Articles written by Carmel Cefai

Volume 4-Issue 1: June 2006

Social, emotional and behavioural difficulties in Malta: An educational perspective

Social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) in schools have become a cause for concern amongst the various stakeholders involved, with indications of increasing frequency in the past decades. This paper examines the issue from a local perspective, critically evaluating the current educational provisions for students with SEBD. The first section discusses the nature, frequency and causes of SEBD, with a particular focus on the institutional factors contributing to such difficulties. This is followed by an examination of the local educational provisions currently available for children and young persons with SEBD, either in mainstream schools or in special settings, and either school or agency based. A multi level intervention framework is proposed to address the needs identified in the evaluation of the current provisions and to prevent SEBD from reaching the frequency and severity seen in some other referent countries.

Volume 7-Issue 1: June 2013

Educational community stakeholders’ perspectives about teachers’ responsibilities for mental health promotion in Maltese schools

The role of school teachers in promoting students’ mental health is receiving increasing international attention. However, before venturing into schools with new initiatives such as mental health promotion, it is essential to take into account local contextual affordances and constraints. One issue is whether teachers and other school community stakeholders believe that activities related to mental health promotion are within teachers’ realms of responsibility and capabilities. This paper reports findings from two questionnaire-based studies in Malta. The first questionnaire, about teachers’ responsibilities in areas related to developing students’ positive mental health, was delivered to community stakeholders attending three public lectures. The second questionnaire asked teaching staff in seven schools about their knowledge and capabilities for teaching to promote positive mental health. Results from the two studies indicate a foundation of support for whole school approaches to mental health promotion. Teachers’ responses from the second study indicate that many teachers do not feel strongly efficacious and knowledgeable about their roles in mental health promotion. Implications for teacher professional learning are discussed.

Volume 8-Issue 1: June 2014

School Careers and Delinquent Involvement: A retrospective investigation into the schooling experiences of habitual offenders

This paper investigates the schooling experiences of young people who pursued a criminal career and consequently became habitual offenders. The data presented are part of a larger grounded theory project on criminal career development among Maltese male youth. The narrative approach adopted in the study allows one to explore offenders’ school careers from their perspective and adopts an inductive design. While the direction of the link between schooling and juvenile delinquency remains complex and contested, exploring the role of the school in delinquent development has important implications for intervention. This paper shows how school experiences have important implications for the development of delinquent careers and are an important contingency in relation to early onset of delinquency. Participant’s negative school experiences and adjustment, engagement in truancy and labelling within the school context are some of the key themes which emerged from the students’ narratives. Although not conclusive, the data from this study implies that dissatisfaction with the educational experience combined with other contingencies, may set the stage for more serious delinquency in and out of school.

Volume 8-Issue 2: December 2014

Papantuono M., Portelli, C. & Gibson, P. (2014). Winning without fighting: A teacher’s handbook for effective solutions for social, emotional and behavioural difficulties in students. Malta University Publishing. ISBN 978-99909-44-66-2, Pg 275.

Volume 11-Issue 1: June 2017

Assessment of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: A Case Analysis of a University in the South of Europe

The focus of assessment in higher education has been moving from assessment ‘of’ to assessment ‘for’ learning and teaching. This shift suggests that formative assessment with feedback can be more beneficial to learning and teaching than traditional summative assessment. In view of the tension that arises between the move towards formative assessment and the role of summative assessment, this study examines how the University under study seeks to balance these two aspects of assessment. The study made use of interviews, questionnaires and documents to collect data. The participants are lecturers and students at the Faculty of Education. Five lecturers and 5 students were interviewed individually, while 15 lecturers and 29 students completed online questionnaires. The documents were obtained from the University’s website. The findings reveal that the university in question recognises the importance of formative assessment, and has established policies and guidelines on the implementation of assessment of learning and teaching. Findings indicate that there is an imbalance between formative and summative assessment of learning and teaching, favouring the latter against the former. Although policy-makers, lecturers and students are aware of the importance of formative assessment, the traditional summative assessment is still the dominant assessment mode. Such a situation has caused challenges to the assessment policies, created struggles for lecturers and resulted in students’ dissatisfaction with the learning process.