Beyond the teaching-research nexus: the Scholarship-Teaching-Action-Research (STAR) conceptual framework

As knowledge for competitive advantage develops beyond the transfer of simple data and information to focus on knowledge that has meaning, values, purpose and a more integrated aspect, higher education is required to graduate students able to operate in a more worldly manner across disciplines. Government's response to this need has been to demand that universities adhere to more rigorous quantitative output measures of the quality of research and teaching. The response from universities has been mixed. While some academics are exploring teaching innovations to develop students' knowledge, research and problem-diagnostic skills through actively engaging them in authentic professional challenges, others are focusing on increasing discipline-linked research outputs. This is leading to a renewed debate as to the relative importance and contribution of teaching and discipline-based research. This paper argues that, rather than re-open this old division, a new framework is needed in which multi-directional interactions between discipline-based research, teaching-as-practice and scholarship of teaching are recognised. A conceptual Scholarship-Teaching-Action-Research framework is presented to provide focus for further discourse.     

Curriculum Perceptions: a multivariate analysis

The curriculum decision‐making perceptions of a pilot sample of 75 American kindergarten through twelfth grade teachers doing graduate work in education were surveyed with a 42 item questionnaire. The first four questions established the demographics of the respondents and the next three items indicated that Americans feel more constrained in making curriculum decisions than their British counterparts. The cross‐cultural comparisons are based on the findings of Doherty & Travers (1984).

The final 35 items, adapted from the instrument developed by Doherty & Travers, were subject to a factor analysis. Five interpretable factors were extracted.

The factors were labelled (1) External Monitory, (2) External Professional, (3) Internal Professional, (4) Facilitative‐Constraining, and (5) Internal Professional Peers. These factors represented 32 items with three items unassignable to any factors. Interitem reliability of the factors was judged good. Though the British study also extracted five factors (from a 30 item pool), dissimilarities in labelling and ranking importance occurred. Some of the key differences were traced to the structure of the American educational setting.     

Teacher policy: a framework for comparative analysis

This article outlines a framework for analysis of teacher focused policy studies within an international and comparative perspective. Using the notion of the professional life cycle of teachers, the article examines examples of key empirical studies that illustrate the impact of policy on addressing such issues as teacher recruitment, education, selection, retention and development. The article concludes that the framework is useful in identifying the strengths and weaknesses in the conceptualization and design of teacher focused policy and studies, and gives recommendations for the design of rigorous studies to inform future policy in this area.

《生物学教学》期刊中有关实验教学研究文献统计分析

运用文献计量学的统计方法,对2004-2008年《生物学教学》中“实验教学”栏目载文和作者进行统计分析,从中归纳了我国中学生物学实验教学研究的发展状况。     

Triple nexus: improving STEM teaching through a research-public engagement-teaching nexus

In this Reflection on Practice we propose a triple nexus of research, public engagement and teaching that could provide a new pathway for academic developers to enable greater engagement in learning and teaching issues from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academics. We argue that the public engagement activities demanded by STEM research funding can become proxies for the development of similar skills and dispositions essential to good university teaching.     

The teaching:research nexus : a model for institutional management

Teaching and research lie at the heart of higher education. The interaction between teaching and research has therefore attracted the attention of both researchers and policymakers. Much has been written about this relationship, looking in particular at the perceived mutual benefits between teaching and research. This paper presents some findings from a research project which, using a comparative approach, aimed to examine the nature of the teaching:research nexus and, in particular, to consider the response of institutional management. Based on the observations collected through the project, a new model is proposed for institutional management of the teaching:research nexus. This model is based on a range of contextual factors, classified as ideological or environmental, and two contrasting approaches to institutional management of the relationship between teaching and research, active and passive. This model offers a new approach to understanding the operation of the teaching:research nexus within institutions of higher education.     

Decision-making models in a Tunisian university: Towards a framework for analysis

Abstract

This study investigates how decisions are made in Tunisian public higher education establishments. Some factors are identified as having a potentially significant impact on the odds that the decision-making process follows the characteristics of one of the most well known decision-making models: collegial, political, bureaucratic or anarchical model. For this, this investigation was based on some statistical methods related to qualitative variables and allowing to measure whether the hypotheses, identified through an inductive analysis, are expressible in the same terms and with the same acuteness in all Tunisian public higher education establishments. In particular, the results showed that how decisions are made is related to the nature of the decision itself: collegiality for pedagogic and scientific decisions, bureaucratic for decisions related to institutional management and politic for academic personnel decisions. This finding can help the university leadership to evaluate and improve the governance in the higher education establishment.     

Networked learning for agricultural extension: a framework for analysis and two cases

Purpose: This paper presents economic and pedagogical motivations for adopting information and communications technology (ICT)-mediated learning networks in agricultural education and extension. It proposes a framework for networked learning in agricultural extension and contributes a theoretical and case-based rationale for adopting the networked learning paradigm.

Design/methodology/approach: A review of the literature highlights the economic and pedagogical need for adopting a networked learning approach. Two examples are described to instantiate the language for learning networks: a small community of farmers in India and large Twitter community of Australian farmers.

Findings: This paper reviews evidence that successful networked learning interventions are already occurring within agricultural extension. It provides a framework for describing these interventions and for helping future designers of learning networks in agricultural extension.

Practical implication: Facilitation of learning networks can serve to achieve efficient agricultural extension that connects farmers across distances for constructivist learning. To realize these benefits, designers of learning networks need to consider set design, social design and epistemic design.

Theoretical implication: This paper contributes a theoretical framework for designing, implementing and analysing learning networks in agriculture. It does this by integrating existing ideas from networked learning and applying them to the agricultural context through examples.

Originality/value: This paper contributes an understanding of the value of networked learning for extension in terms of economic and pedagogical benefits. It provides a language for talking about learning networks that is useful for future researchers and for practitioners.     

Teacher job satisfaction: A framework for analysis

The topic of job satisfaction is one that has always had personal and organizational relevance to educators. But recent reports of increased occupational stress and burnout in early childhood education indicate that the issue merits increased attention. This article first provides a brief overview of some of the diverse approaches that have evolved to define and measure work attitudes. It then presents a conceptual framework for understanding how the many facets of job satisfaction interrelate. The model builds on a social-ecological perspective of human behavior and stresses the dynamic, interactive nature of person-environment variables.     

教学研究型过滤实验平台的开发与应用

该文介绍了教学研究型过滤实验平台的设计开发及其在实验教学中的应用。在开发研制中,将学科前沿技术引入实验,提出了实验平台开发以培养学生综合科学素养与创新思维、拓展实验内容与层次为核心的设想。     

Cost‐benefit analysis of telelearning: Developing a methodology framework

Although costs and benefits of distance education have been evaluated, there are few examples where a cost‐benefit analysis has been applied to a variety of different educational technologies. This paper summarises some of the cost‐benefit methodologies expressed in the academic literature. The examples presented here have been categorised into four main groups, representing the different approaches to cost‐benefit analysis for technology and distance education: values, mathematical models, comparative studies, and return of investment Finally, an integrated methodology useful in the evaluation of educational technologies is presented.     

Continuing Education in a Late-modern or Global Society: Towards a theoretical framework for comparative analysis

Continuing education, those forms of education that occur after initial education, is exposed to the global market forces in a twofold manner which is foreign to traditional education: firstly, it has to relate to the changing structures and demands of the workforce in the global market and, secondly, it is a marketable commodity in itself. This means that there are no simple systems of continuing education that can be compared between nations or even between occupational categories. This paper, therefore, endeavours to provide a taxonomy which might underlie comparative theorising about continuing education.     

Peer-formativity: a framework for academic writing

The system currently deployed to assess research outputs in higher education can influence what, how and for whom academics write; for some it may determine whether or not they write at all. This article offers a framework for negotiating this performative context – the writing meeting. This framework uses the established theoretical underpinning of motivational interviewing, which involves autonomy, self-determination, environmental factors and social support. A study showed that the framework helped academics negotiate performativity and re-connect their writing to their values. In this way, they could both privilege writing that was meaningful to them and meet personal and institutional targets. Writing meetings did this by developing writing-oriented peer relationships, defined in this article as peer-formativity. Using writing meetings, academics can submit for research assessment systems without surrendering to performativity.     

Difficulties in improving medical education: A framework for analysis

This article provides a framework for analysis of the difficulties inherent in educational change. Examples are drawn from medical education to clarify the propositions. Implications for interventions are discussed briefly.     

Management: Value chain analysis: A framework for management of distance education

Abstract

This article presents a legal analysis of the application of copyright law to distance education environments, particularly as it applies to Web‐based instruction and the construction of electronic reserves, or so‐called virtual libraries. The author argues that revision of copyright law to allow for the reproduction, display, and performance of works in these settings is consistent with national policy and existing and developing copyright law. The dangers of moving toward a schema of universal or compulsory licensing of information products and services are also explored. Finally, the author suggests several possible components that new legislation or “fair use” guidelines might include.     

Politics of social partnerships: a framework for theorizing

This paper considers the politics of neo‐liberal reform of education and training in the specific context of social partnerships. Social partnerships are hybrid social spaces formed when a range of interests/partners work together for mutual benefit. Partnerships are one of a series of hybridized social spaces which have been formed as a consequence of the trend to neo‐liberal governance. The paper begins by situating the study of social partnerships in wider concerns about neo‐liberal reform and politics. It reviews literature on social partnerships as a way of identifying the different approaches to the conceptualization of conflict or practical politics. These are role conflict, interest conflict, and regime conflict. It also draws on a series of empirical research projects on social partnerships in Australia which have identified persistent points of tension within partnership formation and maintenance. Drawing these conceptualizations and persistent points of tension together provides a framework which can guide systematic inquiry of social partnerships. The paper suggests that this framework facilitates research by naming different types of political action. It encourages a multi‐dimensional analysis of partnership politics rather than presenting partnerships as either a celebratory or categorical expression of neo‐liberal political rationality.