Are health professional competency assessments transferable across cultures? A preliminary validity study

This study investigated if professional competency assessments are transferable across cultures using COMPASS®: Competency assessment in speech pathology, a tool developed and validated in Australia. Students in Hong Kong were assessed by clinical educators using COMPASS® and the usual clinical evaluation forms. Analyses compared Hong Kong data with the original Australian field trial data. Rasch analysis was used to evaluate how well the ratings and score generated represented students’ development of competency. Hong Kong clinical educators’ ratings represented the same seven distinct categories of judgement as Australian clinical educators. The order of item difficulty was very similar for the two samples. However, Hong Kong clinical educators were not rating students in a pattern that reflected increasing competency with experience and very few year 4 students were rated at entry level. It is concluded that an assessment tool validated and developed in one culture may well support valid judgements and yield measures that can be used to judge student competency in another culture. Further evaluation is required to investigate the differences in the judgement of student progress in another culture and strengthen the validity of using its measures to judge students' competency performance.     

The quality of written peer feedback on undergraduates’ draft answers to an assignment,and the use made of the feedback

The research described here investigated the quality and characteristics of peer feedback given on a draft piece of writing in the context of an undergraduate summative assignment. It also investigated whether the recipients made use of the feedback, with the aim of discovering whether some types of feedback were used in preference to others. The peer feedback was characterised in various ways, and then a comparison with the feedback subsequently given on the polished piece of writing by the tutor was used to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the peer feedback. Although the peers’ feedback had some different characteristics from that of the tutors, it was nevertheless of good quality. The examination of the use the recipients made of the feedback showed that much feedback was ignored. The use recipients made of the feedback depended very little on the characteristics of the feedback received, but did vary strongly across the recipients. The ability level of the recipients was not found to be a factor in this variation. The results of this research suggest that future work needs to focus more on students using feedback than on students giving feedback.     

Disciplining the disciplines? How qualification schemes are written up at study program level in Norwegian higher education

Qualification frameworks are spreading rapidly, not least in Europe following the introduction of the European Qualification Framework. The impact of such frameworks are contested, and the article contributes to this debate by analyzing how a selected group of different study programs in Norwegian higher education is adapting to the newly launched national qualification framework. The findings show that there are distinct differences as to how universities and colleges, as well as how different disciplines write up their study programs according to the new framework. In the conclusion, we discuss the implication of the findings for current debates about the relevance and function of qualification framework in higher education.     

‘Are you listening please?’ The advantages of electronic audio feedback compared to written feedback

Feedback on students' work is, probably, one of the most important aspects of learning, yet students' report, according to the National Union of Students (NUS) Survey of 2008, unhappiness with the feedback process. Students were unhappy with the quality, detail and timing of feedback. This paper examines the benefits of using audio, as opposed to written, feedback in an attempt to overcome student criticisms. Using the Audacity audio software MP3 feedback files were created and sent to 60 students either via a VLE or email. The students were asked to complete an online survey on audio feedback. Twenty‐six students responded. The results were, generally, very positive. The use of audio feedback seemed to have overcome the problems reported by the NUS survey. Students are at least 10 times more likely to open audio files compared to collecting written feedback. The paper concludes with reflections, and advice, on introducing audio feedback.     

A comparative study of culture-loaded Words in teaching

people' perception,evaluation and attitude are different among races,so there is cultural--difference.And vocabulary,especially culture-loaded words,can reflect this kind of difference when it relates to values,religions,life styles and stereotypes,while the ordinary words,such as “book,pen” etc,always only have the perceptive meaning.For example,when a child from the Anglo-American world learns the word “dog”,he will normally learns the cultural meaning of it: the dog is “man's best friend”,and he will like dogs,as the saying “love me,love my dog”.But a child brought up in the Chinese culture would be taught that the dog is a dirty and dangerous animal.So people who have been initiated into the culture which is associated with their mother tongue,are naturally inclined to interpret things with their own culture fervencies.As with teaching,teachers should not just make students master language points and grammars,but also irrigate the culture background of English and Chinese words.     

When the child gets in the news? A case study on the national written media in Turkey

The main purpose of this study is to analyze news stories regarding children in the national print media in the last five years using top eight newspapers in terms of circulation and evaluate these news stories based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was issued by the UN and signed by Turkey. The research was undertaken as a case study. The study data were collected from top eight newspapers in terms of circulation between 2010 and 2014 in order to reveal when and how newspapers at national level represent children and the scientific content of impressions in the national media. Results show that children appear in the national media in mostly negative cases. In conclusion, it was observed in this study, children’s rights to life, development, protection, and participation were violated at both national and international levels. In this sense, news reflects the truth about “children’s rights violations”. However, the way that children appear in news and reflection in media constitute a secondary children’s rights violation.     

Understanding the role of students’ reflections in their uptake of teacher written feedback

This study reports on the role of students’ reflections in their teacher written feedback. Informed by a qualitative case study approach, this study collected data from 18 students across a semester of an English-as-a-foreign language writing course at a university in China. In the course, teacher written feedback and students’ reflections were both informed by writing as a meaning-making process. The data sources included 72 pieces of student essays, 144 pieces of reflection written by the students, and post-semester interviews with the students. The study showed that engaging students in writing reflections was helpful for developing their knowledge of writing, although the process somewhat followed a zigzag trajectory. The exercise helped them transcend their previous knowledge repertoires, thereby assisting them in critically understanding their revision process and refining their knowledge of writing in response to the teacher’s written feedback. In particular, the students felt that the meaning-making-based reflections provided clear and accessible layers for them to understand the close relationship between language and content. As such, the students felt that they were able to harness their reflections as a written venue through which they could critically digest the teacher’s written feedback and develop their knowledge of writing as a meaning-making process while dialoguing with their instructor.     

What changes,and for whom? A study of the impact of learning analytics-based process feedback in a large course

Recent developments in educational technologies have provided a viable solution to the challenges associated with scaling personalised feedback to students. However, there is currently little empirical evidence about the impact such scaled feedback has on student learning progress and study behaviour. This paper presents the findings of a study that looked at the impact of a learning analytics (LA)-based feedback system on students' self-regulated learning and academic achievement in a large, first-year undergraduate course. Using the COPES model of self-regulated learning (SRL), we analysed the learning operations of students, by way of log data from the learning management system and e-book, as well as the products of SRL, namely, performance on course assessments, from three years of course offerings. The latest course offering involved an intervention condition that made use of an educational technology to provide LA-based process feedback. Propensity score matching was employed to match a control group to the student cohort enrolled in the latest course offering, creating two equal-sized groups of students who received the feedback (the experimental group) and those who did not (the control group). Growth mixture modelling and mixed between-within ANOVA were also employed to identify differences in the patterns of online self-regulated learning operations over the course of the semester. The results showed that the experimental group showed significantly different patterns in their learning operations and performed better in terms of final grades. Moreover, there was no difference in the effect of feedback on final grades among students with different prior academic achievement scores, indicating that the LA-based feedback deployed in this course is able to support students’ learning, regardless of prior academic standing.     

Are instructional explanations more effective in the context of an impasse?

Effective instructional explanations help the students to construct coherent mental representations. To do so, one condition is that they must be tailored to students’ needs. It is hypothesized that explanations are more helpful if they also explicitly aid the students to detect problems in their mental representations, as this provokes an impasse that motivates students to process the explanation deeply. Participants were provided with a computer-based material on plate tectonics and then with explanatory support in the form of either a tailored explanation preceded by an impasse-trigger (I + E group) or an identical explanation without the impasse-trigger (noI + E group). After the reading of the materials they solved retention and transfer tests; their flawed ideas were also counted. Participants in the I + E group recalled more correct information, generated more transfer solutions, and showed fewer flawed ideas than those in the noI + E group. This indicates that tailored explanations combined with impasse-triggers that make explicit conflicts between the text model and the students′ models can indeed foster deep learning.     

Gaps in management education： A case study of University of Management and Technology

This paper aims to identify the gaps in management education highlighted by 3 primary stakeholders： students, faculty and alumni. The study tries to address the issue of relevance and compatibility of management education and investigates areas of improvement perceived by respondents. The paper assumes that business departments of universities have to bring changes in learning strategies to meet the requirements of stakeholders. This research takes UMT （University of Management and Technology） as a case study and presents gaps in management education. Data are collected from all the 3 stakeholders： students, faculty and alumni of MBA （Master in Business Administration） program offered at UMT. The survey is administered using an exclusively-designed research instrument and the data set of 211 students, 55 faculty members and 145 alumni is analysed using appropriate statistical techniques. The management of business schools should develop an integrated and well-coordinated mechanism to share common vision and strategies among stakeholders. A need to revise current MBA curriculum is identified, which emphasizes on the development of different types of skills among MBAs to make the program compatible with the existing corporate sector. The universities dealing in management education are recommended to redesign their curriculum in a more integrated and coordinated way in anticipation with aspiration of the existing corporate sector, which would then help reduce the identified gaps among stakeholders. The management of business schools should have a continuous assessment mechanism incorporating the feed back of all stakeholders, particularly students, faculty and alumni. The paper makes a fruitful contribution to the existing academic literature through an empirical investigation in Pakistani environment. A critical discussion is carried out, and gaps in management education are highlighted, which may motivate management institutions to revise their curriculums.     

Which self-presentation style is more effective? A comparison of instructors' self-enhancing and self-effacing styles across the culture

Many studies have investigated how people perceive others' self-presentation styles (such as enhancement and effacement) in forming first impressions and how culture influences the process. Most of those studies have, however, investigated self-presentation styles in the context of informal and intimate interpersonal relations. Few studies have examined the perceptions of self-presentation styles in formal communication contexts such as instruction in classrooms. This study examines how college students from different cultures perceive professors' self-presentation styles in terms of competence and likability with the samples from the Mainland USA, Hawaii, and South Korea. The results from the latent mean analyses showed that professors with self-enhancement were perceived as more competent but less favorable in the Mainland USA and Hawaii, but not in South Korea – self-promoter's paradox was not found, while trade-offs between competence perception and likability seemed to exist. Structural equation models showed that, in explaining the variances of self-presentation perceptions, self-construals were significant variables in the Mainland USA and Hawaii, but not in South Korea. Academic motivations, on the contrary, appeared as significant variables in South Korea only. The implications of the findings are discussed in terms of cultural differences through self-construals in perceiving others' self-presentation styles.     

Who teaches the teachers? A RCT of peer-to-peer observation and feedback in 181 schools

This paper evaluates a widely used, low stakes, teacher peer-to-peer observation and feedback program under Randomized Control Trial (RCT) conditions. Half of 181 volunteer primary schools in England were randomly selected to participate in a two-year program in which three fourth and fifth grade teachers observed each other. We find that two cohorts of students taught by treated teachers perform no better on externally graded national tests compared to business as usual. However this masks large heterogeneity; in small schools, where there is only one class per grade, we find negative impacts of the training (0.1-0.18SD), whereas we find positive impacts in larger schools (0.06-0.17SD). We outline and explore potential mechanisms for this and conclude that centralised one-size-fits-all teacher training interventions may be harmful.     

Investigating learners’ use and understanding of peer and teacher feedback on writing: A comparative study in a Chinese English writing classroom

Existing comparative studies between peer and teacher feedback in English writing classes have predominantly used frequency measures of peer and teacher feedback in learners’ revisions to suggest their relative values for developing learners’ writing proficiency. However, learners do not necessarily understand the feedback that is used in their redrafts.This study distinguished learners’ use from their understanding of peer and teacher feedback. Eighteen Chinese university English learners participated in the study for sixteen weeks. Three research methods were adopted: (a) content analyses of learners’ use of feedback, (b) stimulated recall interviews on learners’ understanding of feedback, and (c) interviews on the factors that affected learners’ responses to feedback.The findings suggested that the learners used more teacher than peer feedback in their redrafts. However, interviews with these learners revealed that they used a larger percentage of teacher feedback than peer feedback without understanding its significance or value. Student interviews uncovered learners’ passive acceptance of teacher feedback and the facilitative role of first language use in peer interaction.This study suggests that learners’ understanding of feedback should be taken as at least an equally important factor as learners’ use of feedback in examining the relative value of peer and teacher feedback for developing learners’ writing proficiency.     

Promoting instructional improvement or resistance? A comparative study of teachers’ perceptions of teacher evaluation policy in Korea and the USA

This study draws on institutional theory to examine teachers’ and principals’ perceptions of new teacher evaluation policies, factors that influence such perceptions and how such perceptions shape the implementation of the policies in Seoul (Korea) and Michigan (USA). The study featured in-depth interviews of 11 elementary school teachers and 4 principals and analysis of policy documents in both countries. While Korean teachers strongly disagreed with the new teacher evaluation policy in Seoul and implemented it in ways that were not intended by policy makers, the Michigan teachers varied in their perceptions and implementation of the policies. The teachers’ perceptions of the new policies seemed to be influenced by the designs of the policies, their backgrounds and definitions of ‘effective teachers’ and principal leadership. The association between teachers’ perceptions and their implementation of the new policies was quite strong.     

Are first graders' arithmetic skills related to the quality of mathematics textbooks? A study on students’ use of arithmetic principles

A major goal of the first years of schooling is students' development from using counting strategies to using calculation strategies – or even recall – to solve addition or subtraction problems. It requires the perception and usage of arithmetic principles. Although the continued use of counting strategies is problematic for further learning progress, they are frequently used by many students beyond Grade 1. While learning resources possibly play a role in students' development in this field, our knowledge about their impact is limited. In this study we investigated the presented learning opportunities of four different textbooks regarding arithmetic principles in Grade 1, and subsequently the relation to first graders' strategy use by analyzing a one-year dataset of 1614 students from 86 classes. The analyses show differences in the textbooks' quality concerning arithmetic principles as well as a considerable connection to students' strategy use at the end of Grade 1.     

Teachers’ perceptions of effective teaching: a comparative study of elementary school teachers from China and the USA

This international study investigated Chinese and American elementary school teachers’ perceptions of effective teaching. The sample comprised Chinese (n?=?108) and US (n?=?110) participating teachers. The Effective Teaching Quality Survey (ETQS) was adopted for this comparative education research, an instrument that operationalized Stronge’s effective teaching theoretical framework. Research questions that guided this study were as follows: (1) what are the differences between the USA and China’s elementary school teachers’ perceptions regarding effective teaching? And (2) when comparing teaching experience, school location, and effective/ineffective teachers, what are the differences between the USA and China’s elementary school teachers’ perceptions on effective teaching? Statistically significant results were found when comparing nationality, teaching experience, school location, and effective/ineffective teaching. How these results related to the US and Chinese educational contexts with respect teaching and learning are discussed.     

A comparative study of international recruitment – tensions and opportunities in institutional recruitment practice

The purpose of this research is to explore international student recruitment at higher education institutions (HEIs) by examining the development and implementation of international recruitment activities. There is little research regarding the internal operations of HEIs, how HEIs conduct international recruitment efforts, and the challenges that international recruiters encounter. This study finds that although national policy frameworks vary by country, the practice of international recruitment remains remarkably similar amongst the case study institutions. It further suggests that regardless of rankings, HEIs are facing commodification within the international student recruitment market. Furthermore, it suggests that institutions may improve their recruitment activity by addressing role clarity, improving coordination, differentiating their offerings, and ensuring flexibility to respond to market forces.     

Mastery of the counting principles in toddlers: A crucial step in the development of budding arithmetic abilities?

Counting abilities have been described as determinative precursors for a good development of later arithmetic abilities. Mastery of the stable order, the one–one-correspondence and the cardinality principles can be seen as essential features for the development of counting abilities. Mastery of the counting principles in kindergarten was assessed in a large group of children with a broad range of arithmetic abilities (N = 423). Not all children mastered the counting principles by the end of kindergarten. Mastery of the counting principles in kindergarten was predictive for arithmetic abilities one year later in first grade, especially for scores on arithmetic achievement tests. Children sharing a common educational background tend to have more similar scores on arithmetic tests, yet the importance of mastery of the essential counting principles in the prediction of later arithmetic achievement was the same for all classrooms.