Does the Affiliation of Universities to External Organizations Foster Diversity in Private Higher Education? Chile in Comparative Perspective     

Andrés Bernasconi 《Higher Education》2006,52(2):303-342

The expansion of private sectors of higher education has usually been regarded as a factor of diversification in higher education systems. Some of this differentiation has been found to arise from the affiliation of private institutions with organizations outside the field of higher education. This article reports the results of a study of this form of interorganizational relationship in private universities in Chile. Cases include universities founded or sponsored by religious, business and military organizations. A typology of private universities is proposed, on the basis of the forms affiliation (or its absence), was observed to take in the cases examined. Weak and strong forms of affiliation are described, and affiliated universities are compared to “proprietary” universities, i.e., those owned by individuals who govern them from their positions in the board of directors, and “independent” universities, in which governance lies with internal – academic or administrative – constituents. Albeit derived from the case of Chile, the typology could be applied to the analysis of private higher education in other national systems. The second part of the article seeks to ascertain whether affiliation operates as a source of differentiation in Chilean private higher education. Results show that, compared to the other types of private universities, the affiliated ones possess distinctive mission statements and declarations of principles, consistent with the orientations of their sponsor institutions, they tend to be smaller, and to have more full-time and better qualified faculty. Some receive financial support from their sponsor organization or its members. Distinctiveness was not found in indicators of prestige and student selectivity, nor in tuition levels, program offerings, curriculum design, the weight of research and graduate programs in their functions, student socioeconomic profile, and faculty involvement in governance. This is not to say that there are no differences in these dimensions among private universities: much diversity exists, but most of it cuts across all categories of interest for our study. Overall, affiliation does not appear to be a strong factor behind the diversification that exists in the Chilean private university sector.  相似文献   

Performance equivalency between computer‐based and traditional pen‐and‐paper assessment: A case study in clinical anatomy          下载免费PDF全文

Bruno Guimarães  José Ribeiro  Bernardo Cruz  André Ferreira  Hélio Alves  Ricardo Cruz‐Correia  Maria Dulce Madeira  Maria Amélia Ferreira 《Anatomical sciences education》2018,11(2):124-136

The time, material, and staff‐consuming nature of anatomy's traditional pen‐and‐paper assessment system, the increase in the number of students enrolling in medical schools and the ever‐escalating workload of academic staff have made the use of computer‐based assessment (CBA) an attractive proposition. To understand the impact of such shift in the assessment method, an experimental study evaluating its effect on students’ performance was designed. Additionally, students’ opinions toward CBA were gathered. Second‐year medical students attending a Clinical Anatomy course were randomized by clusters in two groups. The pen‐and‐paper group attended two sessions, each consisting of a traditional sectional anatomy steeplechase followed by a theoretical examination, while the computer group was involved in two similar sessions conducted in a computerized environment. At the end of each of the computer sessions, students in this group filled an anonymous questionnaire. In the first session, pen‐and‐paper group students scored significantly better than computer‐group students in both the steeplechase (mean ± standard deviation: 66.00 ± 14.15% vs. 43.50 ± 19.10%; P < 0.001) and the theoretical examination (52.50 ± 12.70% vs. 39.00 ± 21.10%; P < 0.001). In the second session, no statistically significant differences were found for both the steeplechase (59.50 ± 17.30% vs. 54.50 ± 17.00%; P = 0.085) and the theoretical examination (57.50 ± 13.70% vs. 54.00 ± 14.30%; P = 0.161). Besides, an intersession improvement in students’ perceptions toward CBA was registered. These results suggest that, after a familiarization period, CBA might be a performance equivalent and student accepted alternative to clinical anatomy pen‐and‐paper theoretical and practical examinations. Anat Sci Educ 11: 124–136. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.  相似文献   

Peer Review in Education: Promoting Collaboration, Written Expression, Critical Thinking, and Professional Responsibility     

Vinícius Medina Kern  Luciana Martins Saraiva  Roberto Carlos dos Santos Pacheco 《Education and Information Technologies》2003,8(1):37-46

This article discusses the application of the peer review process as a pedagogical instrument for the promotion of written expression, collaborative work, critical thinking, and professional responsibility among Informatics and Engineering majors. The approach is introduced with a motivation, followed by a discussion about common principles of current learning paradigms and the peer review process. This work is being conducted in Brazil, where we intend to promote a learning paradigm shift through the application of peer review in education. A framework for this application is outlined, together with an account of results from experiences and a discussion about the skills that this approach exercises, especially with regard to widely accepted curricula and codes of ethics and professional conduct. Further research and development efforts are conjectured.  相似文献   

Hybrid heuristic and mathematical programming in oil pipelines networks： Use of immigrants     

DELACRUZJ.M. HERRAN-GONZALEZA. RISCO-MARTINJ.L. ANDRES-TOROB. 《浙江大学学报(A卷英文版)》2005,6(1):9-19

We solve the problem of petroleum products distribution through oil pipelines networks. This problem is modelled and solved using two techniques: A heuristic method like a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm and Mathematical Programming. In the multiobjective evolutionary algorithm, several objective functions are defined to express the goals of the solutions as well as the preferences among them. Some constraints are included as hard objective functions and some are evaluated through a …  相似文献   

University entrepreneurship in a developing country: The case of the P. Universidad Católica de Chile, 1985–2000     

Andrés?BernasconiEmail author 《Higher Education》2005,50(2):247-274

Privatization in higher education is usually understood either as the surge of private institutions or as universities’ growing reliance on private sources of funding or otherwise operating more like firms. Joining the growing literature on university entrepreneurship, this is a case study on the less examined problem of entrepreneurial universities in developing countries. In a period of roughly 15 years, the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Chile, founded in 1888, turned itself from a mostly teaching institution to a research-oriented university, responsible for one-fourth of the Chile’s mainstream scientific output and 40% of all Ph.D.s awarded nationally. Yet, public funding represents today only 17% of its revenues, down from almost 90% in 1972. How such academic development could have occurred as the State withdrew and the market took hold of Chilean higher education after the reforms introduced by the military rule of Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990) is the theme of this work. Universidad Católica’s policies and strategies are described, and the factors contributing to its success, together with their limitations, identified. The case suggests that orientation to the market can be more a means for survival and growth under the pressure of privatization, than a result of a ‘Triple Helix’ strategy of universities, government and industry to generate innovation out of academic knowledge. Secondly, while in the industrialized world, higher education entrepreneurship is associated with knowledge production for economic development (‘Mode 2’), entrepreneurial universities in the context of developing countries may just be finding their way to the academic, disciplinary mode of research.  相似文献   

Developmental Achievements of 7‐year‐old Children in Poland in the Light of International Tests and the Requirements of the Polish Language School Program     

Barbara BielÉn  Hanna Malkowska‐Zegadlo 《International Journal of Early Years Education》1998,6(2):185-197

The language competence and reading comprehension of 406 7‐year‐old children are examined in the research discussed in this article. The children were tested using comparative tests as part of an international project conducted in 14 countries and sponsored by the IEA and the High Scope Research Foundation in Ypsilanti, USA. The discussion here relates only to a part of this wider research and focuses upon the aims and contents of Polish language teaching in grades I—III of the Polish primary school.  相似文献   

Child and adolescent mental health and counselling in Mugello, Italy     

Massimo Papini  Roberto Leonetti  Maurizio Timpanelli  Luca Mercatali  Gavino Maciocco 《International journal for the advancement of counseling》1999,21(3):221-230

This report deals with a program to train the General Practitionners and Pediatricians (P&;P) in child and adolescent mental health (CAMH) counselling, undertaken by the Community Service child neuropsychiatrists (CNs) in the Mugello, a mountain region near Florence (Italy) of approx. 500 square miles, with about 58,000 residents of which 9,000 under eighteen years of age. The program began in 1996 and, after an organizational phase, the P&;P's professional interests and needs dealing with CAMH were tested (review phase). The remarkable P&;P's interest and motivations in CAMH were confirmed by the significant percentage (about 50%) of voluntary attendance and the high percentage (about 91%) of active participation in the meetings and by the 50% increment of first referrals to specialists during a test-period lasting two month (February--March 1997/96). A close-ended questionnaire investigated the most frequent CAMH problems faced by the P&;P, which prevalently turned out to be ordinary events. The high rate (about 54%) of missing responses to questions about the P&;P's possibility to aknowledge their own sources of knowledge on such problems and the high positive response rate (about 70%) indicating a non professional source of knowledge reveal the P&;P's awareness of professional insecurity in CAMH, and this was the cause of their difficulties in distinguishing between ordinary events and psychopathology. The P&;P replied positively in 93% of the cases to the question “do you think it is useful for your professional self-confidence to examine these problem areas in depth?” The method that they preferred proved to be “continuing training courses” (35%). These results provided the basis for the implementation phase with a continuing professional training program. The P&;P's awareness of professional insecurity and the admission of their need for training and information in CAMH motivate their requests for CNs Counselling reference in order to deal with psychiatric cases, while the P&;P's humane approach with patients, revealed during the meetings and in the questionnaire, simplifies the task of training the P&;P to become counsellors in CAMH problems which are less severe.  相似文献   

Reduction of water evaporation in polymerase chain reaction microfluidic devices based on oscillating-flow   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Alessandro Polini  Elisa Mele  Anna Giovanna Sciancalepore  Salvatore Girardo  Adriana Biasco  Andrea Camposeo  Roberto Cingolani  David A. Weitz    Dario Pisignano 《Biomicrofluidics》2010,4(3)

Producing polymeric or hybrid microfluidic devices operating at high temperatures with reduced or no water evaporation is a challenge for many on-chip applications including polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We study sample evaporation in polymeric and hybrid devices, realized by glass microchannels for avoiding water diffusion toward the elastomer used for chip fabrication. The method dramatically reduces water evaporation in PCR devices that are found to exhibit optimal stability and effective operation under oscillating-flow. This approach maintains the flexibility, ease of fabrication, and low cost of disposable chips, and can be extended to other high-temperature microfluidic biochemical reactors.  相似文献   

Landing techniques in volleyball     

Lobietti R  Coleman S  Pizzichillo E  Merni F 《Journal of sports sciences》2010,28(13):1469-1476

Knee injuries such as anterior cruciate ligament lesions and patellar tendonitis are very frequent in volleyball, and are often attributed to micro traumas that occur during the landing phase of airborne actions. The aim of the present study was to compare different jumping activities during official men's and women's volleyball games. Twelve top-level matches from the Italian men's and women's professional leagues were analysed. The jumps performed during the games were classified according to the landing technique used by the player (left or right foot or both feet together), court position, and ball trajectory. Chi-square analyses were performed to detect differences in landing techniques between the sexes, court positions, and trajectories when serving, attacking, blocking, and setting. Significant differences (P?相似文献   

A continuous improvement approach: Closing the loop in an engineering,procurement, and construction management environment     

Roberto Santana 《Performance Improvement》2010,49(7):25-32

Continuous improvement initiatives are of increasing importance due to the high operating risks of engineering, procurement, and construction management (EPCM) firms in the oil and gas sector ($188 billion worth of oil and gas projects in 2008). This article describes a continuous improvement framework that translates performance problems into an action plan and helps to prevent their recurrence.  相似文献