The impact of size and specialisation on universities’ department performance: A DEA analysis applied to Austrian universities     

Karl-Heinz Leitner  Julia Prikoszovits  Michaela Schaffhauser-Linzatti  Rainer Stowasser  Karin Wagner 《Higher Education》2007,53(4):517-538

This paper explores the performance efficiency of natural and technical science departments at Austrian universities using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). We present DEA as an alternative tool for benchmarking and ranking the assignment of decision-making units (organisations and organisational units). The method applies a multiple input and output variables approach, which is a clear advantage to other approaches using simple performance ratios. To deliver reasonable results, suitable input and output variables have been determined in a previous step using correlation analyses and OLS regression. The results validate the methods applied, and reveal performance differences and scale effects. The use of multiple output variables enables the revealing of detailed improvement or reduction amounts of each input and output of the evaluated units and furthermore for identifying the specialisation of teaching, research, and industrial cooperation. We find significant evidence that the size of a department influences its overall and specialisation performance; both small and large departments perform above average, which proves that simple linear scale effects do not exist.  相似文献   

Prokrastination bei Studierenden des Lehramts und der Erziehungswissenschaften     

Annette Lohbeck  Gerda Hagenauer  Andrea Mühlig  Barbara Moschner  Michaela Gläser-Zikuda 《Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft》2017,20(3):521-536

A common phenomenon among university students is procrastination, the dysfunctional postponing of tasks. Based on expectancy-value theory, the present study examined the relations between procrastination and some specific motivational characteristics of university students. A total of 881 German university students of teacher education and educational sciences completed a questionnaire. Results showed that procrastination while studying was negatively related to self-concept, study interest, mastery goal orientation and performance-approach goal orientation, while it was positively associated with work avoidance. Moreover, male students reported higher procrastination than female students. Study interest and work avoidance were the strongest predictors of procrastination. Thus, enhancing students’ positive motivational characteristics could reduce procrastination while studying.  相似文献   

Stress in Teaching: a study of occupational stress and its determinants,job satisfaction and career commitment among primary schoolteachers     

Mark G. Borg  Richard J. Riding  Joseph M. Falzon 《教育心理学》1991,11(1):59-75

A questionnaire survey of 710 Maltese primary schoolteachers revealed that the level of teacher stress, job satisfaction and career commitment was constituted differently in some of the teacher demographic subgroups. A principal components analysis of the stress ratings of 20 items covering various aspects of the teacher's work environment yielded four factors described in terms of ‘pupil misbehaviour’, ‘time/ resource difficulties’, ‘professional recognition needs’ and ‘poor relationships’. Teacher sex and ability‐group taught interacted significantly with the stress factors. Results also showed that teachers who reported greater stress were less satisfied with their job and less committed to choose a teaching career were they to start life over again. Moreover, the association between the general measure of job stress and the stress due to each of the four stress factors was strongest for ‘pupil misbehaviour’ and ‘time/resource difficulties’. Of the four factors, ‘professional recognition needs’ had the strongest inverse relationship with job satisfaction and career commitment.  相似文献   

External quality assurance in higher education: how can it address corruption and other malpractices?     

Michaela Martin 《Quality in Higher Education》2016,22(1):49-63

Corruption and malpractices in higher education are today a major concern in nearly all higher education systems worldwide. It is a multifaceted phenomenon and has become particularly visible in the academic domain. This paper represents an exploration of the possible role that quality assurance can play in addressing corruption and malpractices. First, it briefly studies the factors that enhance the risk of corruption and malpractice in higher education. Second, it examines how quality assurance systems can potentially identify and prevent corruption in higher education. Third, it discusses organisational options that prevent corruption in the quality assurance procedure itself. In other words, how the quality assurance procedure should be built in order to lower the risk of becoming itself the object of unethical behaviour and corruption.  相似文献   

Understanding perspectives and emotions in contract violation: development of deontic and moral reasoning   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Keller M  Gummerum M  Wang XT  Lindsey S 《Child development》2004,75(2):614-635

Children between the ages of 3 and 10 years were presented with a set of pictures representing a contract with bilateral cheating options between a parent and child (Study 1) and between 2 peers (Study 2). The children had to (a) evaluate which situations violated the contract when the relevant information was presented, (b) anticipate the feelings of the violator and the victim, and (c) infer possible contract violation from 2 different perspectives when relevant information was covered. Results show that logical inferences about contract violation differ according to the type of task. Negative feelings attributed to the violator were dependent on age and type of relationship, revealing a content-sensitive codevelopment of cognitive abilities and moral reasoning in young children.  相似文献   

On the association between serial naming speed for letters and digits and word‐reading skill: towards a developmental account     

Judith A. Bowey  Michaela McGuigan  Annette Ruschena 《Journal of Research in Reading》2005,28(4):400-422

The current study examined several alternative explanations of the association between serial naming speed within fourth‐grade children by determining the extent to which the association between word reading and naming speed for letters and numbers is mediated by global processing speed, alphanumeric symbol processing efficiency and phonological processing ability. Children were given multiple measures of key constructs, i.e. word‐level reading, serial naming of both alphanumeric and non‐alphanumeric items, phonological processing ability, articulation rate and global processing speed. The robust association between alphanumeric naming speed and reading within fourth‐grade children was largely mediated by phonological processing ability. Markedly different patterns of results were observed for naming speed for letters and digits and naming speed for colours and pictures in children of this age. Relative to the latter, alphanumeric naming speed better assesses an underlying phonological processing ability that is common to word‐reading ability. We argue that item identification processes contribute little to individual differences in alphanumeric naming speed within relatively proficient readers and that the extent to which alphanumeric naming speed primarily reflects phonological processing is likely to vary with the level of overlearning of letters and numbers and their names.  相似文献   

A New Method of Linking Courses: A Theologian and a Sociologist Share Their Experience     

Michaela Galles  Paul J. Olson 《Innovative Higher Education》2008,33(1):39-48

In this article we briefly address the rationale for linking courses and the types of student learning communities that exist in various institutions of higher education. We then describe a new method we used to link our theology (Protestant Churches in America) and sociology (Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Inequality) courses in which no students were enrolled in both courses. We discuss the practical aspects of our linkage and conclude by highlighting the evaluation of the linked courses. We found that the students went beyond the stated learning objectives and that all parties involved in the courses were satisfied with the new undertaking. Sr. Michaela Galles (M.S., M.A., University of Notre Dame) is Associate Professor of Theology at Briar Cliff University, and she specializes in the theology of sacraments and Christology. Paul J. Olson (Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln) specializes in the sociology of religion and is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Briar Cliff University.  相似文献   

The effect of feature-target intervals in conditional discriminations on acquisition and expression of conditioned nictitating membrane and heart rate responses in the rabbit     

E. James Kehoe  Nerida Palmer  Gabrielle Weidemann  Michaela Macrae 《Learning & behavior》2000,28(1):80-91

Nictitating membrane (NM) and heart rate (HR) responses were investigated in a conditional discrimination (A→X+ vs. B→X−), using feature-target intervals of 0, 5, 15, and 45 sec. Conditional control of NM responses, but not of HR responses, was acquired to the 400-msec X stimulus in all the groups tested. However, differential conditioning of both the NM and the HR responses to A versus B feature cues appeared for the three shorter intervals. Following acquisition, all the rabbits were tested with the four different feature-target intervals. All the groups showed a gradient of NM responding to X, in which the highest level of responding occurred at or near the interval used in training. The results are discussed with respect to the relationship of simple conditioning of the feature cues to their control over responding during presentation of the target stimulus, the putative role of HR as an index of preparatory processes during presentation of feature cues, and mechanisms of temporal specificity in conditional discriminations.  相似文献   

Insights From an Evaluability Assessment of the U.S. Forest Service More Kids in the Woods Initiative     

Michaela T. Zint  Beth A. Covitt  Patrick F. Dowd 《The Journal of environmental education》2013,44(4):255-271

We conducted an evaluability assessment of the U.S. Forest Service's “More Kids in the Woods” internal grant initiative based on a review of 26 funded proposals, the creation of logic models, and a survey of project leaders. Evaluations of the initative are warranted because it has clear outcome objectives, is implemented as intended, and results suggest plausible benefits associated with providing underserved youth with outdoor experiences. Findings also point to the types of evaluations that will be useful and add to the limited literature on environmental grant programs as well as environmental educators’ evaluation interests, practices and perceived competencies.  相似文献   

Towards a model for the determinants of occupational stress among schoolteachers     

Mark G. Borg  Richard J. Riding 《European Journal of Psychology of Education - EJPE》1991,6(4):355-373

The determinants of stress in teaching were investigated in a context which allowed many of the characteristics of an educational system to be incorporated in the design. Using a specially developed self-report instrument, 545 secondary schoolteachers in Malta reported the perceived levels of stressfulness of 35 items covering various aspects of the teacher’s work environment. One-third of the respondents rated being a teacher as either very stressful or extremely stressful. A principal components analysis of the data on the 35 sources of stress yielded a four-factor structure described in terms of ‘pupil misbehaviour’, ‘poor working conditions’, ‘poor staff relations’ and ‘time pressures’. Repeated measures ANOVA of the factor scores revealed a number of significant two-way and three-way interactions involving the demographic variables of sex, age, type of teaching post, type of school selectivity, type of single-sex school, size of school, and type of curriculum subject/s taught.  相似文献