Informal Home Education: Philosophical Aspirations put into Practice

Informal home education occurs without much that is generally considered essential for formal education—including curriculum, learning plans, assessments, age related targets or planned and deliberate teaching. Our research into families conducting this kind of education enables us to consider learning away from such imposed structures and to explore how children go about learning for themselves within the context of their own socio-cultural setting. In this paper we consider what and how children learn when no educational agenda is arranged for them and we link this manner of learning to the Deweyan ideas of learning as transactional and learning-in-context. We also use our empirical evidence to explore the notion of ZPD with regard to informal learning and to consider how children, without specific guidance, go about charting a course of learning through the ZPD. We consider the quality of informal learning particularly with regard to the educational aim of developing reflective and critical thinking, showing how these are integral to informal learning. We suggest that a much wider conception of what learning is and how it happens is needed, away from the confines of formal educational structures.     

Polynomial Regression with Response Surface Analysis: A Powerful Approach for Examining Moderation and Overcoming Limitations of Difference Scores

Polynomial regression with response surface analysis is a sophisticated statistical approach that has become increasingly popular in multisource feedback research (e.g., self-observer rating discrepancy). The approach allows researchers to examine the extent to which combinations of two predictor variables relate to an outcome variable, particularly in the case when the discrepancy (difference) between the two predictor variables is a central consideration. We believe this approach has potential for application to a wide variety of research questions. To enhance interest and use of this technique, we provide ideas for future research directions that might benefit from the application of this analytic tool. We also walk through a step-by-step example of how to conduct polynomial regression and response surface analysis and provide all the tools you will need to do the analyses and graph the results (including SPSS syntax, formulas, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet). Our example involves how discrepancies in perceived supervisor and organizational support relate to affective commitment. Finally, we discuss how this approach is a better, more informative alternative to difference scores and can be applied to the examination of two-way interactions in moderated regression.     

The role of explicit and implicit standards in visual speed discrimination

Five experiments were designed to investigate visual speed discrimination. Variations of the method of constant stimuli were used to obtain speed discrimination thresholds in experiments 1, 2, 4, and 5, while the method of single stimuli was used in experiment 3. The observers' thresholds were significantly influenced by the choice of psychophysical method and by changes in the standard speed. The observers' judgments were unaffected, however, by changes in the magnitude of random variations in stimulus duration, reinforcing the conclusions of Lappin et al (1975 Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 1 383 394). When an implicit standard was used, the observers produced relatively low discrimination thresholds (7.0% of the standard speed), verifying the results of McKee (1981 Vision Research 21 491-500). When an explicit standard was used in a 2AFC variant of the method of constant stimuli, however, the observers' discrimination thresholds increased by 74% (to 12.2%), resembling the high thresholds obtained by Mandriota et al (1962 Science 138 437-438). A subsequent signal-detection analysis revealed that the observers' actual sensitivities to differences in speed were in fact equivalent for both psychophysical methods. The formation of an implicit standard in the method of single stimuli allows human observers to make judgments of speed that are as precise as those obtained when explicit standards are available.     

Exploring Positive Learning Experiences in the Context of Practical Theological Education

Abstract. This article presents findings from an empirical study exploring student and teacher perspectives on positive learning experiences in practical theological education. Forty‐five students and twenty teachers were interviewed in focus groups in four educational institutions delivering programs in practical theology. The findings indicated that students valued practical theological education when it enabled them to think critically in relation to their personal or professional experience, and that students valued tutors, their peers and a flexible curriculum design in promoting this kind of learning. There was a high correlation between students’ views of positive learning experiences and what tutors perceived as important qualities that they hoped their students would develop. Difficulties associated with the students’ lack of clarity about the learning process and the tensions between academic and professional contexts are also discussed.     

Counselling children and young people: A review of the evidence for its effectiveness

This paper summarises and presents the results of a BACP commissioned systematic scoping review on the research evidence on counselling children and young people. The methodology was based on a structured, hierarchical, systematic approach to searching and reviewing the research literature. Inclusion criteria defined the scope of the review in relation to a range of issues in counselling children and young people: behavioural problems and conduct disorders; emotional problems including anxiety, depression and post‐traumatic stress; medical illness; school‐related issues; self‐harming practices and sexual abuse. Four groups of counselling approaches were examined: cognitive‐behavioural; psychoanalytic; humanistic; and creative therapies. The findings indicate that the four therapeutic approaches are effective to a greater or lesser degree in relation to the range of issues. Although the findings show that there is little or no evidence for the effectiveness of some therapies for particular issues, this may not reflect the lived experience of children and young people engaged in counselling in a range of community and institutional settings. Instead, the absence of evidence is likely to reflect a lack of published studies that fit the inclusion criteria for this review.     

Understanding homosexuality: A symposium

A psychiatrist, an ethicist, and a pastoral counselor comment on the ways in which they conceive of homosexuality in their work, reflection, and efforts at counseling. Although each writes in isolation from the others, a surprising degree of consensus emerges. All three cite the problem of unclear terms and the peril of labeling. Each distinguishes between homosexuality as a state of being and homosexual acts or behavior. Mansell Pattison, the psychiatrist, comments on prejudice, norms, sickness, and deviancy and their relevance for understanding homosexuality, before suggesting a model himself. Stanley Hauerwas, the ethicist, seeks a context that will allow us to think seriously about homosexuality from an ethical point of view. John Patton, the pastoral counselor, argues that the major contribution of a counselor is to avoid labeling and preconceived notions about homosexuality and to relate to the counselee in such a way as to help him clarify what he seeks.     

Aging and the depth of binocular rivalry suppression

Two experiments were designed to examine the effect of aging on the strength of binocular rivalry suppression. To produce rivalry, orthogonally oriented sine-wave luminance gratings were presented dichoptically. The observers were then required either to discriminate the spatial location of a probe spot presented to the dominant or suppressed eye's view or to detect the presence or absence of the probe. The observers in the younger and older age groups exhibited typical rivalry suppression for both tasks (i.e., the probe was more difficult to detect or discriminate when presented to the suppressed eye), but the magnitude of the suppression was significantly larger in the older observers. This increased suppression that accompanies aging can be explained by a reduction in the inhibition produced by the binocular matching circuitry of S. R. Lehky and R. Blake's (1991) model.     

Personality for free: Psychometric properties of a public domain Australian measure of the five‐factor model

Fifty items from Goldberg's International Personality Item Pool were compiled to form a public‐domain measure of personality, the Australian Personality Inventory (API). Data from a random community sample (N = 7615) and a university‐based sample (N = 271) were used to explore psychometric properties of this 50‐item measure of the five‐factor model of personality (FFM). In both samples, internal reliabilities were adequate. In the university‐based sample an appropriate pattern of convergent and divergent relationship was found between scale scores and domain scores from the NEO Five‐Factor Inventory. After adjusting for an apparent response set (mean response across items), exploratory factor analyses clearly retrieved the FFM in both samples. It is provisionally concluded that raw scale scores from the API provide reliable estimates of the FFM, but adjustment for mean response across the 50 items might clarify the five‐factor structure, especially in less educated samples.