient avec les priodes de disponibilit du premier auteur ont particip ltude. Alain, le chef de groupe (coordonnateur des activits du dpartement dEP dans ltablissement), a 22 annes dexprience en enseignement de lEP au secondaire dont neuf ans dans lcole o il enseigne actuellement. Intervenant auprs des lves de cinquime anne depuis cinq ans, il consacre vingt priodes de soixante-quinze minutes ses

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tches denseignement et huit ses responsabilits de chef de groupe par cycle de neuf jours de travail. Betty a fait une anne de supplance au secondaire et est sa premire anne denseignement dans lcole I. Elle assure dix-huit priodes de soixante quinze minutes dont quatorze consacres lenseignement et quatre lanimation du comit de la vie tudiante et lencadrement des activits de midi. Deux priodes de 75 minutes par cycle de neuf jours sont prvues lhoraire de llve. Lcole dispose de plusieurs installations sportives tels que des gymnases, une piscine, des espaces extrieurs et de nombreux quipements. Lcole II Les trois enseignants permanents de lcole II, Carl (chef de groupe), Daniel et Emile ont particip ltude. Ils ont respectivement 19, 13 et 26 ans dexprience en enseignement de lducation physique. Carl a une charge denseignement en EP de vingt-quatre priodes de cinquante minutes par cycle de six jours alors quEmile lui, consacre vingt priodes lEP et quatre la formation personnelle et sociale. Daniel assure dix priodes denseignement en EP, quatre en formation personnelle et sociale et complte sa tche en tant responsable des lves de la deuxime anne du secondaire. Deux priodes de 50 minutes par cycle sont inscrites lhoraire de llve. Deux plateaux et divers matriels didactiques sont disponibles dans lcole. La collecte des donnes Comme compromis entre le dsir de vivre avec les enseignants les ralits dune cole en y passant un long moment et celui dexplorer diffrents milieux, on a choisi dinterviewer deux chefs de groupe et de suivre de plus prs trois de leurs collgues enseignants avec les mmes groupes-classes au cours dune tape denseignement, soit environ deux mois et demi. Ainsi, Alain et Carl (tous les deux chefs de groupe) ont t sollicits pour fournir des informations sur les programmes locaux de leurs coles. Il sagissait de dterminer laide de questions ouvertes les procdures de planification, les buts et le contenu du programme local dEP. Les entrevues avec les chefs de groupe, dune dure moyenne de quatrevingt-dix minutes, avaient lieu dans leurs bureaux. Les questions poses aux chefs de groupe ont t au pralable juges pertinentes par un panel de quatre experts et pr-testes auprs de deux enseignants dont un chef de groupe nayant pas particip ltude proprement dite. Les informations ont t enregistres sur un magntophone. Pour complter les renseignements, les chefs de groupe ont remis une copie des documents affrents leurs programmes locaux pour fin de consultation.

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De la mme faon, Betty (cole I), Daniel et Emile (cole II), trois autres enseignants des mmes coles taient invits dcrire pendant une cinquantaine de minutes la faon dont ils procdent pour concevoir les plans dintervention auprs de leurs lves de deuxime ou de troisime anne du secondaire. Les entrevues avec les enseignants visaient fournir des informations spcifiques sur les plans dtape et de sance. Toutefois, quelques questions visaient corroborer les propos de leurs chefs. De plus, la collecte dinformation et de matriel de travail auprs des enseignants sest tendue sur le droulement de la dernire tape de lanne scolaire. Dix minutes avant chaque sance dEP, les enseignants acceptaient de dcrire le contenu de leurs plans daction au chercheur. Les enseignants ont ainsi accord trente interviews; Betty a accord huit brves entrevues tandis que Daniel et Emile en ont accords onze chacun. Les procdures danalyse des donnes Pour viter les interfrences, les donnes provenant de chacune des deux coles et de chacun des enseignants ont t analyses sparment. Les donnes ont t analyses de faon qualitative quoique quelques aspects quantitatifs ont permis de mettre en relief certaines observations. Lanalyse des programmes locaux et des plans dtape Le contenu et la forme des programmes locaux et les plans dtape des enseignants ont t dcrits grce une analyse de leur contenu (LEcuyer, 1987, p. 4963). Lanalyse des entrevues prcdant ltape denseignement Les interviews ralises avant le dbut de la dernire tape de lanne scolaire avec les deux chefs de groupe ainsi que celles avec les trois intervenants ont t analyses selon la procdure suivante. En coutant les enregistrements sonores, le premier auteur inscrivait des bouts de phrases, des rsums dides, qui, dans les discours des cinq praticiens, semblaient rpondre le mieux chaque question pose. Les ides taient ensuite reprises pour reconstituer un texte rcapitulatif reprsentant la rponse de chaque enseignant la question pose. Finalement, les mini-textes ont t rassembls pour retracer le portrait global de chaque thme selon les expressions des intervenants. Les entrevues prcdant les sances et les prparations crites de sances Compte tenu des liens qui existent entre ce que les enseignants crivaient (documents crits) et ce quils exprimaient oralement (interviews) avant linteraction, ces deux sources dinformation ont t analyses simultan-

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ment. Les interviews prcdant les trois premires sances avec chacun des enseignants ont t transcrites intgralement. Des copies manuscrites ont t soumises deux personnes familires avec lintervention ducative en EP pour que celles-ci y relvent tous les lments pertinents en rapport avec la faon dont les enseignants planifiaient leurs interventions. Une analyse simultane de leurs observations et de celles de linvestigateur a permis dinventorier 298 items pertinents. Les lments identifis ont t regroups par la suite en onze catgories en nous appuyant sur des variables soit identifies dans la littrature sur la planification de lenseignement soit dcrites dans les documents officiels du MEQ. Pour vrifier la clart et la consistance des catgories retenues, un test de fidlit entre linvestigateur et une personne-ressource en intervention de lEP (un professeur duniversit) a donn un taux daccord de 94%. Ce taux de concordance a t calcul partir dun pourcentage daccord simple sur un chantillon de 36 items. Les onze variables ont t rorganises pour permettre llaboration dune grille danalyse des prparations de sances et des interviews (voir Figure 1). Celle-ci a permis de dcrire les intentions (buts et objectifs), les contenus (objets dtude et situations dapprentissage), les modes dorganisation (spatial, temporel, matriel et du groupe-classe), les critres de russite, les instructions (stratgies dintervention) et les prvisions. Lanalyse alterne du contenu des interviews prcdant les sances et des documents runis, a permis dapprcier les caractristiques essentielles des pratiques des enseignants et les liens entre ce que les enseignants avaient conu et ce quils taient censs appliquer. Ainsi, les comparaisons tablies entre les informations recueillies sur les programmes locaux, les plans dtape et les directives officielles ont t ncessaires pour dterminer le degr dapplication du programme officiel. De mme, la superposition des portraits des sances au plan dtape a permis de cerner des nuances dans les faons de faire des enseignants.
Enseignant: ________________ tape de: _______________ Date: __________ No de la sance: __________

Contenus Intentions: buts et objectifs Moyens daction et objets dtude Situations denseignement, apprentissage ou activits Modes dorganisation (temps, espace, matriel ou groupeclasse) Dure ou nombre de rptitions Critres de russite Instructions et prvisions

FIGURE 1 Grille danalyse des interviews et des plans de sance

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PRSENTATION ET ANALYSE DES RSULTATS

Les programmes des deux coles sont le rsultat de plusieurs concertations entre les enseignants de chaque cole. Selon Alain et Carl (chefs de groupe), les programmes locaux traduisent la volont des enseignants de souvrir au changement et au perfectionnement. Les pratiques de planification dans les deux coles rvlent lexistence de trois niveaux de planification: le programme local, le plan dtape et les prparations de sance. Les stratgies de planification Le programme local de lcole I Avant daboutir la dcision dappliquer le programme officiel (une proposition du chef de groupe), chaque ducateur physique enseignait ce quil voulait. lexception de la gymnastique et de la natation, deux disciplines sportives considres comme des activits obligatoires, le volley-ball, le basket-ball, le soccer intrieur et le conditionnement physique taient les principales disciplines faisant lobjet de choix les plus frquents de la part des enseignants. Le choix des activits spcifiques dapprentissage tait laiss la discrtion de chaque intervenant. Toutefois, chaque enseignant tait tenu de remettre une copie de son plan de travail au chef de groupe pour fin de supervision pdagogique. Pour rduire la diversit dans les pratiques et faciliter la gestion du dpartement d EP, le chef de groupe invita en 1987 ses collgues tirer dans le mme sens que le programme du ministre. De nombreuses rencontres entre les huit enseignants furent ainsi organises pour rflchir sur les conditions relles dapplication du programme du MEQ compte tenu des particularits propres leur cole. Au cours des rencontres, les enseignants taient invits par le chef de groupe (prsident de sance) se rpartir par quipes de mme niveau denseignement pour identifier parmi les objectifs dcrits dans le programme dtudes, ceux qui leur paraissaient pertinents et ralisables particulirement en premire et en deuxime anne du secondaire. En outre, il leur tait galement demand dindiquer quelques activits ou situations dapprentissage qui pourraient permettre datteindre les objectifs slectionns. Chaque comit tait tenu de produire un document (un plan de cours par exemple) dans la semaine suivant la rencontre. Les propositions des comits de niveau taient par la suite discutes et amendes au cours de runions ultrieures avant dtre adoptes par tous les enseignants. Cest la somme des documents labors par les diffrentes cellules de travail qui constitue le programme local. Le programme de lcole II lcole II, cest depuis 1986 que les enseignants ont opt pour lapplication du programme du MEQ. Pour finaliser leur programme, les trois

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enseignants staient imposs une rencontre dune heure et demie par cycle de six jours pour lire et comprendre le contenu du programme du MEQ et recenser du programme dtudes les thmes, les objectifs gnraux ou intermdiaires et les contenus notionnels qui leur paraissaient ralisables en se rfrant au contexte spcifique de leur cole. Les rflexions concernaient toutes les classes de la premire la cinquime anne du secondaire. Toutefois, comme son collgue Alain, Carl reconnat avoir conserv les mmes moyens daction et les mmes activits. Ce qui amne penser que les enseignants slectionnaient dans les recommandations officielles celles qui paraissaient compatibles avec ce quils avaient lhabitude de faire. Aux dires des enseignants, cest plus la philosophie de lenseignement qui a chang que le contenu. On est alors tent de chercher connatre les lments qui influencent les dcisions des enseignants quant la planification, tant entendu que le programme de 1981 ne semble pas avoir affect de faon marquante les pratiques. Le plan dtape La planification dtape est une rorganisation des contenus des programmes locaux faite par les enseignants pour faciliter un enseignement logiquement ordonn par centres dintrt selon des chances bien dtermines. Ainsi, les trois enseignants ont eu laborer des plans plus personnaliss rpondant leurs besoins dinformation pour assurer des interventions pdagogiques efficaces. Betty avait consign par crit quelques jours avant le dbut de la dernire tape les objectifs poursuivis et les situations dapprentissage offrir aux lves. Les dcisions et les oprations relatives au contenu denseignement de la dernire tape ont t ralises au domicile de Betty pendant ses heures de disponibilit dans la semaine prcdant la dernire tape. La planification chez Betty consistait rpertorier et concevoir partir de ses expriences et de la documentation accessible des situations pertinentes dapprentissage pour ses lves. Avant de finaliser le plan de la dernire tape pour les classes de la deuxime anne du secondaire, Betty disait stre entretenue avec lenseignant qui assurait les cours auprs de ses lves lanne prcdente afin dviter de rpter les mmes activits et pour assurer une certaine continuit dans le programme propos aux lves. Betty dclarait avoir consacr plus de trois heures de travail pour organiser les contenus des huit sances quelle prvoyait avoir avec les lves. Une fois la planification de ltape tablie, celle-ci devint son guide dintervention pdagogique pendant toute ltape. Cependant Betty sest rserv le droit dy apporter des modifications en cas de ncessit. la diffrence de Betty, Daniel disait avoir rdig son plan daction lcole et avoir consacr une quarantaine de minutes pour planifier les contenus des onze rencontres quil projetait avoir avec ses lves. Pendant la planification, Daniel a eu recours ses plans des annes antrieures, des

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livres spcialiss pour la description dhabilets techniques. Daniel sest galement renseign auprs de son collgue (enseignant des mmes lves lanne prcdente) pour pouvoir situer le niveau dhabilet global des lves. Il a aussi laiss entendre quil lisait de temps autre le programme local pour sassurer quil ne sen cartait pas. Emile, lui, na pas rdig de plan avant la dernire tape. Toutefois, il a dcrit oralement le contenu des onze rencontres quil projetait avoir avec les lves. Aprs avoir nonc les thmes et les objectifs tirs du programme local, il a dcrit les expriences dapprentissage quil entendait proposer aux lves. Comme Betty et Daniel, Emile a eu recours aux commentaires informels de ses collgues qui ont eu dispenser des cours aux mmes lves lanne prcdente. Ces entretiens lui ont permis danticiper les modifications apporter son plan habituel denseignement. Daprs les expriences des trois enseignants qui ont particip cette tude, planifier une tape cest dabord slectionner des situations dapprentissage pertinentes en se rfrant leurs expriences, au programme local, aux documents de rfrence et aux informations fournies par leurs collgues de travail. cause probablement du nombre limit dannes dexprience, Betty et Daniel crivaient des plans de travail alors quEmile avait le sien en tte. Par ailleurs, Betty rdigeait ses plans dactivit son domicile alors que Daniel concevait les siens son bureau. Betty, la moins exprimente des enseignants, a pass plus de trois heures structurer le contenu denseignement des huit sances de 75 minutes alors que Daniel et Emile consacraient une quarantaine de minutes recencer ou se remmorer les activits dapprentissage offrir aux lves. Le plan de sance Le plan de sance ou la prparation pdagogique dun enseignant dsigne lanticipation de ce qui est cens se vivre pendant la priode denseignement la plus rapproche du moment de la prise de dcision. Le plan de sance peut aussi tre dsigne par le plan de leon ou la prparation de sance. Betty dit planifier ses sances denseignement la maison pendant ses temps libres durant chaque cycle de neuf jours. La rdaction du plan dune sance de 75 minutes exigerait delle en moyenne 90 minutes de planification. En fait, pour elle, la dure de planification dpend des rfrences consulter. La ncessit de se documenter dpend du niveau dhabilet des lves. ce propos, elle dclarait: Au volley-ball, en quatrime anne du secondaire par exemple, je dois gratter un peu plus, car il y en a qui sont un peu plus laise que moi, qui jouent dans des quipes, ce qui fait que je ne dois pas niaiser avec. Pour prparer ses sances, Betty a dit quelle consultait des ouvrages spcialiss en sport ou en enseignement de lEP dans lespoir de trouver en priorit des mthodes pour amliorer le climat de la classe. Daprs elle, les expriences sportives quelle a pu vivre dans le

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cadre des cours universitaires et les informations quelle recueillait auprs de ses collgues laidaient planifier ses sances. Une fois rdige, la prparation de la premire sance servait assurer lenseignement pour tous les groupes-classes de mme niveau pendant le cycle de travail. Daniel, disait crire ses plans de sance lcole. Il consacrerait une vingtaine de minutes pour planifier une priode de 50 minutes. ce propos, il dit: avec lexprience que jai, une vingtaine de minutes me suffit largement pour prparer une sance. Remarque que je ne pars pas de rien, un bout du chemin est dj fait; ce temps de prparation pourrait tre plus long pour un nouvel enseignant. Cest lavantage du mtier. Comme pour Betty, la prparation de la premire priode denseignement sert tous les groupes-classes de mme niveau. Pour rdiger ses plans de sance, Daniel a eu recours aux prparations des annes antrieures, des manuels spcialiss et ses expriences en entranement. Il disait rechercher dans les documents quil consultait des descriptions techniques des habilets sportives. Idalement, Daniel souhaiterait planifier les sances venir immdiatement aprs la dernire intervention du cycle; il sest rsign rdiger ses plans durant ses temps libres au cours de la semaine cause du manque de temps. Tu sais, il y a encore plein dautres choses faire aprs les cours a-t-il fait remarquer. Emile dclarait lui aussi planifier lcole. Il consacrait une vingtaine de minutes la rdaction du plan dune priode de cinquante minutes dEP. Lui aussi planifiait pendant ses priodes libres. Comme Daniel, il ntait pas rare de le voir reprendre, soit intgralement soit partiellement, une ancienne prparation. Lors de ses prparations, Emile consultait des livres et des revues spcialises en EP ou en sport pour enrichir son rpertoire dducatifs. Les plans de certaines sances taient constitus de pages extraites de revues sportives. Il lui arrivait souvent dexprimenter des situations dapprentissage conues et exprimentes par ses collgues ou des enseignants dautres coles. Ainsi, inspir par lexemple dun enseignant dune autre cole, Emile projetait organiser ses sances de lancer du javelot lintrieur du gymnase en enfilant un morceau de tuyau darrosage chacune des extrmits du javelot. Comme ses deux collgues, il laborait une prparation unique pour tous les groupes de mme niveau. Cependant, la diffrence de Betty et de Daniel, il ne finalisait le plan dfinitif de sance que quelques minutes avant le dbut de chaque intervention. Ainsi, dun groupe lautre, le plan tait constamment ramnag. Les facteurs ayant influenc la planification Il est difficile de faire linventaire de tous les facteurs qui peuvent influencer directement ou indirectement la programmation en milieu scolaire. Cependant, les chefs de groupe interrogs ce sujet estiment que le nombre dlves dans chaque classe, les intrts et les comptences des enseignants,

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les ressources financires, matrielles et physiques, le calendrier scolaire et les alas saisonniers ont t les facteurs prdominants. A lcole II, Carl citait larrive des filles dans ltablissement comme tant lun des lments qui a impos une rvision des pratiques en enseignement de lEP. Outre ces lments qui sont lis aux conditions denseignement, les sources de documentation accessibles aux enseignants auraient influenc fortement leurs choix et leurs dcisions. Alain et Carl indiquaient que lexprience des enseignants, les documents collectionns au fil des annes, les recommandations ministrielles (programme dtudes et guide pdagogique), des ouvrages spcialiss (programmes des fdrations sportives) et de livres de pdagogie gnrale ou spcifique taient leurs principales sources dinspiration lors de la planification. Notre bible, cest le programme du ministre et Nous sommes bloqus dans notre projet dintgrer le hand-ball dans notre programme par manque de documents sont des propos tenus respectivement par Alain et par Carl pour illustrer la place occupe par la documentation dans la vie professionnelle de ces enseignants. La forme et le contenu de la planification Le programme de lcole I Le programme local dEP de lcole I a plusieurs composantes. Certaines parties sont dactylographies tandis que dautres sont soit manuscrites soit mmorises par les praticiens. Il existe en ce moment des plans crits pour les quatre tapes de lanne scolaire pour les tudiants des deux premires annes dtudes au secondaire. lcole I, en premire anne du secondaire, les thmes mobilit, effort physique, locomotion, et manipulation sont enseigns au cours des quatre tapes de lanne par le biais de la gymnastique artistique, des activits aquatiques et des sports collectifs. Les mmes activits sont reprises en deuxime anne du secondaire avec lajout du hockey cosom et le retrait du hand-ball. Le programme de lcole I est galement caractris par la multiplicit des activits, des situations dapprentissage, des informations concernant lvaluation, les instructions, les intentions et les modalits dorganisation. Le programme de lcole II Le programme spcifique de lcole II est un document dactylographi de vingt-quatre pages. Dans lintroduction, les enseignants prcisent le but poursuivi: initier les lves du secondaire la pratique de lactivit physique en vue damliorer leur sant ainsi que leur bien-tre physique et mental. Les enseignants prcisent par ailleurs que le programme local est conu pour rpondre aux exigences de leur cole et du MEQ ainsi quaux besoins des lves. La substance mme du programme spcifique est

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prsente sur des fiches isoles. Chacune prsente en titre le nom de la discipline sportive tudie et le niveau denseignement vis. Puis sont identifis les thmes prioritaires et secondaires, les objectifs gnraux, terminaux et intermdiaires, les contenus notionnels et les situations dapprentissage. Pour terminer, les enseignants mettent le voeu de pouvoir mettre en place un systme dvaluation de lefficacit et de la pertinence de leur programme local. lcole II, les thmes manipulation, effort physique et locomotion sont prioritairement dvelopps (la coopration tant secondaire) en premire et en deuxime annes du secondaire travers le soccer, le conditionnement physique, le volley-ball, le basket-ball, les courses, le saut (longueur et ventral), les lancers de disque, de poids et de javelot. Les mmes activits sont enseignes pendant les cinq annes du secondaire. partir de la troisime anne du secondaire, il y a introduction dactivits individuelles telles que le badminton et le tennis. En quatrime et en cinquime annes du secondaire, les thmes coopration-opposition, opposition et manipulation sont prioritairement dvelopps. Le programme dEP de lcole II se diffrencie de celui de lcole I par son accent sur les intentions, lvaluation et surtout les instructions pour limplantation. Ltape denseignement Betty, qui disait avoir lhabitude dcrire son plan dtape, avait rdig un manuscrit de six pages. Le contenu du plan dtape de Betty, crit en style tlgraphique, comporte un thme central (initiation aux sports collectifs), lnonc des objectifs poursuivis (projeter ou recevoir un objet en marquant ou en se dmarquant des adversaires) et lordre dans lequel les diffrents lments de contenu (basket-Ball, crosse, hockey cosom, soccer et volleyball) seront enseigns. Betty indiquait la fin de son plan les pondrations accordes aux activits et les habilets devant faire lobjet de lvaluation terminale. Le plan de la dernire tape de Daniel est un manuscrit de deux pages. De faon tlgraphique galement, Daniel dcrivait les thmes abords, les objectifs poursuivis (produire diffrents types defforts organiques et musculaires loccasion de la pratique dactivits physiques adaptes aux capacits de llve et raffiner lexcution de divers types de dplacements relis la pratique dactivits se droulant dans des conditions varies de lenvironnement), le moyen daction (athltisme) et le calendrier de ralisation des activits prvues au programme. Daniel prvoyait fonctionner par ateliers lors de ses interventions. Il escomptait aussi expliquer aux lves ce quil attendait deux au dbut de ltape. Les dmonstrations techniques et les performances ralises par les lves le jour de lvaluation, de mme que leur degr de participation tout au cours de ltape sont les trois principaux indicateurs quil entendait considrer.

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Emile, lui, a tout simplement lintention dinitier les lves lathltisme en leur faisant raliser diffrents types defforts adapts leurs capacits travers le lancer du disque, du javelot et les courses. Les plans de sance Les plans de sances de Betty taient crits sur des feuilles mobiles. Elle rdigeait en moyenne une page et demie de prparation par sance de soixante-quinze minutes. Lanalyse des plans des huit sances observes et des dclarations de Betty lors des interviews indique que la planification de Betty comporte en gnral les buts ou les objectifs, les modes dorganisation, les moyens daction, les critres ou les procdures dvaluation, les situations dapprentissage et des remarques particulires concernant des vnements anticips. Elle voquait aussi des proccupations concernant des aspects du processus enseignement-apprentissage sur lesquels elle voulait insister. Daniel rdigeait aussi ses plans de sances sur des feuilles libres de classeur. Les prparations crites stendaient sur un quart de page lexception du plan de la premire sance, qui stalait sur une page. Comme chez Betty, on retrouve dans les plans de sances de Daniel une description schmatique des buts poursuivis, une liste des activits dapprentissage, des modes dorganisation du groupe-classe ou du temps et des critres dvaluation. Emile crivait ses plans dintervention sur des fiches rigides de couleur. En gnral, les plans dEmile dcrivaient les situations dapprentissage, les modes dorganisation, la rpartition du temps, les buts poursuivis et des anticipations par rapport aux comportements des lves. Finalement, lexception des contenus et des modes dorganisation qui sont rgulirement dcrits dans les plans daction des enseignants, la place accorde aux buts, critres dvaluation, instructions, objectifs et prvisions variait dune sance lautre et dun enseignant lautre. En examinant le contenu des plans de sance, on sest rendu compte que les items dcrits ntaient ni rguliers dans leur frquence, ni constants en termes de nombre au fil des sances. Outre lirrgularit de frquence des items, la logique qui sous-tendait llaboration des plans les uns aprs les autres tait difficile cerner par un observateur extrieur. Les mmes situations dapprentissage se rptaient plusieurs fois avant que les enseignants ne proposent des activits nouvelles aux lves. Les trois enseignants dcrivaient avec une trs grande clart les contenus, les modes dorganisation, les instructions et les prvisions. Les intentions et les critres de russite formuls par les enseignants avaient par contre moins de signification pour un observateur extrieur. Un critre snonait ainsi: ils auront russi sils contrlent la sortie du disque alors quun objectif pouvait se formuler de la faon suivante: ils doivent tre capables de prendre de la vitesse avec lengin (disque) pour le lancer le plus loin possible.

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Le degr de concordance entre les diffrents niveaux de planification et les recommandations officielles Les programmes locaux Lanalyse comparative entre les noncs des recommandations officielles et les pratiques en cours dans les deux coles ayant particip ltude rvle que les programmes locaux sont directement et exclusivement issus de concertations entre les enseignants dune mme cole. On peut donc mettre lhypothse quil nexiste pas de programme institutionnel au niveau de la commission scolaire laquelle est affilie lcole I. En outre, par rapport aux personnes dsignes par les recommandations officielles comme tant celles qui devraient participer la programmation, les pratiques dans les coles I et II indiquent que seuls les enseignants (superviss par le chef de groupe) taient responsables de la programmation et de la planification de leur enseignement. La participation de ladministration des coles sest limite lallocation du matriel didactique et du budget de fonctionnement. Cependant, Alain, le chef de groupe de lcole I, faisait remarquer que le directeur de lcole et le conseiller pdagogique de la commission scolaire demeuraient toujours des personnes-ressources auxquelles les enseignants dEP pouvaient se rfrer lorsquils en ressentaient le besoin. En ce qui concerne le respect des orientations gnrales, lanalyse du contenu des programmes locaux permet daffirmer que ces derniers refltent les orientations officielles; du moins, en ce qui concerne les finalits ducatives, les objectifs et les thmes dtudes. De sorte quon peut la limite affirmer que les programmes locaux sont des copies partielles des documents officiels. Par ailleurs, les dmarches dapplication du programme du MEQ ne se sont pas accompagnes de changements majeurs au niveau des moyens daction et des situations denseignement-apprentissage. Les enseignants ont conserv les situations habituelles dapprentissage. Ils estiment que le programme dtudes de 1981 les a cependant sensibiliss tre plus attentifs aux ractions et aux capacits des lves. Les plans dtape Le contenu des plans de la dernire tape variait dune cole lautre et dun enseignant lautre. Betty planifiait en dcrivant les contenus spcifiques de chacune des sances de ltape alors que Daniel tablissait un calendrier des sances quil se proposait danimer au cours de ltape. Emile, lui, avait en mmoire les objectifs et les activits inscrites au programme local. Le contenu des plans dtape des trois enseignants refltait les programmes locaux. Par ailleurs, en ce qui concerne les recommandations officielles qui suggrent que la planification dtape soit rdige de faon individuelle ou collective, les enseignants ayant particip cette tude rdigeaient individuellement leur plan dtape. Toutefois, les trois ensei-

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gnants ont eu tous recours des informations sur les habilets initiales des lves en se renseignant auprs de leurs collgues. Les thmes, les objectifs et les moyens daction provenaient des programmes locaux.
CONCLUSION

Cette tude exploratoire, ralise selon un protocole descriptif dtude de cas, na aucunement lintention de gnraliser ce qui a t observ chez quelques enseignants de deux coles au systme scolaire qubcois dans son ensemble. Ainsi, les lments identifis et les comparaisons ralises permettent dattirer lattention sur des concidences et des contradictions entre les thories de programmation et les pratiques relles observes chez les enseignants-participants. Les rsultats de cette tude indiquent que, comparativement la date de publication du programme dtudes en EP (1981), les tentatives effectives dapplication du programme officiel dEP dans les deux coles ayant particip cette recherche sont relativement rcentes; 1987 pour lcole publique et 1986 en ce qui concerne lcole prive. Par ailleurs, les donnes recueillies permettent de constater deux modalits dimplantation du programme dtudes: une approche par niveau (cas de lcole I) et une approche par activit sportive (cas de lcole II). Dans les deux cas linnovation a consist se fixer des objectifs conformes aux recommandations officielles pour les activits habituelles la suite de runions entre enseignants dEP. Lcole I, qui a opt pour une implantation graduelle, a commenc restructurer son programme local de faon satisfaire aux exigences ministrielles en commenant par les classes de premire et de deuxime annes du secondaire en 1987 alors que lcole II, sinspirant du contenu du programme dtudes, formulait en 1986 une srie dobjectifs qui pouvaient tre atteints grce aux activits habituellement proposes aux lves de la premire la cinquime anne du secondaire. En outre, les pratiques observes dans les deux coles rvlent que si les enseignants ont bien intgr le langage du programme officiel en ce qui concerne la formulation des objectifs et des thmes de travail, les habitudes touchant le choix des moyens daction, des activits dapprentissage, des modalits dintervention et des critres dvaluation nont pas connu de modifications majeures. Des rsultats de cette tude vont dans le sens des conclusions de recherches antrieures. Ainsi, comme chez Clark et Yinger (1979), May (1986) et Yinger (1980) les enseignants ayant particip la prsente tude ont conu leurs documents de travail (programme local et plans denseignement) selon une logique diffrente de la dmarche propose par Tyler (1950). Ils se sont inspirs de leur vcu pour essayer didentifier parmi les objectifs officiels ceux qui sont compatibles avec leurs pratiques. Par la suite, ils tablissaient en priorit, sur des feuilles, une liste de leurs proccupations en termes dactivits dapprentissage et de mode dorganisation, comme lavait si bien indiqu ltude de Zahorik en 1975. La longueur

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de cette liste et les items qui taient dcrits dans les plans analyss variaient dune sance lautre et dun enseignant lautre. Les variations par rapport au temps consacr la prparation chez les trois enseignants observs vont dans le sens des conclusions de Kneer (1986) qui mentionnait que les enseignantes avaient tendance investir plus de temps la planification que leurs collgues masculins. Toutefois, on peut mettre lhypothse que le manque dexprience de Betty (la seule enseignante) a contribu augmenter son temps de prparation par rapport ses deux collgues masculins plus expriments. la lumire des informations recueillies dans les deux coles, plusieurs questions surgissent qui mriteraient, selon nous, dtre lucides par des recherches ultrieures: Quelles sont les mesures adoptes par des quipes dadministrateurs et denseignants des commissions scolaires et des institutions denseignement prives du Qubec pour implanter le programme dtudes? Quels sont les effets des stratgies retenues? Quest-ce qui est la base des hsitations et des longs dlais observs par les enseignants dans lapplication du programme dtudes? Pourquoi dans les dmarches dapplication du programme officiel, les enseignants ont-ils adopt les objectifs et les thmes de travail en conservant intactes leurs activits habituelles?
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Nixon, J., & Jewett, A. (1964). Physical education curriculum. New York: Ronald Press. Nzi, B. (1990). Description de dmarches de planification et dapplication de programme dducation physique au secondaire. Mmoire de matrise indit, Universit Laval. Ornstein, A.C., & Hunkins, F.P. (1988). Curriculum: Foundations, principles and issues. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Piron, M. (1988). Le planning. In M. Piron (dir.), Enseignement des activits physiques et sportives: observations et recherches (p. 4764). Lige: Universit de Lige. Placek, J.H. (1984). A multi-case study of teacher planning in physical education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 4(2), 3949. Robinson, F.G., Ross, J.A., & White, F. (1985). Curriculum development for effective instruction. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Saylor, J.G., & Alexander, W.M. (1974). Planning curriculum for schools. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Shavelson, R. (1983). Review of research on teacher pedagogical judgement, plans and decisions. Elementary School Journal, 83, 392413. Spallanzani, C., Tousignant, M. et Brunelle, J. (1989). Comptence planifier des sances dactivits physiques: influence dune stratgie dauto-supervision. McGill Journal of Education, 24, 1529. Taylor, P.H. ( 1970). How teachers plan their courses. Slough, Berkshire, UK: National Foundation for Education. Tochon, F. (1989). quoi pensent les enseignants quand ils planifient leurs cours? Revue franaise de pdagogie, 86, 2333. Tourangeau, C. (1989). Le programme dducation physique au secondaire est-il appliqu, applicable? Les actes du premier congrs de la Confdration des ducateurs physiques du Qubec (p. 220229). n.p.: Confdration des ducateurs physiques du Qubec. Twardy, B.M., & Yerg, B.J. (1987). The impact of planning on in-class interactive behaviors of pre-service teachers. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 6, 136148. Tyler, W.R. (1950). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Underwood, L.G. (1983). Physical education curriculum in the secondary school: Planning and implementation. Lewis, UK: Falmer Press. Vogel, G.P., & Seefeldt, D.V. (1987). Redesign of physical education programs: A procedural model that leads to defensible programs. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 58(7), 6569. Yinger, J.R. (1980). A study of teacher planning. Elementary School Journal, 80(3), 107127. Zahorik, A.J. (1970). The effects of planning on teaching. Elementary School Journal, 71(3), 143151. Zahorik, A.J. (1975). Teachers planning models. Educational Leadership, 33, 134139. Pauline Desrosiers est professeure au Dpartment dducation physique, Facult des sciences de lducation, PEPS, Universit Laval, Ste-Foy (Qubec), G1K 7P4. Brou Nzi est tudiant au doctorat en psychopdagogie lUniversit Laval.

Dbats / Discussion Notes The Technology/Education Interface: STES Education for All
Uri Zoller
haifa university
TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION: THE PROBLEM

Most people see technology as the know-how and the creativity to use tools, resources, and systems to solve problems and to enhance control over natural and man-made environments to improve the human condition. Three major implications follow from this view: technology is good and all kinds of technological development are desirable; anything that facilitates technological advancement should be encouraged; and education should impart the technical training and skills required by the technological enterprise. Does any technological development necessarily improve our quality of life? What are the trade-offs of any implemented new technology? Should a particular technology be implemented in the first place? Such questions commonly are not dealt with in traditional science education. In ordering priorities and goals, after all, one implies value judgments. But such judgments should be encouraged and fostered in technology education, and this means distinguishing between technical literacy (having the practical ability to handle or use the stuff) and being technologically literate (having the capacity to critically assess technology, as a basis for rational decision making and action). Although science and technology may establish what can technically be done, neither can tell us what should be done (Zoller & Watson, 1974). The crucial problem is not the technical aspects of handling and processing information, but rather the reasoned ability to select and to interpret critically available information. This is the deep-rooted rationale for science-technology-society (STS) education (Aikenhead, 1989; Bybee, 1987; Science Council of Canada, 1984; Yager, 1985; Zoller, 1987b). Those advocating the STS theme across the curriculum believe technology literacy is the combined functional capability to understand and communicate the interactions among science, technology, and society; to assess technology; and to exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. STS should, thus, be mandatory for every student.
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Technology literacy for citizenship means science and technology for social, technological, and political purposesthe participation of every citizen in decision-making.
THE TECHNOLOGY/EDUCATION INTERFACE

The ability to make the best technological decisions, or to make decisions on science/technology/environment/society (STES)-related issues depends substantially on education. Such decisions require interdisciplinary knowledge, critical thinking, and a system approach (inclusive thinking). This contrasts with the discipline-based way science is presently taught. STES literacy, summarized as the STES problem solving (PS) decision making (DM) act (Zoller, 1987b, 1990), has a complex meaning. It requires the ability to look at a problem and its implications and to recognize it as a problem, to see its factual core of knowledge and concepts involved, and to appreciate the significance and meaning of alternative resolutions. It implies problem solving (not exercise solving) to recognize/select the relevant information, to evaluate the dependability of resources used and their degree of bias, and to devise/plan appropriate procedures/strategies for dealing further with the problem(s). It involves clarifying value structures/positions and making value judgments (and defending them), making rational choices between available alternatives, or generating new options. And finally, it means acting on ones decision, and taking responsibility therefor. Functional STES literacy goes beyond exercise solving. It requires critical thinking, that is, reflective and reasoned thinking about what to believe or do, and taking action accordingly (Ennis, 1985). We expect students exposed to STES education not to solve the big problems, but rather to take positions, based on their cognitive analyses and value systems, and to act accordingly. Social-technical problems are multidimensional, with far-reaching implications; decisions about actions must, then, be made under high uncertainty, and the student/problem solver in STES courses faces difficult and highly demanding tasks.
SCIENCE EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION STES EDUCATION

Although the education community recognizes the importance of STS or STES education for all (Bybee, 1987; McCormick, 1990; Waks, 1986; Yager, 1986; Zoller, 1987b), contemporary science teaching (from the junior high level and up) is still disciplinary and in the cognitive domain, often sterile, lacking in social relevance, and based on textbooks presenting neat and clear-cut theories, rules of nature, and correct solutions to problems. It calls, further, for exercise-solving skills (mainly the application of alreadyknown algorithms), but not problem-solving skills (Zoller, 1987a). Solutions to exercises require factual and formal knowledge rather than reasoning and

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the application of value judgments. Science teaching typically appeals to knowledge and comprehension, but rarely to analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. It encourages the formal problem-solver technician and discourages the qualitative or creative reasoner. Science teaching thus propagates the nave conviction that science and technology can establish both what we can do, and what we should do. In contrast, STES education aims to foster critical thinking and to encourage the application of value judgment through synthesis of general strategic knowledge and of specialized domain knowledge. In shifting emphasis from academic science to life-oriented science and technology education, two orientations are noteworthy: computer information technology (CIT) (Disessa, 1987; Rushby, 1987), and diversified STESoriented education (Aikenhead, 1989; Bybee 1987; Solomon, 1983; Zoller, 1991a, 1991b). Although these two orientations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, they are clearly and distinctly different in educational outlook, emphasis, and goal. CIT advocates emphasize the cognitive consequences of advanced technology: the ways we deal with learning; the imperative to respond to the computer challenge; and the productionthrough formal educationof informed and skilled individuals, capable of high-technology enterprise (Disessa, 1987; Rushby, 1987; Waks, 1986). STES advocates emphasize the social, cultural, environmental, and political consequences of advanced technologies and the implications of uncontrolled technological development. STES education is political. It aims at active involvement and responsible student-citizen action. It aims deliberately to move students from unconscious automaticity to conscious awareness of decisions and behaviours. Value-laden decisions must be made. To take no decision is to decide. STES requires system thinking (inclusive thinking) and the application of value judgments (Catodu, 1985; Zoller, 1987b, 1990a). These two crucial components contrast with current practices in traditional science teaching. The STES approach requires education for problem solving, not exercise solving, and for decision making for action (Zoller, 1987a, 1987b). Teachers can no longer be the sole providers of knowledge, through mediating textbooks, to students. Rather, they should play guiding and colearning roles, be able to design an enquiry-oriented learning environment, and shift emphasis from imparting knowledge to students to developing students higher-order skills. A representative example of recently adopted STES-style science curriculum is the course Science and Technology 11 (ST 11), developed and implemented province-wide in British Columbia in 1986 (Gaskell, 1987; Williams, 1988). It is the first STES-type course in the western world implemented on a state (province) scale. Regrettably, the impact of the STES orientation on science teaching is still limited in Canada. Research in Canada concluded that no positive change of students attitude toward science (and technology) occurred with-

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out students being exposed directly to STES-oriented programs (Ebenezer & Zoller, in press). Several superordinate goals of ST 11 typical of STES courses worldwide have been attained (Zoller et al., 1990), but the courses survival may depend on its gaining an academic status and on more space being created in the system of graduation requirements (Gaskell, 1987). These findings demonstrate the positive effect of ST 11 and suggest educational goals in other STES-type courses and curricula may also be attainable. Further research demonstrated teaching of this STS course achieved education rather than indoctrination (Zoller, Donn, Wild, & Beckett, 1991).
RECOMMENDATIONS

Our specific recommendations are as follows: 1. introduce STES into schools and expand STES education components aimed at all students, through the development and implementation of appropriate interdisciplinary, critical system-thinkingoriented units, courses, curricula and comprehensive programs in science, vocational subjects, health and consumer education, and in the social studies; 2. emphasize a divergent, critical-thinking orientation; 3. introduce the system-thinking (inclusive-thinking) approach into school teaching, courses, and curricula, particularly in STES-oriented courses; 4. emphasize independent study and student projects in class work and homework. Use corresponding evaluation devices (Zoller, 1990b); 5. plan, design and implement academically prestigious and intellectually challenging pre-service and inservice teacher training programs for STES education; 6. promote secondary-school STES courses (and acceptance of the STES rationale).
CONCLUSION

STES education aims at the educated person:

The educated person is . . . a thinking individual, capable of making independent decisions based on analysis and reason. The individual is curious, capable of and interested in learning, capable of acquiring and imparting information, and able to draw from a broad knowledge base. . . . The individual has sound interpersonal skills, morals and values, and respects others who may be different [and] understands the rights and responsibilities of an individual within the family, community, nation and the world. (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1987)

The crucial problems of our time are not the technical aspects of handling and processing information, but rather its selective use and critical interpretation.

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REFERENCES

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Aikenhead, G.S. (1989). Categories of STS instruction. STS Research Network Missive, 3(2), 2023. Bybee, R.W. (1987). Science education and the science-technology-society (S-T-S) theme. Science Education, 71, 667683. British Columbia Ministry of Education, Curriculum Development Branch. (1987, April). Curriculum goals and principles: A position paper (draft for discussion). Victoria: Author. Disessa, A.A. (1987). The third revolution in computers and education. Bulletin of Science Technology and Society, 6, 343367. Ebenezer, J.V., & Zoller, U. (in press). The no change in high school students attitudes toward science in a period of change: A probe into the case of British Columbia. School Science and Mathematics. Ennis, R.H. (1985). A logical basis for measuring critical thinking skills. Educational Leadership, 43(2), 4448. Gaskell, P.J. (1987, August). Science and technology in British Columbia: A course in search of a community. Paper presented to the 4th International Symposium on World Trends in Science and Technology Education, Kiel, West Germany. McCormick, R. (1990). Technology and the national curriculum: The creation of a subject by committee. Curriculum Journal, 1 (1), 3951. Rushby, N. (Ed.) (1987). Technology-based learning. London: Kogan Page. Science Council of Canada. (1984). Science for every student: Educating Canadians for tomorrows world. Ottawa: Queens Printer. Solomon, J. (1983). Science in a social context (SISCON) in schools. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Waks, L.J. (1986). Reflections on technological literacy. Bulletin of Science Technology, and Society, 6, 331336. Williams, D.J.R. (1988, February). SCT 11: The British Columbia experience. Paper presented at the Greater Edmonton Teachers Convention, Edmonton, Alberta. Yager, R.E. (1985). An alternative view. Journal of College Science Teaching, 14, 223224. Yager, R.E. (1986). To start an STS course in K12 settings. Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society, 6, 276281. Zoller, U. (1987a). The fostering of question-asking capability: A meaningful aspect of problem-solving in chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education, 64, 510512. Zoller, U. (1987b). Problem-solving and decision-making in science-technologyenvironment-society (S/T/E/S) education. In K. Requarts (Ed.), Science and technology and education and the quality of life: Vol. 2. Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on World Trends in Science and Technology Education (pp. 562569). Kiel, West Germany: IPN Materialen. Zoller, U. (1990a). Environmental education and the university: The problem solvingdecision making act within a critical system thinking framework. Higher Education in Europe, 15(4), 514. Zoller, U. (1990b). The Individualized Eclectic Examination (IEE): An STS approach. Journal of College in Science Teaching, 19, 289291.

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Zoller, U. (1991a). The internationalization of STS. In R.E. Yager (Ed.), What research says about the STS movement (NSTA monographs, vol. 6). Washington, D.C.: National Science Teachers Association. Zoller, U. (1991b). Problem solving and the problem solving paradox in decision-makingoriented environmental education. In S. Keiny & U. Zoller (Eds.), Conceptual issues in environmental education (pp. 7188). New York: Peter Lang. Zoller, U., Donn, S., Wild, R., & Beckett, P. (1991). Teachers beliefs and views on selected science-technology-society (S/T/S) Topics: A probe into STS literacy vs. indoctrination. Science Education, 75, 541561. Zoller, U., Ebenezer, J., Morley, K., Paras, S., Sandberg, V., West, C., Wolthers, T., & Tan, S.H. (1990). Goals attainment in science-technology-society (S-T-S) education and reality: The case of British Columbia. Science Education, 74, 1936. Zoller, U., & Watson, R.G. (1974). Technology education for nonscience students in secondary school. Science Education, 58, 105116.

Volunteers in Schools: A Renewal

Michael Kompf Donald Dworet
brock university
Many schools in Ontario have, or have had, volunteer programs. Most such programs are successful, although there is limited inter-school or interboard communication about them. Cussons and Hedges (1978) study of educational volunteers in the Halton Board has been the only comprehensive study for Ontario. Given the demands of curriculum in diverse classroom populations, teachers are pulled in many directions. To accommodate students, additional personnel are required. Non-expert volunteers have not usually performed professional tasks. Problems with volunteers have included issues of insecurity specified as Concern about trouble makers . . . whether parents should serve as volunteers in their childrens classrooms . . . confidentiality, fear of having another adult in the classroom (Cussons & Hedges, 1978, p. 12). Although the Ontario Teacher Federation, the Ontario Ministry of Education, and local boards were uneasy about volunteers, formal policy had to wait until the Education Act (Ontario Ministry of Education, 1987): a board may permit a principal to assign to a person who volunteers to serve without remuneration such duties in respect of the school as are approved by the board and to terminate such assignment (p. 171). These provisions concern legal obligations but not volunteers qualifications and duties. Cussons and Hedges reported that teachers worried about the legality and practicality of sharing with [volunteers] some of the lower level instructional functions of the teacher (pp. 1213). Although non-educational volunteer functions were non-controversial, the implications of dividing teaching responsibilities between teacher and volunteer were problematic. Accounts of volunteer programs typically support volunteerism. Perras (1973) suggested that all persons assisting teachers be defined as paraprofessionals, reporting that in most schools, volunteers supervise field trips and help prepare teaching material. In 23 Ontario schools, volunteers helped in the main instructional program, working, for example, with children on remedial reading exercises or on mathematics drills. Perras argued every province should enact legislation to enable employment of teacher aides, including orientation programs and annual inservice sessions. Similarly, Jacksons (1975) study of volunteers in the National School Volunteer Program said of volunteering that it offered greater opportunity for adult contact with students, [and that] volunteers have helped to personalize and humanize the school experience (p. 15). According to Jackson, anyone
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could volunteer if willing to share time, to hold a positive attitude towards the young, and to make education more effective. Walton (1976) wrote about retired teachers in the classroom, developing a program to provide challenging experiences in oral and musical expression for gifted students, and suggesting a handbook to encourage similar programs elsewhere. Holmes (1985) similarly advocated having retired teachers in the classroom as reading tutors, since their students show above-average gains. Goetter, Shreeve, Norby, Midgley, and de Michele (1987) surveyed a fifteen-yearlong volunteer program to explain its longevity. Their explanation included moral and financial support from the school districts administration, a volunteer coordinator matching teachers needs with volunteer talents, a balanced reward system, and the application of professional standards of instruction. Volunteers attended teacher inservice sessions and once-a- year professional workshops. Prior to acceptance as a volunteer, individuals completed an application form and underwent personal interviews and, if successful, achieved probationary status. Despite the absence of data on relationships between the use of trained volunteers and students academic achievement, the literature suggests volunteers, retired or otherwise, are an integral part of many school programs. Moreover, when volunteers are retired teachers, the programs can be run with only initial orientation rather than with ongoing training (Kompf & Dworet, 1988).
METHODS AND FINDINGS

We distributed a survey (available on request) to all school principals in Ontario and received 1017 responses from over 40 boards of education. Of responding schools, 70.9% were elementary. Some 21.9% of schools had fewer than 200 students, 54.7% had between 201 and 500 students, 16.2% had between 501 and 900 students, 4.4% had between 901 and 1300 students, and 2.5% had over 1301 students. Some 84.5% of schools had volunteers in programs functioning for over 5 years (6 to 8 years [15%], 9 to 11 years [8%], 12 years [21%]). The remaining programs (38%) had been active for less than five years. In 45% of schools, guidelines had been established, and in 39%, they had not. Volunteer program initiation was by the principal in 40% of schools, by teachers in 17%, by board in 4%, and by principals, teachers, and community in 8%. Selection of volunteers was made by principals alone in only 4% of cases, even though they had initiated nearly 40% of the programs. Of schools using volunteers, 38% had refused services offered for the following reasons: lack of fit; poor role model; lack of motivation; potential breach of confidentiality; negative attitude; potential interference; and poor ability to relate to students. Volunteers were often parents, co-op students (40%), and varying combinations of community college students and former teachers. Approximately 35% of schools used skilled or expert volunteers.

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Of the volunteers, 80% worked fewer than 3 hours per day, with 75% working fewer than 7 hours per week. The numbers working in schools varied widely. Volunteers offered clerical (50%), library resource (60%), clean-up (20%), material preparation (55%), bulletin boards (31%), small group assistance (68%), remedial work (56%), marking (14%), class or group supervision (27%), objective testing (3%), and special education assistance (50%) services. As to having volunteers provide instruction, 21% of schools thought this should be encouraged, 28% believed it in place, and 34% indicated that it should not be encouraged. Recruitment of expert or skilled volunteers was seen as desirable by 56%, with 13% having this in place. Quality of instructional delivery was seen as enhanced by the use of volunteers in 81% of cases and the quality of school life was seen as enhanced for 91%. Eightytwo percent thought administrative and organizational demands for volunteers justified having them.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Ontario schools rely heavily upon volunteers, especially in the lower grades. Volunteers are mainly co-op students, community college students, and parents. One-third of schools use persons with specific skills and/or teaching experience. Over 50% of volunteers provide individual or small group remedial assistance, although they are not considered experts. Principals are key players in initiating volunteer programs. In almost 50% of the reporting schools, principals acting alone or in cooperation with their teachers initiated programs. Principals believe volunteers improve overall instructional quality. Retired or retiring teachers may be especially effective as volunteers.
REFERENCES

Cussons, R.W., & Hedges, H.G. (1978). Volunteers in Halton schools. Unpublished manuscript, Halton Board of Education, Oakville, ON. Goetter, W.G., Shreeve, W., Norby, J. Midgley, T.K., & de Michele, B. (1987). Using volunteer assistants effectively. Canadian School Executive, 7(1), 1013. Jackson, A. (1975). The volunteer way. American Education, 11(3), 1117. Kompf, M., & Dworet, D. (1988, June). Expert volunteers: An untapped resource. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON. Ontario Ministry of Education. (1987). Education Act. Revised statutes of Ontario, 1980, chapter 129. Toronto: Queens Printer. Perras, L.Y. (1973). Volunteers and paraprofessionals in school programs. Education Canada, 13(4), 1622. Walton, M.L. (1976). Utilization of retired teachers as volunteers. Atlanta: Nova University.

Financing Education and the Retention of Students

Anne L. Jefferson
university of Ottawa
For many years provincial financial arrangements have ensured that all individuals eligible to attend school have access to one. The foundational approach1 to provincial funding in the 1990s (Canadian Education Statistics Council, 1990) indicates that the childs access to an education (K12) rightly remains a priority, but is no longer a major concern. According to the Canadian Education Statistics Council (1990),
Except for the public schools of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, kindergarten now forms an integral part of elementary education. It is compulsory in Nova Scotia and approaching universality in other jurisdictions. In some areas, 4-year old kindergartens are also becoming more common. At the other end of the age scale, post compulsory schooling has taken several turns. Declines occurred in the early 70s for enrolment aged 17 and over, followed by increases to reach 480,000 in 1983/84, the highest point in two decades. Enrolment then declined slowly until 1987/88, when it jumped again by 20,000 to reach 465,000. (p. 22)

Accessibility has been replaced by the issues of retention (see, for example, Radwanski, 1987) and of lowered educational quality, as accessibility takes the lions share of funds. Today, five different groups of learners, not including regular learners, must be accommodated by the budgets of local school systems: Francophone learners, Native Indian learners, learners with disabilities, adult (age 19 or older) learners, and minority cultural group learners.
MINORITY CULTURAL GROUP LEARNERS

Nearly two-thirds of immigrant children in 1988 did not speak either of Canadas two official languages [English and French] (Canadian Education Statistics Council, 1990, p. 16). This implies that local school systems should institute new and expanded programs2 and offer orientation counselling. Rural school systems and small urban systems, however, tend to escape this problem, as do Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan. Most immigrants have settled in
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the major urban areas of Quebec (17%), Ontario (55%), British Columbia (13%), Alberta (9%), and Manitoba (3%). This influx of immigrants has also increased demand to offer heritage languages. Accommodation of this demand varies provincially. For example, in 1990/91 the province of Ontario provided grants for heritage language instruction equal to
the product of $39.00 and the number of hours of classroom instruction except that where the quotient obtained by dividing the number of elementary school pupils enrolled in all such classes conducted by the board by the number of such classes is less than 25, the $39.00 per hour rate is reduced by the product of $0.94 and the difference between such quotient and 25. (Ontario Ministry of Education, 1990, p. 27)

In comparison, for 1989/90 the province of British Columbia provided Japanese and Mandarin language start-up grants of $2,000 per new class for grades K12, and the province of Alberta provided $127 per student served in a language other than English or French.
FRANCOPHONE AND NATIVE INDIAN LEARNERS

The issue of language takes on more significance when the learner is either a Francophone or a Native Indian. Each demands greater recognition and this means education dollars are spread more thinly. Existing funds are not, in fact, redistributed; rather, non-monetary items are put into the equation. Francophone parents are demanding their own school systems and these demands are being favourably received by provincial ministries of education. Native people are also at the negotiating table; however, because the federal government is responsible for their education, the impact will be considerably less. As Canadas Native people move toward self-government, funding dynamics will take on a new dimension. For now, the needs of Native learners are acknowledged but financial recognition is limited. For example, in the province of Manitoba language development support for Natives took on the following characteristics:
If eligible enrolment is 1.6% or less of total divisional enrolment, grant is $660 per eligible pupil (1989). If eligible enrolment is greater than 1.5% of total divisional enrolment, grant is $390 per eligible pupil in excess of 1.5% (1989). (Canadian Teachers Federation, 1990, p. 27)
DISABLED AND GIFTED LEARNERS

Disabled learners in Canada continue to receive special attention. Provinces apply different criteria to identify disabled learners. As shown in table 1,

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four of ten provinces have moved away from specific learner identification, to support special education programs and services.
ADULT LEARNERS

School attendance is compulsory in Canada from age 6 or 7 to 16. Twentyand-over age group enrolment nearly tripled from 1970/71 to 1988/89. In 1987/88, enrolment of persons aged 17 and over increased 20,000 to reach 465,000. More than a third of these 20,000 students were 20 or older. With such growth in the number of post-compulsoryage learners, more funds will be required. Also, curricular emphases will change. Yet, for the most part these learners are accommodated by learning institutions beyond the authority of school systems, such as community colleges. Nevertheless, the adult learner is a potential source of revenue, as opposed to cost, for school systems. Given that school systems are now generally responsible only for individuals up to three years past the age of compulsory attendance (16 years), the return of the adult learner means additional fees and access to government funds not otherwise available (for example, funds from Manpower and Training). As the school system attempts to adapt to an increasingly diverse learner group, financial demands have multiplied. This multiplication comes at a time when available funds and new sources of funds are diminishing. Despite rapidly expanding demands on resources, an increasing number of students are leaving school prematurely. Although one might see this positively under present financial constraints, the cost is merely shifted to a different arena. In the final analysis, the education system, whether formally in schools or in a work-related environment, is the tool required to fix the problem. Applying the tool at first indication that a learner is going to be functionally ineffective and unproductive in the labour force would make more social and economic sense. How, then, should we restructure financing to solve the retention problem? An initial step would be to ensure school systems give high priority to the issue of premature student departure. One method, though severe, is to adjust provincial allocations according to student numbers just before the school term ends. Operationally, grant allocation would be decreased by the amount received the prior year for students who did not complete the school year. This action would obviously be opposed by school board members and teaching personnel. However, funds received by a school system are dispensed on the understanding that students are in regular attendance. Should this no longer be true, as in the case of student dropouts, funds should be returned. The actual dollar amount returned (or lost, in the proposed subtraction from the subsequent years funding) would be prorated according to the proportion of the school year left when the student ceased to attend.

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TABLE 1 Criteria Used in the Provincial Support of the Disabled Learner, 1989/90
Province Newfoundland Prince Edward Island Nova Scotia New Brunswick Quebec Criteria Cannot benefit from normal classroom instruction Covered by the general grant Cost of special education programs Needs basis, taking into consideration budget submission, needs assessment, and available funds Classification of disabilitymentally, perceptually, or physically handicapped and children with learning difficulties Cost of special education programs and services Cost of special education programs; disability of the child Disability of the child Block grant plus consideration for special education institutional support and sensory multihandicapped students Covered by the general grants plus consideration for teaching assistants, and in the case of the moderately mentally handicapped, for job training experience

Ontario Manitoba Saskatchewan Alberta

British Columbia

Financially motivating schools to keep all students in attendance for the full school year could be the start of a solution to the problem of student retention. The question how to deal with the diverse learning groups identified earlier remains. Attention to the learner broadens to not only providing the learner with high-quality education, but also to motivating the learner to remain in school.
NOTES
1

The foundation plan establishes a basic level of resources each district is entitled to receive. The local district is required to provide a share of the foundation amount, that share being proportional to the districts wealth. The foundation plan was intended to relieve inequities in fiscal capacity by recon-

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sidering fiscal disparities among districts. The plan assured a governmentally defined basic spending level for all districts making an acceptable minimum tax effort. Minority language (either English or French) education is guaranteed under Article 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

REFERENCES

Canadian Education Statistics Council. (1990). A statistical portrait of elementary and secondary education in Canada. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Canadian Teachers Federation. (1990). Comparative summary of provincial school finance procedures, 1989-90. Ottawa: CTF. Ontario Ministry of Education. (1990). Education funding in Ontario. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education. Radwanski, G. (1987). Ontario study of the relevance of education, and the issue of dropouts. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education.

Academic Achievement and Professional Examination Performance

M. Rai Kapoor
concordia university

K. Hung Chan
university of california

Herbert L. Jensen
california state university

INTRODUCTION

Although licensing of chartered accountants (CAs) in Canada is governed by provincial law, the basic requirements are similar across the country: the equivalent of an undergraduate education in accounting, two years of experience, and a passing score on the Uniform Final Examination (UFE). The UFE, taken by candidates after completion of a bachelors degree, is administered and scored annually by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA). The profession agrees that standards for the UFE and for other licensing requirements should remain high; still, the pass rate on the UFE, which has ranged as low as 29%, has worried a number of observers (Gibbins, 1986; Matusky, 1991; Meikle, 1986; Rosen, 1978, 1982). Recently, candidates aspiring to enter the field of chartered accountancy in Quebec have brought political arguments into the debate on the reasonableness of UFE pass rates (Matusky, 1990).
THE SAMPLE

Our research considers the effects of university accounting education on candidate pass rates for the UFE. The Ordre des comptables agrs du Qubec (OCAQ) has provided extensive demographic data and test scores for a sample of 824 first-time Quebec candidates who sat for a recent UFE. University transcripts were either unavailable or unusable for 191 individuals. This left 633 individuals whose UFE results and university transcripts could be analyzed. The pass rates for our sample showed no significant differences, with 62.5% of Francophone and 61.9% of Anglophone candidates passing the UFE. In contrast, the 1990 UFE pass rates for all Quebec candidates were
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33.5% for Francophones and 60.0% for Anglophones (Matusky, 1991). This significant difference between samples of Francophone candidates can be explained by the large number of repeat candidates among all Francophone candidates and the exclusion of repeat candidates from the sample in our study. Statistics from CICA consistently show that the performance of repeat candidates is below that of first-time candidates (CICA, 1985). Demographic data for these 633 candidates showed that 429 (67.7%) had graduated from Francophone universities and 204 (32.3%) from Anglophone universities. Overall, 86.3% of the sample had graduated from university within 12 months of taking the UFE. Only 2.1% had a university degree in a discipline other than accountancy. The OCAQ required them to take additional courses in accounting before sitting the UFE. In our sample, 82.0% were 20 to 25 years old and 63.7% were male. These demographic characteristics of the candidates were checked against national data for UFE candidates and found to be representative of the population of all Canadian first-time UFE-takers.
UNIVARIATE DATA ANALYSIS

Degree Programs Although the pass rates for Francophone candidates have steadily declined over the years, there has been no significant change in the education of accounting students or in the nature of the UFE (Matusky, 1991). We crosstabulated each candidates university transcript by courses within the three major categories of general education, business, and accounting (AACSB, 1983). As table 1 shows, the major difference in the educational backgrounds of Francophone and Anglophone candidates was the amount of university coursework they had completed. In conformity with recommendations of U.S. educators (Arthur Andersen & Co. et al., 1989; Bedford & Shenkir, 1987), Anglophone candidates on the average take 104 semester hours of credit in general business and accounting courses and 19 hours in general education, for a total of 123 hours over four yearsincluding a one-year postgraduate diploma course before sitting the UFE. OCAQ argues that this is the minimum education needed to prepare a student for a CAs ever-increasing responsibilities (Matusky, 1991). Quebecs Francophone educators contend that costs for this extra (postgraduate diploma) year of study are excessive, and unfairly imposed upon students, universities, and the public (Matusky, 1991). Consequently, accounting degree programs offered by French-language institutions are relatively narrow in scope. Francophone candidates in our sample averaged 88 credit hours of general business and accounting courses, and only 7 hours of general education. Although our tests showed moderate positive correlations between general education credit hours and UFE results, the Francophone universities allege their programs are in no way inferior.

TABLE 1 Average Semester Hours of Credit Completed by 633 UFE Candidates

All pass candidates Credit hours Percent 39.8 44.7 84.5 15.5 100.0 1126 120127 94116 4863 4653 43 45 88 7 95 Range 43 47 90 10 100 123 19 104 55 49 Credit hours Credit hours Percent 45.3 47.3 92.6 7.4 100.0

Anglophone university candidates

Francophone university candidates Range 3353 4348 8195 310 92102

Academic area

General business

Accounting

Total technical

General education

Grand total

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UFE Results The UFE comprises four papers taken over a two-day period. Each paper is worth 100 marks, with 400 marks available for all papers combined. The mean score for this sample of first-time candidates was 242.7 marks, which produced the usual pass rate of about 62%. Table 2 summarizes the scores for the four individual papers for both pass and fail candidates. Relatively speaking, candidates performed worst on paper I, the comprehensive question, scoring a mean of 52.9 versus 55.1, 57.3, and 53.0 on papers II, III, and IV, respectively. The comprehensive question purports to test attributes including diagnostic, analytical, mathematical, and judgmental abilities, and the ability to communicate clearly and effectively in writing (CICA, 1985). The difference in performance on paper I and on the other three papers was somewhat more pronounced among those who passed the UFE (that is, 68.9 versus 71.8, 72.9, and 69.7, as shown in table 2). Moreover, additional coursework in general education seemed to have a moderately beneficial effect on candidates performance on all papers, particularly the more conceptual paper I. Grade Point Average For a candidate in this sample who passed the UFE, grade point average (GPA) in the degree program averaged 74.3%, around a B according to the grading scales widely used in Quebec universities. The range was 70.3% to 80.1%. The comparable GPA for failing candidates was 68.5%, with a range from 62.8% to 72.1%. Numbers were very similar regardless of GPA measure (table 3). GPAs for general education courses, business courses, accounting courses, degree program, and diploma courses all correlated highly. Data for this sample indicate a student with an average performance (below 70%) at the undergraduate level is unlikely to pass the UFE.

TABLE 2 Average Scores for 633 UFE Candidates

Average score on UFE
Candidates Paper I Paper II Paper III Paper IV

Passing All Failing

68.9 52.9 28.7

71.8 55.1 30.0

72.9 57.3 33.6

69.7 53.0 27.4

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TABLE 3 Comparative Grade Point Averages

Average grade point averages Candidates Passing Failing Difference
General education Business Accounting Degree program Diploma courses

75.1 70.9 4.2

75.0 70.8 4.2

73.4 65.6 7.8

74.3 68.5 5.8

67.6 63.3 4.3

REGRESSION ANALYSIS

We assessed the joint impact of candidate attributes on UFE performance using several multiple regression models. In addition to the demographic characteristics of the candidates and their sundry GPA measures, we tested credit hours taken and credit hours failed in general education, business, and accounting as independent variables. Although we wanted to investigate the relationship between UFE pass rates and candidates geographic origin or ethnicity, such data were not available. Regression equations were fitted for each of five dependent variables: the individual scores for each of the four papers which comprise the UFE and the total marks awarded. Various plots of residuals against independent and dependent variables revealed no abnormal patterns. A runs test of the residuals for each regression equation also failed to detect a violation of the underlying statistical assumptions (Berenson, Levine, & Goldstein, 1983). The coefficients of determination (R2) ranged from 0.14 for paper I to 0.32 for total marks. All were statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. The R2 value of 0.32 for the regression equation predicting total marks was close to values obtained in other education research studies (Dunn & Hall, 1984; Kapoor, 1988; Reilly & Stettler, 1972). Considering the results of the univariate analysis, it is not surprising that the most important predictor variable associated with UFE performance in every regression equation tested was the candidates GPA in accounting courses. The coefficients for this variable were consistently of the expected sign and were highly significant statistically. This finding is consistent with similar U.S. studies (Dunn & Hall, 1984; Reilly & Stettler, 1972). The multivariate analysis confirmed our conclusion from the univariate analysis, that better-prepared candidates do better on the UFE. Results for the variable measuring credit hours failed in accounting were of the expected sign and statistically significant for the total marks

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regression equation. This suggests credit hours failed in accounting is linked to poor UFE performance. However, credit hours failed in either general education or business had no predictive value.
CONCLUSIONS

The average first-time candidate sitting for the UFE in Quebec was about 24 years old, had less than one year of work experience in accounting, and had been awarded a university degree in accounting within the last year. Candidates had clear indications from their undergraduate GPAs of their chances for success on the UFE. Any GPA under 70% warned that the student might not pass the UFE. The results of this study also show that the number of credit hours completed in general education courses have a statistically significant and positive effect on UFE marks, particularly on paper I. It is unfortunate Quebec universities do not offer adequate breadth in their undergraduate accounting programs. On average, candidates from these institutions devoted only 10% of their undergraduate studies to general education. This is significantly below the level practitioners and educators consider adequate (Kapoor & Chan, 1985). The question remains, of course, just why general studies would have the effects they doand this deserves careful further study. The evidence of positive associations between UFE performance and both GPA in accounting and credit hours completed in general education highlights the importance of these aspects of programs for students aspiring to become chartered accountants. Specific attention to GPA in accounting and credit hours in general education should result in better counselling of potential candidates to sit for the UFE. This, in turn, may lead to earlier and better self-selection by students, avoidance of needless frustration and waste of resources protesting UFE results, and eventually to a higher success rate for the UFE.
REFERENCES

American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business [AACSB]. (1983). Accrediting standards and guidelines for business administration programs. St. Louis, MO: AACSB. Arthur Andersen & Co., et al. (1989, April). Perspectives on education: Capabilities for success in the accounting profession. Bedford, N., & Shenkir, W.G. (1987, August). Reorienting accounting education. Journal of Accountancy, p. 86. Berenson, M.L., Levine, D.M., & Goldstein, M. (1983). Intermediate statistical methods and applications: A computer package approach. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants [CICA]. (1985). Board of Examiners report on the 1984 Uniform Final Examination. Toronto: CICA.

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Dunn, W.M., & Hall, T.W. (1984). An empirical analysis of the relationships between CPA examination candidate attributes and candidate performance. Accounting Review, 59, 674689. Gibbins, M. (1986, July). The long and winding road. CA Magazine, pp. 3842. Kapoor, M.R. (1988). Accounting students attributes and performance: Some empirical evidence on general education. Issues in Accounting Education, 3, 108119. Kapoor, M.R., & Chan, K.H. (1985). Education of the professional accountant: An empirical study. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 15(2), 5373. Matusky, J. (1990, August). Court asked to judge fairness of Quebec UFE marking process. The Bottom Line, pp. 12. Matusky, J. (1991, June). Quebec CA exam pass rate inequality erupts into hot debate over drastic solutions. The Bottom Line, p. 10. Meikle, G.R. (1986, May). Lets abandon accounting education. CA Magazine, pp. 2427. Reilly, F.F., & Stettler, H.F. (1972). Factors influencing success on the CPA examination. Journal of Accounting Research, 10, 308321. Rosen, L.S. (1978, June). Accounting education: A grim report card. CA Magazine, pp. 3035. Rosen, L.S. (1982, September). Restoring the importance of accounting education. CA Magazine, pp. 3334.

Recensions / Book Reviews

La comprehension en lecture Par Jocelyne Giasson Boucherville: Gatan Morin diteur, 1990. 255 pages.
RECENSION PAR NICOLE VAN GRUNDERBEECK, UNIVERSIT DE MONTRAL

Lapprentissage de la lecture ne sarrte pas avec la matrise du dcodage. Apprendre aux lves comprendre ce quils lisent devrait tre un des objectifs majeurs de tout enseignant. Comment enseigner la comprhension? Cest cette question de la plus haute importance dans notre socit o le taux danalphabtisme fonctionnel frise les 30% que lauteure essaie de rpondre. Bien des enseignants constatent que plusieurs de leurs lves, mme sils possdent certaines habilets en lecture, ne comprennent pas vraiment ce quils lisent. Cependant, les enseignants sont dmunis quant aux moyens prendre ou aux interventions faire pour dvelopper la comprhension. Les questions sur le texte restent le moyen le plus populaire. Mais si elles valuent certaines habilets, elles sont trs souvent loin de recouvrir la totalit de ce quest la comprhension. Lenseignement de cette dernire ne peut se concevoir sans un bon modle de ce quelle est. Lauteure en propose un qui fait consensus chez les chercheurs. Ce modle conoit la comprhension comme une rsultante de linteraction entre trois variables: le lecteur, le texte et le contexte. Le lecteur aborde la tche de lecture avec les structures cognitives et affectives qui lui sont propres. De plus, il met en oeuvre diffrents processus qui lui permettent de comprendre le texte. Le texte est porteur de lintention de lauteur, il a une certaine forme et propose un certain contenu. Le contexte comprend toutes les conditions (psychologiques, sociales et physiques) dans lesquelles se trouve le lecteur lorsquil entre en contact avec un texte. Lauteure labore trs peu sur les variables texte et contexte. Par contre, ce sont les processus du lecteur qui font lobjet de la plus grande partie du livre. La classification des processus retenue est celle dIrwin qui distingue cinq grandes catgories, elles-mmes divises en composantes. Un chapitre, voire plus, est consacr chacune de ces catgories. La premire catgorie est celle des microprocessus, ceux qui permettent de comprendre linformation contenue dans un phrase. Au-del de la reconnaissance de mots, le lecteur doit savoir les regrouper en units signifiantes et slectionner les lments de la phrase importants retenir. Les processus dintgration constituent la deuxime catgorie. Ils permettent deffectuer des liens entre les propositions ou les phrases. Pour ce faire,
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le lecteur doit identifier des indices de cohsion (les rfrents et les connecteurs) et tre capable de faire des infrences. En troisime lieu, apparaissent les macroprocessus. Ils sont orients vers la comprhension du texte dans son entier. Ils incluent lidentification des ides principales, le rsum et lutilisation de la structure du texte. Lauteure traite ce dernier aspect en deux chapitres distincts, lun portant sur les textes narratifs, lautre sur les textes informatifs. Les recherches sur la structure et la comprhension des textes narratifs ont t trs nombreuses entre 1975 et 1985. Elles ont amen les notions de grammaire et de schma de rcit. Ces dernires annes, ces notions ont fait leur entre dans le milieu scolaire. Une attention particulire est accorde au rappel de rcit comme stratgie denseignement et comme technique dvaluation. Les recherches sur la structure des textes informatifs sont plus rcentes. En fait, ce type de texte peut revtir plus dune structure. Pour sensibiliser les lves celle-ci, deux faons principales sont proposes: les reprsentations graphiques et les indices de signalement auxquels sajoutent le questionnement dirig et le rsum. Si les trois premires catgories sont progressives (du mot la phrase et au texte), les deux autres sont dun ordre diffrent. La quatrime concerne lensemble des processus qui traitent le texte plus en profondeur. Elle regroupe les processus dlaboration: faire des prdictions, se former une image mentale, ragir motivement, raisonner sur le texte et intgrer linformation ses connaissances antrieures. Quant la cinquime, elle concerne les processus mtacognitifs. Ceux-ci font rfrence non seulement aux connaissances quun lecteur possde sur le processus de lecture, mais galement sa capacit se rendre compte dune perte de comprhension et dans ce cas, utiliser les stratgies appropries pour remdier au problme. Sy ajoute lutilisation de stratgies dtude. Le terme de mtacomprhension est habituellement celui qui est employ pour dsigner la mtacognition en lecture. Si lauteure se proccupe de bien faire saisir au lecteur chaque processus de comprhension, elle se soucie tout autant de lenseignement de ceux-ci. Le modle denseignement quelle prconise est lenseignement explicite, car il tend rendre transparents les processus cognitifs inclus dans la tche de lecture et met laccent sur le dveloppement de lautonomie du lecteur. lintrieur des chapitres, par-del les explications, plusieurs pistes dinterventions sont proposes. Le livre se termine par trois chapitres traitant daspects autres que les processus de comprhension: le rle des connaissances antrieures, le vocabulaire et la place des questions dans lenseignement de la comprhension. Les connaissances du lecteur jouent un rle prpondrant dans la comprhension. Les enseignants doivent aider leurs lves tablir un pont entre leurs connaissances et le contenu du texte. Pour ce faire, diffrents moyens existent tel que stimuler les connaissances sur les concepts essentiels. . . .

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Quant au vocabulaire, il est la fois la base de la comprhension et laboutissement de celle-ci. En effet, pour comprendre, il faut possder un certain nombre de mots, mais, par ailleurs, le vocabulaire se dveloppe par la lecture. Poser des questions aux lves a toujours fait partie des stratgies dintervention utilises par les enseignants en classe. Il ne sagit pas de bannir les questions, mais de savoir comment, quand et o les poser. Ce livre est, en fait, un ouvrage didactique. Il sadresse avant tout aux enseignants et aux tudiants en formation des matres. Lauteure a eu le souci de sadapter son public tout en gardant un haut niveau de scientificit. Cet ouvrage est le rsultat de la lecture et de lexamen dun nombre considrable de livres et darticles presque tous publis durant la dcennie 80. La bibliographie stend sur 17 pages! Russir synthtiser de faon aussi cohrente au-del de 250 crits et les transmettre en un langage accessible des personnes non formes la recherche relve presque de lexploit. On est frapp par la clart de lexpos. Cest un volume qui compte dores et dj dans le monde de lducation francophone. Les enseignants, quelle que soit la matire quils enseignent, peuvent sy rfrer, car lamlioration de la lecture nest pas lapanage du professeur de franais. Les lecteurs saisiront mieux ce quest la comprhension et y trouveront des pistes dinterventions nombreuses pour aider leurs lves. Alex Lords British Columbia: Recollections of a Rural School Inspector, 19151936 Edited by John Calam Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1991. 192 pages.
REVIEWED BY KEN OSBORNE, UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA

This book is accurately sub-titled the Recollections of a Rural School Inspector. Its author, Alex Lord, died before they could be completed. He was, in any case, too reticent for it to be considered an autobiography. Nor is the work systematic or reflective enough to be called a memoir. Rather, it conveys a picture of a man looking back on his life with justifiable satisfaction and some amusement, drawing upon it to present his audience with a cast of colourful characters he has known. Recollections, indeed. And, as with recollections generally, the book has an oraland aural flavour. It is as though Lords stories are meant to be heard rather than read. Nonetheless, like most good stories, they make for good reading. They are both interesting and entertaining. They convey something of the conditions of life in British Columbia in the twenty or so years after 1910, or at least of life in the more remote and isolated regions of the province,

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for Lord tells us little of his experiences in the urban areas. And he tells of life generally, rather than of schools specifically, if the two can ever be separated. Personally, I was a little disappointed that Lord did not say more about schools. As an inspector he was obviously in an excellent position to describe schools from the inside, and perhaps in ways that he did not do in his official reports. We know little enough about the inner workings of schools in the past and one suspects that Lord could have told us a good deal. He tells us a little, but prefers mostly to give us a picture-gallery of colourful characters and entertaining anecdotes. As the editor of the Recollections, John Calam, accurately observes: the bulk of his memoirs speak not of schools but of the richly varied societies that sustain them (p. 18). Lord himself saw his reminiscences as a contribution to history, a personal supplement to the bare documentary record: there are relics in archives, in museums and in historical records, but much is still untold and remains only in the memories of a few (p. 42). Here, then, we have some of the memories of one of those few. Alex Lord was an active member of British Columbias early community of professional educators, though one gathers from these recollections that his influence was felt more through his personal contacts and meeting with teachers and others, than in the form of broader policy-making. He arrived in Kelowna from Ontario in 1910, accepting a principalship offered him through an old-boys network of Queens alumni. In fact, in Kelowna he found himself advantageously situated at the intersection of a number of networks. The chairman of the school board met him at the dock: [H]e greeted me with Are you a Presbyterian? Yes, I replied. Are you a Mason? Yes again. Are you a Grit? Yes, said I. He beamed his satisfaction (p. 103). No doubt Lord and his chairman were both equally satisfied. The episode is a revealing commentary on the not-so-hidden values of schooling in the early years of the century. At the same time, Lord was obviously a man of talent and ability and rapidly moved ahead in the provincial school system. After four years as a principal in Kelowna, he moved to Vancouver and within a year was made a school inspector. From 1915 to 1919 he inspected small, isolated schools in a vast, sparsely populated belt of northern British Columbia, stretching from the Queen Charlottes to the Peace River country. Through the 1920s he moved between teaching at the provincial normal school and inspecting schools in and around Vancouver, becoming in 1936 principal of the Normal School, ending his career as the recipient of various national and professional honours. His recollections deal overwhelmingly with his early inspectorate in rural British Columbiaatrocious roads, trains that arrived when they could, unexpected delays, unplanned stop-oversall combined to make school inspection an affair of sheer physical endurance. If nothing else, Lord reminds us how miraculous it was that schools existed at all, whatever the quality of education they were able to provide.

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Judging by these recollections, he saw his own role less as inspector than as friend and adviser to the teachers whom he visited. He was unworried by the niceties of curriculum requirements, so long as nothing too unreasonable was attempted, and quotes with approval the maxim that teachers are more important than what they teach (p. 21). As John Calam points out in his editorial introduction, Lord saw the schools primarily as teachers of citizenship, not so much in nationalistic or imperialist terms but in terms of a sense of community and social obligation. A wide variety of approaches and enthusiasms was possible. Calam uses this to make an interesting theoretical point, putting in question notions of social control and hegemony that assume too tight and inflexible a linkage between social and political elites and schooling. As Calam notes, for Lord, the school system was not a smoothly running engine of social control, but a far looser association of outstanding educators who normally conduct their affairs in an amicable way, take professional initiatives, sympathize with teachers, and trade yarns with the locals (p. 27). One sees Calams point, and it is surely beyond question that there was and is a good deal of flexibilitynot to say downright inefficiencyin almost any school system. Alex Lord himself was convinced that individuals made a difference: During the forty-odd years following 1900, education in British Columbia was developed largely according to the ideas and opinions of half-a-dozen men who usually held office at different times and for terms ranging from five to twenty years (p. 119120). What neither Lord nor his editor considers, however, is the question how those men got to occupy and keep their positions in the first place. One remembers those QueensPresbyterian-Mason networks that surrounded Lord in his first job. The system can be left to its own devices and entrusted with a good deal of flexibility when it can be relied upon to do more or less what is expected of it. And there is no necessary contradiction between inspectors and others prodding local communities to become more enlightened in the hope that this will serve some broader purpose, and their doing so in the interests of a broader socio-political agenda. Lords experience demonstrates that the establishment and maintenance of hegemony is a subtle, varied, and at times even contradictory process, but not that it is a figment of later analysts imagination. Lords own experience shows that even relatively senior officials did not necessarily jump to attention and click their heels when faced with their superiors desires. Lord, for example, obviously let many of the progressive education policies of the 1930s go right by him. He certainly did not allow them to shake his assessment of what was and what was not good education. Nonetheless, whatever its idiosyncrasies, his vision of education was consistent with the larger conventional wisdom. Overall, he seems to have been concerned with making the school system run more smoothly and more humanely, but not to question its fundamental premises. In this regard, Calam includes a chapter devoted to Lords reflections on education: on curriculum, examinations, promotion, and other matters. Lords conclusion may be (it is not absolutely clear, at least to me) that

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everything depends on the teacher. The curriculum is merely an instrument. If change does not help teachers, it is of no value whatsoever. Whether there should be a prescribed province-wide curriculum is a moot question. There is much to be said for allowing schools and teachers to work out their own plans within broadly-stated essentials. Since 1910, observed Lord, the schools of this province have had four different curricula and anyone who would venture to say which of them was the best or the worst would be rash or foolish (pp. 118119). Everything depended, for Lord, on what takes place when teachers meet students. It would be interesting to know whether his views changed as he became more and more involved with the Provincial Normal School. In this position, presumably, he was more removed from the day-to-day administrative grind and was able to be more detached and reflective. Were, then, the views that he presents in these Recollections the views he held throughout his career, or are they, rather, retrospective musings? One gets the impression from his description of his activities as a rural inspector that he was too busy trying to get his job done, often against almost impossible odds, to have any time to spare for philosophical reflection. Calam, for one, describes Lords comments as the retrospective doubts of an ex-civil servant once duty bound to implement, now free to criticize provincial policy (p. 25). Despite the limitations of its educational commentary, the book is to be welcomed. We have little enough documentation on schooling from the inside, so that almost anything is helpful. Lords Recollections add to our knowledge, though Calam rather overstates their value in his introduction. Enthusiasm is excusable in an editor, however, and Calam is to be congratulated for his efforts in ensuring that Alex Lords recollections have seen the light of day. His editing is thorough and helpful, though two minor slips should be noted: Oundle is a public, not a preparatory, school (p. 162, n.16), and the establishment of a Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta in 1945 (p. 173, n.15) was not a first. To take only one example, the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba began in 1935. Such minor slips, however, do not detract from Calams editorial contribution to the book. His introduction, in particular, is extremely helpful. He has given us a very human document which certainly reminds us of the tenuous condition of early schooling in Western Canada. Le muse et lcole par Michel Allard et Suzanne Boucher Ville Lasalle: ditions Hurtubise, HMH Lte, 1990. 136 pages.
RECENSION PAR BERNARD LEFEBVRE, UNIVERSIT DU QUBEC MONTRAL

Depuis Jan Amos Komensky, dont nous clbrerons le quatrime centenaire de naissance en 1992, ne cherche-t-on pas toujours comment fixer les rgles

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de la mthode didactique qui assurera de bons rsultats chez les personnes soumises nos enseignements? Un ouvrage paru aux ditions Hurtubise apporte une contribution additionnelle cette interrogation sculaire patiemment poursuivie par des gnrations denseignants et de formateurs des matres. Il sagit du volume: Le muse et lcole o les auteurs proposent de dvelopper, lintrieur du programme de sciences humaines, une formule didactique o les muses sont utiliss des fins ducatives. Michel Allard et Suzanne Boucher ont suivi un long et patient cheminement pendant une dizaine dannes, entremlant recherche thorique et exprimentation; cest ce qui leur permet maintenant de nous offrir un modle harmonisant les relations entre lcole et le muse, dans un souci de complmentarit, et conjuguant les ressources communes de ces deux institutions, afin denrichir les possibilits dapprentissage des lves sur certains points du programme dtudes en sciences humaines. Partant du fait que les programmes scolaires recommandent des sorties ducatives et lexploitation pdagogique des muses, Le muse et lcole tablit dabord les fondements didactiques qui ont servi de base de nombreuses exprimentations o 3000 lves du primaire ont particip des visites de muss. La dmarche dapprentissage tient alors compte de lacquisition de connaissances, dhabilets et dattitudes. Cette proccupation mrite mention, parce quelle sinscrit dans le courant actuel de formation de la personne totale que lon coiffe de lexpression formation fondamentale. Une telle dmarche entend aussi englober en une entit complexe la fois lcole et le muse. Elle sappuie sur les exigences des programmes officiels et sur les ressources existant au sein des muses. Avant de se rendre dans ces institutions, il importe de prparer lactivit en classe par des exercices dexploration et des questions de recherche. Il ny a donc pas de visite improvise. Pendant la visite, il sagit de recueillir de linformation. De retour lcole, les lves font lanalyse des donnes et les synthtisent pour tre en mesure de les communiquer subsquemment. Ils prparent parfois une exposition de leurs travaux en guise de prolongement. Ni les enseignants ni les lves ne doivent tre ngligs. lintention des premiers, on prvoit un guide pdagogique comprenant la thmatique, les objectifs du programme scolaire, lnumration des activits et le cadre de prsentation des activits. Pour les seconds, on prpare un guide personnel dtude qui leur permet de se dplacer au muse avec un assez grand degr de libert tout en leur donnant des repres et en leur posant des questions de type factuel, conceptuel ou contextuel. La formule du rallye imprime un aspect ludique lactivit, les animateurs et les enseignants jouant le rle de personnes ressources. Ainsi, le champ de lenseignement expositif se rtrcit pour laisser une large place la participation active des lves qui cherchent, sinterrogent,

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vrifient et confrontent entre eux leurs dcouvertes. Pendant ce temps, les adultes prsents stimulent la rflexion et relancent probablement ceux dont la curiosit risque de dfaillir. Deux principes pdagogiques sont clairement mis en vidence dans Le muse et lcole et il est important quon y prte attention. Dabord, lexprience mene dmontre une nouvelle fois que le processus dapprentissage procde avec lenteur. Ensuite, on en arrive au constat que la trop grande quantit dinformations, cest--dire que lencyclopdisme, fait perdre lintrt. Il a donc fallu allger le contenu pour mieux centrer lattention et amliorer lapprentissage. On est alors confront, de faon trs concrte, et avec preuves lappui, la ralit suivante: une activit dune complexit telle celle dcrite impose une communication suivie entre, dune part, les agents scolaires comme les conseillers pdagogiques, les enseignants et les directeurs dcole et, dautre part, ceux des muses, notamment les conservateurs, les responsables des programmes ducatifs et les animateurs. Louvrage de Michel Allard et de Suzanne Boucher illustre clairement quil y a moyen de tendre des ponts entre lcole et le milieu. Il dmontre que lon peut parvenir susciter de lintrt lgard de ce qui se passe lcole, en comptant sur la synergie souhaite de la part dintervenants du milieu scolaire et extrascolaire. Enfin, comme dans toute intervention pdagogique srieuse on ne saurait passer sous silence les questions de lvaluation. Les auteurs du projet dutilisation des muses des fins ducatives ont eu recours une valuation continue inspire de lapproche systmique. Ds llaboration initiale, ils ont envisag le retour critique obligeant un questionnement perptuel. Tous les intervenants se sont impliqus et les techniques variaient selon les aspects valuer, passant de lentrevue non formelle lentrevue formelle, de lobservation non formelle lobservation formelle et du pr-test au post-test. Des analyses qualitatives et quantitatives ont servi au processus dvaluation des objectifs, du contenu, des stratgies dapprentissage et du matriel didactique. Il est intressant de noter, en terminant cette recension, que Le muse et lcole est un ouvrage qui nous permet de comprendre et mme de reconnatre que le muse et lcole peuvent tre des institutions travaillant dsormais une mme tche de formation tout en conservant leur rle respectif et leurs finalits propres. Le muse peut devenir, si lon tient compte du modle didactique propos par les auteurs, un lieu dapprentissage et un moyen denseignement au service des leves. En maximisant son rle ducatif, souhaitons quil conserve aussi sa fonction de loisir culturel et que les jeunes, qui le frquenteront davantage et plus tt, dveloppent le got dy retourner dans un but dducation et dinformation, mais aussi pour le plaisir des yeux et de limagination.

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Canadian Education: Historical Themes and Contemporary Issues By E. Brian Titley Calgary, Alberta: Detselig Enterprises, 1990. 216 pages.
REVIEWED BY CHAD GAFFIELD, UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA

The increasingly marginal (and sometimes non-existent) place of history courses in many Faculties of Education (to say nothing of school systems) has encouraged the strategy of proclaiming the relevance of an understanding of the past. In this strategy, historical research is incorporated into the study of current issues, usually in an introductory way. The logic is that understanding the past is a precondition of understanding the present and planning for the future. One example of the hope of historical relevance is E. Brian Titleys collection of essays, which argues that no institution can be comprehended without resort to its origins (p. 2). The book is designed as a textbook for Educational Foundations courses, which usually make only a token gesture toward the past before moving on to the real topics of philosophy and sociology. In contrast, this collection of eight articles includes four fully historical studies; moreover, the other contributions make considerable reference to previous developments sometimes reaching back to the early nineteenth century. The counter-attack on those who have marginalized educational history is timely. Historical research on all forms of schooling has flourished in Canada since the 1960s. Scholars have transcended departmental and faculty boundaries to contribute to a wide-ranging debate about the changing role and nature of education through the centuries. The most remarkable result of this activity has been the success of the Canadian History of Education Association/Association canadienne dhistoire de lducation, which has held major conferences and launched a scholarly journal during the past decade. It is worth noting that Titley is the Associations current President. The fact that curricula in many Faculties of Education have not followed this historiographic development is astonishing. The collection begins with Robert J. Carneys synthesis of the now vast literature on Upper Canada, and Titleys own argument that more should be said about the Manitoba School Question. The second part, entitled Tradition and Reform, includes Eamonn Callans treatment of John Deweys social conservatism, R.S. Pattersons restatement of his views on The Canadian Experience with Progressive Education, and the Titley/Kas Mazurek demonstration that the back-to-basics cry has been a hollow slogan of convenience. The volume concludes with a review of the multiculturalism debate (by Mazurek and Nick Kach), John R. Youngs answer of myth to the question Equality of Opportunity: Reality or Myth?, and Don Dawsons view of the relationship between schooling and work.

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Each chapter is of some interest, and Titleys various introductory statements indicate his familiarity with (and contribution to) the evolution of historical debate. Nonetheless, the volume is a poor reflection of the current state of theory and method in the field. With only a couple of exceptions, the chapters represent the perspectives and research strategies of the 1960s far more than those of recent years. Indeed, Titleys introductory emphasis on socio-historical questions (especially class and ethnicity) are largely absent from the actual chapters (including his own quite traditional review of the Manitoba controversy). The very character of the collection may be intended to facilitate its adoption by professors who themselves have not come to grips with the driving forces of current debate (including, for example, feminist theory). Reading some history is probably better than reading no history but surely our future teachers deserve to know why educational history has become such an exciting research field. Moreover, the claim of relevance seems much more compelling in the current historical debate than in the pages of this collection. Should we still rely on John Deweys thoughts to incite the minds of those in front of todays classrooms? Inventing Secondary Education: The Rise of the High School in NineteenthCentury Ontario By R.D. Gidney and W.P.J. Millar Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1990. xxii + 411 pages.
REVIEWED BY ROBERT J. CARNEY, UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA

Gidney and Millar have produced a magisterial study of the development of secondary schooling in nineteenth-century Ontario. Inventing Secondary Education is a carefully conceptualized, researched, and analyzed investigation of how the grammar school, the first educational institution in Upper Canada to receive government support, became part of an extended system of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education. One of the books remarkable features is the authors examination of nearly every significant aspect of secondary schooling from the denominational, class-oriented, and male-only 1840s, to the non-denominational, if not secular, meritocratic, and coeducational 1880s. Historians have tended to make Upper Canadian schooling intelligible to the modern reader by giving presentist meanings to pre-1860 instructional arrangements. In so doing, the common school becomes an elementary institution, the grammar school a secondary one, and the colonial university an undergraduate college. In fact, both common and grammar schools provided elementary instruction well into the 1860s. Neither was it unusual for common schools to offer what would now be termed secondary education, nor for boundary lines between grammar school and university to be

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similarly indistinct. For example, until the mid-1860s low university entrance standards resulted in a duplication of the grammar school curriculum at such colleges as Queens and Victoria. By the 1880s the tripartite categories of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education had been established through coordinated curricula and external examinations. According to Gidney and Millar, this orderly and selective transition from stage to stage endured until the early 1860s when Ontarians embraced the notion of an extended secondary education for all young people (p. 319). The authors contend that traditional educational historiography has identified the creation of the high school with Egerton Ryersons Education Act of 1871. And although they do not name the historians who have taken this view, their argument that the act and regulations of 1871 were largely backward-looking is convincing. According to Gidney and Millar, the creation of the modern secondary school rested on the legislation of 1851, 1865, and 1877, and this makes sense when one considers Ryersons short-lived success in maintaining sex segregation and the distinction between a liberal and an ordinary education. A central theme of this and related discussions is that Ryersons attempts to reform the grammar school and to link it to the primary and tertiary sectors succeeded only where his policies were congruent, or at least did not conflict with, the interests and wishes of local people (p. 315). Where, the, did Ryersons class sympathies lie? As Alison Prentice, Bruce Curtis, and Michael Katz have argued, the primary purpose of the educational system developed by Ryerson and those who supported his ascendancy as Chief Superintendent of Schools, was social reproduction. Gidney and Millar are apparently uneasy with the models of social stratification held by the above historians, and prefer such phrases as the respectable classes or middle classes to describe the social composition of the grammar schools (p. 9). The authors comments suggest Ryerson had difficulties representing the new vocational interests of the middle classes not because he had abandoned his loyalty to this group, but because he was a product of a pre-Victorian world. In that world, a classical and exclusively male form of superior or secondary education was thought to be of greater benefit to those who sought to maintain or achieve respectability. The authors research on what went on inside the school house, especially their meticulous examination of five grammar schools (18551870) in chapter 6, leads to revealing conclusions. The grammar schools at such places as Brantford and Sarnia were not, it turns out, the exclusive preserves of the wealthy. Moreover, the ethnic and religious backgrounds of students in these schools were broadly based, and although the majority of the [students] parents were of middling wealth, . . . a significant minority were poor (p. 149). By 1870 the transformation of the grammar school was well underway. Within a decade it had been succeeded by the high school, a widely accessible institution that offered a revised version of a liberal education, and which, according to the authors, promoted both social

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reproduction and social mobility (p. 319). In what proportion the latter two phenomena occurred is not made clear, but in this respect the authors share a generally held nineteenth-century opinion that the numbers of secondary students from skilled and unskilled workers families was such that a significant amount of upward social mobility resulted (p. 280). Little or nothing is said in the book about the educational opportunities of minority groups, such as blacks or Indians. Neither is there mention of the high school aspirations of Roman Catholics, who had gained the right to their own publicly funded elementary schools, but who were unsuccessful in obtaining public funds at the secondary level. The discussion of gender issues is well done, beginning with notes on high school places for young women, after 1870 especially, and teaching opportunities for women at this level. Discussions on the decline of the accomplishments curriculum reveal a little of what women lost as a result of the integration of the sexes, art and music in particular (p. 18). In this regard, the authors most telling observation was that even as the number of girls in the grammar schools increased, girls were reconceptualized to fit the curriculum instead of the opposite occurring. The book contains an excellent and well-annotated set of photographs and copies of archival materials. The tables are intelligible and appropriately placed. The text has been carefully edited and is devoid of factual or typographical errors, although the index falls somewhat short in not listing several items. In sum, Inventing Secondary Education is an erudite and impressive publication and should become a basic text for anyone wishing to understand the phenomenon of secondary schooling in Anglophone Canada. It is not given to elaborate theorizing, but should serve as a valuable guide to those who would like to speculate further on the important issues that have surfaced as a result of Gidneys and Millars scholarship. The Educational Legacy of Romanticism Edited by John Willinsky Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1990. xiv + 310 pages.
REVIEWED BY JUNE STURROCK, SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

This interesting but uneven collection of essays is the result of a seminar at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities in October 1988 that brought together scholars in the fields of education, literature, modern languages, philosophy, and composition. Its subject, the effect of Romantic thought on education, will fascinate professors and teachers willing to discuss fervently educational ideas in Coleridges Frost at Midnight, or the degree of verisimilitude of the monsters learning about the world in Frankenstein. The best essays combine learning, insight, and imagination in a way worthy of their

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subjects; the weaker essays show vagueness and inaccuracy that undermine their overall arguments. Among the more exciting essays is Ann E. Berthoffs Coleridge, I.A. Richards and the Imagination, which explores the idea, so important to Romantic theories of education, that the child is both individual and representative. Anne McWhirrs stimulating paper argues that both Frankenstein and his monster learnt through the wrong textsthat the monsters reading of Werther, Paradise Lost, and Plutarchs Lives is as destructive as Frankensteins early obsession with Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, and Albertus Magnus. This essay is not uniformly convincing but raises important questions about Mary Shelleys extraordinary novel. Aubrey Rosenberg usefully discusses fundamental problems in understanding a key text, Rousseaus mile, pointing out how much of its essential educational argument has in fact been discarded by later theorists and practitioners. Kieran Egans highly compressed paper, Recapitulating Romanticism in Education, considers correlations between Romanticism and early adolescence. The editor, John Willinsky, also makes a valuable contribution in his discussion of the relationship between Dorothy Wordsworth and William Wordsworth and its implications for the New Literacy. A more just view of Dorothy Wordsworths achievements as a writer, however, might be provided by emphasizing her insistence on minute objective description as an assertion of the value of what she sees rather than of the self that sees. Susan Levin is a far more reliable and informed critic of Dorothy Wordsworth than is Elizabeth Hardwick, whose characteristic undervaluation Willinsky appears to accept. The more impressionistic approach of other essays diminishes their value. Some papers suffer from the understandable tendency to overgeneralize about the Romantic movement, but others are afflicted with more damaging vagueness and inflation. Their inaccuracy (which includes false definitions, false assertions about texts, and ignorance of the relations between texts) leads to a crudity of argument that does disservice to topics under discussion. It is a grave misapprehension to think of the great Romantics as given to cloudy generalization. Seriously speaking, wrote Blake, all knowledge is particular. This delight in particularity is a part of the Romantic legacy that all who are concerned with education should especially value. Foundations of Literacy Policy in Canada Edited by S.P. Norris and L.M. Phillips Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd., 1990. 278 pages.
REVIEW BY ROBERT J. GRAHAM, UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA

Many Canadian commentators have contended that, like the figure of the Grim Reaper in a medieval woodcut, the spectre of Illiteracy is alive and

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stalking the land, wreaking havoc on Canadas economic and social wellbeing. Sources and estimates may vary, but the 1988 Canadian Business Task Force claims that illiteracy costs Canadian society around $10 billion annually. However, as the editors of this important new volume stress, these scare tactics have exerted increasing pressure on governmental and educational policy makers alike, to the extent that a crisis mentality now precludes rational approaches to the issue. As the editors correctly state, decisions affecting literacy policy should not be made without a clear and justified conception of literacy, and verification of alleged illiteracy levels and the implications drawn from these allegations. In bringing conceptual clarity and fresh empirical data to this crucial debate, the volume offers the latest research and thinking on literacy from philosophical, historical, and social perspectives. Its chapters range from theoretical critiques of functional literacy to ethnographic and longitudinal studies of literacy learning in Canada and Australia. It will appeal to expert and generalist audiences alike. Olson strikes the keynote in the first chapter, arguing that in our haste to find in literacy an explanation for poverty, unemployment, disease, and hopelessness, we have in fact succeeded in mythologizing it. We have subsumed its multiple functions under the blanket notion of a single scribal literacy, or the simple ability to read and write. For Olson, as for many of the other contributors, the mythologizing of scribal literacy has actually impeded genuine, and alternative, avenues to learning. For DeCastell, school-based literacy instruction has negated what she calls embodied knowing, and Heaps essay argues that tests of functional literacy are too heavily text-based, measure only scholastic literacy, and ignore text-aided and text omitted measures which provide better indices of functioning in practical circumstances. Therefore, although other contributors (Fleming, for instance) dealing with the concept of technological literacy, or (Blair) the relationship between literacy and reasoning, the general intent is to extend our perception of literacy beyond its single scribal function to a multiple and capacious appreciation of the term. Yet not all the voices in this revisionist chorus sing in harmony. In particular, Brown mounts an attack against radical school critics who conceive literacy as a form of cultural politics and who see the link between literacy and schooling as part of a bourgeois conspiracy to repress the working-class student. Browns contribution clearly demonstrates the kind of argumentative heat the concept of literacy is capable of generating, and points out once again for policy makers at all levels the extent of the struggle over the term. Whoever gets to define the term also gets to wield it. One of the great strengths of the volume is the creative tension between philosophical perspectives and hard research data. Fagan argues that literacy is a cultural value in a network of social and affective factors, many of which we dimly understand. This argument should alert policy makers to the way literacy is socially embedded, and that to ignore this in a multi-ethnic

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society is to court educational disaster. Fagans research, along with that of Chang and Wells, and Clifton, Williams, and Clancy, provides compelling data on how the teaching of scribal literacy encourages a skills-based rather than a holistic approach to literacy. Policy makers must see to it, notwithstanding Browns earlier observations, that literacy teaching takes into account the cultural values of an ethnically diverse student population, capitalizing on this fact of classroom life in order to offset the perception that literacy is the same for everyone. It should be clear from these remarks that there is much to admire and little to cavil about in Norris and Phillipss admirable volume. Specialists in the field familiar with the thrust of the conceptual analyses will find a fresh source of warrants in the empirical data, while the inquisitive generalist will discover absorbing and cogent points of view whose combined effect is sure to change some thinking on this important topic of national concern. Indeed, the volume might have been more aptly entitled Foundations for Literacy Policy in Canada, but that would have run counter to its overall objective of delineating the struggle over the term. Instead, Norris and Phillips have inserted into the literacy debate a volume of which they and their contributors can feel justly proud, and one which ought to find its way into our courses and onto our shelves. Literacy and Orality Edited by David R. Olson and Nancy Torrance Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. xii + 288 pages.
REVIEWED BY LAURIE WALKER, UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE

This collection of papers, presented at a conference in Toronto in 1987, is concerned with the effects of literacy on social patterns of thinking. Two opposing theoretical positions are presented: the great divide theory and the continuity theory. The great divide theory, as supported by one of the editors (David Olson) and the lead essayist, the late Eric Havelock, maintains that in acquiring the ability to use written language, a societys patterns of thinking underwent profound change. Modern Western thought, for example, as a consequence of the spread of literacy in the early modern period, is claimed to be more reflective, more abstract, more complex, and more logical than the thought of preliterate or non-literate peoples. The claim is that meaning, as conveyed by the written word, is detached from the context of utterance. That detachment leads to an objective body of scientific knowledge marked by stable, autonomous categories beyond the representative capability of subjective, context-bound oral language.

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The continuity theory, on the other hand, makes the more cautious claim that literacy built on, and extended thought patterns and capabilities already present in societies that depended upon spoken language. Feldman, for example, reviews studies of oral language use in non-literate societies. She reports that artful genres, the self-conscious use of varied forms of languages for particular purposes, exist in preliterate societies in Indonesia and the Philippines and in the mythical tradition of North American native groups. Denny argues that thinking patterns are related to predominant cultural and organizational patterns of economic activity. People whose livelihood is based on hunting share one cognitive characteristic with members of complex industrial societiesthe ability to make fine differentiations among thought units. Members of both kinds of communities achieve high scores on embedded figure tests and make use of grammatical modifiers. Members of agricultural societies, on the other hand, whose livelihood does not depend on such a degree of differentiation, score lower on such tests. Literacy, therefore, in the continuity view, is not the causal variable. The volumes 15 papers discuss the social and cognitive consequences of literacy with varying degrees of allegiance to one or other of these theoretical stances. The papers are presented in three loose groupings: the use of literacy and its consequences for modern society, the development of specialized genres out of processes attenuated by literacy, and the psychology of literacy and its acquisition. The categories are by no means mutually exclusive. The contributors include an impressive list of eminent psychologists, linguists and social scientists: Eric Havelock, Ivan Illich, Jerome Bruner, and David Olson, for example. Other less well known contributors have provided provocative and insightful papers. The collection is a scholarly resource for senior students of literacy as social phenomenon. The treatment is theoretical. The papers are, for the most part, hard to read. The literature on literacy is not characterized by plain prose. Some papers are highly speculative, even whimsical. However, careful reading of the serious papers leaves one with the sense of moving beyond a simplistic belief in the transforming power of literacy. That belief has often been presented as an ethnocentric celebration of the virtues of western rational thought at the expense of the more primitive thinking of preliterates and non-literates. Having read these papers, one can consider with more insight the issue referred to by the British novelist, Alan Sillitoe, who, twenty years ago, wrote:
Being literate myself, though connected to several who were not by close and recent ties (my father was never able to read and write), causes me to wonder what mark it has left in me. To move into the rich kingdoms of literacy in one generation is more complicated than I could have thought when just beginning to read and write.

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Science cognitive et formation par Robert Brien Sillery, Qubec: Presses de lUniversit du Qubec, 1990. 144 pages.
RECENSION PAR ROLLAND VIAU, UNIVERSIT DE SHERBROOKE

Ce livre sadresse aux concepteurs de cours, aux enseignants et tous ceux qui se proccupent de la formation en milieu scolaire et industriel. Il a pour but de montrer comment on peut concevoir un cours ou un programme de formation en se rfrant aux recherches sur la cognition humaine. Le principe sur lequel repose le contenu de ce livre est le suivant: pour bien faire sa tche, un concepteur ou un animateur dactivits de formation doit savoir comment un tudiant traite cognitivement linformation qui lui est prsente. Dans un premier temps, les fondements de la science cognitive sont prsents. On explique comment un individu peroit, modifie et emmagasine les informations provenant de son environnement. On apprend, par exemple, que les connaissances sont encodes dans la mmoire long terme et quelles sont organises sous forme de schmas dans lesquels on retrouve des connaissances dclaratives (savoir thorique) et des connaissances procdurales (savoir pratique). Dans un deuxime temps, lauteur prcise comment ces connaissances sont mises en action lors de lexcution dune tche par un individu. Ainsi, on peut lire que laccomplissement dune tche complexe est possible grce lutilisation de stratgies de rsolution de problme dans lesquelles les connaissances dclaratives et procdurales sont exploites. Cette description permet lauteur de louvrage dexpliquer le concept de comptence de la faon suivante: les connaissances sont des donnes emmagasines dans la mmoire long terme et permettent lindividu de se reprsenter des objets et des faits et dagir sur ceux-ci. Ce sont des comptences en puissance. Une comptence en acte, cest la capacit qua un individu dexploiter les connaissances de son rpertoire pour gnrer des plans qui, lorsquils sont activs, entranent une performance. La performance est le rsultat de lactivation dune comptence (p. 60). Enfin, se basant sur cet nonc, lauteur prsente les diffrentes phases dapprentissage dune comptence. Louvrage devient ensuite plus pratique. Lauteur montre, dabord, comment la formulation des objectifs, la structuration du contenu et le choix des mthodes denseignement et des mdias peuvent tre faits laide de son modle cognitivist. En guise de dernier chapitre, il propose une simulation dans laquelle on peut voir comment se conoivent les principaux lments dun cours laide du modle cognitiviste. Notons que lauteur consacre un chapitre entier de son livre la relation entre le domaine affectif et le domaine cognitif. Pour certains lecteurs, ce chapitre peut paratre inappropri et mme inutile, mais il se rvle opportun puisque les

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cognitivistes attachent de plus en plus dimportance aux variables affectives pour expliquer lapprentissage humain. Le livre de Brien renferme plusieurs qualits qui en font un ouvrage important dans le domaine de la technologie ducative et de la formation. En plus de la prsentation claire et vulgarise des concepts cognitifs, deux autres qualits doivent tre soulignes. La premire rside dans le souci continuel de lauteur dillustrer comment on peut utiliser lapproche cognitive pour concevoir un cours. Que ce soit dans la formulation des objectifs ou dans le choix du contenu et des mthodes, lauteur offre plusieurs exemples dapplications. la lecture de ces exemples, on peut se demander si ces faons cognitives de formuler des objectifs, de structurer du contenu, de choisir des mthodes denseignement, etc. amliorent la qualit de la prparation et de lanimation dune activit de formation. notre avis, louvrage de Brien ne rpond pas cette question, mais il a au moins le mrite de montrer clairement quil est possible de le faire. Lautre aspect remarquable de cet ouvrage est la place faite aux variables affectives dans une conception cognitive de la formation. Trop souvent, les intervenants dans les milieux de formation croient quen adoptant une approche cognitive, on ignore les caractristiques affectives de lapprenant. Or, la science cognitive nignore pas limportance des variables affectives telles que la motivation, lanxit, les motions; au contraire, elle essaie de les intgrer dans ses modles thoriques afin de mieux expliquer les comportements des individus. Louvrage de Brien a la qualit de relever cette considration importante et de proposer des applications directes dans la formation. Au plan de la motivation, par exemple, louvrage de Brien illustre bien quel point cette variable affective vient influencer lencodage de linformation en mmoire et les processus cognitifs dacquisition de la connaissance. Il est rare quun ouvrage puisse satisfaire entirement un lecteur. Tout en considrant une oeuvre russie et importante, on a souvent des rserves lgard de certains aspects du contenu. Voici celles que nous avons eues lors de la lecture de ce livre. Dans la prsentation des diffrents concepts cognitifs, nous nous sommes demand pourquoi lauteur na pas senti le besoin de prciser comment la mtacognition et les connaissances de type reconnaissance de modle (pattern recognition) influencent lapprentisage humain. La mtacognition englobe les processus cognitifs de haut niveau qui permettent un tudiant de prendre un recul face son apprentissage et de sautovaluer, alors que les connaissances de type reconnaissance de modle, sont des connaissances utilises par un tudiant pour identifier et reconnatre un problme avant dexcuter une srie de procdures lui permettant de le rsoudre. On peut difficilement comprendre pourquoi lauteur a prfr ne pas faire mention de ces concepts pourtant si importants dans lapprentissage. La seconde lacune de louvrage rside, notre avis, dans les sources dinformation de lauteur. On ne peut pas critiquer lauteur lorsquil fait

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rfrence aux grands cognitivistes tels que Norman, Anderson, Rumelhart ou Simon, mais on peut se demander pourquoi il ne fait presque pas mention des ouvrages et des thories des chercheurs cognitivistes qui oeuvrent dans le domaine de lducation depuis au moins une dcennie. En effet, comment peut-on ignorer les Wittrock, Weiner et Sternberg qui ont dvelopp des modles cognitivistes pour expliquer des phnomnes dapprentissage ou des auteurs comme Zimmerman ou Shuell qui, pour leur part, ont dvelopp des stratgies dinterventions cognitivistes pour faciliter lapprentissage? cet gard, loeuvre de Brien reflte malheureusement une tendance propre certains auteurs en technologie ducative qui consiste sinspirer des sources premires de la science cognitive et de dlaisser tout le travail qui est fait actuellement par les psychologues de lenseignement (instructional psychologist) pour amliorer lapprentissage la lumire des modles cognitivistes. Il est dommage que les oeuvres de ces derniers ne soient pas considrs car, laide de lapproche cognitiviste (comme le dmontre si bien le Handbook of Research on Teaching), ils ont fait voluer normment les connaissances sur lenseignement et lapprentissage. Ces dernires remarques ne doivent pas nous faire perdre de vue que nous avons, avec louvrage de Brien, une oeuvre importante qui a les grandes qualits dtre claire, facile daccs pour un non-initi et surtout de montrer, laide dexemples, comment il est possible de considrer lapproche cognitive dans la prparation et lanimation dactivits de formation dans les milieux scolaire et industriel. Si la sortie de ce livre permet des chercheurs, des concepteurs de cours et des enseignants de sinitier et surtout de situer leur travail face lapproche cognitive, Brien pourra se rjouir davoir contribu faire du domaine de la formation un domaine de plus en plus scientifique. Cest ce que nous lui souhaitons.

Educational Psychology: Canadian Perspectives Edited by Robert H. Short, Leonard L. Stewin, and Stewart J.H. McCann Mississauga: Copp Clark Pitman, 1991. 465 pages.
REVIEWED BY DAN G. BACHOR, UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA

Short, Stewin, and McCann intend to supplement survey-style textbooks in educational psychology with Canadian content appropriate for an audience of senior undergraduate students. The resultant book is a compilation of 23 articles presenting most topics usually treated in such courses, with one notable exceptiondevelopment. The volumes six sections discuss intelligence and cognitive processes, the classroom environment and motivation, teaching and instruction, secondlanguage learning, special-needs students, and measurement and evaluation.

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Although the wide range is laudable, such multi-author volumes are often variable in quality. This collection is no exception. A few chapters are appropriate for the intended audience (Maguires chapter on classroom evaluation, for example). Others are narrow (Dass coverage of human intelligence, for example). Instructors interested in assigning this text should be cautious in using it, given the tendency of some of the authors to overstate their case in advancing some claim. To illustrate, Michael K. Martin argues that Reuven Feuerstein is a cognitive style researcher, a claim which is misleading, albeit not of major significance. But later Martin alludes to a science of learning styles and argues that increased accuracy in developing personalized learning in response to individual learning style is now a possibility (p. 42). Such unsubstantiated claims could mislead the undergraduate reader into believing the evidence supporting learning styles application to classroom is definitive, which it is not. The balance through the text also is disappointing. For example, the section on intelligence and cognitive processes contains six articles, two of which are on the topic of thinking skills (cognitive instruction); the section on special-needs students has two articles, one on the topics of learning disabilities and the other on gifted studentsboth high-incidence classificationswhile low-incidence conditions, such as hearing impairment or medical fragility, are ignored. The editors goal was to provide students with Canadian content and in this regard they have been successful. In each section, Canadian authors have given a national perspective where appropriate, without making the material artificially Canadianized. Such a selection of readings is welcome. Anyone choosing to assign this text to students, however, must weigh the benefits of Canadian material against the variability of its quality. If this book is selected, the editors caveat that it was intended to be a supplement to another source, rather than a stand-alone textbook, must be remembered. Critical Psychology and Pedagogy: Interpretation of the Personal World By Edmund Sullivan Toronto: OISE Press, 1990. 297 pages.
REVIEWED BY ANN MANICOM, DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY

To read this book is to interact with the theoretical, ethical, and political ideas of an author, as he, in turn, wrestles with and challenges the traditions of his own discipline, psychology. For educators, this challenge is crucial, since education is a profoundly psychologized field. So what is a critical psychology? And what does critical psychology have to do with pedagogy? Sullivan answers the former question in the first

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section of the book (pp. 1175). With the second question, however, he does not adequately deal.
WHAT IS CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY?

Some excerpts give a sense of what Sullivan means by critical psychology: It is the task of a critical psychology to identify the hegemonic structural factors in the organization of our society which create systemic oppression for specific cultural groups (e.g., blacks, Native Americans, women, children, etc.) (p. 91); Critical psychology pays specific attention to how the personal world of individual and group is affected by stabilization of unjust social structures (p. 108); What is important in a critical psychology is to make some linkages between the structural dynamics of class, race, sexism and adultcentricism and the projects of human agents embedded in these historically constituted structures (p. 124); Thus, the constitutive interest of a critical social psychology will be a core interest in human emancipation and liberation (p. 125). Thus a critical psychology has a liberatory intent. It studies the individual in relation to other individuals, groups, and broader social processess. It is interdisciplinary. It seeks to analyze power relations, particularly the relation between agency and structure, or to use Sullivans terms, between project and habitus. The reader steeped in sociological and critical theory will find much familiar terrain in Sullivans book; he draws on Marx, on Bourdieu and Passeron, and on Habermas, to name only a few. The first half of the book carefully lays out a critical psychology. Beginning with a critique of the ways the social sciences (including psychology) have conceptualized the social world, Sullivan describes the metaphors that underpin positivist, interpretivist, and critical social theory, the mechanic, the organic, and the personal, respectively. Sullivan puts himself in the latter framework. He conceptualizes the personal world as always relational, and describes how these relations are often ones of power. Then, moving to explicate the relations between the personal world and dominant structures of race, class, and gender, he describes habitus (structure, domination) and project (agency, liberatory practice) as central concepts in understanding the personal worldand in transforming it. Throughout, Sullivans argument is carefully detailed, with considerable restatement as he guides the reader through his logic and through a wideranging literature. This part of the book is, then, useful to those seeking to understand the relation of critical social theory to psychological theory. A particularly useful section for graduate students is that discussing interpretation in research. One major problem in the critique and in Sullivans alternative is that, although Sullivan does consider gender, race, and class, he does not have a comprehensive or current grasp of the gender critiques of psychology. The

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bibliography has only two or three references since 1981 specifically on gender issues. Missing are many feminist critiques of psychology, including the recent well-known book, Womens Ways of Knowing. Nonetheless, the section on critical psychology is thoughtful, clear, and a necessary re-visioning of psychology.
WHAT ABOUT CRITICAL PEDAGOGY?

The second half of the book describes five case studies: an analysis of computer classrooms in Ontario elementary schools, a comparison between two studies of working-class boys in British secondary schools, and two commentaries on a study of local community development in a community soup kitchen in Chile. These interesting studies demonstrate forms of critical inquiry. But there is a curious disjuncture between the first and second sections of the book. For the most part it is not clear how the second section connects to the first, other than in its overall challenge to structures of race, class, and gender domination. Further, it is unclear how the case studies are examples of critical pedagogy (which I understand to be teaching and learning with a transformative, liberatory intent). I would argue that the critical pedagogy section (pp. 177271) is not so much about critical pedagogy as it is about critical research, about research in educational settings guided by critical theory. I do think, however, that engaging in critical pedagogy in our teaching would entail being able to engage in precisely the forms of critical analysis and critical research available through the case studies. There are thus clear connections between critical psychology as a framework for analysis, critical ethnography as a research approach, and critical pedagogy as a form of teaching. But Sullivan himself does not make these connections explicit. That being said, I found the last section of the book very interesting. Any course in qualitative research, particularly one attending to forms of critical ethnography, could make use of the case study material. The studies, and Sullivans analysis, would assist graduate students (whether classroom teachers, adult educators, sociologists, or psychologists) in exploring critical ethnography. The examples demonstrate the ways relations of class, gender, and race can be analysed by beginning in the actual experiences of individuals in particular settings. The analyses show how peoples everyday actions in their personal worlds both structure and are structured by habitus and project. A final note. The cover illustration is very contradictory. The book is about gender, race, and class, about oppressive relations, about a psychology intent on transforming power relations. Yet on the cover are four men and two women, all wearing suits and carrying briefcases; they are standing on pieces of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Puzzling indeed. Driving the book is a passion for liberation, yet the cover seems to be about domination,

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about those men and (few) women who occupy positions of wealth, power, and privilege. Perhaps this is intentional, implying that we need a psychology that renders visible those who are invisible, a pedagogy that renders powerful those who are without power. Perhaps the cover is a metaphor for traditional psychology and traditional pedagogy, while the text is about how it might be otherwise. Certainly in this instance you cannot tell the book by its cover. Crocus Hill Notebook By Garry Jones London, ON: Althouse Press, 1991. x + 83 pages.
REVIEWED BY J.L.K. LATSHAW, UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN

Garry Joness Crocus Hill Notebook is snapshots which freeze moments in time (p. 2), summarizing what it is to teach grade 2 children in an urban elementary school and raise the many questions which must be asked (p. 2). The snapshots are organized to recreate a school year and include personal perspectives on both traditional school activities and newer interactive learning activities. Poems interspersed between the snapshots give background information about Jones, including, for example, The Stage, his warm memories of participating in a school play. Readers seeking a candid view of a teachers classroom experiences are more likely to find Joness book a rewarding reading experience if they disregard the information he gives in the preface and introduction. He fails here to clarify whether Mr. Jones in his stories is himself or a fictional character by the same name. If Mr. Jones is a fictionalized character, then this characters gender-bashing statements about a female administrator, his contempt for disgruntled parents, and his expressions of racial prejudice are acceptable as products of literary license. If Mr. Jones and Garry Jones are one, the promotional statement on the back cover, that the story will appeal to teachers, parents, and particularly to those preparing to enter the profession (emphasis is mine) must be questioned. If Crocus Hill is an invention, it is inconsistent. In the preface, for example, Jones states none of the children, teachers, and parents presented are real living people (except the author, who is very much alive) (p. ix). Then in the introduction he states, Crocus Hill is like the schools where I have worked and the stories are my stories (p. 2). Yet, in this same section he describes Crocus Hill as a fictionalized institution that is situated in paved-over wilderness, the lost prairie, tying the nineteenth century to the twenty-first, providing a fertile garden with a secure bridge between the childs home and the Real World (p. 2). How is it is possible for a pavedover wilderness to be a fertile garden, and where is the childs home if not

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in the real world? Although this may mean the literary elements in the stories were created for persuasive writing purposes, Jones makes it difficult to be certain of this interpretation because he also reports in the preface that his work is in response to a challenge by Jean Clandinin. In her university courses, Clandinin advocates that teachers reflect on their classroom experience as a way of identifying classroom-based research that can be directed by themselves. This process is very different from creating fictional representations of classroom experience. Readers with experience in writing workshops will question the quality of peer assistance Jones received during the post-writing stage. Clearly the inclusion of content such as Jasons mother, fat and homely, sits there angrily while I try to respect the lifestyle and culture of others (p. 56) and Stephanies mother floats into the room on perfumed confidence and sky-blue silk (p. 58) is incompatible with an intention to increase public awareness of and interest in the social problems that influence childrens classroom learning. Finally, Joness adoption of formula-style writing in parts of the notebook is disappointing. This writings stiltedness detracts from his delightful description of the verbal waterfall that primary teachers must enter and survive daily. In contrast, his poems are free-flowing celebrations of personal growth and development. Lets hope for a revised edition that contains many more poems!