Towards a general model of quality assessment in higher education

In this article a number of elements of a general model of quality assessment in higher education are presented. On the one hand these elements are put in a historical context of quality assessment in Medieval universities and, on the other hand, deduced from the recent experiences with quality assessment in both North-American and Western European countries. With respect to the historical context a distinction is made between the intrinsic and the extrinsic values of higher education. Two types of quality assessment related to these values are also distinguished. Concerning the recent experiences with quality assessment systems, the practices in the U.S.A., Canada, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are explored. In the final section the general mode of quality assessment is discussed in the context of the distinction between the intrinsic and the extrinsic values of higher education.     

Successful assessment requires faculty support

Faculty involvement is critical to the success of assessment in Virginia, according to Margaret A. Miller, assistant director for academic programs, State Council of Higher Education. It is important, however, to differentiate assessment from other forms of evaluation, Miller says, m order to justify to faculty the time they are asked to spend on it arid to persuade them to take its results seriously for purposes of program reform.     

Evaluation of stimulus preference assessment methods with general education students

The current exploratory study examined the ability of three stimulus preference assessments to identify effective reinforcers for general education students. Four students from Grades K through 5 and their teachers participated. A student nomination, teacher nomination, and ongoing (daily) stimulus preference assessment were evaluated. The results demonstrate that reinforcers identified by both general education students and their teachers increased behavior similarly, although correspondence between teacher‐ and student‐selected items themselves were low. Evaluation of the procedures indicated the highest rate of responding occurred under the ongoing reinforcer assessment condition for 3 of the 4 students. Limitations and future research are discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

大学通识教育能力评价指标体系研究

探讨我国高校通识教育的内涵,以及当前实施大学通识教育的重要性;以通识教育理论为基础,分析我国高校通识教育能力构成要素与制约因素;依据大学通识教育理论与实践,探讨我国高校通识教育能力评价指标体系构建的模式与意义。     

Evaluation of adjunct faculty in higher education institutions

The role that part‐time faculty play in higher education is changing. No longer are part‐time faculty used on an occasional basis at a few institutions. These individuals now play a critical part in the delivery of higher education to students. This study was developed to answer questions regarding how the performance of adjunct faculty is evaluated. The researcher gathered data on what sources of information were used to evaluate adjunct faculty, and how this information was used by various administrators during evaluation and reappointment decisions. The underlying goal was to develop a better understanding of current evaluation practices so that higher education administrators can ensure that quality learning opportunities are available in the classroom.     

Changes in general education

In recent years the tendency in schools of general education has been towards a broadening of academic education (defined by Soviet educationists as the study of systematic courses in basic scientific principles) by lowering the age at which pupils complete their elementary education and transferring specialized (or vocational) subjects from the general education school to the systems of specialized educational establishments. This trend has led to an increase in the duration of compulsory general education to 8–10 years, to a closer similarity of education in junior and senior secondary schools, and to a fuller reflection in education of the latest developments in science, technology and culture. Director of the Academy's Institute of General and Polytechnic Education and President of the Pedagogical Society of the R.S.F.S.R.     

略谈高职院校师资建设导向

当前高职院校师资建设的一个重要内容，就是培养“双师型”教师；但从长期看来这只能是一种过渡，其最终导向应是造就不同层次的职业技能培训师。教育主管部门和相关行管职能部门应联手合作，共同建设多类型、多层次的高职师资培养、培训基地，以完成对不同层次高职师资培养、培训的需求。     

Seven strategies for enabling faculty success in distance education

Many challenges associated with distance education and technology integration initiatives focus on faculty issues and concerns. This article analyzes these difficulties by identifying from the literature current trends affecting faculty, faculty motivators, and faculty challenges. Then, following this review and analysis, the article presents seven strategies for university administrators and faculty to consider as part of their own strategic plan to mitigate faculty concerns and ensure program success. The seven strategies discussed include the following: (1) enable colleges and departments to accept more responsibility for distance education activities; (2) provide faculty more information about distance education programs and activities; (3) encourage faculty to incorporate technology into their traditional classrooms; (4) provide strong incentives for faculty to participate in distance education; (5) improve training and instructional support for distance education faculty; (6) build a stronger distance education faculty community; and (7) encourage more distance education scholarship and research.     

Disparate faculty perspectives on system changes in higher education

Higher education (HE) systems around the world have experienced profound structural changes, particularly since the late 1960s to early 1970s, essentially driven by the need to expand access to tertiary education. This has resulted in a diversity of HE institutions (HEI) with different roles, missions and statuses, as well as academic staff with diverse perspectives and motivations. The present study is based on a survey undertaken in Portugal by a trade union, which aimed to collect faculty perspectives on a proposed HE reform sent out for public discussion by the government. Questions addressed the reorganization of the HEI network, the internal restructuring of HEI, the funding system and the binary divide of HEI (universities and polytechnics). The survey results showed a disparity of faculty perspectives about the proposed reform, closely related to the diversity of HEI. Respondents from lower academic categories and from smaller HEI were more opposed to reorganizing the HEI network. This reorganization was more widely accepted by university staff, who were also more in favour of a binary system than were polytechnic respondents. Although there was general agreement about the need to change the funding system, polytechnic respondents were strongly against a funding differentiation between universities and polytechnics. Despite an overall reformist trend, the enthusiasm for reforms declined substantially when the questions had a direct reference to the respondent’s region or institution. It is argued that HE expansion has driven the diversification of HEI, leading to a range of perspectives about the HE system and the way it should be changed. These conclusions may contribute to insights into other HE systems around the world where institutional diversification has been sought by public policies.     

Academic penetration in faculty collective bargaining contracts in higher education

The purpose of this research was to analyze faculty collective bargaining contracts at 124 institutions of higher education that had a 10-year history of collective bargaining from 1975 to 1985 to determine if contracts negotiated in 1975 significantly differed from those negotiated in 1985 with regard to 18 selected academic items. Each academic item in both the 1975 and 1985 contracts was coded according to a scaling code with rankings showing the direction of faculty control. The findings revealed that the 1985 contracts contained both an increased number of academic items and an increased level of faculty control over most of those academic items compared with the 1975 contracts.     

Stimulating tensions in special education teachers' figured world: an approach toward inclusive education

I examine special educators’ professional identity emergence and tensions within a researcher-facilitated teacher learning community. I introduced tools to evoke and challenge inequities in educational systems and via which participants examined and planned general education instruction for students with dis/abilities. Initially, professional identity, or figured world, emerged as performance of pathologising and relatedly, remediating students. Over time, participants expressed tensions as they engaged tools to examine structural limitations and design more universally accessible instruction; figured worlds shifted to critical sense-making about their positioning by general education colleagues and school structural barriers, and procedural identity performance tied to investigating student assets. Findings suggest potential for purposefully designed artefacts to mediate special educators’ development as (more) inclusive educators.     

A Markovian evaluation of a tertiary education faculty

A tertiary education faculty is modelled using an absorbing Markov chain. The model takes account explicitly of full-time and part-time student stocks and flows, and thus facilitates some interesting observations. The evaluation of steady state statistics, gives rise to some worrying results, raising the question as to how efficiently resources are being utilized in tertiary (post secondary) education. The above evaluation is performed for undergraduate sections of the Faculty of Business at the Swinburne Institute of Technology (SIT), Victoria, Australia.