Education Research

In this study, measures of irrational beliefs based on the principles of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) were reviewed and contrasted based on psychometric characteristics and quality of guidelines for interpretation. The use of measures of irrational beliefs is an important component of the assessment of presenting problems in psychotherapy and may inform clinical decision making. Additionally, these measures are a helpful way to identify change in irrational beliefs and to measure the effectiveness of specific interventions to facilitate such change. While there are a number of measures of beliefs, there is considerable variability in their psychometric properties and utility for assessment. The majority of the tests are not produced by a publishing company, nor do they provide test manuals. The reliability and validity evidence presented in the publications varies considerably as do the size and quality of standardization samples, which impacts upon the ability to draw normative conclusions. Analyses demonstrated that most measures of irrational beliefs do not provide the evidence needed to adequately address the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (Standards; American Educational Research Association [AERA], American Psychological Association [APA], National Council on Measurement in Education [NCME] 1999). Discussion of the implications of this review for the development of future measures of irrational thinking by researchers as well as recommendations in the test selection process for an REBT practitioner is offered.

"Trainee teachers following the three-year undergraduate BEd course at the University of Wolverhampton undertake a final-year research study. This project requires each individual to investigate an aspect of teaching and learning within an early years or primary school setting.

Reflections on Research presents, in publication, a selection of these final-year projects completed by trainee teachers in 2008 and 2009.

The students themselves have looked back upon the project to critically evaluate the positive and not so positive elements of their investigation. They also considered how what they did as student teachers remains relevant to what they do now as qualified professionals working in the classroom.

See also ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Doing Your Education Research Project’, published by SAGE: http://bit.ly/IrLHvD, and on FACEBOOK: http://on.fb.me/QsLY2Q"

A new measure of motivation toward education has been developed in French, namely the Echelle de Motivation en Education (EME). The EME is based on the tenets of self-determination theory and is composed of 28 items subdivided into seven sub-scales assessing three types of intrinsic motivation (intrinsic motivation to know, to accomplish things, and to experience stimulation), three types of extrinsic motivation (external, introjected, and identified regulation), and a motivation. The purpose of this investigation was to cross-culturally validate in English the EME. The EME was translated in English through appropriate methodological procedures and completed by university students. Results revealed that the English version of the scale renamed the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS), has satisfactory levels of internal consistency (mean alpha value = .81) and temporal stability over a one-month period (mean test-retest correlation = .79). In addition, results of a confirmatory factor an...

Under the stewardship of the Department of Education, recent acts of Congress confuse the methods of science with the process of science, possibly doing great harm to scholarship in education. An otherwise exemplary National Research Council report to help clarify the nature of educational science fails to emphasize the complexity of scientific work in education due to the power of contexts, the ubiquity of interactions, and the problem of  decade by findings interactions. Discussion of these issues leads to the conclusion that educational science is unusually hard to do and that the government  may not be serious about wanting evidence-based practices in education.

Very little is known about whether and what kinds of research are being undertaken at private higher education institutions (PHEIs) in South Africa. This article draws on a recent survey of all registered PHEIs undertaken by a group of interested private higher education providers. This survey was facilitated by the Council on Higher Education (CHE) and aimed to examine the quantity and quality of research produced by PHEIs from 2008 to 2010. Placing PHEI research output within the broader context of factors that encourage or discourage research in the sector and in the country as a whole, the survey found that, although PHEI research is negligible in comparison with that of public universities, it is much more substantial than previously estimated.

This research, carried out by the Australian Council for Educational Research in 2004, looks at the hours worked, the kinds of work performed and the manageability of that work, for principals, middle managers and teachers in New Zealand secondary schools. ...

The gap in achievement across racial and ethnic groups has been a focus of education research for decades, but the disproportionate suspension and expulsion of Black, Latino, and American Indian students has received less attention. This article synthesizes research on racial and ethnic patterns in school sanctions and considers how disproportionate discipline might contribute to lagging achievement among students of color. It further examines the evidence for student, school, and community contributors to the racial and ethnic patterns in school sanctions, and it offers promising directions for gap-reducing discipline policies and practices.

While student parents now represent a significant proportion of the higher education population in England, this group has been given limited consideration in policy circles. Using a social constructivist and feminist theoretical framework, this paper draws on a research project investigating the role of higher education policies in supporting student parents in England. It focuses on findings from 40 interviews conducted with student parents enrolled on university programmes. It shows that, in the context of the default construction of the university student as carefree, student parents often describe their experience of navigating academia as a struggle, in which time-related, financial, health and emotional problems prevail. However, the stories they tell also emphasise the benefits associated with their dual status. By doing so, they resist the discourse of deficit typically applied to ‘non traditional’ students and produce a counter-discourse that disturbs the long-lived binary opposition between care and academia.

This paper examines the SMEs performance in Zambia and attempts to identify some practical lessons that Zambia can learn from Southeast Asian countries (with reference to Malaysia) in order to facilitate industrial development through unlocking the potential of its SMEs sector. Malaysia and Zambia were at the same level of economic development as evidenced by similar per capita incomes but

Recent reports and reviews of teaching and education in Australia, have stressed the need for research to clarify relationships between teacher knowledge and teaching practice and student experience and learning in classrooms. Although findings of research over the past twenty - five years have consistently demonstrated effects of teacher quality on school-student outcomes, researchers are just beginning to develop approaches

The use of questionnaires to evaluate educational initiatives is widespread, but often problematic. This paper examines four aspects of an evaluation survey carried out with very able pupils attending out-of-school classes: ethics, design, bias and interpretation. There is a particular focus on the interpretation and analysis of pupils’ answers to open questions. Conclusions are drawn from this analysis which will help teachers and others to take a careful and critical approach to their use of questionnaires in educational evaluation.

Author profile: http://www.wlv.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=13209

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Haptic technology (sense of touch) along with 3D-virtual reality (VR) graphics, creating lifelike training simulations, was used to develop a dental training simulator system (PerioSim). This preliminary study was designed to evaluate whether faculty considered PerioSim realistic and useful for training and evaluating basic procedural skills of students. The haptic device employed was a PHANToM and the simulator a Dell Xeon 530 workstation with 3D, VR oral models and instruments viewed on a stereoscopic monitor. An onscreen VR periodontal probe or explorer was manipulated by operating the PHANToM for sensing lifelike contact and interactions with the teeth and gingiva. Thirty experienced clinical dental and dental hygiene faculty judged the realism of the system. A PowerPoint presentation on one screen provided instructions for the simulator use with the 3D, VR simulator on a second stereoscopic monitor viewed with 3D goggles. Faculty/practitioners found the images very realistic fo...