Increasing student voice and empowerment through technology: not just listening to the voice of the learner but using their digital capabilities to benefit a whole college community

ABSTRACT

Perceived as fostering democracy in educational institutions, approaches which encourage student voice are being promoted as supporting greater social equalities and strengthening students’ commitment to their learning. Using student voice as a theme, research funded by Jisc set out to hear learner views and explore their digital preferences when learning in a vocational context. The aim of this research was to enhance digital student practice by exploring how learners experience, use, and wish to work in, a technology-rich environment. A literature review was undertaken to inform the research ?ndings. This article focuses on innovative practice, discovered by serendipity, that went beyond the tenets usually described in the literature on student voice. Using a case study approach this article reports on work underway in one FE institution where students have been appointed as ‘Digi-Pals’ and given a key role to embed the use of digital 25technologies into student and sta? practice. Two theoretical lenses, one focused on technology and the other on student voice, are applied to explore innovative practice. The community of Digi-Pal practice is described and recommendations made for further adoption across the FE and Skills sector.     

Pedagogic Benchmarks for Information and Communications Technology in Teacher Education

Abstract

This article analyses the required content and strategies of information and communications technology (ICT) training for teachers in terms of learning to know, learning to do, learning to live with each other and with others, and learning to be. We conclude that the fast-changing role and nature of ICT in education, combined with the low level of penetration of ICT into present educational practices, requires a strategy that includes three aspects. These aspects are the training of students within teacher training institutions, the high-level implementation of ICT in schools as a joint effort by students, schools and teacher training institutions, and the formation of cooperating communities of practice to ensure the continued flow of emerging knowledge and practices to the educational field. Special attention should be given to unwanted and unforeseen side effects that may affect pupils' lives today and in the future.     

The electronic mirror and emotional growth

Abstract

The article examines the use of information and communication technology to enhance the educational achievement of a group of students evidencing a variety of EBD in a mainstream school setting. It is believed that ICT will have just as important a part to play in the education of students with EBD as it will with other sensory or physical special educational needs. The article examines within-child factors which make a cognitive-behavioural approach potentially powerful. It suggests that ICT can enhance the educational experience of EBD pupils if careful attention is paid to the creation of a therapeutic teaching environment and the interaction of the student/curriculum and teacher/student interfaces. The article discusses the implementation of an integrated learning system in an inner London comprehensive school and its effects on those pupils presenting with emotionally disordered learning difficulties.     

中国四省市学生ICT胜任力的表现及影响因素——基于PISA 2015 ICT精熟度问卷数据的分析

信息素养是学生生存和发展的基本素养,对信息通信技术(ICT)的胜任力是反映学生信息素养的重要指标。基于PISA 2015中的ICT精熟度问卷数据,对中国四省市学生的ICT胜任力表现进行分析,考查中国学生的ICT资源、ICT使用情况以及ICT兴趣对其ICT胜任力的影响。结果发现:中国四省市学生的ICT胜任力在参测的48个国家和地区中排名靠后;不同性别、不同年级学生的ICT胜任力存在显著差异;家庭ICT资源对学生ICT胜任力有显著的正向预测作用;学生在学校使用ICT越多、在家使用ICT做作业越多,学生的ICT胜任力越高;学生的ICT兴趣越高,他们的ICT胜任力越高,学生的ICT兴趣对他们的ICT胜任力影响最大。为了提高我国学生的ICT胜任力,教育行政部门、学校、教师应充分重视ICT教育,完善ICT素养测评体系;扩大对ICT资源的投入,为学生更多地接触电子设备提供条件;加大ICT和电子设备的使用频率,在教育实践中逐步融入信息素养教育;着力培养学生对信息技术的兴趣,提高他们的ICT胜任力。     

The implied PhD student of interdisciplinary research projects within monodisciplinary structures

While the literature concerning doctoral students has looked at institutional setup and socialisation of students within higher education structures and across disciplinary boundaries, so far, little attention has been given to the socialisation of PhD students in the intersections between strategic interdisciplinary research projects and monodisciplinary institutional structures, which is the aim of this article. The study is based on interviews with 32 PhD students and principal investigators affiliated with five research projects in the Excellence Programme for Interdisciplinary Research at University of Copenhagen, Denmark. In analysing this empirical material, the analytical concept of the ‘implied student’ has worked as a sensitising concept, highlighting the expectations of PhD students, principal investigators, the institutions, the educational system, and the encounter between them. In the interviews, the PhD students emphasise the conundrum of having to fit into a confined disciplinary role, while simultaneously being expected to cross boundaries and deliver on predefined goals in the interdisciplinary research projects. The findings show that students cope with these expectations by limiting the scope for improvisation and experimentation; in other words, suppressing what MacLure points towards as education’s ‘other’. This calls for greater attention to be paid to the accumulation of expectations heaped upon such PhD students and how this affects the education of the future generation of researchers.     

Oral history for student empowerment: capturing students’ inner voices

Through a close analysis of the oral history of Victor, a Hispanic student in an affluent Anglo institution, this paper provides an example of how oral history methods can capture student voices and uncover the silencing that often takes place in well‐intentioned educational institutions, and demonstrates how some of the multiple voices that exist within students and school communities are legitimated, while others are not. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of inner voice, the analysis illustrates the potential of oral history methods for probing the multiple voices and lived experience of students. It suggests how these voices help to reveal how students construct their identities in educational institutions.     

Acting and Reacting: Youth's Behavior in Corrupt Educational Settings

With its broader employability to the issues of underperformance that may emerge in educational systems internationally, this empirical study redefines and expands Albert Hirschman's theory of voice, exit, and loyalty within higher education. The article formulates a new education-embedded theoretical framework that explains reactionary behaviors of students in corrupt educational systems. The new corruption coping theory defines a set of coping mechanisms that students employ in reaction to failing institutions. Relying on the survey data collected from 762 students and interview-based data from 15 purposely sampled current students or recent graduates of the public higher education institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the study reinterprets the voice mechanism that Hirschman sees as a political tool capable of bringing about change within underperforming institutions as, ironically, severely diminished in its power when observed within a corrupt environment. This research similarly differentiates amongst various types of exit and finds that Bosnian students often react in ways not predicted by Hirschman's model, leading to the emergence of a novel corruption coping theory presented in this study.     

Internationalization in the Asian Pacific: The Case of Handong Global University Facing New Challenges in a Global,Digital, and Unequal World

As Korean, Japanese, and Australian universities see declining birthrates and a tapering off of the percentage of national age cohorts heading to universities, increased enrollments of international students are being pursued. As demographic changes force these universities to attract students from abroad, the globalization trend is also an incentive to modify their educational paradigms to prepare students to become global citizens. This paradigm shift is needed given that peace and prosperity depend on increasing the capacity of people to think and work on a global and intercultural basis. Furthermore, with digital advances in information and communication technologies (ICT), student learning will be integrated through ICT confluence to bring about innovations in products, services, contents, and processes. Thus, the educational environment is changing fast and the challenges are mounting for higher educational institutions, especially for Christian universities.     

Student Involvement in University Life — Beyond Political Activism and University Governance: a view from Central and Eastern Europe

Since the 1980s and early 1990s, much attention has focused on the position of students as stakeholders in the process of higher education. The importance of student evaluation is now widely recognised; in many countries, the move toward fee‐based funding has increased the power of students as ‘consumers’ of their education. At the same time, it is often asserted that students are reluctant to participate in university life, concerned primarily (sometimes exclusively) with obtaining their formal qualification and less with wider aspects of higher education. The views and attitudes prevalent in the student population and within institutions themselves on such issues vary widely. This debate is an international one, but is especially relevant in the rapidly changing higher education systems of Central and Eastern Europe.     

Effective integration of information and communications technology in teacher education

Abstract

Effective delivery of the new information technology (IT) curriculum for student teachers in the United Kingdom, which started in September 1998, is an important challenge for initial teacher training institutions. This article identifies three main obstacles that may limit its successful implementation – student access to computers, the communications and information technology (ICT) policy adopted by initial teacher training providers and the lack of encouragement for students to use ICT on teaching practice. The work is based on a survey carried out in 1997 of lecturers and students in three teacher training institutions in Northern Ireland. The findings have led to the proposal of basic guidelines to contribute towards the development and implementation of an effective ICT policy in initial teacher training institutions.     

Physical education and sport science undergraduate students as multimedia and web developers: Moving from the user’s to the creator’s perspective

The increasing importance that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have been gaining for Physical Education (PE) and sports pedagogy has generated the need to prepare ICT-proficient prospective PE teachers within PE and sport science university departments. This study was aimed at: (a) the design and implementation of two project-based elective courses on ICT in education (entitled ‘Informatics in Education’ and ‘Computers in Physical Education Teaching’) for the undergraduate students of a PE and sport science department, and (b) the investigation of students’ responses to the courses and instructor’s experiences from organizing and imparting the courses. The courses were focused on educational multimedia and web development for PE. Twenty-three students that had attended ‘Informatics in Education’ and 13 students that had attended ‘Computers in Physical Education Teaching’ participated in the study. Research data were collected through student questionnaires and instructor’s notes. It was found that students were helped to acquire basic multimedia and web development skills for educational purposes, and that their responses to the courses were positive overall. The courses fulfilled students’ expectations and were successful in equipping students with self-confidence in their ability to make use of ICT in PE courses and to construct multimedia and web-based learning materials. Furthermore, students were provided with opportunities to express their creativity and improve their future instructional practices. However, the study also brought to light the various difficulties and challenges of training prospective PE teachers in the didactical utilization of ICT at undergraduate level.     

Social-Economic Factors,Student Factors,Student Academic Goals and Performance of Students in Institutions of Higher Learning in Uganda

This article evaluates the relationship between social-economic factors, students’ factors, student academic goals and performance of students. The study adopts a cross-sectional survey, with largely quantitative approaches. A sample of 950 students was randomly and proportionately drawn from undergraduates in four institutions of higher learning. A response rate of 61% was recorded. We observed significant positive relationships between student factors (except competence in quantitative subjects and grades earned in high school) and student performance, as well as student learning goals and student academic performance. We did not observe a significant relationship between socio-economic factors and student performance at higher institutions. The model was significant, and explained 47% of the variation in student performance. The study recommends that higher institutions should place considerable emphasis on inculcating a reading/preparation culture among students, enforce attendance at lectures and encourage students to set learning goals, if they are to improve the performance of their students.     

International student mobility in a German and Portuguese university: Which factors in the host institution matter?

In a globalising world, international mobility in higher education is an important phenomenon for students and higher education institutions. It is therefore essential to understand the factors that determine international students' satisfaction with higher education institutions that serve as hosts. Through research of an exploratory, quantitative nature, this study presents results from a survey among 289 incoming international students in two universities in Germany and Portugal. Our findings show that the factor we define as educational experience was an important determinant of student satisfaction. Furthermore, the appraisal of academic reputation is dependent on the university. We conclude that satisfaction with academic factors is more important for international students than satisfaction with non-academic aspects.     

Raising retention rates towards achieving vocational and career aspirations in Pacific communities

ABSTRACT

There is a need for culturally relevant and appropriate retention programs within a climate of ever-increasing neo-liberalism that is seeking to change the very nature and underlying rationale of higher education. This article is posited alongside the reflections of past and current university students, who highlight various socio-economic and socio-cultural pressures which affect their ability to maintain engagement within tertiary institutions in which they strive to study. Pressures include the neo-liberal ideology of unfettered individualism within a higher education setting, which seeks to make the university a competitive producer of ‘consumers’ rather than life-long learners who serve and benefit their families and wider communities through knowledge creation and critical application. The article also highlights key factors that may assist in the retention of students from Pacific communities in Australia. This includes the need to create a collective voice, the ability to have staff who exercise culturally appropriate support and understanding, opportunities to develop greater sense of belonging and connection to University spaces that create an engagement within a cultural context, support to manage conflicting expectations and priorities, ability to inspire and effect change in others through maintaining study commitments, and the need to work to still support educational costs and family.     

Student voice and engagement: connecting through partnership

This paper draws on research conducted across an English higher education partnership to investigate the ways in which student voice was engaged in further education colleges offering university awards through partnership arrangements. Such collaborations are characterised by the marginal presence of higher education students in an environment that is dominated by further education structures, culture and practice. This provides challenges for both colleges and universities in developing higher education student identity and appropriate mechanisms of student engagement that comply with expectations within the higher education sector but also recognise the contextual situation of students within the college environment. It is argued that student partnership collaboration can be a positive driver in an increasingly marketised global environment, where student voice and feedback mechanisms are at the forefront of quality assessments and institutional reputation. An ideal types framework is suggested as a heuristic device for the evaluation of college strategies of engagement.     

Adolescent students’ grit: Do parents’ grit and educational expectations matter?

Despite the widespread enthusiasm towards grit, little attention has been paid to how stable grit remains over time and what contextual factors can predict longitudinal changes in grit. The present study investigated adolescent students’ grit and its change over one year. We employed nationally representative longitudinal data from a sample of Korean adolescent students (N = 2,590) and their parents (N = 2,590). Specifically, we evaluated the temporal stability of student grit, parent grit and educational expectations as determinants of student grit, and the relative importance of student grit in predicting academic achievement compared to academic self-concept. Results of autoregressive cross-lagged modeling revealed that grit was fairly stable over one year. In addition, parents’ grit and educational expectations for students’ educational attainment emerged as significant predictors of longitudinal changes in students’ grit. Finally, when students’ academic self-concept was controlled, students’ grit was not predictive of their academic achievement. Implications and areas of future research are presented and discussed.     

Student engagement in the educational interface: understanding the mechanisms of student success

Student success and retention continue to be of concern for higher education institutions. Wider participation, combined with lower completion rates for non-traditional students, highlights the need for new ways of understanding the student experience to ground policy and practice. This article provides this insight by drawing together a number of key constructs to refine a recent framework of student engagement. We argue that the transition metaphor, focusing on the first year, is limited because it depicts differences between students and institutions as both transient and temporal. Instead, we use a cultural lens to introduce the educational interface as a metaphor for the individual psychosocial space within which institutional and student factors combine and student engagement in learning occurs. Incorporating the interface into the existing framework of student engagement makes three contributions to our understanding of the student experience. First, the educational interface is a tangible way of representing the complex interactions between students and institutions, and how those interactions influence engagement. Second, the refined framework highlights four specific psychosocial constructs: self-efficacy, emotions, belonging and well-being, which, we contend, are critical mechanisms for mediating the interactions between student and institutional characteristics and student engagement and success. Finally, the refined framework helps to explain why some students with demographic characteristics associated with lower completion rates are retained and do go on to successfully complete their studies, while similar others do not. These three contributions, the interface, the key constructs within it being mediating mechanisms and their explanatory utility, provide focus for the design and implementation of curricula and co-curricular initiatives aimed at enhancing student success and retention, and importantly to evaluate the impact of these interventions.     

利用教师blog开展现代教育技术实验内容的探索

现代教育技术实验由于受到诸多因素的影响,无法很好地开展,本文介绍了利用教师blog开展该门课程实验的做法——建构学习环境,调整实验内容。让学生通过本门课程的学习尽可能达到中小学教师教育技术能力标准,并兼顾提高学生ICT技能,提高学生建构学习环境的能力。对现代教育技术实验设备不够完善、网络技术支持相对薄弱、学生信息素养不高的地区提供了一个参考。     

Domains and Levels of Pedagogical Innovation in Schools Using ICT: Ten Innovative Schools in Israel

The study reported here is based on the results of two international studies: IEA's Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES) Module 2, focusing on innovative pedagogical practices at the classroom level, and OECD/CERI Case Studies of ICT and Organizational Innovation, focusing on ICT related innovations at the school system level. In the paper we analyze the data collected in ten innovative schools in Israel which have incorporated ICT in unique ways and have succeeded in devising innovative classroom pedagogies and school system changes. The major research questions addressed are: (a) What levels of innovation were observed in the participant schools, and in which domains? (b) How does the level of innovation in the various domains vary among and within schools? (c) What correlation patterns among levels of innovation in the various domains can be identified? The results of ten comprehensive case studies of exemplary schools in Israel were analyzed by mean of the innovation analysis schema developed by us for characterizing ICT-based educational innovations.