Issues in Educational Research, 8(2), 1998, iii-iv.
For readers of a journal titled Issues in Educational Research it should be of more than passing interest that a current "issue" in educational research is educational research itself. Investigations into the application of educational research to school and schooling are very much in the international wind. Recently in Britain, for example, the Department for Education and Employment commissioned the Institute for Employment Studies to conduct a review of educational research relating to schools in England. The report, published last August (Hillage et al, 1998), concludes that a greater impact on education might have been expected given the volume of research. The authors go on to suggest that policy-makers are insufficiently informed by research and that this might be because the research tends to (1) be small scale and not reliable and generalisable, (2) be insufficiently based on existing knowledge to advance understanding, (3) be presented in a form which is largely inaccessible to a non-academic audience, and (4) lack interpretation for policy-makers or practitioners.
In Australia, towards the end of 1998, DETYA commissioned a national study of the Impact of Educational Research. The project is being carried out through three separate but complementary studies that address "the nature and extent of the relationships between educational research and teaching practices in Australia". The results of these studies should be reported by the end of this year.
This "issue" is not addressed in this number of the journal, although I hope it will be taken up here in the near future. But we do have some very diverse articles with a variety of approaches to their topics. The articles focus in turn on ESL learners, cheating in school, student alienation, and an historical study of students with special needs. I think we can say that all address educational topics of significance and all have clear implications for educational practice.
The article by Glew synthesises recent research and scholarly discussion on classroom interaction and learning of ESL students. Within the context of the mainstream secondary school, he discusses the importance of gender and ethnicity of ESL learners in relation to determining the most appropriate teaching methods, lesson content and learning environments to maximise second language development of ESL students.
Godfrey and Waugh continue their work on cheating in school with an interesting study of perceptions of academic dishonesty by students in Years 8 to 12 in a religious school system. In this study they develop and use measures of student perceptions of several aspects of cheating, including its seriousness, what practices qualify as cheating, why it occurs, and how it can be discouraged. The authors conclude that cheating may be discouraged by informing students of the penalties for cheating and enforcing those penalties, and in some respects by administrative arrangements in testing centres.
The article by Oerlemans and Jenkins with the rather alarming title examines student alienation from a theoretical perspective, then considers interventions that have been developed for use with secondary students. They recommend programs that focus on the needs of the adolescent and assist the adolescent to identify with the school, and suggest that adoption of four constructs of alienation (powerlessness, meaninglessness, social estrangement and normlessness) may assist teachers to develop successful interventions.
Rodwell's article follows the education programs developed for intellectually handicapped children in Tasmania during the early part of this century. The paper focuses on what Rodwell refers to as the "ebb and flow" of hereditarian and environmental eugenic assumptions and solutions influencing the programs. He demonstrates that not only did the dominant assumptions change, but individuals frequently changed their positions over the period.
I wish you good reading.
Reference
Hillage, J., Pearson, R., Anderson, A. & Tamkin, P. (1998). Excellence in research on schools. Department for Education and Employment, London.
Sid Bourke
Editor
| Associate Professor Brian Devlin Northern Territory University Darwin, NT 0909 Ph: 08 8946 6105 Fax: 08 8946 6151 email: bdevlin@banda.ntu.edu.au |
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| Dr John McCormick School of Education Studies University of NSW Sydney, NSW 2052 Ph: 02 9385 4917 Fax: 02 9385 6153 email: j.mccormick@unsw.edu.au |
Associate Professor Glenn Rowley Faculty of Education Monash University Clayton, VIC 3168 Ph: 03 9905 2830 Fax: 03 9905 1595 email: glenn.rowley@education.monash.edu.au |
| Mr Robert Slater 3 O'Halloran Terrace Park Holme SA 5043 Ph: 08 8277 3584 Fax: 08 8277 3584 email: rslater@nexus.edu.au | |
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Book Review Editor Dr Andrew Taggart Faculty of Education Edith Cowan University Mt Lawley WA 6050 Ph: 08 9370 6806 Fax: 08 9370 6664 email: a.taggart@cowan.edu.au |
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All articles published in this journal have been subjected to a blind peer-review process.
The views and styles expressed in the articles in this publication are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily shared by the editor or members of the editorial advisory board.
Copyright © 1998 The Institutes for Educational Research in NSW, NT, SA, Victoria and WA
Published by the Institutes for Educational Research in NSW, NT, SA, Victoria and WA. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the Institutes. Desktop publishing (1998) by Clare McBeath. Printed (1999) by Printing Services, Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia.
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| Please cite as: Bourke, S. (1998). Editorial. Issues In Educational Research, 8(2), iii-iv. http://www.iier.org.au/iier8/editorial-2.html |
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