Academic Institutions,Ambiguity and Learning Outcomes as Management Tools          下载免费PDF全文

Ivar Bleiklie  Nicoline Frølich  Rachel Sweetman  Mary Henkel 《European Journal of Education》2017,52(1):68-79

Specifying learning outcomes (LOs) in higher education as part of the European Qualification Framework (EQF) has resulted in a variety of experiences in the national contexts of England and Norway, as well as in different institutional and disciplinary settings. This article contributes to a contextualised understanding of the kind of management tools that higher education learning outcomes (HELOs) are, based on a conceptually‐informed comparative empirical analysis. The comparison is based on two types of disciplines (the humanities and STEM) in two national contexts (Norway and England) at two research‐intensive universities in each country. These settings offer an opportunity to look for evidence – inspired by public administration literature – as to whether HELOs have some specific characteristics as management tools. HELOs share the characteristics that afflict most reform policies – that of ambiguity and the potential of being shaped by a number of circumstantial factors. Higher education institutions are highly dependent on, and embedded in, multiple relationships to the environment. Hence, as decision making structures, they are ‘penetrated’ and influenced in ways that are likely to vary across countries, types of institutions and academic disciplines. Because institutions and disciplinary groups are embedded in different policy (varying degrees and forms of state steering and policy implementation) and organisational environments (different degrees and forms of hierarchical leadership, managerial control, and autonomy) and different disciplines (different perceptions of scientific‐, professional‐, educational mission, and relationships to external stakeholders) they also constitute different organisational spaces for participation and engagement in shaping and using HELOs.  相似文献   

Quality Improvement of Business Education in Romanian Universities: The Student as Customer and Client     

Daniel A. Glaser‐Segura  Suzanne Mudge  Constantin Brătianu  Ionela Jianu  Sorin Vâlcea 《Higher Education in Europe》2007,32(2-3):121-133

This study frames the quality transition of Romanian business education embracing the role of students as clients and customers. In the first part of the study, responses from ninety‐four fourth‐year Romanian students provided a statistically significant gap between the level of importance of business competences and their level of preparation. The second part used content analysis to establish four major improvement themes: 1) new course specification; 2) pedagogical modification using practical applications; 3) course delivery improvement; and 4) university‐directed field experiences. The findings support the notion that Romanian students provide reliable and unique assessments of their education.  相似文献   

Quality Assurance Issues in European Distance Education     

Erling Ljoså 《European Journal of Engineering Education》1995,20(2):195-199

Four major issues concerning quality in European distance education are addressed. (1) The lack of flexibility in educational institutions is a threat to the quality of the present education system. (2) New technologies offer new potential, but also confront us with a need for quality assessment and assurance. (3) New markets in industry and in new regions of Europe highlight the need for quality standards and guidelines. (4) Finally, public assessment and control of quality are under continuous discussion. In general, quality assurance should be approached in various ways and with different measures at institutional, national and international levels.  相似文献   

Diversity of occupational orientations in Sales vocational education and training     

Kaja Reegård 《Journal of Education & Work》2016,29(6):688-706

The article examines the ways students in the school-based part of the vocational education and training (VET) in Sales begin to make sense of the world of work they are about to enter. Drawing on a qualitative study of upper-secondary Sales VET students in Norway, a four-fold typology of orientations to retail work is analysed: first, the disoriented Drifter who is restless and eager to move on to other activities or drifts on to retail apprenticeship without developing any substantial interest; second, the product-oriented Consumer is driven by a strong personal interest in the line of products, for example fashion, music, cars or electronics, and the sense of lifestyle they convey; third, the service-oriented Professional reasons on the basis of satisfaction deriving from the act of providing service to customers; and fourth, the career-oriented Aspirer who is motivated by career advancement opportunities within the retail sector. The article aimed to extend understandings of the initial process of becoming by elucidating the students’ subjective accounts of their diverse paths into retail work within the weakly established Sales education, approaching a labour market sector depicted in terms of low-skill and high turnover.  相似文献   

Teaching one thing at a time or several things together? – teachers changing their way of handling the object of learning by being engaged in a theory-based professional learning community in mathematics and science     

Angelika Kullberg  Ulla Runesson  Ference Marton  Anna Vikström  Pernilla Nilsson  Pernilla Mårtensson 《Teachers and Teaching》2016,22(6):745-759

Twelve lower secondary schoolteachers in mathematics and science were asked to teach a topic of their choice during a lesson that was video-recorded. We were able to analyse 10 of the cases and we found that all of them were similar in one respect: concepts and principles were introduced one at a time, each one followed by examples of the concept or principle in question, apparently to highlight its essential meaning. All the teachers participated in three modified lesson studies with three cycles in four different groups during three semesters. The modified lesson studies were built on a theoretical idea supported by a large number of recent studies. The theory states that new meanings (of concepts and principles, for instance) are learned through engaging with instances of contrasting concepts and principles. The core idea is that new meanings derive from differences, not from sameness. After the three modified lesson studies, the teachers were asked to once again teach the same topic as in the recorded lessons before the lesson studies. The new lessons were also recorded and the analysis showed that there was one thing in common in all cases: all of the 10 teachers dealt with the relevant concepts and principles in relation to each other (i.e. simultaneously) and not one at a time. By thus bringing out the differences between them, their meaning was made possible to grasp for the students. The study lends support to the conjecture that the modified lesson study is a powerful tool for enabling teachers to structure the content of their teaching in accordance with a principle that is more powerful in making learning possible, even if this contradicts their taken-for-granted practice.  相似文献   

Measuring strategic processing: comparing task-specific self-reports to traces     

Ivar Bråten  Marit S. Samuelstuen 《Metacognition and Learning》2007,2(1):1-20

This research compares the strategic processing reported on right after the completion of a reading task with physical traces of the same strategies that were found in the study materials. In addition, both task-specific self-reports and traces of strategies were used to predict performance, both in the task context where the strategy data were generated and in another context. Using a sample of 177 Norwegian tenth-grade students, a quite close correspondence was found between learners’ task-specific self-reports about strategies and the strategies traced in the study materials. Moreover, both self-reports and traces of strategies predicted performance not only on the specific reading task but also beyond that context, on the PISA literacy tests. In both contexts, however, strategy data that traced what learners actually did when working on the reading task seemed to predict performance better than did task-specific self-reports.  相似文献   

Context impact of clinical scenario on knowledge transfer and reasoning capacity in a medical problem-based learning curriculum     

A. Collard  S. Brédart  J.-P. Bourguignon 《高等教育研究与发展》2016,35(2):242-253

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Enacting the role of special needs educator – six Swedish case studies     

Nina Klang  Katarina Gustafson  Gunvie Möllås  Claes Nilholm  Kerstin Göransson 《欧洲特需教育杂志》2017,32(3):391-405

With the increasing focus on inclusion, special needs educators (SNEs) are now expected to share responsibility for pupils with teacher colleagues and to lead school development, but it is a challenge to enact this role in schools. The aim of the study was to explore how professional roles of Swedish SNEs are enacted in local school contexts. From a survey of SNEs in 10 Swedish municipalities, six participants whose work tasks were expected to correspond to the degree ordinances for their university training were chosen. The participants were followed at work, and data were collected through observation of the participants at work, participants’ diaries and interviews with the participants, their teacher colleagues and their school principals. The analysis involved both quantitative and qualitative methods. First, based on the researchers’ observations of the participants at work, categories of SNEs’ tasks were discerned, and the amount of time devoted to those categories of tasks was summarised. Second, case study narratives of the SNEs’ work were constructed to describe how the participants, their teacher colleagues and their school principals view the SNE role and to describe how the work is enacted in various school contexts. The results revealed seven categories of work tasks practised to varying degrees by the six SNEs. The case study narratives exposed large variation in how the SNEs conceptualised their role and how it evolved in relation to local school contexts. The results of the study are discussed with regard to the role of the SNE in relation to policies of inclusion.  相似文献   

Providers,consumers and the horizons of the possible: a case study of marketization and physical education teacher education pedagogical discourse     

Karin Redelius  Birgitta Fagrell  Håkan Larsson 《Sport, Education and Society》2013,18(2):245-260

Framed within a shift from a highly centralized system of higher education (HE) to a de-regulated system in Norway, this article addresses how the foci upon student recruitment and incentives in the governmental funding of HE have stimulated market dynamics which affect local configurations of bachelor degrees in sport, physical education and outdoor pursuits, which in turn, can affect the content knowledge of physical education teacher education (PETE) degree. Analyzing data generated via in-depth interviews with Deans and Heads of programs at three significant national providers in the field of HE sport and physical education, this article illuminates how marketization permeates the communication of education values and, thus, the institutional pedagogical discourse. This article problematizes the ways in which PETE pedagogical discourse currently reflects market values embedded in new managerialism in local strategies to recruit students at university colleges in Norway, rather than educational or professional values.  相似文献   

Characterizing the mechanical parameters of forward and backward falls as experienced in snowboarding     

Kai-Uwe Schmitt  Diana Wider  Frank I. Michel  Othmar Brügger  Hans Gerber  Jachen Denoth 《Sports biomechanics / International Society of Biomechanics in Sports》2013,12(1):57-72

Wrist injuries are frequently observed after falls in snowboarding. In this study, laboratory experiments mimicking forward and backward falls were analysed. In six different falling scenarios, participants self-initiated falls from a static initial position. Eighteen volunteers conducted a total of 741 trials. Measurements were taken for basic parameters describing the kinematics as well as the biomechanical loading during impact, such as impact force, impact acceleration, and velocity. The effective mass affecting the wrist in a fall also was determined. The elbow angle at impact showed a more extended arm in backward falls compared to forward falls, whereas the wrist angle at impact remained similar in forward and backward falls. The study results suggest a new performance standard for wrist guards, indicating the following parameters to characterize an impact: an effective mass acting on one wrist of 3–5 kg, an impact angle of 75° of the forearm relative to the ground, and an impact velocity of 3 m/s.  相似文献