Showing papers in "British Journal of Educational Studies in 1978"

Assessment in higher education

Abstract: Assessment in higher education - an introduction en-route to a degree grades and grading temperament and testing defining the task of assessment - implications for teaching finding objectives for learning and competency concept learning and curriculum objectives perception, learning and studying learning and the role of the teacher written examinations and assignments (content, structure and marking) practicals, projects and self-assessment objective tests toward multiple strategy assessment.

John Dewey reconsidered

Abstract: 1. Inquiry, Thought and Action: John Dewey's Theory of Knowledge Anthony Quinton 2. Language and Experience Jerome Bruner, Eileen Caudill and Anat Ninio 3. Dewey's Theory of Interest Alan R. White 4. The Self in Action Martin Hollis 5. Democracy and Education Antony Flew 6. John Dewey's Philosophy of Education R. S .Peters

Factors influencing attitudes to technology in schools

Abstract: he conventional wisdom of this period in regard to national prosperity and education for a technological society is to be found in the i945 report of the Percy Committee on Higher Technological Education. Incorporated in the one text are the ideas that Britain would be short of technologists for industry; that Universities should emphasize the science aspect and technical colleges the art aspect of technological education but that existing part-time courses for the Higher National Certificate were wholly inadequate in respect of their provision in the fundamental sciences and that in any case industry required a new type of high level technologist. Of the 1500 trained engineers which the Committee expected the technical colleges to produce it was anticipated that about I50 would work for external degrees of the University of London, iooo would train as in the past while the remaining 350 would undergo courses to produce the new type of technologist. They would require continuous full-time study over substantial periods which would be interwoven with planned courses of works practice. Such courses' 'should be directed to the development to the highest level of the teaching of the art of technology, based on sufficient scientific foundation. These courses should have a status in no way inferior to the University type of course . . .' but they should be awarded a diploma. 'Even in such a well-established technology as engineering what is chiefly required of Technical Colleges is adaptability to changing techniques and to new combinations of techniques.' The history of subsequent events has been well documented.2 By 1955 it had been decided to create the National Council for Technological Awards and the I956 white paper on Technical Educations heralded a four-tier system of technical colleges with the Colleges of Advanced Technology at the apex. The Diploma in Technology was given charter status and the idea of sandwich courses promoted. The Robbins Committee accepted that both the Diploma and Colleges '37

Sir Karl Popper and education

Abstract: ir Karl Popper' is one of our most distinguished contemporary philosophers and it is surprising that his thought has not permeated and informed educational discussion. This is particularly so in the light of both his personal biography and the wide appeal and general applicability of his ideas. Popper remembers with gratitude his first teacher, 'who taught me the three R's. They are, I think, the only essentials a child has to be taught'. But he became disgruntled with his secondary schooling and in 1918, at the age of sixteen, he left school to study on his own at the University of Vienna. While a student there he did voluntary work in Alfred Adler's child guidance clinics. He qualified to teach in primary schools but as there were no teaching posts available he became a social worker with neglected children. Subsequently he studied at the Pedagogic Institute where his reactions would strike a chord with present-day students, 'we were enthusiastic for school reform, and enthusiastic for studying--even though our experiences with neglected children made some of us sceptical of the educational theories we had to swallow in huge doses'. At this time he became particularly interested in psychology and he wrote a doctoral thesis on the problem of method in the psychology of thinking. His first published work was in the field of psychology. In 1929, after completing his doctorate, he qualified to teach in lower secondary schools. He remained a teacher for some years and during this period he undertook some of his most seminal work in the philosophy of scientific method. The political climate of pre-war Vienna influenced his decision to resign his teaching post and in I937 he took up a lectureship in New Zealand. After the war he came to the London School of Economics and taught there till his retirement. These brief, biographical points2 are mentioned because they may indicate that while Popper has not written directly on educational matters he is a man who has worked with children, who has been a teacher, whose philosophical method was influenced by his explorations into the psychology of children's thinking, and who has some pungent comments to make about schools.

Northern Ireland: Bonds and breaks in education

Abstract: (1978). Northern Ireland: Bonds and breaks in education. British Journal of Educational Studies: Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 215-223.

The stock question

Abstract: (Reporting in the last years of the first post-war Labour Government, this Royal Commission also suggested (para 353) that the importance of mere numbers 'as compared' with pre-eminence in science and technology had probably been declining. Twenty-one years later, in the last years of the third post-war Labour Government, a Select Committee on Science and Technology considered the increasing numbers of the people and called for immediate action to ensure that the consequences of population growth would not become 'intolerable for the everyday conditions of life'.)

Monitoring the effectiveness of educational institutions

Abstract: professionals and observers, to limit considerations of the achievements of educational organizations to intuitive responses about success or the lack of it. Therefore while Local Education Authorities and schools actively search for indications of success and accept reactions from those associated with the services they offer, in addition to the continuous scrutiny of hypothesized reasons to explain assumed levels of achievement, the procedures are casual and non-systematic. In this respect the English system is not unique and the universal paradox of educational organizations is that while, with their encouragement and assistance, assessment techniques for individual children-in the form of examinations and tests -abound, evaluative methodologies for individual institutions receive minimal attention. As a result an environment of mistake avoidance has prospered and continues. In this, if an organization is providing adequate premises, staff capable of reaching acceptable levels of competence, and is pursuing an educational programme which-at the worst-is not too much in contradiction of what the local community regards as satisfactory, it is by avoiding excess criticism not failing; and by not failing it is neces

The disciplines thesis and the curriculum: a case study

Abstract: primarily associated with Hirst and Phenix, and it is in the works of these two theorists that it can be found in its most developed forms.' This paper will examine the thesis and its implications in relation to mathematics. There are a number of reasons for this choice of approach. First, while there are fairly substantial disagreements between Hirst and Phenix at a more general level-Hirst has, for example, criticized the basis of Phenix's primary classification-their characterization of mathematics and their arguments for its status as a discipline are remarkably similar. Second, mathematics is an area in relation to which the disciplines thesis has been taken as particularly clear-cut. To test it here is to test it where it is strong. Finally, I myself am particularly concerned with the practical implications of the thesis for curriculum design in mathematics. In part I I will examine the thesis itself, and in part II its implications for curriculum design.

The education of royalty in the eighteenth century: George IV and William IV

Abstract: (1978). The education of royalty in the eighteenth century: George IV and William IV. British Journal of Educational Studies: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 73-87.