Articulating learning activities for design between university and the workplace. A didactic analysis

This paper accounts for research looking at the following question: in what way can university-located training activities be articulated with those in companies for work-based engineering students? Here, we will present an overview of research about both training periods, i.e. in the companies and at university. We focus on the trainee's actual activities and written work from a didactic point of view, a perspective which has been rarely mentioned in previous studies about work-based training in engineering. We aim to describe the activities of trainee engineers during industrial and academic training. Training activities in design engineering will be analysed in terms of knowledge acquisition and how this knowledge is put into practice during the two parts of the training. In doing so, we will obtain a better picture of what trainees, trainers and tutors really do.     

Just us,just discussing: imagined homogeneities in the Gender Studies classroom

This article explores practices of othering through formations of normative sameness in discussion-based seminar classrooms. It takes literary scholar Stanley Fish's question, ‘Is there a text in this class, or is it just us?’, back into the classroom to explore the formation of a ‘just us,’ an imagined homogeneous interpretive community which, I argue, has discriminatory effects by normalising some voices and practices. It draws on feminist and anti-oppressive theory to discuss ways to pedagogically trouble the enactment of homogeneous interpretive communities in the Gender Studies classroom. As the Gender Studies teacher, I devised pedagogical practices based on the allocation of specific roles as a way to work towards an anti-discriminatory classroom by de-mystifying academic practice and framing seminar practice as a social genre. The article critically reflects on students' subsequent reluctance to take on roles and their preference for free-flowing discussions, doing what comes naturally, a ‘doing' of academia which, I suggest, is linked to social privilege.     

Effect of Entrepreneurial Behaviour on Researchers' Knowledge Production: Evidence from Canadian Universities

The article studies the differences in knowledge production between academic researchers. In this perspective, it attempts at first to answer the following question: what factors explain differences in knowledge production between Canadian researchers in natural sciences and engineering? After a presentation of some of the empirical evidence related to this first question, a distinction between two types of academic institutions, entrepreneurial versus non‐entrepreneurial universities, is introduced. Drawing from this distinction, four empirical models are suggested to test differences in knowledge production between entrepreneurial and non‐entrepreneurial researchers. The results show, first, that funding, time devoted to teaching activities, research team and individual attributes have a similar but differentiated impact on knowledge production of entrepreneurial and non‐entrepreneurial researchers. Second, there are some unbalanced effects of the variables co‐operation, time devoted to research activities, academic fields and university size on the knowledge production of Canadian researchers on natural science and engineering.     

Educational Research and Policy: Epistemological Considerations

This article is centrally concerned with the sort of knowledge that can and should inform educational policy—and it treats this as an epistemological question. It distinguishes this question from the more extensively explored question of what sort of knowledge in what form policy‐makers do in fact commonly take into account. The article examines the logical and rhetorical character of policy and the components of policy decisions and argues that policy demands a much wider range of information than research typically provides. Either the research task or commission has to be substantially extended or the gap will be filled by information or thinking that is not derived from research. One of the gaps between research of an empirical kind and policy is the normative gap. In the final section the article points to the inescapably normative character of educational policy. Of course the values that inform policy can be investigated empirically, but this kind of enquiry cannot tell us what we should do. There is a role for research/scholarship and more rather than less intelligent and critical argumentation in addressing these normative questions as well as the empirical questions that underpin policy.     

Indigenous knowledges,universities, and alluvial zones of paradigm change

ABSTRACT

In the past two decades, Indigenous faculty and graduate students at research-intensive universities have been asserting a kind of cultural and intellectual sovereignty over their own academic production and participation. While colonization through assimilationist education suppressed – and continues to suppress – Indigenous community knowledge and Indigenous scholars have been drawing on Indigenist revival movements creating new academic works and challenging the conventions of what constitutes research. This article presents conversations in contested spaces regarding Indigenous identity and expression. It draws, in part, on the author’s own experience traveling between Indigenous communities and universities while supervising Indigenous PhD students. Universities are in conflicted positions as they ostensibly invite Indigenous expression, but resist the undoing of conventional hierarchies that maintain hegemonic equilibrium. Are Universities that open spaces for Indigenous knowledges and the place-based blending – and bending – of metaphysical and physical realities leading a paradigm change in ecological consciousness? Can Indigenous scholars and Indigenous communities be represented in academic locations in ways that redirect the goals and purposes of research and knowledge production? This writing is a reflection on emerging, and ongoing, questions of Indigenous advance in academic spaces.     

Are online communities for young people an issue for education researchers? A literature review of Swedish and international studies within the educational field

Issues concerning children and young people are of interest for the educational field as question about fostering, up-bringing, learning and socialisation are core topics for academic researchers in education. Today many young people in Sweden and around the world spend an increasing amount of their time in online communities or social networking sites. This article aims to investigate whether it also is highlighted by the education researchers. Is it an area to which educational researchers currently contribute? The goal for this article is to present research that is done regarding these issues. My findings show that few academic studies deal with youth and their online environments. Foremost is the research about Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in formal learning situations: in higher education, in schools and classrooms, among professional groups such as teachers and about more general computer use rather than on questions about the fostering or up-bringing of children online. This study implies that online activities for children and young people is a topic currently lying outside the educational research field, resulting in a discussion on why that can be. My work consisted of three parts: a manual search in Swedish research journals at a university library and by searching one Swedish (Libris) and one international (ISI Web of Science) online database. This activity took place in 2009 and covered research conducted between 2003 and 2008. I conclude that this area is one where educational expertise is lacking; hence further research is strongly required.     

Implications of academic literacies research for knowledge making and curriculum design

This article explores the issue of what academic literacies research can bring to the study of knowledge and curriculum in higher education from a theoretical perspective and by means of illustrations from a work in progress academic literacies research project in the natural sciences. It argues that reading and writing are central to the process of learning in any discipline and that discipline specialists need to take this into consideration when planning their curricula. It also considers what knowledge means in the context of academic literacies research and how this conception of knowledge may differ from the knowledge structures researchers’ concern with knowledge as an object with its own properties. It comes to the conclusion that academic literacies research with its ethnographic-type exploration of social practice and theorisations of knowledge in the knowledge structures research can complement one another because each field of enquiry brings a lens that the other lacks.     

Academia and community action: actionaid,a community-based united kingdom parents' project

A fundamental challenge for research in the twenty-first century may necessitate consideration of the extent to which the goals and aspirations of research includes a renewed commitment to combining the knowledge and experience of the research community, the educational practitioner community and local communities. A cohesive triangular alliance is conceptualised, which takes account of the epistemological variation in these triple communities. The challenge is to forge collaborative relationships with links that provide support for new constructions of knowledge, rather than chains that may act as a restriction to innovatory and potentially constructive connections. This article investigates the potential for fresh links between the ‘community triangle’ of research, education and local communities with reference to ‘Actionaid’, a case study of a community-based parents' project, arising in conjunction with a doctoral study, combining the writer's academic and research knowledge, community based knowledge, education practitioner knowledge as well as her cultural knowledge and understanding as an African Caribbean woman. In describing this study the researcher will draw attention to questions surrounding ‘positionality’ and professionalism, in particular their impact on the development of knowledge formulations, which encompass methodological, professional and community credibility across the three communities     

Academic staff performance and workload in higher education in the UK: the conceptual dichotomy

Higher education in the UK is under increasing pressure to manage the workload of its academic staff in a way that maximises the outputs from teaching and research. The emergence of this trend can be traced back to 1989 and the government legislation that introduced neo-liberal managerialism into the sector mirroring the laissez-faire approach to the economy that was prevalent at the time. This article examines the literature surrounding workload management and staff performance in the sector to try to establish whether the two have been conceptually linked. A desk-based narrative literature review was executed in order to scrutinise the literature and attempt to answer the main question: what does ‘performance’ mean in relation to an academic role and how is this related to an academic’s workload within the post-92 (referring to ex-polytechnics and colleges of higher education granted university title following the Further and Higher Education Act 1992) higher education sector? The results of the review show that the literature is dichotomous both in terms of the two areas being discrete and also in the conceptual stance taken by writers in each area. Whilst there are inferred links between workload management and performance, these have not been explored. The article concludes by outlining what further research is needed on the linkages between workload management and staff performance specifically, using socially-critical methodology.     

Expertise for Teaching Biology Situated in the Context of Genetic Testing

Contemporary genomics research will impact the daily practice of biology teachers who want to teach up-to-date genetics in secondary education. This article reports on a research project aimed at enhancing biology teachers’ expertise for teaching genetics situated in the context of genetic testing. The increasing body of scientific knowledge concerning genetic testing and the related consequences for decision-making indicate the societal relevance of an educational approach based on situated learning. What expertise do biology teachers need for teaching genetics in the personal health context of genetic testing? This article describes the required expertise by exploring the educational practice. Nine experienced teachers were interviewed about the pedagogical content, moral and interpersonal expertise areas concerning how to teach genetics in the personal health context of genetic testing, and the lessons of five of them were observed. The findings showed that the required teacher expertise encompasses specific pedagogical content expertise, interpersonal expertise and a preference for teacher roles and teaching approaches for the moral aspects of teaching in this context. A need for further development of teaching and learning activities for (reflection on) moral reasoning came to the fore. Suggestions regarding how to apply this expertise into context-based genetics education are discussed.     

Instructional design for advanced learners: Establishing connections between the theoretical frameworks of cognitive load and deliberate practice

Cognitive load theory (CLT) has been successful in identifying instructional formats that are more effective and efficient than conventional problem solving in the initial, novice phase of skill acquisition. However, recent findings regarding the “expertise reversal effect” have begun to stimulate cognitive load theorists to broaden their horizon to the question of how instructional design should be altered as a learner's knowledge increases. To answer this question, it is important to understand how expertise is acquired and what fosters its development. Expert performance research, and, in particular, the theoretical framework of deliberate practice have given us a better understanding of the principles and activities that are essential in order to excel in a domain. This article explores how these activities and principles can be used to design instructional formats based on CLT for higher levels of skills mastery. The value of these formats for e-learning environments in which learning tasks can be adaptively selected on the basis of online assessments of the learner's level of expertise is discussed. In their preparation of this article, the first and last authors were supported by an Internationalization grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, The Hague, project number 411-01-010).     

Engagement and academic promotion: a review of the literature

Universities in Australia are becoming increasingly concerned with their reputation as ‘engaged’ institutions. Yet there is significant confusion about what this idea of ‘engagement’ means and no clear way of measuring or reporting it. In part, this is because of the nature of engagement itself which is dependent on local context, partnerships and communities. This presents a difficulty for academic staff undertaking engaged work within institutions and stresses the need for institutions to develop internal processes that clearly articulate definitions of engagement, set out performance expectations and provide processes for the reward and recognition of the scholarship of engagement. In a sector increasingly concerned with the outputs of research as measurable by publication bibliometrics and grant income, the sometimes difficult to measure outcomes of engaged work can become relegated and dismissed. As part of a project to articulate performance expectations in the area of the scholarship of engagement for academic promotion at the University of Wollongong, researchers undertook an extensive international literature review to learn what had been done in this area previously and to identify issues of concern. This paper sets out the findings from this review, considers the implications of engaged scholarship for academic promotion and suggests some possible ways forward for institutions and staff working in this area.     

谈信度、效度与学业测试

信度与效度是学业测试的两个质量特征,如何处理两者之间的关系也是测试的根本问题。在介绍信度和效度的定义、关系的基础上,对学业测试中的信度与效度进行分析,并且阐述如何平衡两者之间的关系。最终证明学业测试是一种有效的测量手段,并且必将提高教学质量。     

What is (good) practitioner research?

This special issue recognizes EAPRIL as being a platform for practitioner and practice-based research and by organizing the 10th annual conference for practitioner research on improving learning in education and professional practice. Papers in this conference and in this special issue are rooted in practice-based research or practitioner research. They reflect the popularity of practitioner research in vocational teacher education and in universities of applied sciences. Reason enough for the authors of the current paper to reflect on the question: “What is practitioner research?” And, more importantly what makes good practitioner research? Reviews show that people use broad interpretations of the concept, which requires that to clarify the epistemological basis of the relation between research and practice the reflections goes back to Aristotle philosophy. The latter, aiming at discovering what kind of knowledge is obtained, what purpose it serve, and how it differs. This yields a theoretical, and two practical kinds of knowledge. Although all three are relevant, the so called ‘practitioner knowledge’ (the prhonesis and the techne), need more attention in judging the ‘goodness’ of practitioner research. Five principles of validation are mentioned, e.g. the process of meaning making and negotiation, differing from the correspondence between knowledge and the outside world, e.g. validity. These principles provide a possible angle and sometimes researcher follow them implicitly and unconsciously. The articles in this special issue reflects the realisation of many of these principles within the individual studies. The current paper does not intent to give final answers, but rather to trigger a further conversation on the fundamental question of: What is good practitioner research?     

A review of twenty-first century higher education

This article is predominantly concerned with the global challenges associated with managing an academic workforce in an era characterised by increased demand for higher education. In scrutinising global trends in higher education and academic workforce management, the article will address two research questions. First, what are the global trends that most affect education in the twenty-first century? Second, what are the transformations that have taken place in the academic workforce amid these trends? Last, the article calls for a need for researchers to profoundly explore the management of the academic workforce cross-nationally between developed and developing economies, with a particular focus on Australia, Malaysia and Singapore.     

Dreaming of Justice: Critical Service-Learning and the Need to Wake Up

I examine and question whether the goal, or dream, of service-learning has been actualized in practice. I raise the possibility that what educators dream of—a critical service-learning able to ameliorate persistent real-world inequities—may be a case of their dreaming being fulfilled, rather than their dreams. More specifically, I argue that although the dream of critical service-learning has been incredibly successful at driving research and practice in higher education, it has not fulfilled the goal of impacting the very people and communities educators purport to serve. Thus, the groups most wishing for the success of critical service-learning are those whose dreams are most fulfilled. I offer a set of tenets that, I hope, will encourage educators to dream different dreams.     

Bundled or unbundled? A multi-text corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the relationship between teaching and research in UK universities

Creating and disseminating knowledge through research and teaching has long been regarded as the hallmark of the modern university. However, new university business models have called into question the ‘bundling’ of teaching and research, and sustained research on the relationship between teaching and research has found little evidence of an insoluble connection between the two activities. In this article, we explore the relationship between teaching and research from the perspective of universities’ institutional discourse. We use corpus-assisted discourse analysis to examine the relationship between research and teaching as presented in two sets of institutional texts currently influential in UK Higher Education: Research Excellence Framework environment statements and Teaching Excellence Framework provider submissions (a total of 2143 documents and 12,492,071 words). Our findings show that, while universities emphasise the value of research to their teaching, they do not always emphasise (or sometimes even decry) the influence of teaching on their research. We empirically evidence that, according to what universities themselves write in institutional texts, teaching and research are not always in a mutually beneficial entanglement, but often rather a one-way relationship in which research expertise and institutional prestige are used to bolster claims of teaching excellence. This has implications for the communication of both the vision and the purpose of a university in regulatory exercises and wider policy, but also speaks to the broader idea and practice of being a university in the twenty-first century.     

Metacognition,comprehension monitoring,and the adult reader

This article provides an overview and synthesis of the current literature on metacognition and comprehension monitoring among adult readers. It is organized around three major research questions: (1) How do adults conceptualize their own comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities? (2) How effectively do adults evaluate and regulate their ongoing efforts to understand? (3) How successfully do adults assess the final products of their comprehension efforts? Cutting across these broad issues are questions concerning metacognitive differences as a function of reading ability, academic success, domain expertise, developmental level, and task variables. The research reveals that adults' conceptions of how they comprehend and how they monitor their comprehension are quite variable. In general, those who have more expertise, who are better readers, and who are more successful students seem to have greater awareness and control of their own cognitive activities while reading. The research also reveals that adults evaluate and regulate their ongoing efforts to understand, although there is considerable room for improvement in these skills. Finally, the research shows that adults are remarkably unsuccessful at assessing how well they have comprehended a text and whether or not they are ready to take a test on the material. The article closes with a discussion of recent intervention efforts aimed at enhancing the metacognitive skills of adult readers.     

课程知识的特征与生成过程

课程知识是通过一定的程序和途径选择出来,并经过精致编码的知识,它在学校中作为教育的栽体存在,本身具有明显的特征.课程知识的生成过程,实质上就是从实践上回答关于"什么知识最有价值"的问题,也就是选择什么样的知识以及这些知识以什么样的方式呈现和传授给学生.自教育学作为一门专门化的学科开始.课程知识的选择和组织的问题就成为教育理论特别是课程理论的重要课题.     

Pedagogical Pleasures: Augustine in the Feminist Classroom

Many feminist philosophers of education have argued that the teacher's pleasure plays an important role in the classroom. However, accessing such pleasure is often easier said than done. Given our current academic climate, how might teachers develop pedagogical practices that cultivate these delights? This article investigates the (rather surprising) response to this question offered in Augustine's De catechizandis rudibus. Despite his reputation as a pleasure‐hater, Augustine spends the majority of his text defending the delights of teaching. In particular, Augustine argues that if teachers wish to find pleasure in teaching, they would do well to study the pleasures of mothers. To this end, I analyse the nature of Augustine's maternal appeal. What insight does Augustine find in the experiences of mothers? In what way does he hope his colleagues will allow these experiences to shape their pedagogies? I conclude by exploring the benefits and the risks of Augustine's claim for those who teach in the contemporary feminist classroom. Augustine's defence of pedagogical pleasure suggests that he shares a common interest with feminist philosophers. But, the social/political limits of his account highlight the value of submitting such pleasures to the terms of feminist critique.