What Pre-service Teachers need to know to be Effective at Values-based Education

Evidence is mounting that values education is providing positive outcomes for students, teachers and schools (Benninga, Berkowitz, Kuehn, & Smith, 2006; DEST, 2008; Hattie, 2003; Lovat, Clement, Dally, & Toomey, 2010). Despite this, Australian pre-service teacher education does not appear to be changing in ways necessary to support skilling teachers to teach with a values focus (Lovat, Dally, Clement, and Toomey, 2011). This article presents findings from a case study that explored current teachers’ perceptions of the skills pre-service teachers need to teach values education effectively. Teachers who currently teach with a values focus highlighted that pre-service teacher education degrees need to encourage an ongoing commitment to continual learning, critical reflection and growth in pre-service teachers, along with excellent questioning and listening skills. Further, they argued that pre-service teachers need to be skilled in recognising and responding to student diversity. This article ends by arguing for some changes that need to occur in pre-service teacher education in order for teachers to teach effectively with a values focus, including the need for stronger connections between pre-service and experienced teachers

Personal responsibility : the creation, implementation and evaluation of a school-based program

We live in a society where the individual is prioritised over the collective. Newspaper articles abound lamenting adolescents' lack of personal responsibility and social commentators are increasingly highlighting the need to recapture and interweave an agenda of personal responsibility into the social fabric. Personal responsibility has been defined as being accountable to oneself and the needs and well-being of others (Ruyter, 2002). Doherty (1998) has argued that there is an increasing trend in society to refuse accountability and to blame others for one's situation. Despite these assertions, there is little empirical research that has attempted to define and examine personal responsibility. This dissertation is about the role of personal responsibility in the lives of adolescents. The research program was divided into three studies utilising quantitative and qualitative research methods to answer four research questions. Study 1: How do adolescents and teachers understand 'personal responsibility?' Study 2: Can a quantitative questionnaire define and measure an adolescent's level of personal responsibility? Study 3: Can a program aimed at enhancing the personal responsibility level of adolescents be taught in a high school and demonstrate measurable effect? Is there a relationship between personal responsibility, emotional intelligence and self-esteem? Study 1 used focus groups to address research question 1. Four focus groups with a total of 20 Year 11 students, and two focus groups with a total of 10 teachers were conducted. The results revealed that key components of the personal responsibility variable were choices and consequences, behavioural control, thoughts and feelings, and consideration for others. This finding complemented the definition derived from the literature review. Additionally, the focus group data served to inform Study 2, the development of the Personal Responsibility Questionnaire and Study 3, the creation, implementation and evaluation of the Personal Responsibility Program. Study 2 involved examining appropriate literature, focus group data from Study 1, and related measures to create a quantitative measure assessing personal responsibility in adolescents. A 100-item measure was created and tested on more than 500 adolescents. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were used to determine a final 30-item Personal Responsibility Questionnaire with two factors (factor 1 - 'self control of emotion and thoughts' and factor 2 - 'self control of behaviour'). This measure was to serve in the evaluation of the Personal Responsibility Program. A fundamental aim of the study was to determine whether a Personal Responsibility Program could be implemented in a high school and demonstrate measurable effect. Study 3 involved the creation of the Personal Responsibility Program through examining other values-based education programs and the focus group data obtained in Study 1. Once created, the five-lesson program was implemented twice in one high school, with approximately half of the Year 11 students undertaking the first implementation (the experimental group), and the remaining Year 11 students completing the program during its second implementation (the control group). To assess whether the program had generated any changes in the adolescents' levels of personal responsibility, the Personal Responsibility Questionnaire developed in Study 2 was administered pre- and post-intervention to both the experimental and control groups. Additionally, the well-established constructs of emotional intelligence and self-esteem were assessed using the Emotional Intelligence Scale (Schutte et al., 1998) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) to determine potential relationships between these variables and to provide additional construct validity for the measure. The results from Study 3 revealed no significant findings on any variable at any time (pre- or post-intervention). Despite this finding, certain data trends were apparent between males and females across the experimental and control groups. Overall, females demonstrated slightly higher mean scores on emotional intelligence and personal responsibility than males, while males had slightly higher mean scores than females on self-esteem. In order to gather additional feedback about the program and the students' learning, qualitative data were gathered from the students and the teachers by completion of a feedback sheet at the end of each lesson and a teacher focus group interview after the first implementation of the Personal Responsibility Program. In relation to student learning, the qualitative data offered by the students showed that learning in the key areas targeted had occurred, with students reflecting on their growth and changing understandings about personal responsibility. With reference to the program, the students commented that the program was fun, interesting, relevant, valuable, and enabled them to learn new things about themselves. Feedback from the teachers highlighted that the students appeared to engage with the program, and that teaching it was rewarding. This research program has contributed to the literature by providing a theoretically and empirically derived definition of personal responsibility. The focus group process highlighted that personal responsibility could be understood and considered by adolescents due to the cognitive and moral sophistication that develops early in this developmental timeframe. Study 2 generated a Personal Responsibility Questionnaire that can be used to assess personal responsibility in adolescents, and Study 3 contributed a Personal Responsibility Program which has been developed from conceptual and empirical literature. The program was designed to be "teacher friendly' and allowed the schools to gather qualitative and quantitative feedback on the success of the program's implementation. As school administrators and teachers often lament the lack of personal responsibility in their students (Lickona, 1992), this program could be used to address this concern and put the issue of personal responsibility firmly on the agenda in high schools

Covitality constructs as predictors of psychological well-being and depression for secondary school students'

This study was an examination of the strength of relations among covitality, and its underlying constructs of belief in self, emotional competence, belief in others, and engaged living, and two outcome variables; subjective well-being and depression. Participants included 361 Australian secondary school students (75 males and 286 females) who completed a series of online questionnaires related to positive psychological well-being in adolescents. The results from the first standard multiple regression analysis indicated that higher levels of belief in self, belief in others, and engaged living were significant predictors of increased subjective well-being. The results from the second standard multiple regression showed that higher levels of belief in self, belief in others, and engaged living were significant predictors of decreased feelings of depression. In both standard multiple regression models, the combined effect of the traits that comprise covitality was greater than the effect of each individual positive psychological trait

Assessing the personal and emotional developmental outcomes of high-school students

An examination of recent education policy and research demonstrates that the development of personal and emotional competence amongst Australian school students is a national priority (Commonwealth of Australia, 2005; Lewis & Frydenberg, 2002; Reid, 2006). In an attempt to determine whether high-schools are indeed supporting the personal and emotional development of young people, the present study investigated personal responsibility, emotional intelligence and self-esteem among a sample of year 11 public (n = 274) and private (n = 124) school students. The study found that all participants demonstrated high levels of personal responsibility and emotional intelligence, with no significant differences between the public and private school. Public and private school participants significantly differed on self-esteem, with private school participants reporting high levels of self-esteem (M = 30.36) and public school participants (M = 26.92) reporting moderate levels of self-esteem. There is a pervasive perception (in society) that private schools facilitate better personal and emotional development outcomes among students than public schools. Whilst findings are limited to results obtained from one public and one private school, the current study did not find evidence to support that the personal and emotional development of students is hindered in a public school environment

Personal responsibility: the creation, implementation and evaluation of a school-based program

The purposse of this study was to create, implement and evealuate a Personal Responsibility education program for high-school students. Using a constructivist framework, a five lesson program based on key themes identified by adolescents in focus groups was developed. This program was run over one term at a public high school in urban Queensland. During the term students examined and discussed notions of choices, consequences, emotional awareness, personal and social responsibilities. Feedback from studens and teachers showed that they found the program interesting, relevant and informative for students, and to have strengthened relationships between students within a class and between students and teachers. The program offers high schools the opportunity to enhance adolescents' personal, emotional and social development

A comparison of motivation to learn English between English major and non-English major students in a Vietnamese university

Despite the plethora of literature examining higher education students’ motivation to learn a second language, it is not known if students who choose to study English as their major differ from those who are required to study English as the minor component of their wider degree. Drawing on self-determination theory, this paper reports on the findings of a quantitative study designed to investigate the types of motivation demonstrated by English major (n=180) and non-English major students (n=242), and their levels of effort expended in learning English in a Vietnamese university. The findings revealed that both groups demonstrated high levels of motivation to learn English to prepare for their future profession. English major students felt more intrinsically motivated and less obligated to learn English. In addition, for both groups, intrinsically motivated students invested the highest levels of effort in learning English. This paper argues that it is imperative for lecturers to foster students’ intrinsic aspirations to learn English to improve the quality of the teaching and learning of English in Vietnamese higher education

Respiratory support in patients with severe COVID-19 in the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection (ISARIC) COVID-19 study: a prospective, multinational, observational study

Background: Up to 30% of hospitalised patients with COVID-19 require advanced respiratory support, including high-flow nasal cannulas (HFNC), non-invasive mechanical ventilation (NIV), or invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). We aimed to describe the clinical characteristics, outcomes and risk factors for failing non-invasive respiratory support in patients treated with severe COVID-19 during the first two years of the pandemic in high-income countries (HICs) and low middle-income countries (LMICs). Methods: This is a multinational, multicentre, prospective cohort study embedded in the ISARIC-WHO COVID-19 Clinical Characterisation Protocol. Patients with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection who required hospital admission were recruited prospectively. Patients treated with HFNC, NIV, or IMV within the first 24 h of hospital admission were included in this study. Descriptive statistics, random forest, and logistic regression analyses were used to describe clinical characteristics and compare clinical outcomes among patients treated with the different types of advanced respiratory support. Results: A total of 66,565 patients were included in this study. Overall, 82.6% of patients were treated in HIC, and 40.6% were admitted to the hospital during the first pandemic wave. During the first 24 h after hospital admission, patients in HICs were more frequently treated with HFNC (48.0%), followed by NIV (38.6%) and IMV (13.4%). In contrast, patients admitted in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs) were less frequently treated with HFNC (16.1%) and the majority received IMV (59.1%). The failure rate of non-invasive respiratory support (i.e. HFNC or NIV) was 15.5%, of which 71.2% were from HIC and 28.8% from LMIC. The variables most strongly associated with non-invasive ventilation failure, defined as progression to IMV, were high leukocyte counts at hospital admission (OR [95%CI]; 5.86 [4.83-7.10]), treatment in an LMIC (OR [95%CI]; 2.04 [1.97-2.11]), and tachypnoea at hospital admission (OR [95%CI]; 1.16 [1.14-1.18]). Patients who failed HFNC/NIV had a higher 28-day fatality ratio (OR [95%CI]; 1.27 [1.25-1.30]). Conclusions: In the present international cohort, the most frequently used advanced respiratory support was the HFNC. However, IMV was used more often in LMIC. Higher leucocyte count, tachypnoea, and treatment in LMIC were risk factors for HFNC/NIV failure. HFNC/NIV failure was related to worse clinical outcomes, such as 28-day mortality. Trial registration This is a prospective observational study; therefore, no health care interventions were applied to participants, and trial registration is not applicable