Internal quality assurance systems in Portugal: what their strengths and weaknesses reveal     

Orlanda Tavares  Cristina Sin  Alberto Amaral 《Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education》2016,41(7):1049-1064

In Portugal, the agency for assessment and accreditation of higher education has recently included in its remit, beyond programme accreditation, the certification of internal quality assurance systems. This implies lighter touch accreditation and aims to direct institutions towards improvement, in addition to accountability. Twelve institutions have already undertaken the certification, and both self-assessment and external assessment reports are available. Based on the qualitative analysis of the nature of institutional strengths and weaknesses highlighted in these evaluation reports, the paper aims to understand whether the identified strengths and weaknesses are related to procedural and organisational matters or to cultural change (values and beliefs), in turn offering an insight into the quality culture(s) which characterise higher education institutions in Portugal. Findings suggest that the quality culture of the analysed institutions is somewhere between responsive and reactive. Overall, all reports dwell more on the prioritisation of formal and structural procedures, both regarding strengths and weaknesses. External reports point towards more weaknesses related to stakeholders’ participation. Both aspects are more frequent in polytechnics than in universities. These findings suggest that polytechnics are more reactive, whereas universities are more responsive. Therefore, accountability apparently continues to be, for the time being, a more pressing concern than improvement.  相似文献   

Job satisfaction among Mexican alumni: a case of incongruence between hunch-based policies and labor market demands     

Alberto F. Cabrera  Wietse de Vries  Shaquana Anderson 《Higher Education》2008,56(6):699-722

Like many other public Mexican universities, the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) has tried to contribute to the national development of Mexico by offering new undergraduate majors presumed to be better attuned to the needs of the labor market, while capping enrollments in traditional majors presumed to be redundant. Using data from one of the most extensive alumni studies in Mexico, we found that BUAP alumni who graduated in traditional majors do not show high unemployment or low satisfaction. On the contrary, the lowest levels of job satisfaction and the highest rates of unemployment are found among the graduates of non-traditional majors.

Shaquana AndersonEmail:

  相似文献   

Vocational education financing     

Candido Alberto Gomes 《Prospects》1991,21(3):455-465

  相似文献   

Understanding Quantum Physics     

Cordero  Alberto 《Science & Education》2003,12(5-6):503-511

Science &; Education -  相似文献   

Understanding social bonds during science inquiry using V-Note software     

Bellocchi  Alberto  Davis  James P.  Olson  Rebecca E.  Appanna  Subhashni D. 《Cultural Studies of Science Education》2019,14(3):769-796

Cultural Studies of Science Education - Amy Goods’s software review article V-Note: A video analysis tool for teacher | researchers stimulated our interest in adopting this software to...  相似文献   

Academics’ and employers’ perceptions about responsibilities for employability and their initiatives towards its development     

Cristina Sin  Alberto Amaral 《Higher Education》2017,73(1):97-111

This paper reports the results of preliminary research into how Portuguese academics and employers perceive the responsibility of different higher education stakeholders—students, teaching staff, higher education institutions, employers, and policy-makers—for developing graduate employability. The study was conducted 8 years after the implementation of the Bologna Process, the reform that placed employability firmly on the agenda of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Portugal. This paper aims to assess the extent to which higher education is held responsible for developing employability, and to characterize the activities undertaken by the two actors to achieve that end. In particular, with respect to academics, we characterize curricular and other changes to study programmes, and, with respect to employers, their participation in activities undertaken by HEIs meant to ease the transition of students to the labour market. The data comes from a survey responded to by 684 Portuguese academics and 64 employers. Academics and employers alike were found to attribute high responsibility for developing employability to higher education, suggesting that the political message of the Bologna Process regarding the relation between higher education and the labour market has been assimilated. However, the activities reported by both types of respondents indicate only an average commitment to developing employability. Here, the low participation of employers in internal institutional activities is noteworthy, suggesting that the recognition of employers as stakeholders in higher education, as advocated by policy-makers, has yet to happen in Portugal.  相似文献   

Ball possession effectiveness in men's and women's elite basketball according to situational variables in different game periods     

Miguel-Angel Gómez  Alberto Lorenzo  Sergio-José Ibañez  Jaime Sampaio 《Journal of sports sciences》2013,31(14):1578-1587

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to identify the importance of basketball performance indicators in predicting the effectiveness of ball possessions in men's and women's basketball, when controlling for situational variables and game periods. The sample consisted of 7234 ball possessions, corresponding to 40 games from the Spanish professional leagues. The effects of the predictor variables on successful ball possessions according to game period were analysed using binary logistic regressions. Results from men's teams show interactions with number of passes and ending player during the first five minutes, with starting and ending zone, defensive systems, screens used and possession duration during the middle thirty minutes, and there were interactions with passes used, possession duration and players involved during the last five minutes. Results from women's teams show interactions with starting and ending zone, passes used, defensive systems and ending player during the first five minutes, and with starting and ending zone, and screens used during the middle thirty minutes. The results show no interaction with situational variables in men's basketball, while league stage was important during the middle thirty minutes and last five minutes in women's basketball, whereas match status was only important during the last five minutes.  相似文献   

The Relationship Between Attendance in Student‐centred Physics Tutorials and Performance in University Examinations     

Manjula D. Sharma  Alberto Mendez  John W. O’Byrne 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(11):1375-1389

The School of Physics at the University of Sydney has introduced voluntary workshop tutorials in large first‐year courses. The tutorials are based on informal cooperative groupings with structured worksheets and short hands‐on activities. In this study we explore the relationship between attendance at the workshop tutorials and student performance in examinations. We show that about 80% of the students attend more than two‐thirds of the voluntary tutorials. Discounting the students who attend very few tutorials, on average, examination marks improve significantly with increased tutorial attendance. In particular, on average, students with poor senior high school scores have significantly better examination marks if they work in the same group for eight or more tutorials than those who do not work in the same groups. There is evidence that the improvement in examination performance is more pronounced in qualitative concept questions, most dramatically again for students who did poorly in senior high school.  相似文献   

Computadores,comunicación y educación: una colaboración internacional en la intervención e investigación educativa     

Alberto Rosa  Luis C. Moll 《Infancia y Aprendizaje》2013,36(30):1-17

Resumen

El presente articulo describe y justifica teóricamente una actividad educativa que induye el uso de microcomputadores a través de una comunicación telemática. Esta actividad consiste en la redacción de una revista bilingüe (inglés-español) en la que colaboran niños de diversas culturas. A través de esta actividad se trabajan temas como la «alfabetización informàtica», la composición de textos y los idiomas. Esta intervención educativa viene acompañada de un intercambio de información científica a través de una red académica de comunicaciones telemáticas para el intercambio de información científica. El marco teórico en el que se desarrolla este trabajo se deriva del de la psicología vygotskiana y de alguno de sus desarrollos posteriores.  相似文献   

上海浦东新区城市生活垃圾收运路线优化研究   总被引：3，自引：0，他引：3  

朱明华  范秀敏  刘炳凯  何其昌  Alberto Rovetta 《资源科学》2009,31(9):1612-1618

城市化的迅猛发展、经济的高速增长,城市垃圾产生量日渐增多,如何实现垃圾减量化、资源化、无害化作为可持续发展领域的焦点,已成为环境综合治理工作中的新难点、新挑战.城市生活垃圾收运费用在垃圾处理系统总费用中占有很大的比例,通过对垃圾收运问题的研究,可以有效节约成本,提高作业效率.文章对城市生活垃圾收运现状进行了分析,以总的垃圾收运距离最短为优化目标建立了城市垃圾收运问题的数学模型,提出了以扫描算法和分枝限界法相结合的求解方法.基于优化的结果和GIS技术实现优化作业路径的动态显示,为实际垃圾收运作业提供决策依据.最后,通过调研区浦东新区的实例表明优化后的作业路径减少了17.7%,节约了垃圾收运的成本,证明了该求解方法的实用性和有效性.  相似文献