Primary teachers in New Zealand schools are required to teach dance education as part of a balanced classroom programme. This responsibility requires that teachers have positive beliefs about their own competence and capabilities to teach dance to achieve desired outcomes for their students. This article presents qualitative findings from a mixed-methods study which investigated teachers’ ...

This article reports on aspects of an interpretative qualitative single case study that investigated teachers’ and students’ understanding of how self-worth is influenced in the teaching and learning environment. Findings indicate that important determinants in the development of self-worth include personal teacher qualities such as humour, justice (fairness) and trust; teaching strategies associated with meeting ...

This article reports on physical education teacher education students’ perceptions of the pedagogies they have recently experienced in senior secondary school biomechanics classes. Despite the plethora of educational research surrounding pedagogical best practice in the wider field of physical education, there is a paucity of research seeking to understand links between pedagogy, assessment, and achievement ...

There is much international evidence that parental involvement in children’s learning can positively influence achievement. New Zealand policy expects schools to nurture such involvement, particularly in relation to Máori and Pasifika learners. Despite policy imperatives and valuable professional development projects, such involvement has proved challenging to embed within many English-medium school settings. We examined policy, theoretical ...

International research has found that while Assessment for Learning (AfL) can positively impact on learning, its implementation in different national contexts presents a number of challenges. The integration of AfL in Confucian-influenced settings may be challenged both by traditional beliefs related to the hierarchy of the expert teacher and the ...

This article examines the current use of e-learning to promote preservice teacher development in classroom assessment. Motivating this study are: (1) the perennial challenges assessment educators face in fostering teacher development in the areas of assessment policies, standards, and practices, as documented in the literature and experienced in our own ...

Emergent learning refers to the unplanned and unexpected learning that can occur through student engagement with complex curricular tasks. In this article, we explore expanded conceptions and practices of assessment that recognise and promote emergent forms of learning. We begin our argument by drawing on complexity thinking to define and ...

This article reports on an exploratory study of over 2,500 secondary school history students in New Zealand who demonstrated gender differences in respect to critical thinking within a disciplinary framework. Initial findings suggest that while boys are not achieving as well as girls in national assessments in history, they (on ...

Assessment can be powerful when teachers are able to analyse, interpret and use information in ways that enhance their teaching and programmes, and students’ learning. A qualitative approach was used to investigate how teachers of Years 4–8 students analyse, interpret and use information gained from administration of the Progressive Achievement ...