Needs assessment—a digest,review, and comparison of needs assessment literature     

Ryan Watkins  Douglas Leigh  William Platt  Roger Kaufman 《Performance Improvement》1998,37(7):40-53

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A process for aligning performance improvement resources and strategies     

Ryan Watkins  John Wedman 《Performance Improvement》2003,42(7):9-17

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Sustainability, crossdisciplinarity and higher education --From an agronomic point of view   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Alex Koutsouris 《美中教育评论》2009,6(3):13-27

Nowadays, there is a growing conviction （at least in rhetoric） that sustainability is an idea whose time has come with education being a critical component in the transition towards a sustainable future. In the field of higher agricultural education, systemic approaches have, among others, triggered a lively dialogue. Topics include the challenge of sustainable agricultural development, the understanding of agriculture as the interface between people and their environment, integrated curricula （i.e. multi- inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches）, etc. Such powerful debates have （sometimes radical） consequences for the whole curriculum design, i.e. the nature of goals, content （knowledge）, and processes （learning methodologies）. However, the still dominant scientific paradigm of reductionism, the strong traditions of disciplines and the prevailing approach to agricultural development impede changes towards a new educational paradigm in higher education. Nonetheless, such a new paradigm should be supported if universities are to keep pace in a changing world.  相似文献   

Undergraduates’ learning experience and learning process: quantitative evidence from the East   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Beverley J. Webster  Wincy S. C. Chan  Michael T. Prosser  David A. Watkins 《Higher Education》2009,58(3):375-386

This article examines the construct validity of the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) in Hong Kong and investigates the similarities and differences in the process of learning among students in different disciplinary studies. It is based on a survey of 1,563 undergraduate students in two disciplines, humanities and sciences, and of principally Chinese ethnicity. Findings from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses support the scale structure of the four subscales of a modified version of the CEQ (good teaching, clear goals and standards, appropriate work, and appropriate assessment) in a non-Western context and could provide a basis for cross cultural research and international benchmarking. While there was variation across subgroups, there was a genuine pattern of relationships between the perceptions of learning environment and learning strategies shown by structural modeling. This information could be used to inform the design of discipline-specific programs in the new curriculum.  相似文献   

Incremental validity of thinking styles in predicting academic achievements: an experimental study in hypermedia learning environments     

Weiqiao Fan  Li‐Fang Zhang  David Watkins 《教育心理学》2010,30(5):605-623

The study examined the incremental validity of thinking styles in predicting academic achievement after controlling for personality and achievement motivation in the hypermedia‐based learning environment. Seventy‐two Chinese college students from Shanghai, the People’s Republic of China, took part in this instructional experiment. The End‐Of‐Semester test was designed to examine the students’ achievement in the course of General Psychology. The results partially supported the hypotheses concerning the relationships between students’ Type I and II thinking styles and their academic achievement in Type I test (including analysis, problem‐solving, and essay tests) and Type II test (including multiple‐choice and cloze tests), and showed that some Type III styles were significantly related to their academic achievement. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the capacity of thinking styles for explaining and predicting academic achievement was sometimes over and above the sum of personality traits and achievement motivation. Implications for educational practice are discussed.  相似文献   

The ‘collateral impact’ of pupil behaviour and geographically concentrated socio‐economic disadvantage     

Alex Hugh David 《British Journal of Sociology of Education》2010,31(3):261-276

Schools in areas of concentrated disadvantage tend to have below‐average attainment, but there is no consensus on why. Mental and behavioural disorders in children are correlated with socio‐economic disadvantage. This paper puts forward the hypothesis that the first phenomenon can at least partly be accounted for by the second phenomenon through the concept of ‘collateral impact’ – collateral impact refers to the effect of externalising or internalising behaviour by a pupil on other pupils' learning and attainment. The argument developing the hypothesis is presented. An analysis of where evidence to support the hypothesis is most likely to be found identifies primary schools in areas of concentrated disadvantage, although testing of the proposed hypothesis would best be conducted by independent researchers to pre‐empt questions of confirmability. Potential implications for policy and practice are discussed, particularly managing difficult group behaviour in primary schools.  相似文献   

The Value of Reanalysis: TV Viewing and Attention Problems     

E. Michael Foster  Stephanie Watkins 《Child development》2010,81(1):368-375

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth ( N  =   1,159), this study reexamines the link between maternal reports of television viewing at ages 1 and 3 and attention problems at age 7. This work represents a reanalysis and extension of recent research suggesting young children's television viewing causes subsequent attention problems. The nonlinear specification reveals the association between television watching and attention problems exists—if at all—only at very high levels of viewing. Adding 2 covariates to the regression model eliminated even this modest effect. The earlier findings are not robust. This study also considers whether its own findings are sensitive to unobserved confounding using fixed-effects estimation. In general, it finds no meaningful relation between television viewing and attention problems.  相似文献   

Education and competitive economy: how do cultural dimensions fit in?     

Cheung  Hoi Yan  Chan  Alex Wing Ho 《Higher Education》2010,59(5):525-541

Globalization has changed the way people behave in different aspects of life. One of the significant differences is that people are now competing with everyone around the world, not just people within or near their own regions. A good way of remaining competitive is to provide quality education that can help students meet the needs of the competitive economy. However, not all nations are responding in the same way. Using a quantitative approach, this explorative study seeks to discover if, and how, cultural dimensions fit into the process of meeting the demands of the competitive economy by means of education across regions. Forty-three regions with different ratings on the Power Distance Index (PDI), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), and the Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) are included in this study. The results show that UAI, PDI and IDV are significant factors relating to this issue.  相似文献   

What’s it all about? Making sense of Australian university learning and teaching plans     

Kathleen Gray  Alex Radloff 《高等教育研究与发展》2010,29(3):291-305

Universities put considerable resources into developing learning and teaching plans. In this paper, we examine the purpose of these plans in the context of legislative requirements, public accountability and the quality agenda. We analyse a sample of Australian university learning and teaching plans using a framework we have developed based on theory and research on strategic planning and core themes in learning and teaching. Analysis reveals considerable variation in plans’ form and format, planning characteristics and learning and teaching themes addressed and omissions of key characteristics and themes. We consider the ability of such plans to meet the needs of internal and external readers, we discuss implications for their capacity to direct and motivate changes aimed at improving learning and teaching and we challenge the higher education sector to determine more clearly the role of learning and teaching plans.  相似文献   

Why are there proportionately more poor pupils enrolled in non-state schools in urban Kenya in spite of FPE policy?     

Moses Oketch  Maurice Mutisya  Moses Ngware  Alex C. Ezeh 《International Journal of Educational Development》2010,30(1):23-32

One of the conundrums of free primary education (FPE) policy in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa is the ‘mushrooming’ of fee-paying private schools. Several researchers have become interested in studying this phenomenon and have raised the question—does free primary education meet the needs of the poor? Emerging voices among this group of researchers suggest that the impact of FPE, particularly in meeting the educational needs of the poor may be over-stated in situations where the poor still utilize what is referred to as ‘private schools for the poor’. The concerns expressed by those voicing this point of view point to the question of why the poor choose fee-paying [low quality] private schools when there is, presumably a free state school? To respond to this question and to contribute to this debate, this paper adopts the excess demand and differentiated demand frameworks to analyse how slum (poor) and non-slum (non-poor) parents utilize education in Nairobi, Kenya following the implementation of free primary education policy in 2003. We conclude that the answer to the ‘mushrooming’ of private schools for the poor is ‘excess demand’. As to whether free primary education meets the needs of the poor, we argue that where supply does not match demand excess demand is likely to arise in the initial stages. We recommend that what is required is greater and possibly differentiated and better targeted investment in education whereby unequals are treated unequally in order for the Kenyan government not to under-invest in the education of the poor.  相似文献