HOMEWORK AND STUDY BEHAVIOURS BEFORE THE LEAVING CERTIFICATE AMONG TRANSITION YEAR PARTICIPANTS AND NON-PARTICIPANTS
Aidan Clerkin
Educational Research Centre
This article describes the self-reported homework and study behaviours of almost 5500 students from Third Year to Sixth Year in a representative sample of 20 Irish schools. In particular, the studying habits of Fifth Year and Sixth Year students are examined with reference to their previous participation or non-participation in Transition Year, which is intended, in part, to help students to become more self-directed and effective learners. Students who took part in Transition Year are found to be more likely to engage in additional study and to persist with difficult questions in Fifth Year and Sixth Year. Overall, they report spending significantly more time on homework in the years leading up to the Leaving Certificate than their non-participating classmates, after controlling for home background and educational aspirations.
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ADDRESSING NEEDS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN MAINSTREAM CLASSES: LESSONS FOR TEACHER EDUCATION IN IRELAND
Patrick Farren
School of Education, National University of Ireland, Galway
The context of this paper is the practicum that forms an integral part of the pre-service post-primary teacher education programme in the School of Education at the National University of Ireland, Galway. The paper focuses on English language learner (ELL) strategies and the impact student teachers perceived these strategies had on the progress of students with English as an additional language in the context of mainstream, post-primary school classes. Data were collected from a cohort of student teachers during a plenary session and from a subgroup of the cohort in a follow-up, focus group discussion. Findings suggest that particular strategies are helpful in supporting English language learners (ELLs). The study fills a vacuum in Irish educational research about how pre-service student teachers can be supported in addressing the needs of this group.
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CLASS SIZE AND STUDENT-TEACHER RATIO AT PRIMARY LEVEL IN IRELAND AND OTHER OECD COUNTRIES
Cathy Kelleher and Susan Weir
Educational Research Centre
Trends in primary class size and student-teacher ratio for Ireland were examined and subsequently compared with those of other OECD countries. In recent decades, substantial progress has been made in reducing the size of classes and the ratio of students to teaching staff in Ireland’s primary schools. However, average class size and student-teacher ratio remain above the OECD averages, and Ireland continually ranks more poorly on both relative to other OECD countries. The comparisons drawn in the study, though indicative of broad trends in Ireland and elsewhere, have some limitations. Nonetheless, the use of available data to monitor trends in class size and student-teacher ratio can inform policy in this area. Future research might address the extent to which class size and student-teacher ratio are linked to student outcomes in the countries studied, as well as examining the relationship among all three variables over time, possibly using data from international studies.
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HANNAH MOYLAN (1867-1902): EDUCATIONIST WHO WAS FIRST WOMAN BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN IRELAND
John Lucey
jonlucey@eircom.net
Hannah Moylan was a high-achieving student who, after initial education in Galway and Limerick, attended Alexandra College in Dublin to prepare for university examinations. After obtaining her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1891, with first-class honours in mathematical science, she returned to her Alma Mater to teach and lecture. A pragmatic educationist, she was not an advocate of a university for women, nor, apparently, of granting the franchise to women. Taking a break from teaching in 1895-96 for further study, she became the first woman in Ireland to gain the right to wear the yellow silk hood of a Bachelor of Science. In 1900, she completed the Oxford University examination in the theory, history and practice of education and a year later, to the surprise of many, took up a teaching position in Egypt where she died in 1902 at the age of only 34 years.
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ASSESSMENT OF PROJECT MATHS AT JUNIOR CERTIFICATE LEVEL: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY USING THE PISA AND TIMSS ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORKS
Rachel Cunningham, Seán Close and Gerry Shiel
Educational Research Centre
Project Maths, a new mathematics curriculum, was implemented in schools in Ireland between 2008 and 2015. This paper describes an analysis of the content, cognitive processes and contexts underpinning Junior Certificate mathematics examination questions set for students in Third Year in 2003 and 2015, using the frameworks of the PISA and TIMSS international studies. Despite a significantly increased reading load for students, albeit with support in the form of scaffolding at all examination levels, the Junior Certificate mathematics examination continues to over-emphasise lower-order processes, at the expense of higher-level thinking, as defined by TIMSS and PISA, while there has been a small increase in the proportion of items presented in practical, though not necessarily realistic, contexts. It is concluded that the 2015 Junior Certificate mathematics examination more closely resembles TIMSS than PISA. The findings are discussed in the context of a lack of evidence on the effects of Project Maths on student performance beyond an initial evaluation.
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