Annual Report 2008, Göteborg

Network 11 received 54 proposals to participate at ECER 2008 within such network. From this number or proposals, 2 were of poster presentation; the other 52 were of papers. From the received proposals, 43 papers were accepted (82.69% of the proposed) for the quality of their content and suitable format. The accepted paper proposals represent an increase of 86.95% in relation to the previous ECER 07. The 2 proposed papers were both accepted (previous year there was only one). Before the final acceptance, some authors received recommendations or suggestions for them to rectify or complete their proposals in order to guarantee the necessary quality: those who acted according to the suggested recommendations had their proposals finally accepted; those who did not act according to such recommendations were finally rejected. During this process of reviewing and evaluating the received proposals, the EERA Secretary gave its support and assistance to the convenors and evaluators.

The accepted paper proposals were organized in 15 sessions. The number of sessions prepared for this year ECER 08 represented and increase of 98.36% compared to those prepared for previous year ECER 07. Of the accepted papers planned to be presented at the corresponding sessions, 10 of them were not presented. Apart from that, sessions were held regularly with reasonable good attendance of around 15-20 people. All sessions started and ended on time. Members of local time took very good care of opening and closing rooms doors in time and prepared the necessary materials (usually a computer and o beamer) to be used by presenters and chair discussants. It was, nevertheless mentioned that some presenters had difficulties to start with the computer available in the room as the operating system and program were in Swedish language.

Throughout sessions, the atmosphere was very friendly and participation was active, sometimes even intense, sometimes with provocation of profitable discussions on the presented topics. Although 2 or 3 presenters have some difficulties in expressing themselves in English language, communication was in general quite easy, open and understandable.

Attendants in session were 166 in total. They proceeded from different countries of  Europe and of other continents. Countries represented by participants in the held sessions were the following 28:

Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, USA.

      The presented papers referred to different themes of aspects related to network 11 content on “educational effectiveness and quality assurance”. Although some changes were made in the last days in order to accommodate calendar and timetable to some presenters’ personal circumstances, sessions were organized according to the proposed papers, by setting up groups of homogeneous themes. Topics defined for every paper session were the following ones:

• Quality of educational treatment of diversity and health care
• Quality of educational treatment of specific diversities
• Curriculum areas quality assurance
• School assessment practices quality & relationship to business managers
• Quality of social learning and leisure treatment
• School assessment to improve performance
• Teacher’s influence on effective schools
• School quality assurance
• Quality of educational organization and management
• Leadership and participation for educational effectiveness
• Higher education to improve teaching quality & market oriented training
• Higher education effectiveness & social learning
• Student’s engagement in quality pedagogy
• Approaches to educational quality
• Quality of education assurance.

Themes treated in the successive sessions were the following ones: quality and effectiveness approach to educational treatment of diversity; exploring recruitment and completion: teacher training and people with disabilities; impact of national education, food and nutrition policy on adolescents’ eating habits; what do teachers know, think and do about EDHD?; effectiveness of elementary education for children with learning disabilities in Belgium; educational effectiveness prevented by problems of discipline and learning; preliminary analysis of the (process and product) quality of physical education in Flemish Secondary Schools: implementation of IKLO; graduate students in mathematics classrooms: can they impact teachers and students in mathematics?; attitudes towards school self-evaluation. Linking the individual view to the school context; school effectiveness: how it is measured within Victoria schools; the new role of business managers in school effectiveness; an ethological study of children outdoor free play in pre-primary school; consensus and disagreements about ‘what educational achievement and best schooling practices’ mean; effects of large scale assessment in schools: how standard-based school reform works; perceptions about organizational identity in effective schools; effective versus ineffective classes at elementary schools: observable differences in teacher’s practices; relationship between teacher’s morale and student’s achievement; equity of schooling in Scotland: the role of quality assurance and evaluation; differences between teacher and students’ perceptions of interactions and work conditions in classrooms; curriculum as a means for a change of school work; school effectiveness by student’s flexible grouping in intercultural context; stepping in and out of quality: the logic of student’ s participation in curriculum development and quality improvement; young people participation within schools and communities: a measure of developmental quality of participation experiences; students’ and the educator’s cooperation as a means of development of students’ ESP competence; analysis of educational effectiveness of the career education at university; quality of promoting new generation learning at school: challenge for teacher education?; knowledge transfer between universities and business; evaluation of employer’s satisfaction and competence of graduates: a second-order factor analysis; towards the bias of planned implementation and appropriation of social learning; students’ engagement and quality pedagogy; from teaching to learning: to role of feedback in improving educational quality; feedback on school performance feedback: in depth interviews about the comprehensibility and viability.

   Although, during the conference preparation, it was suggested that paper (and, when possible, poster) presenters should give a copy of their paper or handout or, at least a summary of their presentation to session attendants, not many presenters did it. At the coordinating network meeting it was suggested to insist on this aspect. Apart from that, the network coordinating team is trying to collect and expand papers (and when possible, posters) among network sessions attendants.

  ATAt the network meeting it was again suggested that a proposal should be transmitted to the council and the Secretary that all session chairs, co-convenors and link convenor should be given a certificate of their specific role and task accomplished during the conference. Another proposal approved at the network meeting was to transmit the Secretary the request that, in as much as possible, for next conference computers operating system and program of computers available for presentations should be in English language, not in the local language.

At this network meeting it was approved to transmit network and participants’ gratitude to the local committee and EERA Secretary for their help and support to facilitate the good functioning of every session, to provide the necessary means and to offer the required assistance. The unanimous opinion of participants collected by chair discussants and general opinion of session presenters and attendants was that the network 11 and the ECER 08 conference has been a very good success of excellent organization and of offering interesting researches and challenging suggestions to continue our work as educators, academics and researchers.

The network coordinating session also approved to transmit EERA organization the request that network sessions would start every day at 9:00 instead of 8:30.

It was also approved to transmit the EERA Secretary the proposal that during network sessions a paper with session schedule should be stuck at the entrance door of the corresponding room.

At this network meeting was approved that network convenors’ team should be formed by:

Link convenor: Dr. Samuel Gento

Co-convenors:

• Dr. José Cajide
• Dr. Irina Maslo
• Dr. Jan Van Damme

Network Secretary: Dr. Joorge Pina

Network Assistant Secretary: Ms. Raúl González 

As a good number of people expressed their wish of participating at the next ECER 09 to be held in Vienna, it was approved that paper reviewers’ and chair discussants´ team for this conference should be composed by:

• Dr. Samuel Gento
• Dr. José Cajide
• Dr. Jan Van Damme
• Dr. Irina Maslo
• Dr. Günter Huber
• Dr. Ineta Luka
• Dr. Andra Fernate
• Dr. Antonio Medina