External factors associated with adopting a CMS in resident college courses

Course management systems (CMSs) have become a common resource for resident courses at colleges and universities. Researchers have analyzed which CMS features faculty members use most primarily by asking them which features are used. The study described builds on previous research by counting the number of CMS features a faculty member used and by analyzing how three external factors are related to the use of CMS features. The external factors are (a) the college in which a course was offered, (b) class size, and (c) the level of a class—such as 100 or 200. The only external factor showing a statistically significant relationship to the use of CMS features was the college in which a course was offered. Another finding was that CMSs are primarily used to transmit information to students. Implications are described for using external factors to increase effective use of more complex CMS features.     

Novice teachers as organisational people: expectations of a professional work environment,collegiality, recognition and respect

This study introduces a model of novice teachers’ expectations together with supporting empirical evidence. The model is sectorial, distinguishing novice teachers’ expectations according to their reciprocal relations with their partners in the school. The study investigated 237 teachers attending internship programmes at five large teachers training colleges in Israel, using a self‐report questionnaire. The findings revealed that: (1) the expectations of novice teachers are based on a sectorial organisational view of the school, as proposed by role theory; (2) novice teachers have very high expectations of their organisational work environment; and (3) their highest expectations are for public recognition of the importance of teaching, while the lowest expectations are for receiving support and backing from the partners in the educational process. The article discusses novice teachers’ views of their function as organisational people and of the school as an arena for developing and nurturing their organisational selves.     

Exploring organisational learning in universities’ responses to a quality assurance reform: experiences from Ontario,Canada

Amidst the international movement toward establishing more rigorous external quality assurance, the recent quality assurance reform within the Ontario public university sector involves a shift of focus from external to internal quality assurance. This paper explores to what extent organisational learning was occurring at three comprehensive Ontario universities while they managed institutional change for assuring the quality of graduate programmes in response to the system-wide quality assurance reform. Drawing upon Senge’s framework for building a learning organisation, the study found that certain levels of organisational learning were taking place, albeit to different extent and in different pace, at the three Ontario universities during the initial years of transition. The findings also illustrate that institutional change and organisational learning are inextricably linked and that organisational learning is occurring as a result of the interactions between the organisational domain of action and the individual domain of learning.     

Teacher misbehaviour: an analysis of disciplinary orders by the General Teaching Council for England

This article presents findings from a documentary analysis of 300 disciplinary orders against teachers from the General Teaching Council (GTC) for England. While the extant literature concerning teacher misbehaviour focuses primarily on pedagogical practice, this article draws on the wider organisational misbehaviour paradigm and views teachers as professional employees rather than just classroom practitioners. As such, teachers are embedded within the complexity of organisational systems, procedures and interrelationships as well as being regulated by professional standards. The analysis found that teachers were disciplined for misbehaviours both internal to the employing school and also activities, primarily criminal, that were external to their employment. The article argues that the professional regulation of teaching, being accountable inside and outside of work and the emotional labour of teaching should define teacher misbehaviour as separate from generic organisational misbehaviour frameworks. Furthermore, it argues that, while the GTC viewed teacher misbehaviour as a product of the individual, organisational contexts are also important antecedents of activities that are considered deviant.     

Creating Social Capital: The Impact of International Programmes on Polish and Romanian Higher Education

This paper argues that the impact of international programmes intended to improve the effectiveness of higher education institutions in transitional states is related to the extent to which the programmes are successful, through their various projects, in creating social capital within the institutions concerned. Based on case studies of similar institutions in Poland and Romania, the paper finds that projects developed within the institution had a more lasting impact on organisational change, even when the project was of an academic nature, than did externally directed projects which were actually focused on achieving institutional change. Social capital theory offers an explanation of this difference, and suggests what the mechanisms at work may be.     

E-learning by design

Teachers in higher education throughout the world are making use of course-management systems (CMS) to support their courses. None of these teachers grew up with using a CMS; they must themselves learn how to use them effectively at the same time that they are using them with their students. While institutions commonly provide some sort of introductory workshop for CMS use, these workshops have limitations in terms of their transfer value into practice. In this paper we discuss an example of embedded justin-time support within the CMS itself to help teachers learn how to use a CMS efficiently but also so that both they and their students can take on new roles in the learning process. A new form of computer-based support for teaching and learning has emerged since the late 1990s. It is a system of integrated tools that makes use of both database and web functionalities in order to make a web environment available to support a course or learning event. One name for such a system is a course-management system (CMS). Course-management systems are new tools for teachers and thus teachers must learn how to use them in a technical sense as well as in a meaningful sense. By meaningful, we mean not only to increase the efficiency of participating in a course but also to enrich and extend learning processes.     

Impacts of organisational culture on academic efficiency and productivity in selected private universities in the Niger delta region of Nigeria

Organisational efficiency is a consistent quality that derives more from and thrives on strong internal culture than on isolated instances of timely and effortless accomplishments by corporate systems. This study sought to evaluate the relationship between organisational culture and enhanced productivity and efficiency among members of five universities in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, which with its peculiarities provided a unique context for the study. The quantitative and qualitative methods were used for data collection among 104 respondents. Faculty were assessed on the direct impacts of their organisations' culture on their research and publication, creativity and innovativeness, among others, while students were assessed on learning, career prospects and others. The study suggested that most of the five universities had no well-articulated organisational culture. This significantly compromises their unique value addition to the educational system, implying that they risk losing their relative advantages unless they fortify their organisational cultural frontiers.     

Privatisation,Domestic Marketisation and International Commercialisation of Higher Education: vulnerabilities and opportunities for Chile and Romania within the framework of WTO/GATS

This chapter explores the processes of privatisation of higher education in Chile (after 1981) and Romania (after 1989), focusing on the emergence of private institutions, the expansion in enrolments in these institutions, and the relative increase in private sources of funding for the post‐secondary sub‐sector. Attention is also given to related trends in higher education in these two countries: domestic marketisation (a strengthening of an orientation toward selling programmes/commodities to students/consumers within the country) and international commercialisation (an expansion of initiatives by domestic and foreign institutions to provide distance education, study abroad/exchange, and foreign site‐based degree programmes). Of importance to an understanding of globalisation, these two societies, which at the time exhibited similar economic systems but had different political systems and were situated in different regional contexts, experienced remarkably similar processes of and outcomes from privatisation, marketisation, and commercialisation. In both cases these processes were promoted by ‘internal’ political actors but also shaped by ‘external’ forces, notably the World Bank's higher education policy recommendations and the conditionalities included in the stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes ‘negotiated’, respectively, with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in order to obtain loans. As a result of these processes—occurring prior to and during the emergence of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as a component of the World Trade Organization (WTO)—higher education institutions in both Chile and Romania are much more vulnerable to foreign influence/domination, although they also have somewhat greater opportunities to broaden their role in the global ‘business’ of higher education.     

Learning from patients: constructions of knowledge and legitimacy in hospital-based quality improvement programmes

ABSTRACT

Health services organisations are increasingly incorporating patient engagement strategies as a form of quality improvement. Such strategies take form in programmes where organisations partner with patients in order to learn from their experiences and thereby change how services are designed, delivered, and implemented. In this study, we examined the enactment of patient engagement programmes within an academic health science organisation in Canada. This was accomplished through an exploration of the various constructions of patient participants’ legitimacy, credibility, and expertise as manifesting through participation in the various practices associated with the programmes. Analysis was based on a selection of international, national, and organisational texts, as well as interviews with patient participants (n?=?20) and hospital staff members (n?=?6). Through this analysis, we argue that organisations are not learning from patients per se, but are learning from particular constructions of patient subjectivities in the form of patient advisers. We argue that if patient engagement programmes are premised upon opportunities to learn from patients, these programmes require a coherent theory of workplace learning. We suggest attention to the politics of knowledge production as a fruitful way to conceptualise how clinicians and administrators might learn from patients at the organisational level.     

An exploration of how selective mutism training informs teachers' understanding and practice

This small-scale research project explored the perceived impact which selective mutism (SM) training, delivered by an educational psychologist (EP), had on school practitioners' understanding of the condition and their subsequent professional practice. Three teachers were interviewed and a thematic analysis elicited four superordinate themes. Participants recognised that they had little previous knowledge of SM and many misconceptions; they also identified key ways in which their understanding of SM, and their practice as school professionals, had developed. In addition, staff highlighted central challenges which nevertheless remained, one of which involved working with parents. This research highlights the limited knowledge which teachers have of SM, whilst demonstrating how staff training and school development might contribute to improved outcomes for children with the condition. Implications for teacher training programmes and future research are considered.     

Ethnicity and engagement in first-year New Zealand law programmes

This paper investigated the extent to which the engagement levels of a self-selected cohort of students enrolled in first-year law programmes at three New Zealand universities varied according to ethnicity. When viewed in the light of factors identified within the international literature as having a bearing on student engagement and, in consequence, academic success and retention, no significant differences were identified in the ways students of Pākehā (European), Māori, Pasifika, Chinese and Indian descent interacted with the law school at which they were enrolled. This was despite some identified differences in students’ backgrounds and motivations for study and in the external factors having an impact on their study. Nevertheless, the identified differences between the ethnicities in relation to personal and external factors can be utilised to enhance and/or improve the engagement of particular groups of students. Overall, the findings indicate a need for law schools to focus on student engagement in first-year programmes with a view to improving the engagement levels of students across all ethnicities.     

Teacher empowerment,horizontal and vertical organisational learning,and positional mobility in schools

Purpose: To examine the contribution of horizontal and vertical organisational learning and its timing to the effective integration of teachers in classes they have not previously taught. Three hundred and forty-five teachers from 64 schools, with at least 4 years of teaching experience, completed questionnaires about the extent of horizontal (OL) and vertical (KCM) organisational learning, its timing and its benefits to teachers as they began to teach classes they had not taught before. The hypothesis was confirmed that independent components of OL and KCM contribute to preparing teachers for their classes. The timing of teachers’ exposure to this learning was found to serve as a mediating factor between OL/KCM and the benefit that teachers gain from the information. The organisational learning process is presented in a broad theoretical perspective that clarifies the reciprocal relations between vertical/horizontal dimensions and their benefits. More effective ways are discussed for introducing educational knowledge.     

Quest for accountability: exploring the evaluation process of universities

The article explores the organisational impact of evaluation and control mechanisms on universities from the point of view of accountability. Three case studies are analysed with the aim of understanding the significance of these systems both at corporate governance level and in relation to their influence on the behaviour of the academic staff. Open-ended, in-depth interviews were conducted in three universities from two countries in order to collect the opinions of the top managers and academics with different roles and seniority. The combination of four different but partially overlapping analytical frameworks (new public management, neo-institutional sociology, organisational control theory and sense-making) has supported the analysis and the interpretation of the empirical material collected. The analysis sheds light on a somewhat neglected aspect: the interdependence among various systems and tools that simultaneously operate in an organisation and inevitably combine to influence the behaviour of its employees. On this basis indications are given in order to facilitate the introduction and the management of more appropriate evaluation mechanisms both at the national system and the organisational level.     

Changing Patterns of Thinking: Individuals and organisations

The promises and hopes of the 'reconstructing' movement in educational psychology post-Summerfield 1968 (Gillham, 1978) have not had a major impact on the ability of the profession of applied educational psychologists to effect change across systems. Despite innovative ideas generated by individuals over the past few decades that have promoted opportunities to apply psychology more widely, there is little evidence that the profession has been able to expand on these initiatives and incorporate them into their existing practice. Ideas drawn from a variety of psychological sources enable applied educational psychologists to review their thinking and practice, and to develop different models that can promote and influence useful change at an institutional and/or individual level. This paper considers, in particular, the impact of new models of language and thought on organisational behaviour and, in turn, identifies the manner in which change at an individual and organisational level can be promoted.     

How can organisations learn: an information systems development perspective

This article sets out to argue that organisations can learn but that they cannot do so in their own right without infrastructural support. This article further examines the notion that individuals in organisations also require the cognitive participation of the organisation itself as a learning entity to learn. The close reliance and affiliation required between individuals and organisations to enable their learning from one another are discussed. In continuation of this, specific examples are provided through the industry sector of information systems development (ISD) projects to illustrate of how organisations can learn. Finally, the question of how one identifies organisational learning is analysed. Following on from the ISD and its use in the analogy of organisational learning, the article discusses an organisational empirical research project currently being undertaken by the authors, which utilises blogs. Though there are many potential organisational learning connotations associated with blogs, they could be perceived as a type of information system. The ongoing research being undertaken with the company using the blogs will attempt to identify indicators of learning at the individual, group and organisational levels. The significance of the issues explored in this article lies in the fact that it addresses an ISD approach to study how an organisation learns, and why this perspective is useful towards understanding the process of organisational learning. This article contributes to the organisational learning debate through an illustrative industry example of ISD projects. In doing so, we wish to argue that though individual learning can occur in ISD projects, the collective nature of projects primarily engenders the interpretive aspect of organisational learning. We further believe that it is the interactive nature of an ISD project that allows an organisation to learn in tandem with project members as exemplified through the stages of a project life cycle. We feel that this article contributes to the ISD and organisational learning literature in terms of linking both concepts together.     

Developing competence profiles for educators in environmental education organisations in the Netherlands

This qualitative study explores the meanings and possible merits of introducing competence profiles for enhancing professional development in the environmental education sector in the Netherlands. It presents the three most important environmental education jobs and their underlying competencies alongside their core professional challenges, as identified by environmental educators and experts in the Netherlands. The jobs are: education practitioner, programme leader, and organisational manager. The core professional challenges for the education practitioner entail: developing demand‐driven instructional programmes and spontaneous, ad‐hoc programmes, and addressing task and goal orientations. For the programme leader, they are acquisition of new projects, quality assurance, and project management; and for the organisational manager, they are human resource management, financial management, representing the organisation and showing its performance. The results of the study should inform educational institutions how to develop relevant programmes for future environmental educators, and for the professional development of environmental educators in environmental education organisations.     

A comparative analysis of nature kindergarten programmes in Australia and New Zealand

This paper highlights the similarities and differences of seven nature kindergarten programmes in Australia and New Zealand. The study targeted three programmes from New Zealand and four from Australia. Participant observations and semi-structured interviews were used to build a profile of each site. The profiles were compared on factors such as philosophical influences, curriculum design, site location, safety requirements and programme activity. In many ways, the programmes were quite similar, and this was attributed to synergies between the respective curriculum frameworks and the influence of the European Forest School movement. There were, however, some unique features at each site and differences attributed to national perspectives. It is anticipated that the profiling of philosophical and logistical dimensions of nature programmes implemented in exemplar settings can help to inspire other early childhood educators and encourage them to reposition nature pedagogy as part of their own early childhood programmes.     

Students’ perceptions of assessment: a comparative analysis between Portugal and Sweden

This paper aims at investigating students’ perceptions about assessment, especially the ways in which it is put into practice. Data were collected through questionnaires in different programmes in Portugal and Sweden. In total, 173 students from Portugal and 72 from Sweden participated in the study. Findings showed that students had similar ideas about assessment, such as verification of knowledge and learning, tests and grades. Their experiences of assessment methods used varied in the two countries, which can partly be explained by differences in national education systems. A learner-oriented perspective is prominent in the use of assessment methods, but at the same time student influence on assessment is perceived as low in both countries. Implications of the findings are analysed, namely issues regarding a learner-oriented perspective and the effectiveness, influence, trust, times and methods of assessment.     

Europeanisation of Irish universities

Europeanisation is defined broadly as the range of activities, initiatives, networks or programmes within Irish universities which are based on a European orientation or have some clear European (rather than solely Irish or other international) dimension.This process of Europeanisation has impacted in a variety of ways on Irish universities ranging from the immediately visible student and staff mobility programmes (ERASMUS, ECTS), through the university - industry linkages programmes (COMETT) to participation in pre-competitive research programmes (BRITE, ESPIRIT). It also embraces the more low profile adjustments to curricula and subject content arising from a European dimension or focus, as well as administrative adjustments made.The extent to which Irish universities have been affected by the various EC programmes is outlined and set in a relevant European context, where Ireland accounts for less than 1 percent of the EC's university student body.An important theme in the latter part of the paper is the nature of the way universities themselves are changing (in Ireland and other EC countries). The focus on utilitarianism, lessening dependence on national governments for funding, greater dependence on the market and stronger links to industry are trends which are affecting Irish universities in common with those in other EC countries. This puts pressure on the humanities and the development of the so-called vehicular disciplines within universities which reflect the essence of the critical influence universities should espouse. Universities should be the conscience of society and are in danger of losing their role as the esprit critique of the social systems in which they reside. The focus on relevance can threaten the independence which gives them a unique role in society. Universities (Irish and European) themselves will need to preserve the values which provided them with a millenium or more of sustained influence in European society against external threats.     

Organisational culture and values and the adaptation of academic units in Australian universities

This study explores connections between the organisational culture and values of academic units in Australian universities and their efforts to adapt to external environmental pressures. It integrates empirical findings from case studies with theories of organisational culture and values and adaptation. It identifies seven dimensions of academic unit’s organisational culture and values that influenced how case study academic units adapted. Then patterns of heterogeneity and homogeneity within these dimensions are noted and their associations with different modes of adaptation are discussed.