Rebecca Wolf, Joseph M. Reilly and Steven M. Ross
This article informs school leaders and staffs about existing research findings on the use of data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Given that teachers are the…
Abstract
Purpose
This article informs school leaders and staffs about existing research findings on the use of data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Given that teachers are the most important school-based educational resource, decisions regarding the assignment of students to particular classes and teachers are highly impactful for student learning. Classroom compositions of peers can also influence student learning.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review was conducted on the use of data-driven decision-making in the rostering process. The review addressed the merits of using various quantitative metrics in the rostering process.
Findings
Findings revealed that, despite often being purposeful about rostering, school leaders and staffs have generally not engaged in data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Using data-driven rostering may have benefits, such as limiting the questionable practice of assigning the least effective teachers in the school to the youngest or lowest performing students. School leaders and staffs may also work to minimize negative peer effects due to concentrating low-achieving, low-income, or disruptive students in any one class. Any data-driven system used in rostering, however, would need to be adequately complex to account for multiple influences on student learning. Based on the research reviewed, quantitative data alone may not be sufficient for effective rostering decisions.
Practical implications
Given the rich data available to school leaders and staffs, data-driven decision-making could inform rostering and contribute to more efficacious and equitable classroom assignments.
Originality/value
This article is the first to summarize relevant research across multiple bodies of literature on the opportunities for and challenges of using data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters.
Details
Keywords
Susan K. Gardner, Jeni Hart, Jennifer Ng, Rebecca Ropers-Huilman, Kelly Ward and Lisa Wolf-Wendel
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the experiences with me-search among scholars in the field of education, defined as the conduct of research about one’s own identity or in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the experiences with me-search among scholars in the field of education, defined as the conduct of research about one’s own identity or in one’s own setting.
Design/methodology/approach
Centered around the tensions inherent in the training received around objectivity and subjectivity, these individuals discuss how they came to conduct me-search and the challenges inherent in it, with a particular focus on the teaching and advising of students conducting this kind of qualitative work.
Findings
Applying Richardson and St. Pierre’s (2005) concepts of writing stories, the following reflections provide a grounding of the “me” in methodology, with an eye toward using this methodology to create social change.
Originality/value
While this is a common research approach, relatively little guidance exists on the practice of “me-search”, particularly for young scholars.
Details
Keywords
Ian Yeoman, Amalina Andrade, Elisante Leguma, Natalie Wolf, Peter Ezra, Rebecca Tan and Una McMahon‐Beattie
The purpose of this paper is to portray the future of tourism in New Zealand based upon a philosophy of sustainability and cultural identity as a response to the present 2025…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to portray the future of tourism in New Zealand based upon a philosophy of sustainability and cultural identity as a response to the present 2025 Tourism Strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
The research deployed a scenario planning methodology resulting in four portraits of the future.
Findings
Environmental issues and global migration are the key issues that will shape the future of New Zealand tourism. In order to address these issues four scenarios were constructed. New Zealand Wonderland portrays a future based upon a grounded international reputation for environmentalism driven by good governance, climate change targets and ecotourism. Indiana Jones and the Search for Cultural Identity position a future driven by rapid growth and unregulated air travel resulting in environmental degradation. A Peaceful Mixture is a balance of socio‐cultural and environmental dimensions of sustainability at the centre of a tourism product shaped upon Maori culture and economic prosperity. The final scenario, New Zealand in Depression, is the worst possible outcome for New Zealand's tourism industry as the three dimensions of economy, community, and environment are not at equilibrium. New Zealand would be over‐polluted with an uncontrolled number of migrants.
Research limitations/implications
The research was a social construction of ten experts’ views on the future of sustainable tourism.
Originality/value
New Zealand's present approach to the future of tourism is shaped by the 2025 Tourism Framework (http://tourism2025.org.nz/). This is derived from a business perspective and a neoliberal political philosophy and it is void of the words ecotourism and sustainability. This paper argues that the present strategy will fail because of community disengagement that proposes a range of alternative directions based upon a political discourse of sustainability and shaped by environmental credentials and cultural identity.
Details
Keywords
Ixchel M. Faniel, Rebecca D. Frank and Elizabeth Yakel
Taking the researchers’ perspective, the purpose of this paper is to examine the types of context information needed to preserve data’s meaning in ways that support data reuse.
Abstract
Purpose
Taking the researchers’ perspective, the purpose of this paper is to examine the types of context information needed to preserve data’s meaning in ways that support data reuse.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a qualitative study of 105 researchers from three disciplinary communities: quantitative social science, archaeology and zoology. The study focused on researchers’ most recent data reuse experience, particularly what they needed when deciding whether to reuse data.
Findings
Findings show that researchers mentioned 12 types of context information across three broad categories: data production information (data collection, specimen and artifact, data producer, data analysis, missing data, and research objectives); repository information (provenance, reputation and history, curation and digitization); and data reuse information (prior reuse, advice on reuse and terms of use).
Originality/value
This paper extends digital curation conversations to include the preservation of context as well as content to facilitate data reuse. When compared to prior research, findings show that there is some generalizability with respect to the types of context needed across different disciplines and data sharing and reuse environments. It also introduces several new context types. Relying on the perspective of researchers offers a more nuanced view that shows the importance of the different context types for each discipline and the ways disciplinary members thought about them. Both data producers and curators can benefit from knowing what to capture and manage during data collection and deposit into a repository.
Details
Keywords
Rebecca Joy Denniss and Aidan Davison
This paper aims to report on an in-depth qualitative study that focuses on the convergence of the interpretive activities of knowing, living in and valuing the world in lay…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to report on an in-depth qualitative study that focuses on the convergence of the interpretive activities of knowing, living in and valuing the world in lay reasoning about climate change. Although awareness is growing that lay people interact with scientific knowledge about climate change in complex ways, relatively little is known about this interaction. Much quantitative research on public attitudes to climate change does little to draw out the cognitive and experiential processes by which lay people arrive at understandings of climate change.
Design/methodology/approach
Through narrative analysis of qualitative interviews, this paper examines lay rationalities of climate change as a process of not only knowing the world (epistemology), but of being oriented towards the world (ontology) and valuing the world (axiology).
Findings
The findings emphasise the extent of individual variation in lay interpretations of climate change, and their internal complexity. Almost all participants display differences in reasoning about climate change when considering their personal lives as compared to the wider, public world. Distinct accounts of self and world in lay rationalities are evident in the ways that participants imagine the future and express their feelings of culpability for and responsibility to act on climate change.
Originality/value
This paper argues that lay reasoning about climate science does not just engage ways of knowing the world but also ways of being in and valuing the world so as to open up multiple trajectories for comprehension.