The American faculty in an age of globalization: predictors of internationalization of research content and professional networks     

Martin J. Finkelstein  Elaine Walker  Rong Chen 《Higher Education》2013,65(3):325-340

A steady stream of studies on high-stakes tests such as University Entrance Examinations (UEEs) suggests that high-stakes tests reforms serve as the leverage for promoting quality of learning, standards of teaching, and credible forms of accountability. However, such remediation is often not as effective as hoped and success is not necessarily ensured. As reasons for such a failure were mostly studied after implementation or at completion phase of a reformed test, i.e., a-posteriori scrutinies, there remain theoretical and analytical gaps regarding policy/planning phase, i.e., a-priori explorations. To contribute toward ameliorating this problem, the present study, based on in-depth interviews with 14 policymakers and proponents of the UEEs reform, detailed their conceptualization of this change in terms of the underlying policies, prospects, and perspectives. The analysis came up with three major frameworks: ‘conceptual image of the intended impacts’, ‘paradigm shift from psychometrics traditions to edumetrics culture’, and ‘ulterior challenges of transition’. The analytic glance further provided corroborating links to two global perspectives on assessment: political and technological perspectives. The findings are suggestive that the technological challenges of the current change intersect with the policies that still envisage the same ‘selecting function’ for the UEE’s alternative. This would thwart the success rate of the ideals or desirable changes aimed by the ‘directing function’ of this reform. The a-priori planning analysis is, thus, noteworthy given that it becomes a terrain for examining the formulated policies and the intended practices, and for evidencing how policy influences and is influenced by the reals of practice.  相似文献   

Chinese whispers? Investigating the consistency of the language of assessment between a distance education institution,its tutors and students     

Laura Hills  Anactoria Clarke  Jonathan Hughes  John Butcher  Isobel Shelton  Elaine McPherson 《Open Learning》2013,28(3):238-249

Ensuring the fairness of assessment is important in all areas of higher education. It is particularly so in distance education, where the communication around assessment and feedback is a principal method of supporting learning, and even more so when the students are at the entry point into higher education. This research explores the nature of the language used in explaining the purpose and process of assessment on an access programme at The Open University, UK, from the perspective of the module team, the tutors and the students. It takes a qualitative approach to examine the clarity and consistency of assessment tasks, assessment guidance and TMGs. Analysis revealed inconsistencies in the language used in relation to assessment, which has led to a revision of how assessment tasks and guidance are communicated to students and tutors.  相似文献   

Student teachers in school practice: an analysis of learning opportunities     

Elaine Wilson 《教育政策杂志》2013,28(2):239-240

Abstract

Over the past decade, educational policy in Britain, as in other industrial nations, has been increasingly driven by the concern that higher education should serve the needs of the economy more effectively. The report Highly Qualified People: supply and demand reflects this concern and attempts to establish from employers Britain's likely requirement, in the 1990s, for such expensively educated labour. Though the report concluded that Britain needed more graduates over the next few years, closer scrutiny of its data suggests a very different conclusion ‐ not that Britain needs more graduates to prosper, but rather that Britain needs first to prosper before it is likely to want the graduates it already produces.

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TRAINING OLDER AND YOUNGER ADULTS TO USE SOFTWARE     

Elaine Zandri  Neil Charness 《Educational gerontology》2013,39(6):615-631

Forty‐six subjects (22 young, 24 old) received three training sessions with software (Borland's “Sidekick"). Each session lasted a maximum of S h. The fourth session was a test. Subjects were randomly assigned to two learning environments, partnered or individual, and half were given a computer “jargon” sheet before training. All instructions were written, learning was self‐paced, and tasks were formulated according to discovery‐method guidelines. Attitudes toward computers were measured before Session 1 and on completion of Session 3. The results showed that older adults took twice as long as younger ones but achieved nearly equal performance levels, exceeding young adults in one condition but falling slightly below them in others. Older adults requested help two to three times as frequently. Session 3 attitude scores were positively correlated with the mark achieved on the final test, and changes in attitudes were related to training conditions.  相似文献   

Benefits and Challenges of the Passport Broadcast Intervention in Long-Term Care     

Elaine Wittenberg-Lyles  Debra Parker Oliver  George Demiris  Sara Shaunfield 《Educational gerontology》2013,39(10):691-698

Creative activities are a challenge for long-term care facilities. The Passport intervention uses web-based video technology to provide long-term care residents with a virtual travel experience. Passport broadcasts were conducted and staff and residents were interviewed about the experience. A thematic analysis of interviews was used to discern benefits and challenges. Reported benefits included experience with technology, interaction with student visitors, reminiscing, and active learning. Challenges involved technical quality concerns related to the audio and visual needs of seniors. The pilot found the Passport intervention as a promising tool for creative activities in a long-term care setting.  相似文献   

Randomised controlled trial of incentives to improve attendance at adult literacy classes   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

Greg Brooks  Maxine Burton  Pam Cole  Jeremy Miles  David Torgerson 《牛津教育评论》2013,39(5):493-504

Background: Incentives have been proposed as a method to improve attendance in adult literacy classes. In the UK, several areas have piloted the use of incentives to promote attendance at adult literacy classes. To date no rigorous evaluation of this policy has been undertaken. This paper describes (as far as we are aware) the only UK‐based randomised controlled trial to evaluate the use of financial incentives in order to promote attendance in classes for adult learners.

Methods: We used a cluster‐randomised design. Twenty‐nine adult literacy classes were randomised in two groups using minimisation. Intervention group learners received £5 (US$10) for each class attended. The main outcome was class attendance; the secondary outcome was literacy scores.

Results: After allocation, one class was found to be ineligible for the study. In the 28 remaining classes there was a statistically significant reduction of about 1.5 sessions (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.28, 2.79; p = 0.019) attended by the intervention group compared with control, after adjusting for cluster size and baseline scores. The difference in reading scores between the intervention and control group, conditioned on baseline scores, was ?2.38 (with controls scoring higher than the intervention group), but this difference was not statistically significant (95% CI ?7.40 to 2.57, p = 0.33).

Conclusion: Payments to attend adult literacy classes had an adverse effect on attendance. This trial needs urgent replication, ideally with a larger incentive, before this approach is widely used by policy makers.  相似文献   

Girls claiming education rights: Reflections on distribution,empowerment and gender justice in Northern Tanzania and Northern Nigeria     

Elaine Unterhalter  Jo Heslop  Andrew Mamedu 《International Journal of Educational Development》2013

The article considers the analytical connection between two approaches to discussing girls’ schooling and gender justice. One trend considers injustice primarily as a question of inequalities in distribution and raises few questions about the nature of the gender norms associated with inequitable distribution. A second approach looks at issues of empowerment, the ways in which structural gendered inequalities in the political economy and socio-cultural formations constrain the capacity of girls inside and outside school to claim the rights promised by education, but tends to underplay issues of distribution. The article considers what the relationship between these two approaches to gender justice might be though a detailed discussion of baseline data collected in 2008 for the NGO led TEGINT (Transforming education for girls in Nigeria and Tanzania) project. Girls’ identification of the obstacles to claiming education rights and possible solutions are used as proxies for empowerment, while different features of distribution are examined with regard to gender parity in access and progression, governance and management, and teacher qualifications. Quantitative data based on responses to a survey allows for correlation between aspects of distribution and empowerment to be considered across different contexts. The strongest association between empowerment and distribution is found with regard to the levels of teachers’ qualifications, although there is not sufficient data to explain the reasons for this. The conclusion highlights the importance of contextual factors in understanding the relationships between distribution and empowerment evident from the data and the importance of designing future studies to look more closely at the dynamic two way relationship of distributional and empowerment aspects of gender justice in education.  相似文献   

Web-Based Student Assessment for Program Evaluation     

Coleman  Elaine B.  Penuel  William R. 《Journal of Science Education and Technology》2000,9(4):327-342

As part of an overall evaluation of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, (GLOBE) program, we designed a Web-based assessment environment to measure students' environmental awareness and data analysis skill. It was expected that students who were identified as high implementers in the GLOBE program would outperform low implementers in their ability to construct environmental inferences and the degree to which they could analyze environmental data. Seven high and middle school classrooms were identified as either high or low GLOBE implementers depending on the amount of atmospheric data they had collected during the year. Within each classroom students were assigned into smaller learning groups of three students per group. A total of 32 groups participated in this study. Analysis of students' responses to the tasks revealed that the students differed in their performance. Overall, the results showed that students in the high implementing classrooms were more likely to construct higher-level environmental inferences than students in the low implementing classes. Contrary to expectations, middle school students were more likely than high school students to solve the data analysis problem correctly. However, upon further analyses, high school students constructed more data graphs and were more skilled in providing correct evidence to support their decision making than were middle school students in GLOBE. This study confirms the viability of using technology-based assessments for measuring students' environmental awareness and data analysis.  相似文献   

Introduction     

Elaine Martin  Paul Ramsden 《高等教育研究与发展》2000,19(2):133-135

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Match or Mismatch: The perceptions of parents of nursery age children related to those of the children's main nursery workers     

Barbara Riddick  Elaine Hall 《International Journal of Early Years Education》2000,8(2):113-128

The purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which shared aims, values and understanding exist both between parents and professionals and among professionals. Of particular concern was the impact that any differences in perspective might have on a given child. For each of seven case study children, one parent and two key nursery workers were interviewed and asked to complete rating scales. Thus, there were seven parent and 14 nursery practitioner interviews carried out. Interviews were analysed on a thematic basis with a particular focus on attributional analysis. It was found that, where there were differences between parents and practitioners in the attributions that they made for children's behaviour and learning that these had a significant influence on how children were understood and, in some cases, could lead to nursery practitioners underestimating or 'blaming' children and their families for perceived deficiencies. Cette étude avait pour objectif d'explorer s'iI existe des objectifs, des valeurs et des visions communes entre les parents et les professionnels et parmi les professionnels. On a examiné tout particulièrement l'impact potentiel de toute différence de perspective sur un enfant donné Pour chacun des 7 enfants ayant fait l'objet d'études de cas, un parent et deux enseignants-clés ont été interrogés et ont eu à remplir des questionnaires avec échelle d'évaluation. Il y a donc eu 7 entretiens avec des parents et 14 avec des enseignants de maternelle. Les entretiens ont été analysés sur une base thématique, en mettant un accent particulier sur 1'analyse des attributions. Il en est ressorti que lorsqu'il existait des différences entre les parents et les professionnels dans leurs attributions du comportement et 1'apprentissage des enfants, ces différences avaient une influence considérable sur la manière dont les enfants étaient compris et que, dans certains cas, elles pouvaient entraîner les professionnels à sous-estimer ou e blâmer f les enfants et leur famille pour des lacunes perçues.  相似文献