One does not win brownie points anymore for saying that New Zealand is undergoing profound change. New technology could bring about a global village culture, or a return to rural living, or a new approach in schooling, or a centrally controlled society.

Teachers have always needed valid tests to assess students' proficiency so that the most appropriate classroom instruction can be used. This is particularly true in the current educational climate with its growing emphasis on accountability, since teachers need good testing techniques to show that their work is worthwhile.

Youth unemployment is not a new problem but its extent, and the way it will not go away, are new. Economic downturns affect young people disproportionately: they are unemployed, or the last hired and the first laid off, and when working they are given the least rewarding jobs, financially and ...

Concern about disruptive behaviour has increased dramatically in the last decade. Three reasons are often put forward for this.
(i) Disruptive behaviour in schools is the inevitable manifestation of increased violence or at least of increased reporting of violence, in the world as a whole.
(ii) At a time when ...

For some years now we have been studying the behaviour of preschool children in nurseries and playgroups. From our early observations a feature which most caught our attention was the difference in what went on in different preschools. In part, we felt the immediate physical and social environment of the ...

Moral education is important for developing good mental health. Ours is a pluralistic society in that different groups seek different goals and operate from different values. Therefore, we have to learn to reconcile conflicting pressures from such groups as the family, peer group, Church, trade union, employers, political parties, and ...

Most teachers are probably just as curious about what goes on in other classrooms as they are about what goes on in their own. But generally we do not get much opportunity to observe our colleagues at work teaching lessons. Do other teachers have similar teaching approaches and problems and ...

As every teacher knows, in any normal classroom and whatever subject is being taught, there will be a wide range of individual differences in students' learning. Some will learn more quickly than others; some will retain more. Whether learning is measured by results on achievement tests, by the number of ...

Most of the findings of research into teaching and learning seem fairly self-evident. Good teachers know about them almost intuitively and may be disappointed that educational researchers have not discovered new and exciting strategies for them to use. However, at a time when the role of the teacher in the ...

The need to assess how much students have learned has been fundamental in education for as long as there have been students and teachers. Long before standardized tests of achievement came on the scene, teachers were making such judgements. They based them on information gleaned from familiar sources: direct observation ...