Evaluating academic development in the higher education sector: academic developers’ reflections on using a toolkit resource     

Jennie Winter  Rebecca Turner  Lucy Spowart  Reema Muneer  Pauline Kneale 《高等教育研究与发展》2017,36(7):1503-1514

The professionalisation of teaching is of increasing importance in UK higher education due to converging processes including the proliferation of managerialism, increasing quality agendas and changes to student fee structures. These have brought into sharp relief the need for greater understanding of how quality teaching evolves in university settings. One key element of this involves academic development and its impacts on teaching and learning. Current literature suggests that a plethora of ideas, frameworks and instruments claiming best practice exist but that take-up of these is inconsistent. This prompted a UK national research project which produced an evidence-based toolkit for evaluating academic development. As part of the toolkit augmentation, academic development representatives from across the sector were asked to create, review and test uniquely tailored evaluation instruments. These instruments were then piloted on university teachers who had participated in teaching-related continuing professional development activities. This paper reports on these individuals’ reflections of using the toolkit. It suggests that academic developers are interested in evaluating the impact of their work on teachers, students and on the wider institutional culture but that confidence and expertise varies. Using the toolkit generated ‘traditional’ evaluation data including satisfaction with the development activity and changes to lecturers’ conceptions and behaviours. However, it also prompted critical discussions around current evaluation practice. This included the need for transformational reform of institutional culture to support links between evaluation and good standing; and making explicit the thorny issue of evidencing student learning. This paper will be of interest to those with an interest or responsibility for evaluating teaching in higher education. The paper offers an important contribution to the international literature at a time when global higher education is faced with questions about teaching, learning and quality. Evaluation, and how to do it well, is timely and important business.  相似文献   

In search of query patterns: A case study of a university OPAC     

Eng Pwey LauAuthor Vitae  Dion Hoe-Lian Goh 《Information processing & management》2006

A transaction log analysis of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) OPAC was conducted to identify query and search failure patterns with the goal of identifying areas of improvement for the system. One semester’s worth of OPAC transaction logs were obtained and from these, 641,991 queries were extracted and used for this work. Issues investigated included query length, frequency and type of search options and Boolean operators used as well as their relationships with search failure. Among other findings, results indicate that a majority of the queries were simple, with short query lengths and a low usage of Boolean operators. Failure analysis revealed that on average, users had an almost equal chance of obtaining no records or at least one record to a submitted query. We propose enhancements and suggest future areas of work to improve the users’ search experience with the NTU OPAC.  相似文献   

SimPharm: How pharmacy students made meaning of a clinical case differently in paper‐ and simulation‐based workshops     

Swee‐Kin Loke  June Tordoff  Michael Winikoff  Jenny McDonald  Peter Vlugter  Stephen Duffull 《British journal of educational technology : journal of the Council for Educational Technology》2011,42(5):865-874

Several scholars contend that learning with computer games and simulations results in students thinking more like professionals. Bearing this goal in mind, we investigated how a group of pharmacy students learnt with an in‐house developed computer simulation, SimPharm. Adopting situated cognition as our theoretical lens, we conducted a case study involving 20 undergraduate students to tease out how they made meaning of a clinical case differently in two different contexts: a typical paper‐based workshop and one enabled by SimPharm. The data collected included audio recordings of classroom discourse, focus group interviews and class observations. The findings identified differences in four areas: framing of the problem; problem‐solving steps and tools used; sources and meaning of feedback; and conceptualisation of the patient. These four areas can serve as axes along which future evaluations of educational simulations can be carried out based on their affordances.  相似文献   

Implementation integrity in peer tutoring of mathematics     

Keith Topping  David Miller  Pauline Murray  Nora Conlin 《教育心理学》2011,31(5):575-593

A two-year randomised controlled trial of peer tutoring in mathematics using the Duolog Math technique was operated in 80 schools. The aim was to achieve adequate implementation quality with modest pre-intervention training for teachers, who received brief didactic training and no process feedback (but they were to train pupils using modelling, practice and feedback). Implementation integrity was observed in Year 1 in 29 randomly selected schools; in Year 2 in 30 randomly selected schools. In both years some observed variables of class-wide context and individual technique were high; however, some were lower. There were deficits in: teachers introducing the problem, suggesting ways to concretise the problem and holding plenary sessions. Crucially, there was very little summarising or generalising. Thus, implementation was partial in both years, but better in Year 2. The implications for future intensity of training are explored.  相似文献   

Relooking Assessment: A Study on Assessing Developmental Learning Outcomes in Toddlers     

Marjory Ebbeck  Geraldine Lian Choo Teo  Cynthia Tan  Mandy Goh 《Early Childhood Education Journal》2014,42(2):115-123

In most countries the funding for early childhood education has increased and governments in some countries have taken serious steps to bring about positive change in the profession. However, the increase in funding by governments and other funding organisations around the world has, understandably, attracted increased accountability as these organisations need to know that their financial investments are achieving desired outcomes. To seek evidence that positive learning outcomes have indeed been achieved through these investments is a reasonable request, and there is a shared responsibility and accountability for professionals to provide appropriate evidence. The downside, however, can be the request for standardised test information, as if performance on such tests provides proof of all desired outcomes. More than ever before, it is important for early childhood educators to be able to provide accurate, objective information about children’s assessment in ways other than by standardised testing, which may not reflect the complex reality of children’s lives. This paper reports on a research study in Singapore that investigated curriculum effectiveness using developmental learning outcomes as a means of assessing children. The research was devised to examine if eight specified broad developmental learning outcomes could measure the effectiveness of the curriculum by assessing children’s learning as shown in qualitative data. Practical examples showed evidence of children’s learning and the role of the educator in facilitating and documenting developmental learning outcomes.  相似文献   

Beginning teachers’ conceptions of competency: implications to educational policy and teacher education in Malaysia     

Pauline Swee Choo Goh  Kung Teck Wong 《Educational Research for Policy and Practice》2014,13(1):65-79

When any innovations or measurement procedures are introduced into the education system to improve or judge the quality of its teaching force, beginning teachers often have to adapt to these new concepts of what constitute a high quality teaching. This article contends that these new concepts neither necessarily match beginning teachers’ own conceptions about their own competency nor has it given beginning teachers a chance to be heard. This study provides an opportunity for beginning teachers’ ‘voices’ to be heard through phenomenography which is an interpretive research approach to discover what beginning teachers in Malaysia conceive and understand as competence in relation to what they do every day as teachers. The main finding of this study is the key role played by beginning teachers’ conceptions of competency which has provided strong implications for educational policies and teacher education. The findings suggest that teachers need to be represented in any quality improvement measures. Careful attention should also be paid to the school systems and to teacher training programmes to support and encourage teachers in their professional growth as competent teachers.  相似文献   

Transition: A Universal Issue     

Carl Wassell  Pauline Preston  Helen Jones 《Pastoral Care in Education》2007,25(1):49-53

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A comparison of the McCathy Scales of Children's Abilities and the WISC-R     

D S Goh  J Youngquist 《Journal of learning disabilities》1979,12(5):344-348

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Promoting Empathy and Developing Caring Readers     

Pauline Davey Zeece 《Early Childhood Education Journal》2004,31(3):193-199

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Books for children look world-it's me     

Pauline Davey Zeece 《Early Childhood Education Journal》1994,22(1):34-37

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