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VOLUME 15 NUMBER 1 January 2016
Table of Contents
Funding Higher Education in Australia: Is it Time to Look at Income Share Agreement as an Alternative Model
to Income Contingent Loans? ............................................................................................................................................... 1
Steven Holliday and Ergun Gide
Discipline Based Art Education as an Approach to Art Instruction: The Case of Standard Seven Curriculum in
Botswana ................................................................................................................................................................................ 14
Dr Magdeline Chilalu Mannathoko
Inclusive Education and Challenges of Providing Classroom Support to Students with Blindness in a General
Education Classroom at a School in Botswana ................................................................................................................ 30
Joseph Habulezi, Odiretsemang Molao, Sandy Mphuting and Kebotlositswe Mark Kebotlositswe
Small-Group Discussion and the Development of Interpretive Strategies in Literature Classrooms: a Quasi-
Experimental Study with 9th - Grade Students ............................................................................................................... 42
Agapi Dalkou and Evangelia Frydaki
Experiences of School and Family Communications and Interactions Among Parents of Children with Reactive
Attachment Disorder ............................................................................................................................................................ 66
Raol Taft, Candace Schlein and Crystal M. Ramsay
Critical Analysis of Embedded and Summative Feedback from Online Doctoral Instructors on Benchmark
Assessments .......................................................................................................................................................................... 89
Kelley Walters, PhD and Patricia Henry, PhD
1
Steven Holliday
Central Queensland University, Australia
Ergun Gide
Central Queensland University, Australia
Introduction
Funding of higher education is vital for the achievement of the educational
aspirations of any nation. If the funding is not adequate, it is unlikely that the
desired results will be actualised.
The capital labour market is known for its limitations as the market has
difficulty pricing the work in progress value of individuals. According to Yu and
Salyards (2008) Capital Asset Pricing Models do not allow for the market to
adequately price human capital as a work in progress. An investment in an
individuals higher education is an investment in a future asset, but there is no
Friedman outlined the reasoning for his Human Capital Contract ideas as
follows:
The counterpart for education would be to "buy" a share in an individual's earning
prospects: to advance him the funds needed to finance his training on condition that he
agrees to pay the lender a specified fraction of his future earnings. In this way, a lender
would get back more than his initial investment from relatively successful individuals,
which would compensate for the failure to recoup his original investment from the
unsuccessful (Friedman, 1955, np.).
On the other hand, if individuals sold 'stock' in themselves, i.e., obligated themselves
to pay a fixed proportion of future earnings, investors could 'diversify' their holdings
and balance capital appreciations against capital losses. The purchase of such 'stock
would be profitable so long as the expected return on investment in training exceeded the
market rate of interest(Friedman & Kuznets, 1945, p.90).
Over the last 5 to 7 years there has been considerable interest in Human Capital
Contracts or Income Share Agreements (ISAs) as they are sometimes known.
Contracts through organisations such as Pave, Upstart and Alumni have been
commenced in a Friedman style approach. This has also come to the attention of
regulators who have begun to consider guidelines for the operation of these
schemes (discussed further below).
Methodology
To further understand how these relatively new concepts can be applied to the
Australian Higher Education sector, a review of current literature has been
summarised below. The literature reviewed examine both contemporary
practices and current thinking both for arguments for and against this approach.
By looking at the recurrent themes arising from this literature, these concepts are
then considered with reference to our current higher education funding
arrangements in Australia and consideration is then made as to how these
concepts may be applied in that context.
are equity-like instruments because the investors return will depend on the earnings of
the student, not on a predefined interest rate. The effects of these arrangements are,
among others, less risk for the student, transfer of risk to a party that can manage it
better, increased information regarding the economic value of education, and increased
competition in the higher education market(Palacios, 2002, p.1).
Another term used for these type of arrangements are Income Share
Agreements(ISA), this title focuses more on the shared arrangement of
investing in an individuals future income, as those who share in the persons
success should also be rewarded with a share of that success as a return on their
investment. The Wall Street Journal has described such agreements as
individuals selling stock in themselves(Belkin, 2015).
In the United States legislation has been introduced to begin the regulation of
such arrangements under the Student Success Act (US Congress CRS, 2014)
whereby student loans would be capped at 30 years and a maximum of 15% of
earnings. This legislation is currently seeking passage in respect of these
agreements (Griswold, 2014a; Supiano, 2014) . Another important aspect of this
legislation is that it is not regarded a debt instrument (US Congress CRS, 2014)
which has the benefit for the student in terms of future borrowings and provides
a level of security for the student.
Companies such as Upstart, Pave and Lumni in the United States are currently
providing such financing and the terms are usually based on extensive
algorithms to assess the potential risks and potential benefits of the individual
being financed (Griswold, 2014b; Nisen, 2015; Surowieki, 2013). The investor is
also encouraged to mentor and support the student, however the recent
legislation places a prohibition on investors coercing or forcing certain actions or
choices on the borrower (CRS, 2014).
The idea of income contingent loans are not new with such educational
financing occurring in many countries such as the U.S.A, U.K, Australia and
New Zealand but this financing is usually made by the government and not the
private sector (Chapman, 2006).
The benefits of an income share agreement was well put by Holt (2013), when
compared to private student loans which are common the United States.
The main objections centre on the availability of opt-out clauses over the course
of the agreement (Nerlove, 1975) and whether the lender was able to exercise a
level of control over the student that they had financed. The other considerations
are whether the conditions are too harsh or unreasonable and whether students
are being taken advantage of (Nerlove, 1975). These are reasonable concerns and
some of these aspects have been considered in recent legislation in the United
States, in particular the Student Success Act (CRS, 2014).
Some media commentators such as Kevin Roose from New York Magazine
express their social concerns as reflected below and this implies that there may
be an uneasiness toward financing where students pledge their future income:
A year-old company begun by ex-Googlers that is giving young people in the post-crash
economy the chance to indenture themselves to patrons in the investor class. It does this
by making it easy for users to create human-capital contracts (Roose, 2013, np.).
Oie & Ring (2015, p.714) believe that although there are no human property
rights under such agreements, such property rights may be approximated under
a financial agreement and that it is important to define some of the legal aspects
and definitions in these agreements. This need for legal clarity appears to be a
common theme in respect of ISAs (Kelchen, 2015; Oei, 2015; Supiano, 2014).
Some considerations per Oei & Ring (2015 pp. 714-716) in respect of these
contracts which separate them from the notion of indentured servitude or
slavery are as follows :
An ISA structure gives students incentive to be less than honest about their
intentions -for example, saying they plan to become computer scientists but
knowing they will go into social work (Supiano, 2014, np.).
The issue of income avoidance to avoid debt has been well discussed by various
commentators (McArdle, 2015; Nerlove, 1975; Oei & Ring, 2015; Supiano, 2014)
when considering this area of financing. It should be noted at this point that in
the Australian income contingent loan system, repayments are managed
through the taxation system and the data is collected from tax returns and
repayments made via tax deductions to cover the expected liability. This has
proven to be an effective method for recovery, however as Income Share
Agreements are generally in the private financing domain, such collection
options are not available. The inability to definitively determine the share to be
paid could be problematic and this increases the risk for potential investors.
(d) What are the community benefit concerns of ISAs and how are differing
sectors and needs addressed?
As a general rule, in a capitalist society the free market will balance supply and
demand to determine optimal pricing and provide a diversity of options in the
market place. According to Yu & Salyards (2008) human capital models
generally have difficulty in this arena as humans are less predictable than
machinery or inanimate processes and therefore it is difficult to price in Capital
Assets Pricing Models (CAPM).
Palacios, the founder of Pave believes a market based approach will send the
correct resourcing signal to the student:
Because ISA investors earn a profit only when a student is successful, they offer
students better terms for programs that are expected to be of high value and have strong
incentives to support students both during school and after graduation. This process
gives students strong signals about which programs and fields are most likely to help
them be successful Palacios, De Sorrento & Kelly (2014, p.1).
Whilst market forces may drive students to make good economic choices for
their future, there is a concern about the social good aspect of education and
whether this can be protected in a free market model. Whilst nurses and
teachers are vitally important to the community, they are not paid as well as
lawyers and accountants. Under a market based Income Share Agreement model
there would be a tendency for those being trained in careers which are lower
paid, to have their proportional repayments at a higher level. There is a sense of
unfairness in this as there would be an additional risk loading which further
compounds their lower salary profile and ability to pay. Widespread adoption
of such a model could in time affect the supply of students entering these fields.
The concept was generally regarded as the first application of income contingent
loans for education, however this was also similar to a Human Capital Contract.
The TPO levied the tuition cost for a cohort of students as a debt to that group of
students. A percentage of income would be charged to all of the cohort until the
debt was cleared for the entire group. This resulted in members of the cohort
paying significant amounts due to the default of others (Harris, 2013). Those
defaulting or with poor earnings resulted in a delay in the finalisation of the
overall debt obligation, the debt burden of which fell onto the successful
students. This arrangement was seen by the students as inequitable and the
Alumni of Yale University more than 20 years later pressed for the closure of
this arrangement and the write off of remaining debts.
The idea that successful graduates would help offset the costs of the
unsuccessful graduates was part of the Friedman concept, but his idea was that
this was not to be funded by the university itself (Harris, 2013). Under the TPO
the debt was defined, attracted interest and the potential term of the contract
was extremely long, in this case 35 years before the debt would be written off,
whereas the Friedman concept had no defined debt value but was an income
contingent payment over a shorter defined period (Friedman & Kuznets, 1945).
In terms of a legal definition for an income share agreement, the following was
submitted to US Congress as a definition of an Income Share Agreement:
An agreement between an individual and any other person under which the individual
commits to pay a specified percentage of the individual's future income, for a specified
period of time, in exchange for payments to or on behalf of such individual for
postsecondary education, workforce development, or other purposes(CRS, 2014, np.).
(iv) It must specify a maximum term and the act proposed a maximum period of
360 months not including any months where the borrowers income was
below the minimum;
(v) No more than 15% of a persons income should be obligated under the
agreement;
(vi) It should also specify the arrangements for early termination of the
agreement;
(vii) Prohibits the lender to place controls over the borrowers actions;
(viii) The agreement must clearly indicate that this is not a debt instrument.
The HECS system was regarded as an innovative solution and it has been in
operation since 1989 in Australia (Harris, 2013). There are many important
principles which underpin this system, and these need to be considered in
considering any alternative approaches. One of the important aspects of the
HECS program was to re-introduce private contributions from students, whilst
at the same time allowing access to university for poor but talented students
(Chapman, 1996). In 2005 as part of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, this
scheme which relates to students under Commonwealth Supported Places was
renamed as the Higher Education Loans Program (HELP) and has now become
known as HECS-HELP (Parliament of Australia, 2014). Some of the main
principles of HECS-HELP are as follows:
(i) Income Contingent financing lowers financial barriers to entry for students
who do not have access to funds for higher education, particularly for poor
but talented students (Chapman, 1997, p.741).
(ii) Income Contingent financing provides a level of insurance for the student,
should their career path be affected by unforeseen circumstances and their
income not be what was expected, there is no requirement for contributions
until they reach the average wage as was per the original scheme (Birch,
2008; Chapman, 1996, 1997).
(iii) Income contingent financing provides for students to still have capacity to
have future borrowing capacity by only requiring repayments when above
average income is earned (Chapman, 1997). Another important aspect is that
repayment is payable on death or out of an estate, nor is it payable upon
bankruptcy, it remains only payable on the student paying a future portion
of their income after they reach a minimum wage level. These factors allow
young graduates to be eligible to apply for finance. Concerns were raised
early in the scheme that the education loans would delay students in starting
families due to the financial burden and restricted borrowing capacity. These
concerns raised by Davis (2005), were refuted by a comprehensive analysis in
an article (Yu, Kippen & Chapman, 2007, pp.73-90).
(iv) As Chapman pointed out:
HECS offers a form of default insurance', such that the former student does not
have to bear the costs of reneging on their debt as a result of periods of low future
incomes. This is quite different from a mortgage-style loan, in which the costs of
defaulting may be very high in terms of being locked out of other capital markets
For example, based on 2015 rates, a student studying to be a teacher will have a
government contribution of $10,026 which will be paid to their university, and
the university can set a fee for the student contribution to a maximum of $6152.
The Government also pays the student contribution to the university and
manages the arrangements for repayment. It should be noted here that nearly all
universities in practice apply the full maximum student contribution.
Whilst the various student contribution rates are determined by the government
as part of political negotiation, perceived needs and national priorities, there is a
nexus between estimated future incomes and the amounts that students are
expected to contribute. Generally, lawyers and doctors earn much more than
teachers and this is reflected in the higher contributions for those fields of
education. In addition, the total resourcing amounts also reflect the relative costs
associated with the delivery of programs, therefore law which is more classroom
based is less resourced than engineering which has higher costs in terms of
laboratories, internships and equipment and supplies.
Whilst it is difficult to find the guidelines for determining the basis of
contributions, the basis was described by Duckett around the time of the Nelson
review as:
They incorporate the same mix of policy considerations: cost of courses and perceived
private returns to education (Duckett, 2004, p.218).
Graduates are unlikely to move away from these current arrangements as the
HECS-HELP system provides a convenient and low risk method of financing in
respect of the fees those students must contribute towards their higher
education. If the current ICL arrangements remained unchanged, there would be
little incentive to move away from this government based program, unless there
was a viable alternative that was perceived to more advantageous.
In the United States the ISAs have in recent years gained interest due to the
financing gaps in the US system as the government loans are not accessible to
many and there are other perceived shortfalls and inequities (Palacios, De
Sorrento & Kelly, 2014).
Income Share Agreements to date have not been part of recent reform
discussions in Australia, however with the new interest in this style of financing
for education in the United States, it may be useful to at least consider the merits
of ICAS and how these could be applied to meet Australias needs. Australia
would particularly benefit from this particularly if the funding burden and risk
can be moved to the private sector. An increase in funding by private equity
could potentially free up government funds for investment and this could
potentially lead to increased development in the higher education sector.
Conclusion
Income Share Agreements are a form of Income Contingent loans and they have
many of the same benefits in terms of providing access, lowering barrier to entry
to university, allowing the student to pay when they can afford to make
payments and so on.
The added benefit is these Share Agreements have the potential to move the
funding burden away from the Government or the university and into the
private sector, which is a significant outcome if achievable as it has the potential
to free up funds for improvements in the sector.
The main difference is that some successful graduates will pay more than they
would under the current HECS-HELP system in Australia, but this is offset by
the fact those less successful could also pay less, but on balance students should
be successful as a result of their higher education in terms of graduate outcomes
and salaries and these benefits can provide the return on investment to lenders.
Another key difference is the defined period of the ISA, the current HECS-HELP
arrangements continue until the debt is cleared and will index according to
inflation to maintain the real value of the outstanding debt. By comparison an
ICA potentially makes personal financial planning easier due to the defined
nature of the financial arrangement (lessens uncertainties and therefore risk).
There are many factors to consider, particularly in the area of legal guidelines
and protection of both investors and students, but some of this ground work is
already being established in the United States. If recovery of ISAs and income
determination for repayments was tackled through the taxation system in the
same way the current HECS-HELP system works, this would lessen some of the
investor concerns, however as this is a private market method of funding, a way
forward would need to be negotiated. Income Share Agreements are relatively
new, however further research into how this approach could be adopted in the
Australian context may prove to be worthwhile, particularly if it could provide
an innovative approach to Australias higher education funding systems.
sorts of ideas as well as the legal frameworks behind such Income Share
Agreements may be well worth further research. It is possible that within those
ideas an improved process will be generated for the funding of education in
Australia.
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Abstract. There are various curricula models in Art and Design, some of
which are Critical Studies, Arts Propel and Discipline Based Art
Education (DBAE). While these models theoretically have different foci,
they are essentially similar in the critical content areas from which they
draw their disciplinary knowledge and skills. These are listed under the
DBAE as Art History, Art Criticism, Production and Aesthetics. The four
disciplinary content areas are critical in the development of fundamental
knowledge and skills in Art and Design. Production entails that students
apply the art elements and principles of design while at the same time
drawing a critical eye from aesthetics. Students explore a variety of
media in different ways. They also ask philosophical questions in the
process as well as drawing ideas from historical contexts. These are the
four things that students do with art. The purpose of this paper is to find
out the extent to which the Art and Design curriculum in Botswana is
reflective of the fundamental principles of DBAE which has pervaded
most art curricula in different countries.
Content analysis was done on the existing syllabus and other policy
documents that inform the curriculum to identify overlaps. The study
was an Action Research and it involved sixty-six level three Art
specialists in-service student-teachers from the University of Botswana
who worked in groups to share their Art teaching experiences in relation
to DBAE. They later identified and categorised Art objectives stipulated
in the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) syllabus according to
DBAE disciplines. When presenting their findings, Student-teachers
concluded that Art Production and Art Criticism were effectively
addressed during curriculum development compared to the other two
disciplines. Nevertheless, they argued that objectives which required
learners to explore colour schemes covered Aesthetics and the ones
seeking for explanation of Visual forms can address Art History As a
result, the study recommends that an evaluation be done to Art
education in the CAPA to include the components of DBAE. Teacher-
training institutions also need to prepare students-teachers to
incorporate DBAE components in their instruction.
Key Words:
Creative and Performing Arts; Art Education; Attainment Targets; Objectives;
Art and Design curricula models.
Introduction
Art as a discipline was recently introduced in Botswana schools. It was
introduced at junior secondary school (1992) earlier than in lower primary
schools (in 2002). To me this is an anomaly as there is likely to be unsequential
development of the subject. At upper primary art was introduced in 2005.
Before the introduction of a curricula syllabus called Creative and Performing
Arts (CAPA), art in Botswana primary schools was taught without a guideline,
therefore, it was optional (Mannathoko, 2015). Among some of major
innovations in the Botswana school curriculum was the suggestion to introduce
practical subjects among them art and design, art and craft then (Report of the
National Commission on Education, 1993) (RNCE). This ideas was subsequently
adopted in 1994 under the Revised National Policy on Education (1994) and this
gave birth to the CAPA syllabus in 2002 (Phuthego, 2007). The main aim for the
introduction of practical subjects was to develop technological thinking and
manipulative skills in learners. Such appreciation would lay the foundation for
national development at an early stage. CAPA drew its content from disciplines
that include home economics, art and craft, business studies, design technology,
dance and drama and physical education (Curriculum Development and
Evaluation Unit, 2002).
The grouping of these subjects under the umbrella CAPA was recommended by
the American agency called Cream Wright which was assigned by the Ministry
of Education, Skills and Development to review the primary school curriculum
(Phibion, 2006). To account for this combination, the agency explained that
CAPA subjects were put together to facilitate project teaching and integration
(Wright, 1995). Moreover, the Curriculum Development and Evaluation Unit
(2002, 2005) has stipulated in the CAPA syllabus, Attainment Targets, which
guide teachers on what is expected of pupils at the end of each level of learning
(lower and upper primary). These Attainment Targets are categorised into four
aspects for lower primary: Knowledge and Understanding, Manipulative Skills,
Creativity and Attitudes. For Upper Primary skills were increased by adding the
aspect of Communication and hence making them five in this level. The
Attainment Targets are the basis upon which the Botswana Examination Council
(BEC) will base their examination questions on, to diagnose the pupils ability at
the end of each of the two levels. The Department further generated the general
and specific objectives which define the content to be delivered at each level of
learning. The CAPA syllabus main aims, are to help students develop
creativity skills; problem solving aptitudes, critical thinking competencies,
aesthetic recognition and appreciation, psychomotor dexterity along with
positive attitudes towards practical work and productivity as cited by the
Curriculum and Evaluation Department of 2005.
Literature Review
This section discusses literature related to the study with more focus on
Discipline-Based Art Education framework; since all data was based on this
approach. DBAE is a curricula model that draws its content from the four
disciplines which will be discussed later in this section. It was designed by the
Paul Getty Trust in America in the early 1980s to support a diminished emphasis
on studio instruction and encouraged education across four aforementioned
disciplines within the arts (Greer, 1993). Following its footing in 1982, the Getty
Education Institute for the Arts based in America, recommended DBAE as an
effective approach to teaching art, arguing that it helps learners experience the
visual arts in a variety of ways. According to Greer (1993) the institutions
recommendation was an adoption of the ideas of art educators who had been
advocating a more integrative methodology that draws its knowledge and skills
competences from the four disciplines which follows: The first discipline,
production; is simply, how to create an artwork. It involves creative use of tools
and art equipment in innovative ways. It results in tangible studio products that
demonstrate critical thinking and imagination processes and art students get
stimulated as they explore or manipulate art media (Greene, 2014).
Another domain, art criticism, is equally important. In simple terms art criticism
is talking about art. It involves discussing, evaluating, interpreting and
analysing various aspects of art such as style, media and the use of art elements
and principles of design (Day and Hurwitz, 2012). Students carry out critiques
both verbal and in written form which heighten their understanding of the art
forms and their social context. As recommended by Feldman (1994) art criticism
follows four chronological steps, namely, description, analysis, interpretation
and judgement. Description involves describing what you see in the artwork
including the credit line information. In the second step, students analyse how
visual art elements such as colour, texture, shape are organised into principles of
design such as balance, variety, harmony, rhythm and proportion (Ragans,
2000). Talking about art elements and principles of design develops students
understanding of art as a means of visual communication (Lampert, 2006). Art
Criticism uses several areas of Blooms Taxonomy but also involves higher levels
of thinking. The third step, interpretation focuses on the diagnosis of the
artwork, to get its meaning while the last step, judgement, allows the viewers to
examine whether the artwork is successful or not, looking at how the art
elements were used. It also allows for personal feelings about an artwork, that is
whether one likes or dislikes the piece of work, with justification to their choices.
Eskine and Kozbelt (2015) view this stage as the critical judgement of specific
artworks which allows viewers to look within themselves and ask why they like
or dislike the piece of artwork. Choices can vary from one person to another
since it allows for individual opinions about the artifact. Thus, involving
children in this step will develop their critical, problem solving, self-reliant, self-
esteem and creativity skills (Schabmann et al, 2015).
Art History is described as the examination of the artists and arts contribution
to the societies and cultures. Studying art history helps students to understand
how visual communication has evolved overtime (Dash, 2006). It includes the
authors of the works and information about the work itself. Students get to
understand the artists themselves and the environment in which they
functioned, the historical periods and unfolding of events in time and space. We
get to understand the evolution of artistic styles and factors that influenced them
(Bamford, 2006). Thus, art work provides a visual record of the socio-cultural
changes over time, thus insights into the history of a people. It further provides
valuable insights and information about the present. Art and culture cannot be
separated from one another because both relates to the actions and continuation
of a people (Mannathoko, 2013). As a result, art students need to study art
history so that they get to understand how the artists understood their media,
means of expression as well as the philosophical underpinning their practices.
This leads to a better understanding of current practices which ideally are based
on the history and how art evolved through time (Merwe, 2007). This kind of
methodology enables students to relate the past and the present and put their art
and understanding of art in context and comparison.
Art educationists have proven that art history relates to social studies as it helps
us examine historical events through an artists eyes. The discipline answers the
following questions: Why was the artwork created? How was it used? and What
was its purpose? Aesthetics on the other hand, deals with philosophical
questions, questions that address the nature of art and the beauty of phenomena.
It interrogates the notion of beauty and its relativity. It addresses the questions
on our judgement of art, whether good or bad (Day and Hurwitz, 2012). We all
react emotionally to artworks. The work of art can upset or excite us. Thus, our
values, experiences and thoughts of beauty influence what we think about the
art object. There are various activities that we can do with students that
challenge their understanding of the aesthetic domain. They can be asked to
define the subject and its nature. They should be asked to interrogate its nature
and epistemological origins. They learn to differentiate art from what is not art.
They identify art that belongs to the canon and why others cannot be similarly
canonised. Historicised works of art are identified and studied in detail. In their
philosophical inquiry, students make reference to socio-cultural factors that have
an influence on art production. They examine beliefs and values that influence
production and broaden their conceptual grasp of the nature of artistic
expression. A critical dimension of aesthetics is that it enables students to
appreciate art for its own sake without making reference to specific cultural
performances as models of good aesthetics. It therefore removes those cultural
barriers and limitations that could hinder them from an informed appreciation
of art from the other.
Through art criticism students develop the ability to justify their opinions and
positions. Moreover, Aesthetics helps students realise what kind of art pleases
most people. This is also helpful for them when decorating their homes and
choosing clothes. Furthermore, critical skills are used in Aesthetics because
questions such as; why one feels that way or why you came to a specific
conclusion may arise. As a result, Aesthetics sometimes go hand-in-hand with
Art Criticism. A number of people fail to differentiate aesthetics from art
criticism. However both are important in the development of critical and
reflective thinking. It is important to note that there is no one answer to a given
question. Diverse answers are all important. What is important is the effort to
work towards a solution. Such aesthetic interrogation is what is critical in the
two disciplines of aesthetics and art criticism. To address or to find solution for
the provided question is extremely significant. Thus, DBAE approach is
designed to insure that all learners obtain an in-depth study of art (Dhillon,
2006). This framework has been proven through time and research therefore, it
should be seriously considered by all the art teachers. Agosto (1993) in Dobbs
(1993) shares conclusions drawn from various researchers on DBAE
implementation. She says results revealed that students who approach their art
from the DBAE are in a position to construct their own personalised knowledge
as opposed to universalised knowledge. Their studio art is better informed and
quality is generally better. They have a broader perspective in their approach to
art including their art and language comprehension and vocabularies which are
significantly enhanced. As a result, having an in-depth understanding of art
entails heightened abilities and capabilities to think critically, create, to write, to
evaluate and value art products.
Research Methodology
The paper aimed at examining the extent to which Botswana primary school art
curriculum and its pedagogical instruction addressed DBAE approach which is
believed by most art educationists in the Western countries to be the most
effective method of teaching and learning art. The study adopted a type of
education research called Action Research. The method is sometimes called
participatory action research since it includes findings by performing actions.
The method concentrates on a person carrying out findings with other people to
reach a conclusion. Mills (2014) states that Action research in education is about
investigating ones own practice in educational set ups. It involves gathering
data on their own teaching and students learning in their particular contexts.
This is linked to Deweys, Harbermas and Schons reflective practice critical in
the generation of self-knowledge. One can also investigate their operational
environments from a broader perspective such as the school environment,
resources and other factors that have a bearing on students learning outcomes
and performances. The aim is to improve practice by the individual or
participants in the given context.
The geographical areas were sampled that way because students came from
various regions of the country under different cultural context and hence a good
representation of the study. I found it necessary to use this diverse and
representative sample so as to adequately cater for diverse contexts from which
the learners came from and teacher contexts articulating the CAPA curriculum
and methodology. Such an approach is emphasised by Parlett and Hamilton
(1972). The study was also informed by Paul Getty Trusts theory of Discipline
Based Art Education (DBAE) which advocated for encompassing the four
disciplinary categories for the purposes of teaching art. DBAE was introduced in
America in the early 1980s. According to Phung and Fendler, (2015) the
approach was designed to support a diminished emphasis on studio teaching
and encouraged education across the four aforementioned art disciplines. In-
service students-teachers from primary schools were found to be the most
appropriate target group as they were practicing teachers who were
implementers of the CAPA curriculum. Fifty-one (77%) of the participants held
Diploma in Education as art specialists while fifteen (23%) were art education
non-specialists teachers when pursuing diploma. The study focused on standard
seven class as it is the highest level of learning in primary school therefore,
having mature students who qualifies to a comprehensive art education
advocated by DBAE approach. They were assigned to first identify the objectives
which addressed DBAE approach and later categorise the selected objectives
according to specific DBAE components believed to be relating to them.
talk about the things that they feel are significant (p. 220). As a result, the focus
group method provided a useful guide to further studies as the results from the
Pre-Focus group prompted the next step which is teaching DBAE to student-
teachers and assign them to examine the CAPA syllabus in relation to DBAE.
The themes for discussion are centered around teacher competences in handling
the DBAE curriculum and student learning activities in this curriculum model.
Results
In this section I present the results in two main categories as data from student-
teachers is in two folds: Pre-Focus Groups where participants shared their
teaching in art and Post- Focus Groups where they examined the art education
modules in relation to DBAE framework.
(2009) is of the view that if well implemented, DBAE strategy has the greatest
aim of teaching art in its social, cultural, and historical context and it combines
practical work with theoretical and contextual studies. She builds on the premise
that art is best approached from an interdisciplinary/integrative mode of fusing
the four DBAE disciplines, namely, art history, art criticism, art production and
aesthetics. This approach gives a holistic means of learning as opposed to the
fragmented and segmented approach. This philosophy of art according to
Walling (2000) came as a follow up of Bruners (1960) notion of giving students
an understanding of the fundamental structure of art. The good thing about the
strategy offered by DBAE to teach the arts using an integrated disciplines
approach is that, it does not only change what most art teachers teach but also
alters the view of the nature and value of art education. Having knowledge in
DBAE therefore, could assist teachers to identify gaps in the art curriculum and
come up with activities to biff the content. Thus, student-teachers were
introduced to the model of DBAE after realising their lack of knowledge in the
area. To check their understanding and preparing them for incorporation of the
approach when going back to schools, students were later tasked to examine the
CAPA syllabus specifically standard seven art education section in relation to
DBAE. They were to identify objectives addressing DBAE disciplines and
categorise them as shown in table 2 in the next section.
These results reveal that standard seven art education has six general objectives
which are all advocating art production discipline. There is no evidence of
emphasis on the other three disciplines namely; criticism, art history and
aesthetics.
Table 1: Categories of Standard 7 Art Education Specific Objectives (from 2005 CAPA
syllabus)
according to DBAE
Topic Art Criticism Art History Art Production Aesthetics
Drawing (Art -Analyse art N/A - Explore the use of -Analyse art
elements & elements & art elements & elements &
principles) principles in a principles in principles in a
given artwork. drawing. given artwork. *
. -Create a - Explore the use
composition using of art elements &
art elements & principles in
principles. drawing. *
Painting -Recognise the N/A - Explore with -Recognise the use
(Colour use of colour colour schemes in of colour schemes
schemes) schemes in an painting. in an artwork. *
artwork. * -Create a
composition using a
chosen colour
scheme.
2-Dimensional -Define batik. * Experiment -Experiment with -Experiment with
Crafts (Batik) with artificial artificial & natural artificial & natural
& natural dyes dyes in batik dyes in batik
in batik making. making. *
making. * -Explore the use of -Explore the use of
tools & materials in tools & materials
batik making. in batik making. *
-Create a batik work
such as scarf, skirt &
wall hanging.
3-Dimensional -Explain body -Explore -Decorate jewellery -Decorate jewellery
Crafts (Body ornaments. * different made from paper by made from paper
ornaments) -Identify types of materials & painting & by painting &
ornaments. * techniques for texturing. texturing. *
making body -Explore different -Explore different
ornaments. * materials & materials &
-Make body techniques for techniques for
ornaments making body making body
using different ornaments. ornaments. *
materials. * -Make body -Make body
ornaments using ornaments using
different materials. different materials.
*
Sculpture -Recognise Identify -Explore with tools, -Recognise
(Carving) examples of materials materials & examples of
sculpture made suitable for techniques in sculpture made by
by carving. sculpture sculpture making.by carving. *
making by carving. -Explore with
carving. * -Create a sculpture tools, materials &
Like the general objectives, specific objectives shown in Table 1 also show
emphasis on the discipline of art production because from the 16 (55%) specific
objectives identified as directly addressing DBAE from the overall total of 29, 15
(94%) were said to advocate art production while 1 (6%) focused on art
criticism. In addition, students identified 23 specific objectives which could be
adopted to cater for the omitted disciplines. 6 (26%) of these objectives were
attached to art criticism, 5 (22%) to art history and 12 (52%) to aesthetics.
Examples of activities pupils could be engaged in to cover for the omitted
objectives were suggested. It is important to note that some of these objectives
were adopted from the already existing objectives under art criticism and art
production in table 1 while some were newly identified from the syllabus and
added to the table. Activities were designed to suit specific disciplines as shown
in the examples below: This included art history under the topics Drawing
and Painting as the discipline was not attached to any specific objective.
Drawing & Painting under art history: Student-teachers were of the same view
that drawing and painting media and techniques used in the past including
purposes of the images created should be introduced to upper classes in
primary schools to prepare them for art history courses at high education.
hence showing appreciation of other artists work which will result in the
discipline of aesthetics. Moreover, the objective which states that pupils should
recognise the use of colour schemes in an artwork was adopted and adapted to
suit art criticism and aesthetics, the explanation being that before children use
colour, they need to learn its importance and how it can communicate different
expressions and reality and that knowledge can only be gained through
discussion of artworks and hence pupils appreciating colours around them.
Steers (2005) concurs with this idea that children understand art better if
involved in art criticism. 2-Dimensional Crafts (Batik) The objective Define
batik was placed under the discipline of art criticism with the justification that
the definition of batik incorporate its processes therefore, for children to
understand the technique, the teacher should bring a sample for them to discuss
looking at how media and art elements were used in a design to address the
design principles. This view too can also lead to the discipline of aesthetics as
pupils will appreciate other designers work and benefit from their ideas when
creating their own work.
One of the student-teachers commented that the type or name of the ornaments
is derived from the material used and gave an example of beads necklace that
they are made from beads. As shown in table 3, the two objectives on
exploration of materials and making of body ornaments using different
materials were adopted from the discipline of art production to also cover art
history and aesthetics. Student-teachers suggested that under art history,
pupils should be exposed to materials and techniques used in the past such as
clay, snail shells and dry wild fruits beads so as to appreciate the work of
ornament which evolved over time which informs the present. According to
Mannathoko and Major (2013) exposing children to a variety of media develop
their creativity skills and hence gain confidence in their creation of artwork.
Sculpture (Carving): The objective recognise examples of sculpture made by
carving was seen by student- teachers to can cover art criticism and aesthetics
arguing that children can only be able to differentiate sculptures if engaged in an
activity which allows for deeper understanding of their media and techniques
and even their roles thus, resulting in appreciation which is aesthetics in art
perspective. They therefore, suggested that teachers could bring samples or take
children for an art tour to a relevant art centre for them to critique sculptures
having guiding questions or statements designed by the teacher to focus
children on the activity. Identifying materials suitable for sculpture making by
carving objective categorised under art history was said to can cover art
history if children can be taught about the role of sculptures in the past, how
they were created and media used then later given images of various sculptures
both created in the past and contemporary ones to categorise according to
Traditional and Contemporary sculptures.
Examples were given as clay, wood, aluminium, plaster of paris and papier
mach sculptures. Chanda (1993) has discussed types and roles of African
sculptures in the past, giving an example of a small wooden human figure
sculpture which was tied to women who had problems of giving birth. They
were also other types buried in secret areas and honoured as they were believed
to be ancestors with powers that could destroy the community and no one was
allowed to go to the place or else disaster would be experienced by the whole
community. Finally, students concurred that two objectives based on exploration
of sculpture media and materials and the proper identification of such materials
under art history was adopted to can also cover the discipline of aesthetics
with the argument that as children understand sculpture of the past and explore
various media and techniques, they will understand them broadly and
appreciate sculpture created in different times and thus, developing aesthetics
skills. Construction The objective explain mobile, relief & freestanding
sculptures was believed if adopted could cater for art criticism with the
justification that children can be exposed to the images or real sculptures and
allowed to discuss them in terms of the media and techniques used to create
each of the three types. The student who suggested the activity explained to
colleagues that children will understand better if engaged in critiquing the
sculptures rather than just explaining the concepts. With art history and
aesthetics, an objective on exploration of sculpture materials and tools was
adopted from art production and students agreed that the two disciplines can
be covered by an activity discussed under sculpture (carving) which advocate
exposure of children to sculptures created over time and hence promote the
discipline of aesthetics. Educationists such as Lindstron (2007) and Bain (2004)
advice educators to effectively engage children in all the four aspects of DBAE so
as to produce citizens who are diverse and who can face all the challenges in life.
objectives from the CAPA, matching DBAE disciplines and placed each at the
relevant discipline.
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Joseph Habulezi
University of Botswana,
Gaborone, Botswana
Odiretsemang Molao
Central Regional Education Office,
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Sandy Mphuting
Kgalagadi Regional Education Office,
Kang, Botswana
1. Introduction
Botswana has committed itself to achieving full inclusion in education to both
maximise the potential of its people for the future development of the country
and to fully comply with the international requirements for human and
educational rights. This is because the country views education, (Christie, 2010,
UNESCO, 1994, 2001, 2008, 2009), a basic human right. In its positive efforts to
fulfil its commitment, the government of Botswana through the Ministry of
Education and Skills Development formulated a guiding mission statement; to
provide efficient, quality, and relevant education and training that is accessible
to all. Consequently, in 2011, an inclusive education policy was launched and
implemented.
Table 1.1 Performance of students with visual impairment in the 2014 BGCSE
Student name examinations
English language
Setswana
Mathematics
Chemistry
Physics
Biology
History
Geography
Social Studies
Literature in English
Religious Education
Commerce
Points attained
Art
A E C C DD D B C C 36
B D C C D D E D B C 35
C C D F DD C E 31
D D D D DD C D E E 31
E G C E EE D B 30
F C E E FF E D D 28
G E C F GG E E C F 24
H G D G GG E D C E 24
I E D U GG D D D 24
J E D U GG C F C F 21
K E D G UU E E E 17
L E D U UU U G B 16
M G E U UU U U C G 10
N F F U UU G F G 0
O F F U UU U F U 0
The trend of the results above prompted this research to find out the challenges of
providing classroom support to students with blindness in a general education
Biology class at a school in Botswana. Providing support to students who are
blind remains a challenge in general education classrooms and these challenges
vary as some lie with the teachers, while others lie with the students. Students
who are visually impaired have unique learning needs that must be addressed in
order for these students to become independent and productive citizens of the
society. It is against this back drop that today the family and educational
institutions face a significant challenge in providing services that will enhance the
positive academic outcomes for such students. One cannot over emphasis the fact
that making appropriate decisions about students who are blind requires clear
understanding of their unique learning needs and interventions.
2. Classroom support
Classroom support mainly provides assistance to teachers during classroom
activities. Sharma et al (2010) emphasise that when students who are blind are
included in the classroom, it allows the mainstream teacher receive the much
needed assistance in the teaching of the needy students. Support basically refers
to resources and strategies that promote a students development, education,
interests and personal well-being in the classroom (Mphande, 2011). The support
offered needs to align with the teaching and learning methods the mainstream
class teacher uses for all the students to benefit academically (Abbott, 2014).
In the classrooms, the students who are blind should be availed opportunities to
learn like any other student. Firstly, the trained special education teacher should
assist students in the development of the sense of touch and use of other senses
in order to respond positively to situations. Williams (2015) and Fraser (2015)
recommend that the students who are blind should not be treated as passive
observers any more but must be involved actively in all the lessons. Greater
concept realisation and increased interest for students can only be realised if the
students are valued and given opportunities like all other students.
Piljl and Van den Bos (2001) advise that teachers should talk while they teach
and verbalise notes as they write legibly on the board. Delors (1996), Witburn
(2014) and William (2015) add that the use of verbal commentary, use of hands
on experience, sensitive questioning, explanations and descriptions can bring
alive the abstract material of some subject areas. In addition, students with
blindness should be strategically positioned to maximise their potential visually
or auditory. Students who are blind cannot fully access the curriculum if
modifications and adaptations are not considered. It is therefore important to
consider the abilities of students in any given subject and content. Nasib (2005)
asserts that changes to the syllabi, content or period of a course can be changed
to cater for students impairment in line with their abilities. Access technology
simplifies and aids in most of the operations of supporting the students learning
in inclusive education.
3. The study
The study investigated current classroom support given to students who are
blind during Biology lessons at an identified school in Kgatleng District in
Botswana. The purpose was also to investigate existing challenges that interfere
with supporting the successful learning of students with blindness and academic
achievement of the students in Biology. The questions that guided the study
include:
Sighted learners 8 5 3
Total 17 9 8
5. Methods
The study used a mixed methods approach to collect data. This included one-to-
one and focus group interviews, lesson observations and questionnaires. More
than one methods of data collection were used because they can show the result
and explain why it was obtained. Additionally, it places credibility and
dependability of the findings of the study (McMillan and Schumacher, 2014).
The lesson observations were done in two days in the two classrooms that had
students with blindness to understand the assistance students were accorded
during lessons. Two observations were done; each session lasted 40 minutes.
This was guided by a 10 point observation check list that was administered
during lessons. The observations were done by the Senior Teacher Biology who
was also a member of the research team. The lessons were video recorded with
participants permission.
The interview was also used to collect data. 17 participants were used as shown
in table 1.2 above. The gender break down and statuses of participants are
provided in the table above. The participants age in years ranged from 16 to 40.
Arrangements for the interviews were made following the ethical procedures
and understanding of the research purpose. The interviews were video recorded
with participants permission. In addition, self-administered questionnaires
were used on students with blindness. The questions were formulated, brailled
and hand delivered to students. The responses were then transcribed from
braille to ink print.
6. Ethical considerations
The Regional Education office, which sponsored the research during the
Inclusive Education Action Research, assisted the researchers in obtaining
permission and consent from the relevant personnel.
7. Results
The findings from the data collected show that the trained and qualified general
education Biology teacher used diagrams which were not embossed. The
observations also showed that the diagrams used by the general biology teacher
were not bold enough (visible). They were also crowded with labels. The
inappropriate use of the diagrams in this case became a disadvantage to the
students with low vision since they could neither see nor read the information
clearly. The teacher confessed that sometimes she would only remember about
the students who are blind when she entered the class to teach. This presented a
big challenge for students who are blind since they could not see the materials.
The sighted students assisted by describing the diagrams to the students who
are blind. Lesson notes were most often made available in the form of hand-outs
in ordinary print and in large print, thus only useful to the sighted students
together with those with low vision. During the lesson, the general education
Biology classroom teacher wrote small letters on the chalk board, drew
illustrative diagrams which she did not let students with blindness know about.
On the other hand, the Biology specialist teacher for students who are blind was
descriptive in her teaching. Whilst teaching, she would pause to allow students
ask questions or walk to students who are blind to reinforce. She wrote bigger
letters on the chalk board and also spelled and read out some of the key words
as the lesson was in progress so that students with blindness could benefit.
Interview results indicated that some effort is made to support all students. The
special education Biology teacher had prepared some files with brailled hand
outs and embossed diagrams. These learning materials were made available to
the students with blindness during the lesson. There were no prescribed
recorded or brailled Biology text books found during the research in the library
or special education department.
The students who are blind were very concerned with the absence of prescribed
text books in Biology. They pointed out that the diagrams and lesson hand outs
are mostly derived from text books. The students with blindness could not use
the available text books for the purpose of research, homework or preparation
for examination. The research findings indicated that there is an acute shortage
of human resources in the special education unit. The respondents mentioned
the need to provide more special education Biology teachers and learning
support workers.
During the observations, no learning support workers were found in any of the
classes. At the time of this research, there was only one learning support worker
against 21 students with blindness. Out of the nine Biology teachers in the
school, there was only one who was trained in special education. To add on to
this problem, the specialist Biology teacher had been allocated four (4) classes of
Biology to teach. This included the class which had a total of twenty nine (29)
students including four (4) with blindness. In both classes observed, the students
with blindness were strategically positioned; nearer to the chalk board and with
a buddy. Other than the perkins braillers and the hand frames, there were no
assistive devices found in the classrooms. At the Special Education Department
though, there were three closed circuit televisions, seven talking scientific
calculators, head phones, 2 braille printers connected to computers, perkins
braillers, a photocopying machine and two tape recorders.
8. Discussion
understanding of the subject matter. Contrary to the practice and sound views
above, students with blindness in a class that was taught by a general education
Biology teacher were not provided with any pre brailled materials, embossed
diagrams or any other learning material other than perkins braillers.
Occasionally, the teacher stated that she provides students with large print
materials and allows students with blindness to explore laboratory apparatus or
models. This makes the students use perkins braillers to take down notes in class
and eventually cause a lot of noise throughout the lesson because the braillers
did not even have rubber mats to absorb the noise.
At the time of this research, the school had an enrolment of 21 students with
blindness among whom 16 were braille users and five used large print. Going by
the numbers of the students and the available equipment, there is need to
increase the access technology that is available especially internet connection to
the Special Education Department and acquisition of adapted computers for
students with blindness. Adaptive technology is very important, as Bray, Brown
and Green (2004) and DePountis, Pogrund, Griffin-Shirley, and Lan (2015)
stipulate, because it has revolutionised, simplified and improved the efficiency
in modifying and adapting teaching and learning materials for students who are
blind.
There were no learning support workers in the classes during the observations;
students also confirmed this during interviews. The only learning support
worker mostly accompanies students who are visually impaired to the hospital.
Mwakyeja (2013) and Habulezi and Phasha (2012) state that the primary
responsibility of the learning support worker is to support the classroom
teacher, enabling the teacher to provide the educational programme that meets
the needs of all the students in the class, including the students with blindness.
This important role has not been played because there is only one learning
support worker against 21 students. This seriously impacts negatively in the
students participation and understanding of experiments conducted during
lessons. Teachers normally make students with blindness sit next to sighted
learners who lend their support by describing the diagrams drawn on the board
to their colleagues. This form of assistance enables the students with blindness to
visualise and comprehend the lesson instructions during the course of the
Biology lesson but may disadvantage the sighted students as they could miss
points in the process of learning.
student ratio. This further curtails the support that the specialist teacher renders
to the students with visual impairment.
9. Conclusion
The challenges of providing classroom support to students who are blind in a
general education Biology classroom are as diverse as the students themselves.
The teaching methods most teachers use do not cater for all the students in the
inclusive classroom because most of the teachers in the school are not trained in
the teaching and learning methods for students with special educational needs.
In addition, the majority of the teachers lack adequate preparation for their
lessons in that they may prepare for the mainstream students but forget that
there are students who are blind who may need brailled, enlarged, embossed or
recorded teaching and learning materials. The challenges are compounded by
the shortage of trained special education Biology teachers, learning support
workers, access technology and brailled or recorded prescribed Biology text
books. The human resource shortages translate into workloads that are too much
to efficiently manage for the trained special education Biology teacher and the
only learning support worker. The class enrolments also pose a challenge
because the more the students in the class, the more difficult it becomes to
support them.
10. Recommendations
The study recommends that more special education Biology teachers be
deployed to the school and more learning support workers should equally be
hired. Access technology simplifies work and reduces demand for human
resources; more of the access technology should therefore be procured. Teacher
capacity building should equally be considered.
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Introduction
A common problem often identified in literature classrooms, both in
secondary and college education, is students lack of ability -or preparedness- to
assume an interpretive stance on their own (Eckert, 2008). Relevant research
suggests that struggling readers comprehension of literary texts can be
improved if their teachers provide them with suitable reading skills, as well as
with regular opportunities to read, discuss texts and respond to literature
(Almasi & Fullerton, 2012).
However, as Hamel & Smith (1998) point out, there are few models that can
help teachers overcome the difficulties they face in helping students
Theoretical Background
The Notion of Interpretive Strategies. Secondary school teachers often
expect students to use sophisticated reading and interpretive approaches
requiring them to display an interpretive stance, without systematically
supporting them to develop interpretive strategies (Orlando, Caverly, Swetnam
& Flippo, 2003). However, a clear definition of the notion of interpretive strategies
has not been given yet in literary theory, neither has it been clearly defined
which these strategies exactly are.
When the term interpretive strategies is used by literary theorists, it
usually refers to the methods of interpretation of literary texts. The notion of
interpretive strategies is frequently used by Stanley Fish (1980) to denote the
strategies employed by interpretive communities4. According to Fish,
interpretive strategies are methods not for reading (in the conventional sense) but
for writing texts, for constituting their properties and assigning their intentions (p.
171). When Fish talks of methods for writing texts, he does not use the term
literally; he refers to the notion of creative reading, through which the reader
creates the text by assigning intentions to it. Another definition of interpretive
strategies is given by Jonathan Culler (1975), who identifies as interpretive
strategies the conventions for reading literary texts (p.118), and interpretive
operations (p. 162).
Kintgen (1990) has described the dual role of interpretive strategies,
arguing that these strategies impose both the goal of interpretation that is, the
kind of meaning we are looking for - and the methods we use to interpret literary
texts (Kintgen, p. 3). Thus, the search for the authors intentions or the search for
historical, ideological and socio-cultural influences, constitute interpretive
strategies concerning the kind of a valid interpretation. Likewise, the use of
narratology features, like Genettes (1980) concepts of the narrators voice and
mood, or looking for metaphors and symbols, constitute interpretive strategies
concerning the methods for reaching valid interpretations; by valid meaning
interpretations based on textual and not arbitrary data. A different type of
categorizing interpretive strategies is used by Lee & Hughes (2012), who adopt
in their research ten predetermined interpretive strategies, which fall under four
broader categories: Preview, Authors craft, Interpretation and Personal
Response. For example, identifying the rhyme is indicated as an interpretive
strategy under the Authors Craft category, while making predictions is an
interpretive strategy under the Preview category (Lee & Hughes, pp. 496-499).
However, this particular categorization of interpretive strategies is incorporated
in the broader sense of comprehension, whereas the study presented here
focuses on interpretation.
Therefore, based upon the literature on interpretive strategies, in the
present study the term interpretive strategies is used to describe the set of
expectations and methods based on which readers interpret literary texts. These
strategies determine both the kind of valid interpretations and the processes that
lead us to these interpretations. For example, when we seek the authors
intention in a poem, or when we look for socio-political messages within a
literary text, we are using interpretive strategies that determine the kind of valid
interpretations; that is, the kind of meaning a reader expects to find. Likewise,
when we choose to observe the structure of a story, by looking for narratology
features, or when we decide to look for metaphors and symbols, we are
implementing interpretive strategies that determine processes which can help us
interpret the text. There are numerous interpretive strategies; as Fish (1980)
points out, the list is not meant to be exhaustive (p.168). In any case, readers in
our case, students who use interpretive strategies, are those who make
Method
Design
In order to test the hypotheses, we conducted a quasi-experimental
study, with one experimental group and one control group, which took place
during the academic year 2010 2011. We introduced as intervention for the
experimental group the teaching of literary texts through small-group
discussion: students were taught 7 literary texts from the curriculum in groups
of 4 or 5. These teaching sessions were equally distributed throughout the whole
academic year, interjected by teaching sessions with no intervention. At the
same time, the control group received no intervention regarding the teaching
strategy. Both groups took a pre-test and a post-test, which measured the
students ability to develop interpretive strategies, before and after the
intervention, respectively. During the experiment, all 7 teaching sessions were
followed by measurements of the dependent variable the development of
interpretive strategies.
Participants
Two classes of 9th-grade students from the same school -a public junior
high school in a district of Athens, Greece- participated in the study. The class
that constituted the experimental group had 24 students (10 boys and 14 girls)
and the class that became the control group had 22 students (13 boys and 9
girls). In choosing our participants, our first concern was to ensure that our
students would be able to develop, at some level, interpretive strategies. The
ability to interpret is not something exclusively taught in schools; it is
constitutive of being human (Fish, 1980, p. 172). We can expect that students of
all ages can develop interpretive strategies according to the level of their
maturation. We chose a school from an urban, middle-class area, so that the
students included in the study would be of a socio-economic status
representative of the mean of the wider student population (more than half of
the Greek population resides in Athens). 9th grade was considered a reasonable
choice, since students in this grade are old enough to develop interpretive
strategies to a satisfactory level, and yet they do not have to meet the demands,
pressure and workload that come along with senior high school. The two
particular classes (out of four 9th- grade classes in the same school), were chosen
based on their academic performance. That is, we included the two classes
whose students had similar grades in the course of Modern Greek Literature. We
used the grades of the previous academic year as a criterion.
Materials
Students of both groups were taught 7 Modern Greek literary texts (both
poems and prose) from the national curriculum, that is, texts contained in the
school book. The texts were: a) The bridge of Arta, a folk song, b) R. Ferraios,
Thourios, a poem written in 1797, inviting the Greeks to revolt against the
ttoman dominion, c) I. Makrygiannis, Memoirs, an excerpt from the memoirs of
a Greek general who fought in the revolution against the Ottoman empire, d) E.
Roidis, The Glass Stores, a humorous short story satirizing the intolerable
situation in the Athenian streets and sidewalks, e) K. Palamas, Ode to the
Parthenon, a poem about the Greek monument, f) K.P. Cavafy, In 200 B.C., a
poem talking (among others) about the emergence of the Hellenistic world and
g) N. Kazantzakis, Life and Adventures of Alexis Zorbas, an excerpt of Kazantzakis
biographical novel.
In every teaching session all students were given discussion sheets, which
were specially designed for the instruction of the texts. The concept underlying
the design of the sheets was the creation of a tool that would be used as a guide
for students in their attempt to interpret the text, but also as a data source
concerning the learning outcome; that is, students interpretations and the
interpretive strategies behind these interpretations. Constructing an instrument
was necessary, since no validated test existed to measure the dependent variable
(development of interpretive strategies) for the specific literary texts taught.
However, we used as our guide the instrument designed by Fall, Webb &
Chudowsky (2000, p. 900), which measured 10nth-grade students performance in
a variety of skills: comprehension, interpretation and evaluation of literary texts.
This instrument was modified to meet the present studys demands, by focusing
on interpretation and serving as a teaching and measurement tool at the same
time. Specifically, 7 discussion sheets were designed, one for each text, based on
the concept of the hermeneutic circle (Dilthey, 1976). According to this concept,
the act of reading is a continuous movement between the whole and the parts of
the text. In designing our tools we incorporated the principles of the recent
hermeneutics, as well as certain principles of the reader-response theory, which
focuses on the reader and accepts multiple interpretations. This is why the
questions provide the students with some hints or reading guidelines to help
them interpret the text, but they do not impose or strictly direct students
towards a single interpretation. Each discussion sheet included three questions,
which should be answered in written form. The first one asked students to
narrate the text or give a summary of its content, by assuming a role of a
character in the story. This question focused on a first, holistic approach of the
text. The second question focused on the analysis of specific parts of the text (e.g.
thematic units, character and literary style evaluation, etc.). The reading
instructions became more specific here. The third question asked students to
narrate or give a summary of the whole text again, this time from a different
perspective, so that the preceding analysis could be utilized (see Appendix A).
The discussion sheets given to the experimental group and the control
group were the same, the main difference being that the students in the
experimental group were told to answer the first question individually and the
next two questions as a team, whereas the students in the control group were
told to answer all three questions individually. he students written answers
would be evaluated in terms of interpretive diversity and validity, and the
comparison of the grades emerging for the two groups would allow us to test
the research hypotheses.
Another data source was the pretest and posttest, used to test the second
research hypothesis, which refers to the students individual competence in the
development of interpretive strategies. Since no such standardized test was
found in the bibliography, we proceeded again with a self-developed tool.
Taking into consideration the relevant research (e.g. Mayo, 2001, Fall, Webb &
Chudowsky, 2000; Kucan & Beck, 2003; Boscolo & Carotti, 2003), we ended up
with a test which had the following form: students were given a literary text
they had not been taught. The text a poem was chosen considering the
students academic level and background. For example, the poem used in the
pretest, The Companions in Hades by Giorgos Seferis, has a content familiar to 9th-
grade students, since they had been taught the epic poem of Odyssey in the 7th
grade. At the same time, this poem has an allegoric and symbolic character,
which leaves it open to multiple interpretations. The poem for the posttest was
chosen in similar grounds. The text was followed by two open questions,
designed in a way that encouraged multiple interpretations. Questions also
asked students to justify their answers, so that we could identify the interpretive
strategies behind these interpretations (see Appendix B).
Both instruments described above were tested for their reliability. In
particular, for the pretest and posttest, the instruments were tested through the
split-half technique (Wiersma & Jurs, 2005). The Guttman Split-Half Coefficient
was 0.88 and 0.86 for the pretest and the posttest respectively, which was
considered to be satisfactory as a reliability indicator for the instrument.
Regarding the worksheets, a different technique was implemented, since the
instrument could not be divided in half (it contained three questions activities).
Instead, we followed the parallel or alternate forms procedure (Wiersma & Jurs,
2005). As it was mentioned, all worksheets were constructed under the same
concept: the hermeneutic circle. It was not possible to test two worksheets at the
same time, because this would mean that students would be taught two
different texts simultaneously. However, we tested the correlation between the
grades in the first and the second worksheet, which were given to the students
within a time period of two weeks. Correlation was quite high (r = 0.90), giving,
thus, a positive indication about the reliability of the instrument. Finally, all
measurement tools were evaluated by two graders: the researcher and the school
teacher. Correlation between the two graders varied from r = 0.84 to 0.87, which
was considered as quite satisfactory, taking into account the subjective nature of
evaluating interpretation of literary texts.
During teaching sessions, observation forms were used for the
experimental group, in order to follow students participation during the lesson,
especially during the group work phase. This tool was similar to Lloyd &
Beards (1995) observation tool for whole class discussions, with some
adjustments to fit group work observation. The original Lloyd & Beards tool
was used with the control group. Field notes were also kept during teaching
sessions for both groups, as a means of evaluating the teaching and learning
process and making possible changes, when needed. Field notes also fostered a
deeper knowledge of the learning situation, allowing for richer descriptions and
more accurate conclusions (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2008).
Procedures
The main study covered almost a whole school year (October 2010 - May
2011). There was a preliminary phase (April-September 2010), which included
the sampling process, the meetings with the school teacher of the two classes
chosen, the decisions about the composition of teams in the experimental group,
a preparatory meeting with the students, the pretest, and, finally, a short pilot-
research.
It was decided that both groups should have the same teacher in the
Modern Greek Language class, in order to ensure equality within groups in
terms of a significant variable: the teacher. The problem was that, in Greece,
collaborative learning is not widely used yet, and very few teachers have
expertise on it. This was also the case of the school teacher in our experiment. It
was mutually decided that it would be best for the validity of the experiment if
the teacher for both experimental and control group during the intervention was
one of the researchers. The researcher, a teacher as well, had been systematically
implementing collaborative learning strategies in the teaching of literature for
the past 3 years. Being a researcher and a teacher at the same time raises of
course the question of bias: the researcher might be tempted to favor the
experimental group as a teacher. This is a common challenge when a researcher
is also the designer of an intervention (Barab & Squire, 2004). We tried to avoid
this by using an observer, who would be present in all teaching sessions and
would point out if the researcher was acting in favor of the experimental group.
For the same reason, all teaching sessions were tape-recorded. Finally, the school
teacher that taught the rest of the texts without intervention during the
academic year, was the same for both groups, as well.
Regarding the composition of the teams for the experimental group, 5
teams were formed: four with 5 members and one with 4 members.
One hour was spent to inform both experimental and control group
students of the procedures concerning their work with the teacher-researcher
and the worksheets they would be using. Students were roughly informed about
the experiment; that is, they were told that their class was chosen to participate
in a study which explored the outcomes of a new method of teaching literature.
In the last 20 minutes the pretest took place. Another two hours were spent for a
short pilot research, in order to test our tools: work sheets, tests and observation
forms.
The main research (October 2010 April 2011) was the intervention itself,
which was implemented in 46 teaching hours. This means that the experimental
group was taught Modern Greek literature in small groups with the researcher
as the teacher for 23 hours over the academic year, whereas, for the rest of the
year, the same group was taught the same lesson with their school teacher,
through direct instruction. Likewise, the control group was taught Modern
Greek literature through direct, teacher-led instruction with the researcher as the
teacher for 23 hours over the academic year, whereas, for the rest of the year,
they were taught the same lesson with their school teacher, through direct
instruction again.
Interpreting Literature in Small Groups: a Teaching Model. Teaching
sessions were articulated as follows (each session lasting three 45-minute hours):
Phase 1: Preparing the Whole Class. This phase began with the teacher
reading the text aloud, so that reading ability differences among students could
be controlled. In the end of the reading, the teacher answered possible student
questions, concerning vocabulary or comprehension. Next, students were asked
to answer the first question in the worksheets individually, within a time limit of
10 minutes. After the time had expired, certain answers (as many as possible,
depending on time constraints) were read aloud in class and a whole class
performance (Cohen, 1994; Tunkle, Anderson & Evans, 1999) and sex. Finally,
the teacher acted as a facilitator, by modeling, coaching and scaffolding (Jonassen,
1999). During group work, she intervened when it was absolutely necessary (for
example to answer a question that other group members could not answer or to
point out social loafing phenomena).
The Control Group Teaching Model. At the same time, during the
intervention, the students of the control group were being taught the same texts
by the same teacher / researcher, through teacher-centered instruction, with the
number of sessions being kept constant in comparing the experimental and the
control group. In general, we followed the direct instruction model by Joyce &
Weil (1986), which includes five main phases: a) Orientation, b) Presentation, c)
Structured Practice, d) Guided Practice, e) Independent Practice. In the first two
phases the teacher presented the text and provided general guidelines for its
interpretive approach. In phase c and d, students worked under the teachers
guidance, involved in whole class discussion, whereas in phase e they worked
alone completing their discussion sheets, with the teacher helping each one
individually, in case a student asked for help. Therefore, compared to the
experimental group teaching model, the control group model did not involve
any small group work; instead, it involved teacher-led whole class discussion
and individual practice.
The evaluation phase (April May 2011) included discussion with the
students of both groups concerning the intervention: how they experienced the
whole process, whether they found it effective and/or pleasant. The study
ended with the posttest.
Data Analysis
In order to test the first research hypothesis, we compared the grades of
students of the control and the experimental group for their answers to the 2nd
and 3rd question in the discussion sheets. In this way, we could compare
interpretations that resulted from teamwork with interpretations that resulted
from individual work, for the experimental and the control group, respectively.
Answers were given a grade from 1 to 5, with 1 corresponding to comments or
interpretations with little or no relation to the text, and 5 corresponding to valid
interpretations. When we refer to valid interpretations, we mean
interpretations sufficiently justified with textual data, meaning that alternative
interpretations are possible. Middle grades (2,3,4) corresponded to valid
interpretations with no or little justification. Grade 0 was appointed only when
there was no answer at all. This grading system, inspired by Boscolo and Carotti
(2003), was considered appropriate, because it was open to the evaluation of
multiple interpretations. Therefore, in order to compare the answers of the two
groups, we added the grades appointed to each one of the two questions in the
discussion sheet, that is, 5 + 5= 10. Next, we estimated the means for each
worksheet, for the experimental and the control group separately. The means of
the two groups were compared using ANOVA.
In order to test the second research hypothesis, we compared individual
interpretations of students of the experimental and the control group. In
particular, we used two data sources: grades in the pretest and posttest, and
grades of the answers in the first question in each one of the 7 discussion sheets,
which was also answered individually by students of both groups. The means of
the grades in the posttest and in the first question of the worksheets were
compared using ANOVA. We also ran an ANCOVA to compare the means of
the grades in the posttest, controlling for performance in the pretest. Statistical
analysis was performed with the statistical package IBM SPSS, ed. 19.
Results
Correlation between Teaching Strategy and the Development of Interpretive
Strategies in Literature Instruction
Comparison of the mean grades of students in the last 2 questions of all
7 worksheets tested whether discussion in small groups resulted into more
diverse and valid interpretations than whole class discussion within the context
of teacher-centered instruction. Means and standard deviations of students
grades in literary text interpretation for all 7 teaching sessions, comparing group
performance of the experimental group with the respective individual
performance of the control group, are presented in Table 1.
Group
Data from Table 1 indicate that the experimental group scored higher
than the control group, in all 7 teaching sessions (total mean grade 8.07 versus
5.52). ANOVA showed that these differences were statistically significant: for the
differences in the total mean grades between the two groups, F was 55.892,
statistically significant at 0.000. F for the differences in each teaching session
external features, their actions and their ideas, in order to deeply understand the
heroes ethos, character and state of mind. They focus on essential points, even
when these concern details (e.g. they observed the fact that Zorbas ordered rum
instead of sage and evaluated it accordingly). Moreover, they seem to have
learned how to observe the scenery (I was waiting for the rain to stop in the
first paragraph of the passage it is mentioned that it was raining in the
beginning). The students have also realized the uniqueness in Zorbas
personality. Finally, they have spotted one of the basic strategies used in literary
texts: the strategy of opposite characters, which helps the heroes personalities
emerge and stand out (Well, you know, opposites attract). These
accomplishments come as a result of the fact that the students used a set of
interpretive strategies: focusing on the characters and comparing them,
observing the scenery (time and place) and keeping track of the plot. In other
words, the students altogether chose to focus on narratology features, in order to
approach the text in a meaningful way. This set of interpretive strategies
concerns the processes that lead to valid interpretations, as they were described in
the Introduction of the present study.
The following answer written by a student from the control group, also
exemplifies the average level in terms of interpretive validity and variability:
- Welcome, Takis. Have a seat whats new? Hear me out a while ago, two
gentlemen were sitting here, having a conversation.
- So, what of it?
- They were two strangers, who started talking. The one was spontaneous and witty, and
he was straightforward and he wanted the other guy to take him with him on a journey.
The other one was calm, cautious, he was weighing things. And, deep inside, he wanted
to take him along, this old man with his callous hands and his sparkling eyes. He was
probably fascinated by his straightforwardness and his ideologies. And he will probably
take him with him, although they are different. However, he had an opinion about
everything and I was fascinated by him, as well.
Although this student seems to have perceived the basic aspects of the
two heroes characters, as well as the differences between them, it can be
observed that her description is not as deep and comprehensive as the one made
by the Athena team. She mainly focuses on superficial aspects (e.g. his
straightforwardness, a term that is taken from the text as it is), she is not
utilizing basic text information (e.g. Zorbas passion for santouri) and she cannot
focus on one of the main characteristics of the hero, that is, his passion for life
and his tendency to feel first and think afterwards. Even though she uses more or
less the same interpretive strategies as the students who worked in a group, the
implementation is carried out in a rather careless and superficial way.
The examples presented above are representative of the differences
between group work and individual work in all 7 teachings. Students of the
control group usually but not always tried to make an interpretive comment.
However, in every case, interpretations that came as a result of team work
(which applies to the students of the experimental group) were more valid, more
variable and they clearly took into account more textual data.
Another comment concerns the validity of the results presented so far.
One could claim that the answers composed by the teams in the control group
do not represent the interpretations of all team members; since the teams were
heterogeneous, the answers could be just the work of the best student in the
Group
Data from table 2 indicate that the experimental group scored lower than
the control group in the pretest (3.80 versus 4.26) and higher than the control
group in the posttest (4.02 versus 3.70). ANOVA showed that these differences
were not statistically significant: for the differences in the pretest grades between
the two groups, F was 0.434, p = 0.514. For the differences in the posttest grades
between the two groups, F was 0.375, p = 0.543 (probability standards were set at
0.05). For our second hypothesis to be confirmed, we would expect to get two
findings: first, a non-significant difference in the pretest, so that equality in
performance could be demonstrated, supporting, thus, the studys validity, and
Total 124.375 39
The model on Table 3 describes the difference of mean grades for the
development of interpretive strategies in the posttest between the experimental
and the control group, controlling for the development of interpretive strategies
in the pretest. Again, the effect of the teaching strategy on the posttest
performance is not statistically significant. On the contrary, performance in the
pretest highly correlates with performance in the posttest (p = 0.017).
It was considered necessary to use another data source in order to check
our hypothesis. The mean scores in the first question of the students discussion
sheets, which was answered individually by students of both the control and the
experimental group, were also examined. This was considered to be a valid data
source, because a measurement which occurs regularly during the school year,
in the form of an activity that takes place during a teaching session, may give a
more complete and systematic picture of students ability to develop interpretive
strategies than a written test which takes place only twice a year. Table 4
presents means and standard deviations of students grades in literary text
interpretation for all 7 teaching sessions, comparing individual performance of
students of both groups.
Group
It can be observed that both groups started with almost equal average
grades for the first two teaching sessions, but from the third one until the last
one, the experimental group was consistently ahead. We ran an ANOVA again
to compare the average grades between the two groups for each teaching session
separately. ANOVA showed that these differences were not statistically
significant, except for the third teaching session, were F = 4.056, p = 0.05.
However, for the total average of all 7 teaching sessions (2.87 for the
experimental group and 2.60 for the control group), F was 0.903, which was not
statistically significant (p = 0.347).
Therefore, the second hypothesis was not confirmed by our findings.
However, we could say that our results demonstrate a tendency for a positive
correlation between collaborative learning and individual performance in the
development of interpretive strategies.
Discussion
Our results set the ground for certain inferences and remarks. Initially,
our first research hypothesis, according to which students who work in small
groups end up with more valid and variable literary interpretations than
students who work individually, was confirmed by our results. The positive
in the conclusions drawn, the results should be still interpreted and generalized
with caution. (Wiersma & Jurs, 2005).
Further research concerning the kind of small-group experiences and
environments fostering the development of valid and variable literary
interpretations might be revealing different dimensions of improvement of
teaching literature. Moreover, the question about individual improvement as a
result of small-group work needs to be further explored.
Conclusion
Our findings showed that small group discussion enhances the
development of interpretive strategies. The finding is of more importance given
that the State of Greece, in which the current study was conducted, differs from
many European nations in terms of school culture (less collectivist) and the
organization of the educational system (a more centralized system) (Dimaras,
1995; Skourtou, & Kourtis-Kazoullis, 2003). Such an educational system seems
discouraging regarding teachers and students engagement in innovative
efforts. Small-group discussion can be a valuable instrument in the hands of a
teacher who has difficulties teaching students how to interpret literary texts or
wishes to support them to better respond to literature. Regarding the notion of
interpretive strategies, it is a useful concept for teachers who are interested in
working towards that direction. Small-group discussion seems to help students
use the interpretive skills inherent in them, by enhancing active learning and
peer interaction, and by avoiding the imposition of a single interpretation.
Therefore, this study can be of practical value for literature teachers in secondary
schools.
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Footnotes
1 In particular, we reviewed the publications from 1995 until today of the following
journals: Review of Educational Issues, Pedagogical Review, Pedagogical Discourse, Pedagogical
Review, Philologist and Philological.
2 The research work of the Human Computer Interaction team of the University of
order to explain why two or more readers share the same interpretations (since there is
no such thing as an objective text, according to the reader-response theory) and why one
single reader regularly changes his/her interpretations. Interpretive communities consist
of readers who share interpretive strategies. These strategies exist before the act of
reading and, therefore, they determine the form of the reading object the text rather
than the other way around, as it is usually supposed to be. This explains why different
readers give the same interpretations (they belong to the same interpretive community)
and why one single reader uses different interpretive strategies and, thus, gives different
interpretations (he/she moves between multiple communities). Interpretive
communities grow or deminish and people move from one to another (Fish, pp. 171-
172).
5 For further reference, the relevant document is (translated in English from Greek):
Guidelines for the teaching of philological courses in junior high school (academic year 2003-
2004). Ministry of National Education and Religion, Pedagogical Institute, Department of
Secondary Education, pp. 174-217. These guidelines are still used by teachers today.
6 Santouri: a traditional musical instrument
7 Students in the experimental group named their teams as follows: Hermes, Victory,
language and style. Possible mistakes in grammar, syntax or expression were not
corrected.
Example of work sheet used in the teaching of literary texts by the students of the
experimental group.
Discussion sheet
Course: Modern Greek Literature
Text: Nikos Kazantzakis, The Life and Adventures of Alexis Zorbas (schoolbook pp. 164-168)
Team name:
Team Members: 1).............................................. 2)............................................
3).......................................... 4) .............................................. 5)......................... ...........
Instructions
1. Answer all three questions (with open books).
2. Answer the first question individually, and the next two questions as a team. The
answers of the last two questions must emerge from the participation of all team
members. Your ideas must be supported by specific citations from the text.
3. Choose a secretary, who will be writing down the teams answers to the questions,
and a reader, who will be reading them in front of the whole class.
4. If you have any questions, ask all your team members first. Only if none of them can
give you an answer, you may ask the teacher.
5. At the end of the lesson, you will hand all the work sheets to the teacher.
Questions
1) Suppose you are the writer (and main character of the novel) and, the night after you
first met Zorbas, you run into an old friend of yours, on the boat to Crete. Describe to
him, in short, the scene of your acquaintance with Zorbas, pointing out his personal
characteristics and ideas that impressed you. Then, say whether you finally decided to
take him with you to Crete or not, and why.
2) a) Complete the table below by gathering as many evidence as you can about
The scenery (where The characters The narrators The way the author
is the story taking (Who are they, comments (about writes (style,
place?) and the plot appearance and whatever impresses words)
(what is going on?) behavior) him)
3) Suppose, now, that you are a group of sailors drinking their coffee in the same coffee
shop as the writer, sitting on the next table. You are present at the scene of Zorbas arrival
and you are eavesdropping on the whole conversation that follows. After a while,
another friend of yours arrives and sits with you. Describe to him, as a group now, the
whole scene of the two mens acquaintance and conversation, commenting on their
characters and stressing out some of their ideas that might have impressed you. Finally,
tell him if, in your opinion, the writer decided to take Zorbas with him and why.
B1. Pretest
Text: The Companions in Hades, by George Seferis
Questions
Question 1.a. What do you think the Companions in Hades, the Suns Cattle, and their
story symbolize? b. On what evidence from the text is your answer based?
Question 2. Who do you think the companions are speaking to? What are their words
aiming at? Are there any clues in the poem that lead you to this conclusion?
B2. Posttest
Questions
Question 1. The person who speaks in the poem is telling us how he plans to serve his
country. What do these plans tell us about his ethics? On what evidence from the text is your
answer based?
Question 2. But, a ruined man with him: Write a paragraph in which you will describe
what, in your opinion, is the meaning of this verse. Which are the textual data that lead you
to your conclusion?
Appendix C
Instructions for student behavior during group work (adopted by Johnson & Johnson,
2009a, p. 42)
i) Be critical of ideas, not people.
ii) Remember that we are in this together.
iii) Encourage everyone to participate.
iv) Listen carefully to everyones ideas, even if you do not agree.
v) Rephrase something somebody said, if it was not clear.
vi) Try to understand all sides of the issue.
vii) First we express all the ideas and then we put them together.
Crystal M. Ramsay
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA, USA
Introduction
between home and school that might mark the schooling experiences of children
with RAD and their families to elucidate ways of enhancing home and school
communications.
Children with RAD can present schools and education professionals with
very challenging behaviors (Davis, Kruczek, & McIntosh, 2006; Floyd, Hester,
Griffin, Golden, & SmithCanter, 2008; Schwartz & Davis, 2006). They often
exhibit inappropriate behaviors that range from subtle planned behaviors to
extreme and proactively planned inappropriate behaviors or overt dangerous
aggression (Taft, Ramsay, & Schlein, 2015). Research supports that children with
RAD can be the most difficult group of children with problem behaviors that
service providers will work with in schools (Dunlap & Fox, 2007; Green, 2003).
Additionally, Schwartz and Davis (2006) discussed the effects of RAD on school
readiness and concluded that RAD children present the school with academic,
social, and behavioral challenges and problems that need to be addressed so that
the learners can optimally benefit from their learning environments.
Other problems to consider when working with children with RAD are
identifying triggers of behavior, determining appropriate and effective
consequences, and understanding the behavior in terms of behavioral function.
With most children, school professionals can identify triggers or events likely to
elicit inappropriate behavior. This is not always the case with children with RAD
(Cain, 2006; Thomas, 2005; Trout & Thomas, 2005). In fact, it is not uncommon
for children with RAD to exhibit extreme behaviors without any noticeable
antecedent or trigger for the behavior (Cain, 2006; Taft, Ramsay, & Schlein,
2015).
It is accepted behavioral principles that antecedents can predict the
occurrence of behavior and that consequences maintain or decrease behaviors
(Alberto & Troutman, 2013, Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007). Unfortunately,
consequences that maintain behaviors are often more difficult to identify in
children with RAD (Cain, 2006). Difficulties identifying antecedents and
consequences make determining a verifiable functional relation between
behaviors and consequences extremely problematic. This, in turn, negatively
impacts attempts to design effective behavior intervention plans. Even when
antecedents, consequences, and behavioral function are determined, children
with RAD often do not respond to behavior intervention practices and
programs. This includes those that have been commonly and effectively used for
interventions to address behavior problems for children with behavior disorders
(Cain, 2006; Taft, Ramsay, & Schlein, 2015; Thomas, 2005; Trout & Thomas,
2005).
Problems that children with RAD exhibit are due to the negative impact
of disturbed and dysfunctional early relationships effectuated by extreme
neglect, abuse, violence, and changes in primary caregivers (Schwartz & Davis,
2006). Families must be included as stakeholders in their childs educational
team, given the difficulties presented by students with RAD. Family members
know their children better than anyone else. A family-centered and team-based
process is crucial for addressing the needs of this student population. Families
need to be involved so that they can support children during the assessment
process, validate data collected by interventionists, report on behaviors, provide
information about the performance of their children, and provide critiques of
suggestions that are offered by intervention teams (Cain, 2006; Thomas, 2005).
Methodology
Findings
communications and interactions with the school often did not seek to attend to
parents needs or requests, nor to unify emotional and behavioral management
across the home and the school. In these cases, school professionals simply
ignored the input from parents.
Interacting with our participants reinforced a shared narrative that these
parents of children with RAD do not feel like their input was considered fully or
respected. Our participants clearly conveyed that when curricular power is not
shared, they feel as if they have no control over their childrens education. The
next narrative is highly useful for considering facets of the interactions between
school staff and our participants during the Individualized Education Plan (IEP)
process, which is critical for structuring students written learning plans that
account for their special needs in school. Janet, commented on the IEP process
for her 7yearold son, Warren, in the following story.
When it came time for the IEP process, and we were in there, the
principals over there texting under the table while were talking
about these things and Im expressing concern. Just didnt really
feel like they were hearing anything I had to say. They didnt
want to know what my input was. They pretty much had a
mindset of what they were going to do. And thats what they
were going to do.
Janets story displayed how she did not feel as though she was treated as a
member of her sons education team with respect to curricular decisionmaking
for her child. Janet discussed how this situation resulted in her feeling
disempowered. Since the principal did not attend to Janets concerns or provide
full attention during the parent conference, she was not convinced that the
principal was acting in Warrens best interest.
When students have special emotional needs, it is crucial that educators
maintain sensitivity to the needs of both families and children. Teasing,
stigmatization, worries about future needs, and other concerns can add
emotional burdens to families that may not be experienced by families of
children without disabilities. Thus, school personnel need to be especially
supportive of parents of children with RAD and other severe emotional and
behavioral disorders. In spite of this expectation, Georgia and Harveys lived
scenario below about their son, John, demonstrated that communications
acknowledging the needs of students and their family members were lacking.
This formed a barrier inhibiting the efficacious implementation of resources to
support Georgia and Harveys children.
Our sons home district has not shown much initiative in wanting
to help us address our sons need to reduce his excessive
transitions. They have not responded to our request for them to
participate in our sons case management team, which is to
function and help us bring together the multiple agencies and
entities involved in his care, treatment, and education planning
related to his disability and need for a group-home setting with
family involvement for a longer period of time.
Georgia and Harveys experiential narrative is important for understanding
their experience that schools do not always communicate with families or
advocate for children in ways that satisfy the interconnected needs of parents
and their children. As a result, Georgia and Harvey suggested that school staff
are not able to act on behalf of their children in meaningful ways. This was also
the situation for many of our other participants. For example, Nicole, whose
daughter, Jenny, has RAD, revealed her belief that the school did not properly
inform her about options for services and help to support her daughter.
I didnt realize with RAD that she needed to haveIt would have
been nice if they had that, but I thought that the special services
were only for the children who were severely handicapped, like
that needed wheelchairs to get around and stuff. I didnt realize
Nicole emphasized how she felt as though she is on her own to navigate an
intricate system of agencies and to find a solution for her child, because the
school provided misinformation or responded to her with a lack of information
about resources in their communications. Georgia and Harvey also underscored
this situation with their experiences in communicating with the school with
respect to the needs of their daughter, Amanda.
Harvey: Oh, my gosh. We met with them at least 10, 12 times. The
principal is not tops on my list there.
Georgia: The principal, we met with one-on-one, and then he
handed us off to the counselor.
Harvey: He got tired of us.
Georgia: We probably met with her about 4 or 5 times and then
they had a special ed person that we met with in the school,
which was Mrs. Diner. Then we met with the district person in
charge of special ed, and its like each time you have to drag the
information out of them. They wont volunteer, Okay, heres
what you guys need to give. Go do this, this
Harvey: Oh no, they didnt help us. We had to figure it out on our
own.
Georgia: They wont give you any information as to what you
need to do to help this kid. They said, Well, you know maybe we
could take her out and give her a half an hour of extra this during
the day. And you know, sometimes when wed leave these
meetings wed feel pretty good but then nothing would change. I
mean, Amanda would still be struggling. She couldnt do the
homework.
This narrative of experiences is significant for showcasing how our participants
encountered several roadblocks in their efforts to support their children. Georgia
and Harvey highlighted how they believed that the school administrator at their
daughters school became tired of interacting with them and passed them on to
other support staff. Ultimately, however, they were unable to receive aid that
they felt to be valuable. At the same time, Megan exemplified, in the following
narrative, the fatigue that our parent participants related to us in attempting to
engage with the school.
The communication piece, like if he didnt have to It really feels
like you have to push to find out whats necessary, but then
sometimes there should be a limit to what they communicate.
There was a point in time just being really honest, mid-school
year, where I was just exhausted with hearing about all of his
bad, and it was kind of had gotten to this point where I dreaded
checking the email to know what he had done that day.
Megan, like our other participants, expressed how communications with faculty
and staff at the school were often negative. Although our participants revealed
that they would like to have more productive conversations with the school
about ways of helping their children, Megan highlighted how the most frequent
form of school communications were to report to parents negative behaviors of
their children. Such reports were often highly frequent in number and resulted
in our participants wanting less interaction with the school.
The stories that we collected from our participants experiences highlight
a great need to improving homeschool communications. The narratives of
experiences that we discussed expose areas in which our participants would
benefit if schools would foster better ties with them. Our participants voiced
experiences serve to specifically delineate some of the needs of children with
RAD and their families, and the types of communications and interactions that
they require.
Discussion
Until now, the voices of parents of children with RAD have gone largely
unheard, and their experiences have been unknown or misunderstood. When
discussing children with RAD it is obvious that parents raising these children
need support. Children with RAD behave in ways that are extraordinary when
compared to other children, even those with emotional and behavioral disorders
(Taft, Ramsay, & Schlein, 2015), and parenting a child with RAD is a task fraught
with extraordinary challenges. A disorder that begins with a lack of initial
healthy attachment early in life becomes a daily trial for the children and for
those who care for them. The American Professional Society on the Abuse of
Childrens (APSAC) recent report confirmed a lack of clarity about how to help
families and children with RAD or attachment issues. (Chaffin et al., 2006). For
the caregivers of children with RAD, who face daily and ongoing challenges,
positive communications with their childrens schools are essential.
Evidence indicates that the childrens educational system is one of the
most important variables to consider in any remediation effort, and best
practices dictate that family participation must be encouraged when designing
academic, social, and behavioral goals and interventions for students with
behavioral disorders. Further, IDEA mandates that parents should be considered
full and equal partners on the IEP team (Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America, 2004). Parents and the family are crucial variables
for success of any intervention plan. In this study, however, we found that the
information and input families offer is often ignored by education professionals
or other caregivers. Unfortunately, such was the case for our parent participants
who experienced interactions with their childrens schools across four states and
nine school districts.
This study is significant, since within this investigation we address a
great gap in the literature in terms of examining some of the experiences of
parents of children with RAD, particularly with respect to communicating and
interacting with their childrens schools. Although positive interactions and
strong communications between the home and the school might prove to be
helpful for attaining positive academic, emotional, and social outcomes for
children with RAD, the experiences highlighted here showcase how, for our
participants, related efforts were lacking or limited. Findings from this study
indicated that for these parents of children with RAD, families experienced a
lack of respectful, proactive, positive, and useful communication throughout the
educational process.
This study does not aim to generalize findings. Nevertheless, our
participants narratives of experiences might be useful for depicting some of the
situations and needs of other parents of children with RAD or parents of
children with other severe emotional and behavioral disorders. Direct interviews
were conducted with 10 parents from across four states and nine school districts.
Despite the geographic diversity, their stories were strikingly similar. It is
anticipated that this study will be informative to others dealing with children
with RAD, and that it will offer verisimilitude and transferability to other
settings. We thus hope that this paper will prompt educators and school leaders
to recognize some of their own practices in home and school communications
and to identify concrete ways of improving and expanding upon them.
The strength of this study is the window that the parent voices provide
into the nature of their interactions and communications with school personnel.
Although the findings of this study might not be generalized to other families
with children who have RAD, it is plausible that the stated findings might prove
to be relevant for other families experiencing challenges with communicating
with their childrens schools. Parents of children with RAD or those who have
children with other severe emotional and behavioral disorders might also
resonate with the experiences discussed in this article. School administrators,
school counselors, and support staff for students with special emotional and
behavioral difficulties might find this work useful for delineating some of the
needs of students and their families. It might further highlight areas in provided
services that need to be addressed to improve students academic and social
lives in school.
A potential limitation of this study is the fact that almost all of our
participants were members of a support group for parents of children with RAD.
Our participants might share specific home situations that have led them to seek
out a support group. They might also converge in terms of shared parenting
characteristics or similar personal needs. In this way, our findings might be
shaped accordingly.
Future research needs to investigate effective methods of promoting
improved communications between schools and parents of children with RAD.
Such methods would enable positive supports for families and school personnel,
and they would address the complex challenges that currently prevent or
minimize interactions between the home and school. Additionally, narrative
inquiry might continue to be a means of exploring RAD and its implications for
caregivers and children because of the depth and richness of experiences it
captures. Significantly, parent voices might be essential in helping close the gap
in the research on students with RAD and for developing effective interventions
and strategies.
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Mehraj A. Bhat
Department of Education
University of Kashmir, South Campus, Anantnag-192 101
Jammu and Kashmir, India.
Email: mehrajsc@gmail.com
Introduction
Since the evolution of human beings, reasoning ability has been used as an
important element to solve their day to day related problems. It has been
acknowledged as the main component of human nature. Its expression can be
found in the teaching of Socrates, Confucius and others (Chen, 2000). The aim of
education is to equip the people with the ability to reason out. Therefore the
development of reasoning skills, its improvement and various approaches
invited the attention of teachers, thinkers, and academics for years (Kemler,
1998).
Reasoning is a thoughtful activity that has vital significance during the whole
life. All most all the theories of intelligence give much emphasis on the
reasoning and have crucial importance in daily routines and patters of life
(Wilhelm, 2004).
The students make use of reasoning ability in various life patterns in general and
education in particular. It helps students to draw conclusions and these
conclusions help them to solve their problems. It assists students in gaining true
knowledge, because knowledge is based on logic and rationality. Besides, it
helps students in decision making, problem solving, causal relationships,
making inductive and deductive generalizations and academic excellence.
Studies also revealed that reasoning helps in developing IQ (Leighton &
Sternberg, 2004).
Although, there are some more categories of reasoning from which some are not
familiar. These are cause-and effect reasoning, comparative reasoning, criteria
In the present study the researcher selected six types of reasoning (inductive
reasoning, deductive reasoning, linear reasoning, conditional reasoning, cause-
and-effect reasoning and analogical reasoning) because these are widely
applicable in daily routines and patterns of life in general and classroom
situation in particular. The brief descriptions of them are as:
In the present times everyone desires to have a high academic performance. The
entire system of education is centred on students academic performance. An
insignificant research occurs concentrating on the role of reasoning ability on
pupils performance in science and other subjects but they are limited and
inconsistent. The results of Ertepmar (1995) and Oloyede (2012) found that
formal reasoning ability as a strong predictor for the achievement in chemistry.
It has been also studied that reasoning can be used to predict the performance of
students achievement in chemistry (Abdu, 1998). The results of Sungur et al.
(2001) also indicated that reasoning ability significantly affects students
achievements. Tekkaya and Yenilmez (2006) discovered that reasoning skill was
the chief predictor of understanding, showing 31% of variation. Kuhn and
Holling (2009) showed that reasoning ability appears to be significant for
predicting academic achievement in science. The results of Nnorom (2013)
depicted that those students who had high reasoning ability achieved better in
biology than the students who had low reasoning ability.
However, the above studies suffer from one or more shortcomings. These are as:
Current Study
The present study addresses these issues by using reasoning ability tasks
carefully selected from previous researches to represent all aspects of reasoning
ability to know the power of different dimensions of reasoning ability on the
students academic achievement. Furthermore, investigator investigated the
predictive power (whether predictor variables account for variability in a
dependent variable) of reasoning ability on academic achievement by using
different method (automatic linear modelling). This quickens the data
investigation procedure through numerous automatic mechanisms. The
innovative technique is an enhancement over the outdated method in the
limitations drawn above. Predominantly, two main areas of development are in
involuntary variable selection and involuntary data planning.
Method
Participants
Participants were 598 of the age group 16-17 years. The students were selected
from 18 high schools from two districts of State J&K (India).
The validity of the test was evaluated through face validity and construct
validity. The face validity was evaluated through experts and to evaluate
construct validity of the test, the investigator used two methods i.e. relationship
between the total score of test and scores of each dimension (using Pearsons
correlation) and compare high and low group to know the discrimination
validity (two independent sample t test) of the test. All the values are
significant at 0.01 and 0.05 level.
For academic achievement the researcher used previous marks obtained by the
schoolchildren in the final end term examination (2013-2014) conducted by
Board of School Education. The marks were collected from students results
records kept in the respective schools.
The following criteria were kept in mind for using academic scores as measure
of achievement:
iii) Experts of different subjects prepare the exam papers, thus papers may
be considered as standardized tests.
iv) Marks include performance on theoretical, practical as well as internal
assessment. Thus the annual scores are reliable, dependable and give
complete report of overall assessment of the child.
Besides, it has been also found that a number of researchers (Uzuntiryaki, 2007;
Kuhn and Holling, 2009; Ghazvini and Khajehpou, 2011) have used academic
achievement scores as measures of academic achievement.
Results
In order to know the end product of different dimensions of reasoning ability on
students achievement, automatic linear modeling has been used with the help
of SPSS 20. The data for the same is presented in figure 1, table 1 and figure 2.
The table 1 shows that all the dimensions of reasoning ability are important
predictors and have significant importance on academic achievement. Further
the table 1 shows that all the F values of different dimensions of reasoning
ability (F=137.29, 36.85, 45.88, 13.82, 7.46, 4.29 P < 0.01, 0.05) are significant at
0.01 and 0.05 level. Thus, it can be concluded that each dimension of reasoning
ability have significant effect and importance on academic achievement. Out of
the six dimensions of reasoning ability, the maximum importance is shown by
deductive reasoning 0.49 followed by cause and effect reasoning 0.26, inductive
reasoning 0.16, linear reasoning 0.05, conditional reasoning 0.03 and analogical
reasoning 0.02 on academic achievement. The model depicts the graphical
presentation is shown in figure 2.
0.49
0.26
0.16
0.05
0.03
0.02
Conclusions
According to the results of the study it has been found that reasoning ability
seemed to be the main predictor of academic achievement. This means that
having greater reasoning ability promotes better academic achievement. There
is also evidence from the present study that students show competence in
different reasoning components. The individual differences in reasoning ability
could be explained by performance in academic achievement. The results which
have been drawn with the help of automatic linear modelling showed greater
accuracy, compatibility, authenticity. Therefore, it is imperative to foster
reasoning ability among students, so that they could excel in all walks of life in
general and academic pursuits in particular.
It is further suggested that schools should make provision for materials that can
stimulate the reasoning ability of the students. Things like computer games,
fascinating objects, simulation and games of different kinds may be provided. It
becomes progressively imperative to develop reasoning ability through all-time
learning so that the learner may be able to face challenges and may lead
important life, and build a balanced world (Shu, 2000). Hence, present systems
of education all over the world have acknowledged the need and improve
pupils reasoning ability (Moshman, 1990; Wu, 2001). Besides, teachers should
ask the students questions like why and why not and cultivate the habit of if-
then-else. Teachers can also play an important role by adopting various
strategies and techniques, which help in the development of reasoning ability.
They can help students to develop their advanced levels of reasoning through
careful range of tasks and the use of probing questions so that students may
learn problem solving approaches and use the power of extra formal reasoning
to better formulate and justify mathematical calculations. The continuous
development of mathematical reasoning habits should be given priority in the
high school students.
From the findings of the study it has been also revealed that out of the six
dimensions of reasoning ability, the maximum importance is of made by
deductive reasoning (0.49), cause and effect reasoning (0.26) and inductive
reasoning (0.16), on academic achievement. Therefore, it is imperative that
school teachers should promote these types of reasoning among school going
students.
Moreover, teachers should to plan their lessons and classroom setting according
to learners reasoning ability. School administrators may put extra efforts to
embed curriculum with reasoning and skills, so that students may get
opportunity to sharpen their skills.
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Introduction
The purpose of this study was to conduct a qualitative exploration of faculty
feedback on benchmark written assignments in an online doctoral program. The
researchers examined instructor feedback provided to online doctoral students
on scholarly writing assignments throughout their program. Researchers
identified the types and frequency of embedded and summative written
feedback. Using a method of move structure analysis, embedded feedback was
reviewed and coded to determine moves and their frequency. Then moves were
examined to determine if and/or how these were synthesized into patterns to
provide summative written feedback on student papers. In addition, an analysis
was conducted to determine if there were any relationships that could be
determined between feedback and length of paper.
Background
Despite attention given to doctoral education, there is still a lack of attrition and
retention research at this level. High rates of doctoral student attrition, which
consistently range from 40 to 50 per cent, are one of academia's well-kept secrets
(Berelson, 1960; Bowen & Rudenstine, 1992; Lovitts, 1996; Cook & Pullaro, 2010).
However, according to Cook and Pullaro (2010), Although none of the existing
national databases can provide a graduation rate that accounts for all students,
all the databases do provide valuable information that contributes to our
understanding of student success (p. iv).
Degree completion and graduation rates can be linked with many different
factors - such as institutional resources, student academic characteristics, and
demographics (Scott, Bailey, & Kienzl, 2006). One of the most critical factors in
completing the doctorate is adequate preparation of students for research. The
role of the relationship between the mentor and the student has been found
significant (Earl-Novell, 2006). Other factors include providing students with
clear expectations and encouragement to finish the doctoral study in a timely
matter (Ehrenberg, 2011). While it is the responsibility of the university to
provide resources and institute policies that increase student success (Johnsrud
& Banaria, 2004), it is the experience of the student throughout the program and
the relationship with faculty that can make the difference.
In every doctoral course in this study, students are asked to submit written
assignments that are aligned to program learning outcomes and course
objectives. Giving written feedback on assignments has always been an
important aspect of the teaching profession. While there is research that
supports that instructor feedback is important to online students (Arbaugh &
Hornik, 2006; Wolsey, 2008), little research has focused on the frequency of
instructor feedback in online doctoral courses. This study on embedded and
summative feedback frequency was designed to offer a fuller understanding of
the online teaching and learning experience.
Problem
Students in the doctoral programs of this study participate in two years of
coursework before entering the doctoral study phase. During this time, they
work with many faculty members on assignments that range from discussion
boards, to reflection pieces, to research papers. All of these courses include
written assignments and most include a final benchmark assignment. Students
must pass this benchmark assessment in order to continue in the program.
Faculty are expected to provide feedback on these written assessments in order
to scaffold student learning, improve student writing ability, and prepare
students for the doctoral study process.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine instructor feedback provided to online
doctoral students on benchmark scholarly writing assignments throughout their
program. The research team analyzed all feedback within these assessments,
identifying the types and frequency of both embedded and summative
comments, as well as noting any relationships between feedback and page
length.
This study sought to accomplish four goals: (1) Describe the types and frequency
of embedded feedback. (2) Describe the frequency and patterns of faculty
summative feedback on student papers. (3) Analyze if there is a relationship
between embedded feedback and summative feedback. (4) Analyze if there is a
relationship between length of paper and embedded feedback.
Rationale
Concise formative written feedback during the course work phase of an online
doctoral program can be challenging. This formative feedback on written
assignments should be aligned to the summative task of writing the final
capstone. Using formative feedback during course work should support the
philosophy of assessment for learning as opposed to assessment of learning.
Although feedback takes many forms, embedded and summative feedback on
student work can create a process of transparency, which allows faculty to
clearly convey proficiency levels to their students. Therefore, understanding the
frequency and types of embedded and summative feedback provided by this
large group of faculty may help online universities to determine if the feedback
measures implemented in fact align to the skills needed to complete the
capstone.
A recent review of the literature revealed limited findings on the role of written
feedback in an online doctoral program (Scott, Bailey, & Kienzl, 2006; Earl-
Novell, 2006; Walters, Henry, Vinella, Wells, Shaw, & Miller, 2015). While many
studies have been conducted on feedback to students at the undergraduate level,
limited studies have focused on the role of embedded and summative feedback
at the post graduate level (Fook, & Sidhu, 2010; McVey, 2008). Furthermore,
when narrowing the focus to online doctoral students, the results became scarce.
Data Analysis
Faculty feedback were examined at the MACRO: SUMMATIVE FEEDBACK and
the MICRO: EMBEDDED FEEDBACK domains. Within the MICRO:
EMBEDDED FEEDBACK domain, move structure analysis (Sinclair &
Courtland, 1977; Swales, 1981; 1990; Bhatia, 1983; Halliday & Hassan 1985;
Skelton, 1994; Mirador, 2000; Lewin, Fine, & Young, 2001) was used to examine
the foundational components of faculty formative feedback on written student
assignments. Move structure analysis is based on the analysis of both
communicative purpose and linguistic structure. Skelton (1994) stated Move
structure analysis is a technique particularly used in the teaching of professional
or academic writing, and is typically used as a means of describing what may
always be done rather than what must or is always done (p. 456). A move
refers to frequently occurring short phrases, with functions purporting short
sentences and exponents as frequent individual words. Through the use of
these identifiers, common themes, patterns, and frequencies were developed.
Participants
There were no participants involved in this study. All data used was collected
from archived courses from 2011 in an online University. The students
represented in this data are all working on their doctorate of education degree.
Based on Fall 2010 demographic data, the students represented in these
programs are all working on an advanced graduate degree. The student
population is comprised of 43% African Americans, 39% European, 4% Hispanic
and 14% other individuals. The mean age is 43, with 76% of the population being
female.
Data Collection
The doctoral program consists of many different program specializations across
a single College. Specifically, the College of Education ranges in specializations
from K-12 programs to higher education teacher and leadership programs. Each
of the specializations includes courses with benchmark assignments known
commonly as major assessments. These benchmark assessment assignments
were used for this corpus. The final analysis included 236 doctoral level written
benchmark assessments that include feedback from approximately 51 faculty
members.
Student papers were retrieved from all content courses in the doctoral program
that were submitted between January and December 2011. Papers were pulled
from approximately 16 courses (from all specializations) taught over the course
of the year. The course instructors included both full time and contributing
faculty members and are all employed by the online institution where the
research was conducted, while also representing a plethora of universities where
many of the contributing faculty are also employed.
Study Limitations
The data collected in this study was rich and varied and provides valuable
insights into the frequency and nature of academic feedback as a tool to guide,
direct, and support students in their learning. Time constraints placed some
limitations on labor intensive manual coding resulting in some instances where
only a descriptive account of the nature and frequency of feedback comments
could be provided in this report.
Whether faculty used other types of feedback was entirely beyond the scope of
the analysis as the data provided did not cover methods of feedback outside of
embedded comments recorded in the assignments under scrutiny. Academics
may well use other means of providing feedback such as tutorials, formal or
informal meetings, university website and other communicative technologies,
such as Skype for example, to augment assignment feedback. No account of
these methods is considered in this analysis of students assignments and where
such additional methods are used to communicate to students that may mitigate
some of the findings of this report.
Of the 80% of papers with less than 16 pages, one out of every eight assignments
was 10 pages in length.
When weighted by frequency, these types of embedded comments are set out
relative to each other in Figure 2:
Of all papers analyzed, nearly a quarter did not have comments in the margin at
all. Nearly a third of all margin comments for a paper extended between 5-9
total comments. Another third consisted of between 10 25 comments
throughout the papers. Based on the analysis between page length and
comments in the margin conclusions can be developed that paper lengths
between 6 and 15 pages had between 6 and 25 comments noted in the margins.
In addition, the highest concentration of comments in the margin was on
papers that ranged from 10-13 pages. This is interesting in that the determined
average number of margin comments across all papers was eight with combined
feedback and 10 when this was the sole feedback.
Using Highlighters
Feedback which relied on the use of highlighters as a means of embedding
feeding back on student papers averaged four highlighted sections per paper
across the entire data set, or twelve highlighted sections if only papers that used
this means of feedback are considered. Seventy-three of the two-hundred-and-
thirty-six papers analyzed used this method. The range of highlighted sections
ran from the highest amount recorded being one-hundred-and-sixty-five, to the
lowest recorded being one. Thirty-one papers had between ten and forty-eight
highlighted sections. Highlighting consisted of 25% of all embedded feedback.
The range of these frequencies is now set out in Figure 6:
Relationship Between
Track changes made Summative
Length of Paper and Comments in Margin Using Highlighters
within MS Word Comments
Embedded Feedback
Pages = 04
Pages = 05
Pages = 06
Pages = 07
Pages = 08
Pages = 09
Pages = 10
Pages = 11
Pages = 12
Pages = 13
Pages = 14
Pages = 15
Pages = 16
Pages = 17
Pages = 18
Pages = 19
Pages = 20
Pages = 21
Pages = 22
Pages = 24
Pages = 25
Pages = 29
Pages = 30
Pages = 33
Longer papers, defined as more than fifteen pages, comprised twenty per cent of
all papers yet only received fifteen per cent of all feedback provided. Therefore,
longer papers receive less rather than more feedback when considered against
the entire data set.
There was a relationship between the length of the paper submitted and the
amount of feedback received. This means that prorated embedded feedback
should equate to the one in four papers containing over sixteen pages drawing
one quarter of all feedback as shown in Figure 8, while Figure 9 shows that
when all four forms of feedback are cross referenced with papers with more than
or less than sixteen pages, larger papers draw only fifteen per cent of feedback
although they make up twenty per cent of all papers.
In the initial coding stage, the category summative feedback had not been given
a definition and only one-hundred-and-seven feedback comments had been
coded to this category. The relationship between summative and embedded
feedback was not distilled enough after the first round of coding. Therefore,
additional detailed comparative analysis and re-coding was necessary to filter
the actual embedded feedback into specific categories leaving the summative
feedback relating to the rubric criteria of the assessments. Only fifty of the two-
hundred-and-thirty-six papers analyzed used this feedback style. Summative
feedback comments also comprised a variety of data that was re-coded to other
feedback categories that had been developed during the process of distilling and
refining thematic categories; and the weightings of this coding are shown in
Figure 9.
Thus comments re-coded from the category summative feedback fit into the
categories that had already been developed. Nearly 79% of summative
comments were aligned with areas covering aspects of the assignment rubric
that was used for assessing the assignment for a grade, leaving only 3% of
comments remaining as coded summative. A pattern was identified for
summative comments with general comments provided by the instructor
relating to overall student performance in regards to the alignment of the
students work to the requirements of the assignment.
Although limited in scope, this study determined that both track changes and
margin comments were the most frequently used online doctoral writing
benchmark assessment feedback comments to students. In addition, the use of
highlighting could be more useful to students as a mechanism for feedback
Conclusion
There were four types of embedded feedback used by faculty members in an
online Universities benchmark assessment papers. The four types include
comments in the margin, using track changes in MS Word, highlighting, and
summative comments. The most frequently used type of embedded feedback
was margin comments with the least as summative comments. Initially, there
was overlap between what was coded as summative feedback and what was
coded as embedded feedback. Through comparative analyses, most elements
originally coded as summative were re-coded to embedded feedback categories.
Many of these categories related back to the evaluation rubric used for the
assignment. Therefore, the relationship between embedded feedback and
summative feedback included re-coding of comments from the summative to
categories relating to the assignment rubric. Additionally, there was a
relationship between paper length and embedded feedback. Papers between 13-
16 pages received the most feedback, while papers longer than 16 pages declined
in the amount of feedback provided.
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