Teachers' In-Service Career Patterns.
Abstract Schoolteaching is not a consensual profession with a single culture, but one segmented by different interest groups. An important dimension of the culture of these professional segments is their commitment to either a restricted or an extended professionality. Teachers’ relations to professionality can be clarified from their theory and practice of in‐service education and from the type of in‐service career upon which they embark. The form taken by teachers’ continuing education, the way teachers rank different types of in‐service course, how experience of in‐service education touches the professional work of schools ‐ these are factors that pattern teachers’ in‐service careers. Using data about teachers’ practices in these three areas, five career patterns are identified and a group of teachers representing each career pattern is selected. The teachers are described in terms of personal biographical and work characteristics. Their opinions about what makes in‐service education attractive to them...
The Political Implications of Defining Relevant INSET
Summary In this paper the author argues that the norm of relevance is central to teachers’ professional identities and therefore decisions about the form taken by INSET are crucial for professional autonomy. An important ingredient of the professional teachers’ conception of relevance is a notion of the practical. Ascribed factors like gender and age and situational factors like specialisation and seniority affect the orientations of different groups of teachers to relevance. At present teachers notions of relevant INSET are under attack from norms and values prescribed by interests outside the profession for the purpose of regulating the profession. This paper attempts to clarify teachers notions of relevant INSET and contrast these with other views of relevance.
Perceptual style and ball skill acquisition.
Abstract The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between perceptual style (field dependence-independence) as measured by the portable rod and frame test and the learning of a ball catching task for three viewing time treatments. Two groups of subjects (N = 45) who satisfied the criteria for field dependence-independence were subdivided and randomly assigned to one of the three viewing time treatments. There were 15 subjects from each of the perceptual style classifications in each of the 150, 250, and 350 millisecond viewing time treatments. The hypothesis of a relationship between perceptual style and learning on the ball catching task was upheld for two of the viewing time treatments (150 and 250 milliseconds). The field independent subjects demonstrated a significantly greater rate and amount of learning than the field dependent subjects for these viewing time treatments. Both field dependent and field independent subjects demonstrated statistically significant improvements in learn...