This study investigates how video game play influences gamers’ formal education through perceptio... more This study investigates how video game play influences gamers’ formal education through perceptions of their ‘gamer’ and ‘learner’ identities. Based on identity foundation in symbolic interactionism, we take gamer and learner identities as meaning structures with both dynamic and stable dimensions. The basis of this gamer identity perspective is identity has a crucial role in investigating learning. Applying a life history approach, we interviewed 10 participants in one-to-one interviews, with three interviews for each participant. Applying the narrative portrait, we analysed participant data. We found that gamer identity construction from video game playing, as a vital meaning structure, has four main aspects, namely in-game identification, social community expansion, restorative effect and meaning recognition, providing gamers with expansive ways to build learner and personal identity as that can benefit their formal education.
This report presents the findings of independent research on teacher workload in Scotland. It was... more This report presents the findings of independent research on teacher workload in Scotland. It was commissioned by the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), the largest teacher trade union in Scotland, which represents over 80% of all teachers across nursery, primary and secondary education. The research fulfils a resolution adopted at the 2022 EIS Annual General Meeting to contract ‘independent research that considers the workload of teachers, the extra hours they work beyond their contractual hours as a consequence of their workload, and the main reasons for the failure to achieve a 35-hour working week for teachers’.
A sequential mixed-method design using an online time use diary and semi-structured individual interviews was deployed to the address the following research questions: • What are the main activities that constitute teacher workload? • What is the balance of this workload over the working week? • What extra hours do teachers work beyond their contractual hours? • Where do workload demands come from, out with class contact time?
At the time of writing, primary English education is, once again, at a crossroads. Within the con... more At the time of writing, primary English education is, once again, at a crossroads. Within the context of a continuing focus on underachievement in writing for key groups of learners and a large body of research, which suggests that classroom talk is a powerful means of improving children's success in all areas of the curriculum including writing, this article considers two current approaches to talk in the primary curriculum -Talk for Writing and Towards Dialogic Teaching. In doing so, it critically analyses these texts through the theoretical lens of education as social reproduction with a view to identifying their ideological assumptions about the purpose of talk in the curriculum. Discussion considers how such assumptions may influence classroom practice and contribute to the teachers' understanding of the role of oracy within the primary classroom. The article concludes that whilst both texts might suggest a socially reproductive approach to education, both have the potential to empower the learner through the skilful implementation of oracy as the foundation of teaching and learning.
This study investigates how video game play influences gamers’ formal education through perceptio... more This study investigates how video game play influences gamers’ formal education through perceptions of their ‘gamer’ and ‘learner’ identities. Based on identity foundation in symbolic interactionism, we take gamer and learner identities as meaning structures with both dynamic and stable dimensions. The basis of this gamer identity perspective is identity has a crucial role in investigating learning. Applying a life history approach, we interviewed 10 participants in one-to-one interviews, with three interviews for each participant. Applying the narrative portrait, we analysed participant data. We found that gamer identity construction from video game playing, as a vital meaning structure, has four main aspects, namely in-game identification, social community expansion, restorative effect and meaning recognition, providing gamers with expansive ways to build learner and personal identity as that can benefit their formal education.
This report presents the findings of independent research on teacher workload in Scotland. It was... more This report presents the findings of independent research on teacher workload in Scotland. It was commissioned by the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), the largest teacher trade union in Scotland, which represents over 80% of all teachers across nursery, primary and secondary education. The research fulfils a resolution adopted at the 2022 EIS Annual General Meeting to contract ‘independent research that considers the workload of teachers, the extra hours they work beyond their contractual hours as a consequence of their workload, and the main reasons for the failure to achieve a 35-hour working week for teachers’.
A sequential mixed-method design using an online time use diary and semi-structured individual interviews was deployed to the address the following research questions: • What are the main activities that constitute teacher workload? • What is the balance of this workload over the working week? • What extra hours do teachers work beyond their contractual hours? • Where do workload demands come from, out with class contact time?
At the time of writing, primary English education is, once again, at a crossroads. Within the con... more At the time of writing, primary English education is, once again, at a crossroads. Within the context of a continuing focus on underachievement in writing for key groups of learners and a large body of research, which suggests that classroom talk is a powerful means of improving children's success in all areas of the curriculum including writing, this article considers two current approaches to talk in the primary curriculum -Talk for Writing and Towards Dialogic Teaching. In doing so, it critically analyses these texts through the theoretical lens of education as social reproduction with a view to identifying their ideological assumptions about the purpose of talk in the curriculum. Discussion considers how such assumptions may influence classroom practice and contribute to the teachers' understanding of the role of oracy within the primary classroom. The article concludes that whilst both texts might suggest a socially reproductive approach to education, both have the potential to empower the learner through the skilful implementation of oracy as the foundation of teaching and learning.
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Papers by Carole Bignell
General Meeting to contract ‘independent research that considers the workload of teachers, the extra hours they work beyond their contractual hours as a consequence of their workload, and the main reasons for the failure to achieve a 35-hour working week for teachers’.
A sequential mixed-method design using an online time use diary and semi-structured individual interviews was deployed to the address the following research questions:
• What are the main activities that constitute teacher workload?
• What is the balance of this workload over the working week?
• What extra hours do teachers work beyond their contractual hours?
• Where do workload demands come from, out with class contact time?
General Meeting to contract ‘independent research that considers the workload of teachers, the extra hours they work beyond their contractual hours as a consequence of their workload, and the main reasons for the failure to achieve a 35-hour working week for teachers’.
A sequential mixed-method design using an online time use diary and semi-structured individual interviews was deployed to the address the following research questions:
• What are the main activities that constitute teacher workload?
• What is the balance of this workload over the working week?
• What extra hours do teachers work beyond their contractual hours?
• Where do workload demands come from, out with class contact time?