It is unavoidable that there exist some limitations of the research due to the limited scope, the time constraint and other objective factors.
First of all, this study just focuses on exploring nominalization in the corpus of English academic discourses but do not draw comparisons with Vietnamese ones. Thus, next
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studies might investigate the similarities as well as differences between English and Vietnamese research articles. This could make students focus more attention on distinctive features of this genre when practicing academic writing.
Secondly, in this study, the data corpus is restricted to five articles due to limited time.
Thus, further studies should enrich the data with larger corpus to make the research more reliable.
Furthermore, later studies could be conducted on using nominalization of students to investigate their awareness and knowledge of this grammatical phenomenon.
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REFERENCES
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London: Longman.
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12. Halliday, M.A.K. (1994/2000). An Introduction to Functional Grammar.
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[Accessed March 2nd, 2015].
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London: Longman.
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http://vddb.laba.lt/fedora/get/LT-eLABa-
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22. Su, L. (2011). Nominalization as a rhetorical device of academic discourse.
China: National Taiwan University.
23. Thompson, G. (2000). Introducing Functional Grammar. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
24. Thompson, G. (2000). Introducing Functional Grammar. London: Hodder Education.
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I
APPENDIX 1:
RESEARCH ARTICLES OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES
ARTICLE I
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Pre-service teachers’ perceptions of middle school students Kevin J. O‟Connora* and Christina M. D‟Angelob
This report shares a study that explored the perceptions pre-service teachers have of middle school students. Participants were asked to complete the Adjective Checklist (ACL) by endorsing the words they considered most characteristic of a typical middle school student. Items most frequently endorsed indicated a predominantly negative perception (e.g. “awkward”, “confused” and “emotional”). Implications for pre- service teacher training are discussed.
Introduction
In the USA, as in many countries, young adolescents attend middle school which occupies the educational space between the elementary and the secondary high school years (typically grades 6–8, ages 11–14). The merits of making middle school distinct from the elementary and high school arrangements are well established and grounded in a philosophy of how best to provide for young adolescent learners (Association for Middle Level Education 2010).
Unfortunately, when groups are made distinct they are often assigned characteristics by which they come to be collectively perceived and stereotyped.
Such is the case for middle school students who are widely believed to be physically and socially awkward, cognitively immature and emotionally full of youthful strife. These stereotypes in combination with related perceptions of the middle school student being an “uncivilised beast” or a “disembodied hormonal surge” (Finders 1998/1999, 256) make it difficult to recognise the population‟s truer nature – a group full of diverse characteristics and ways of being.
The public image problem middle school students have has not gone unnoticed by those interested in the education of early adolescents. The Association for Middle Level Education (2010) advocates that pre-service teachers should be given opportunities during their training to develop a positive disposition toward
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the middle school student. Inherent in this position is the notion that pre-service teachers are no different than others in their stereotyping of the population.
Surprisingly, only a few studies have measured this. These works, however, do confirm that pre-service teachers hold stereotypic notions and negative attitudes toward middle school students and have a related low perception of the occupational status of teaching in the middle school setting (Finders 1998/1999;
Prado et al. 2007; Sage 1990; Stahler 1995).
In this report, we share a study that revisited the subject of pre-service teachers and their perceptions of middle school students. Our intent was to offer a more current finding on the topic given the distance of prior works.
Specifically, we designed the study to identify the character traits that comprise the image of a middle school student as held by pre-service teachers.
Method Participants
Fifty-six traditional age (M = 20.12, SD = 1.22) undergraduate students (45 women, 11 men) enroled in an education programme (37 elementary/special education, 16 secondary education and 3 music education) at a private college in the north-east of the USA participated in this study. Participants were predominantly Caucasian (52, 92.9%) and reported limited experiences with middle school aged early adolescents (32% had experience; of these 21% had a field-based training experience in the middle school setting).
Procedure and measure
Following research consent protocols participants were asked to complete the Adjective Checklist (ACL; Gough and Heilbrun 1983). The ACL is designed as a self-report measure of personality but it is often used by researchers interested in measuring stereotypes. It is comprised of 300 alphabetically arranged adjectives (traits). For stereotype research, individuals complete the measure in checklist fashion by marking the words they believe to be most descriptive of a particular target population. For this study, participants were instructed to read through the list of adjectives and check those they considered characteristic of a typical middle school student.
Results
Descriptive statistics were used to analyse overall responses on the ACL to address the research question – what character traits comprise the image of a
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middle school student as held by pre-service teachers? The top 25 adjectives based on highest frequency of endorsement were delineated (see Table 1).
Discussion and conclusion
At the heart of stereotyping is a process of mental categorisation. A group is defined by a set of features which make it unique and distinguishable from others.
When one comes in contact (direct or indirect) with an individual who holds membership in this group, the associated features that make up the cognitive category are assigned. Top responses on the ACL with participants endorsing the words they believed to be most descriptive of a typical middle school student were overwhelmingly negative (e.g. “awkward” and “immature”). This suggests that the attributes pre-service teachers maintain in their stereotype of a middle school student are largely undesirable. These results are congruent with earlier studies done in this area (Finders 1998/1999; Prado et al. 2007; Sage 1990; Stahler 1995) indicating pre-service teachers‟ negative and stereotypic perceptions of the population have been maintained.
Item f % Item f %
1. Awkward 52 92.9 14. Sociable 33 58.9
2. Active 49 87.5 15. Anxious 32 57.1
3. Emotional 43 76.8 16. Changeable 32 57.1 4. Confused 40 71.4 17. Complicated 32 57.1 5. Humorous 40 71.4 18. Mischievous 31 55.4
6. Immature 40 71.4 19. Talkative 31 55.4
7. Argumentative 38 67.9 20. Complaining 30 53.6
8. Curious 38 67.9 21. Impatient 30 53.6
9. Energetic 35 62.5 22. Loud 30 53.6
10. Rebellious 35 62.5 23. Noisy 30 53.6
11. Adventurous 34 60.7 24. Sarcastic 30 53.6 12. Impulsive 33 58.9 25. Self-Centred 30 53.6
13. Moody 33 58.9
Table 1. Top 25 adjectives selected to describe a typical middle school student (N
= 56).
These findings, while limited, have implications on pre-service teacher
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training programmes. There is a need for experiences that allow pre-service teachers to explore their perceptions and challenge the content of stereotyped beliefs about middle school students. Descriptions of early adolescents provided in teacher education courses should focus on the full measure of characteristics exhibited by middle school students and move beyond highlighting of more stereotypic attributes (e.g. Finders 1998/1999). In addition, field experiences that bring pre-service teachers in meaningful and positive contact with middle school students can help reduce reliance on stereotype content (e.g. Prado et al. 2007).
This study of perceptions was based on in the idea that the perceptions and if corresponding beliefs a group of people has regarding another are important. This is particularly so those beliefs are based on stereotypes. As stereotypic perceptions may contribute to how pre-service teachers approach the idea of middle school teaching and young adolescents in general, research on strategies aimed to reduce negative perceptions and attitudes toward the population during teacher training would be beneficial to the literature. Ultimately, such applied work would help middle school students get the type of teachers that middle level advocates call for – teachers who value working with the age group and want to be in the middle school setting (Association for Middle Level Education 2010).
V
ARTICLE II
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Student teachers’ discipline strategies: relations with self-images, anticipated student responses and control orientation
Romi de Jonga*, Jan van Tartwijkb, Theo Wubbelsb, Ietje Veldmanc and Nico Verloopc
aGraduate School of Teaching, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands;
bFaculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; cGraduate School of Teaching, ICLON Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
Teacher discipline strategies are well documented when it comes to its effects on students and the working climate in the classroom. Although it is commonly acknowledged that for student teachers classroom management is a major concern, student teachers‟ use of discipline strategies is largely unknown. In this paper, we examine student teachers‟
beliefs in relation to their discipline strategies. Three clusters of discipline strategies are distinguished: sensitive, directive and aggressive discipline strategies. Beliefs that were taken into account are self-images on control and affiliation, control orientation and anticipated student responses on control and affiliation. All participants were student teachers of a one-year teacher education programme for secondary education in the Netherlands. Student questionnaires were used to measure discipline strategies (n = 2506). Student teachers‟ (n = 104) self-images, control orientation and anticipated student responses were measured with student teacher questionnaires. Results of the multiple regression analyses showed that student teachers‟ sensitive and directive discipline strategies are explained best by self-images on control;
aggressive discipline strategies are explained best by self-images on affiliation and by control orientation. Apart from the possible academic interest in these particular findings, results are believed to be useful in a practical sense, in particular for teacher education programmes.
Introduction
Student misbehaviour impacts negatively on student learning time and
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academic achievements (Lewis et al. 2005). Teachers use different discipline strategies to deal with student misbehaviour, however not always successfully.
Problems with class-room management are one of the main reasons why teachers leave the profession (Evertson and Weinstein 2006; Walker 2009) and for student teachers in particular, classroom management is a major concern (Veenman 1984; Ghaith and Shaaban 1999; Liston, Whitcomb, and Borko 2006). The focus in this paper is on student teachers‟ discipline strategies.
Besides concerns about classroom management, student teachers have differentiated beliefs about it (Woolfolk Hoy and Weinstein 2006). Teachers‟
beliefs about students and their own roles as teachers are considered to be highly important for their practice (Pajares 1992). Teachers have beliefs of self-as-a- teacher (Pajares and Schunk 2002). Those self-images are inextricably tied to their thinking and eventually become rules that govern their behaviour (Beijaard, Verloop, and Vermunt 2000; Pajares and Schunk 2002; Korthagen 2004). Besides self-images, it is also likely that teachers have beliefs about classroom life and classroom management (Kaplan 1992; Balli 2011).
Beliefs in relation to classroom management, specifically discipline strategies, are considered to be relevant because of the nature of the classroom situations.
According to Calderhead (1987), the complexity and immediacy of many classroom situations may require teachers to make intuitive decisions which are based on their beliefs, rather than reflective decisions. With regard to disorderly situations in the classroom, beliefs are pivotal since those situations in particular require an immediate reaction (Kaplan 1992). Kaplan (1992) investigated the relationship between teachers‟ own experiences with punishments in their families, their subsequent beliefs about discipline and their selection of discipline strategies. He found that student teachers‟ prior experiences were indeed predictive of their selection of discipline strategies. In particular, student teachers with an authoritative upbringing were more likely to select punitive strategies.
Because of the importance of teachers‟ beliefs for their practice, specifically with regard to classroom management, the focus in this paper is on the relationship between student teachers‟ discipline strategies and their beliefs about themselves as teachers, about student behaviour and about control orientation. In the following, discipline strategies and the three specific teacher beliefs will be discussed in more detail.
Discipline strategies
Discipline strategies of adults interacting with children or students are generally
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perceived as belonging to one of two categories: sensitive and coercive (Patterson 1982; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Van IJzendoorn, and Juffer 2003; Mainhard, Brekelmans, and Wubbels 2011). In research and practice, these two ways of disciplining have been given various but comparable names; here, we will stick to sensitive and coercive, because they are the most commonly used terms.
“Sensitive” refers to strategies like encouragement, setting limits, monitoring, troubleshooting and positive involvement. “Coercive” concerns negative reinforcement strategies, inconsistency and disproportional measures (Snyder and Patterson 1995; Snyder 2002).
Lewis (2001) and Lewis et al. (2005) examined the relationship between students‟ reports of teachers‟ sensitive and coercive discipline strategies and student misbehaviour, motivation, concentration and well-being; and along with several other researchers (Golish and Olons 2000; Clunies-Ross, Little, and Kienhuis 2008; Lewis and Riley 2009; Mainhard, Brekelmans, and Wubbels 2011), they showed that coercive strategies negatively impact student behaviour and attitude, whereas sensitive strategies are positively related to these student outcomes. In a recent study, Roache and Lewis (2011) found that punishment was ambivalent in its effects, and actually does not belong (as was thought before) to the functionally negative set of aggressive discipline strategies. Roache and Lewis (2011) therefore proposed that punishment, in terms of its effect on students, might best be considered as “neutral”. As a result, three discipline strategies are distinguished: sensitive, directive (punishment) and aggressive.
Given that student teachers are still developing their own teaching style, we wanted to obtain a detailed picture of their discipline strategies. We therefore took not only sensitive and aggressive strategies into account, but also directive strategies (Roache and Lewis 2011).
Unfortunately, little is known about why teachers use specific discipline strategies. Merrett and Wheldall (1993) interviewed secondary school teachers in the UK and found that classroom behaviour management is of prime importance in the thinking of teachers, with the majority of the teachers acknowledging that it is better to be encouraging than to be repressive with students. However, Clunies-Ross, Little and Kienhuis (2008) found that even if teachers report that they favour positive reinforcement, in practice they were more likely to make use of punishments and threats. Riley, Lewis and Brew (2010) attempted to explain teachers‟ use of aggressive strategies by asking teachers to choose between three theoretical explanations for their use of aggressive strategies and discussed that, when it comes to classroom
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management, apparently many teachers are more re-active than pro-active. This makes it likely that beliefs play a major role in the behaviour they eventually show in the classroom. In this paper, beliefs about self, others and control orientation are taken into account.
Beliefs
Beliefs are based on prior experiences and influence subsequent interactions through what are known as schemas (Moskowitz 2005). Schemas that relate to interpersonal experiences are called relational schemas, consisting of images of self and other, together with a script for an expected pattern of interaction (Baldwin 1992, 1999).
In this paper, images of self are conceptualised as self-images, whereas images of others are conceptualised as beliefs about student behaviour. Both are described by means of the two dimensions of control and affiliation as described in the Model of Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour (Créton and Wubbels 1984;
Wubbels, Créton, and Hooymaaiers 1993; Wubbels et al. 2006). In the context of educational research, and more specifically classroom management, the two dimensions are recognised as a valuable tool for measuring the teacher–class relationship (Wentzel 2002; Wubbels et al. 2006; Walker 2009; Ertesvồg 2011).
Affiliation refers to behaviours such as listening to students, asking what they want, encouraging them and generally being responsive; whereas control refers to attention-seeking behaviour and pursuing high standards (Mainhard, Brekelmans, and Wubbels 2011).
Self-images
According to Pajares and Schunk (2002), self-images relate to how individuals perceive their selves in different contexts and situations, rather than a global perception of self. As a consequence, self-images differ across different domains of functioning; for instance, a person‟s self-belief as a volleyball trainer, teacher, sister and colleague is plainly different. Self-images in specific areas of people‟s lives are most likely to guide them in that particular area. We adopted this view of self-images and focused on student teachers‟ self-images about their behaviour as teachers. In addition, based on Cooley‟s notion of the looking glass self (Yeung and Martin 2003), self-images are viewed as teachers‟ beliefs on how they think they will be perceived by their students.
In the current study, the control dimension describes the extent to which student teachers believed they were perceived as in control of what happens in
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the classroom, while the affiliation dimension describes how emotionally close student teachers believed to be perceived by their students. It is investigated how self-images on control and affiliation relate to the three discipline strategies.
Anticipated student responses
Expectations about interactions are considered important since these consciously and unconsciously guide the perceptions and subsequent behaviour of the people interacting (Snyder and Stukas 1999; Locke 2005; Snyder and Klein 2005; Baldwin, Kiviniemi, and Snyder 2009).
With regard to teachers‟ expectations of the ability of their students, Brophy (1985) hypothesised that teachers‟ class-level expectations might be more important for student learning than expectations on an individual level. More recently, Rubie (2004) showed that teachers with high expectations of their high ability students had similar high expectations of their average and below average students, illustrating that high expectations can be a teacher characteristic that involves the whole class, not a single group of students. Based on the evidence for the influence of teachers‟ class-level expectations on student outcomes, student teachers‟ beliefs about student behaviour were explored at class level. As in previous research, these anticipated responses are defined in terms of control and affiliation (Hill and Safran 1994; Baldwin and Dandenau 2005). There were significant relations found between the kind of behaviour people expected from others, and their own behaviour. For instance, people, who were more likely to expect others to respond hostile, were acting more hostile themselves (Locke 2005). In this paper, it will be investigated if there is a relation between for instance expecting dominant student behaviour, and the discipline strategies of the student teacher.
Control orientation
Control orientation is conceptualised as beliefs about pupil control along a continuum, with custodial at one extreme and humanistic at the other (Willower, Eidell, and Hoy 1967). A humanistic orientation indicates a perspective stressing the importance of the individuality of each student and the creation of a climate to meet a wide range of student needs. Teachers with a humanistic orientation have an accepting, trusting view of students, and have confidence in students‟
ability to be self-disciplining and responsible. Teachers with a more custodial orientation tend to be more authoritarian and dogmatic in their belief systems and are less progressive in their educational attitudes. Students are perceived as