Student mobility reviewed: attraction and satisfaction of international students in Turkey

Building on international migration theories and the literature on the dynamics of student mobility, this study sketches a two-dimensional framework and examines its utility to understand the rationales of in-bounding student mobility in Turkey. The empirical part of the study was conducted with 331 international students studying in public universities of Turkey. The results suggest that private rationales are prominent for students coming from Western and economically developed countries. In contrast, economic and academic rationales are prominent for students coming from Eastern and economically developing countries. The study suggests three insights which are instrumental in re-interpreting the position of the countries in the periphery in international student mobility. First, the nature of cultural, political, and historical proximity between home and host countries determines the size and direction of in-flowing student mobility in economically developing countries. Second, for developing countries pre-departure pulling rationales at private level are more prominent than public rationales. Third, despite the general trend that student mobility flows from economically less developed toward economically developed countries, this study suggests that in the periphery there are regional hubs attracting students largely originating from other countries of the periphery.     

Student protests in sub-Saharan Africa

This article addresses the question whether educational institutions will in the future become the arenas of social struggle in the African countries as other avenues of dissent become progressively closed. The paper first provides a brief outline of the social and economic context in the African countries in order to cast student political activism in the wider picture of the rapidly deteriorating conditions. Such an outline is deemed necessary to understand the genesis of student protests, and in particular, how school-based concerns (e.g., about declining educational standards) can escalate, providing the embryonic elements for the articulation of more widely-based social and economic questions which have no other avenue of expression in increasingly closed and repressive political regimes. The vicious circle of student action and predictable government reaction (e.g., repeated closures of educational institutions) which further contributes to the decline in the quality of education is then discussed. Finally, the paper touches on the problems of rising violence in student demonstrations, the solidarity which seems to be emerging between students and other social groups in some countries, and the potential implications for the struggles for democracy and political pluralism in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Quality of education and economic growth

This paper assesses the impact of school quality on student outcomes, particularly job performance, and subsequently on economic growth. It begins by showing that ‘investment in human capital’ has evolved from being viewed as simply an investment of student time to including interactions between time and monetary resources which may serve to improve school quality. Evidence is provided from studies of both elementary/secondary schooling and post-secondary education, and from studies of developed and less developed nations. It appears that school quality has substantially greater impact on changes in students' cognitive and behavioral outcomes in less developed than advanced countries. Yet school quality seems to effect lifetime earnings of all students regardless of the level of development of their nations. The paper explains why. in some cases, more years and money spent for schooling may not necessarily appear to reflect higher earnings. Explanations are provided for differences in the impact of school quality on student changes. A major one is the fact that there are significantly diminishing returns to expenditures on schooling, along with the fact that expenditure levels are so much lower in the poorer countries. Reasons are provided as to why, if institutional differences do not account for changes in students in wealthier nations, these differences should still account for differences in earnings. Factors such as measurement problems and institutional arrangements come into play in this regard. The paper concludes that improvement in the quality of schooling provided in developing countries may be more important tor the future economic prospects of these nations in the long run than will expanded access to poor quality education.     

Program diversity in higher education: an economic perspective

Program diversity in academic systems has become an important goal of higher education policy in many countries. Policy makers assume that a diverse academic system will better satisfy public preferences and needs and lead to greater social and economic benefits for society. While these assumptions adopt a recognizably economic perspective, very little of the literature on program diversity in higher education applies economic theory or methods as a means of framing relevant research. The article suggests that an economic perspective would define and measure academic diversity in terms of program innovation in academic institutions, not only in teaching, research and public service activities, but also in the processes of production and markets served. An economic perspective can also provide valuable theoretical frameworks for exploring the important question as to whether and how markets or governments affect program innovation in higher education.     

浅议FDI与中国西部地区经济发展

FDI是欠发达国家(地区)经济发展和经济差异形成的关键因素。中国西部地区经济落后的核心因素是投资不足。利用资本流动中的“偏离”现象构筑吸引FDI的“飞地”是解决西部地区经济建设中资金奇缺问题的一种现实和可行的选择。     

Does Displaying the Class Results Affect Student Discussion during Peer Instruction?

The use of personal response systems, or clickers, is increasingly common in college classrooms. Although clickers can increase student engagement and discussion, their benefits also can be overstated. A common practice is to ask the class a question, display the responses, allow the students to discuss the question, and then collect the responses a second time. In an introductory biology course, we asked whether showing students the class responses to a question biased their second response. Some sections of the course displayed a bar graph of the student responses and others served as a control group in which discussion occurred without seeing the most common answer chosen by the class. If students saw the bar graph, they were 30% more likely to switch from a less common to the most common response. This trend was more pronounced in true/false questions (38%) than multiple-choice questions (28%). These results suggest that observing the most common response can bias a student''s second vote on a question and may be misinterpreted as an increase in performance due to student discussion alone.     

欠发达国家为什么出现投资需求不足

经济发展的传统模型要么暗含、要么明确提出一个共同的命题 :欠发达国家不会出现投资需求不足的问题。然而 ,这个命题已经受到越来越大的挑战 ,因为许多欠发达国家的经济发展过程先后受制于比较严重的投资约束。本文旨在从发展经济学的角度阐述欠发达国家为什么会出现投资约束 ,作者认为 ,在一个欠发达国家 ,不能回避以下三个因素对投资需求的影响 :1 不完善的市场结构 ;2 消费需求的不足 ;3 收入分配恶化。     

大学课堂:思考着的教学

带着一满荷包问题走进教堂的课算好课,将问题穿插于全过程的课算好课,不断引导学生去思考、去发问的课算好课;一个便于在课堂上让自己自由畅想的教案是好教案;一个让人回头来看时多少觉得可笑的教案是好教案;常问的学生是好学生,爱问、会问的学生是更好的学生,问得很深刻、很奇特,更可能是杰出人才的未来之星。     

新疆高职院校商务英语专业就业对策分析

近年来,新疆许多高职院校开设了商务英语专业,招生形势较为稳定,但就业问题却不断出现。通过问卷调查的形式,分析本专业学生的就业状况以及学生的就业理念,指出必须从实际出发调整高职院校商务英语专业的人才培养定位和正确引导毕业生的就业观,以提高就业满意度和成功率。     

Examining the Impact of Question Surface Features on Students’ Answers to Constructed-Response Questions on Photosynthesis

One challenge in science education assessment is that students often focus on surface features of questions rather than the underlying scientific principles. We investigated how student written responses to constructed-response questions about photosynthesis vary based on two surface features of the question: the species of plant and the order of two question prompts. We asked four versions of the question with different combinations of the two plant species and order of prompts in an introductory cell biology course. We found that there was not a significant difference in the content of student responses to versions of the question stem with different species or order of prompts, using both computerized lexical analysis and expert scoring. We conducted 20 face-to-face interviews with students to further probe the effects of question wording on student responses. During the interviews, we found that students thought that the plant species was neither relevant nor confusing when answering the question. Students identified the prompts as both relevant and confusing. However, this confusion was not specific to a single version.     

Assessing Multimedia Influences on Student Responses Using a Personal Response System

To date, research to date on personal response systems (clickers) has focused on external issues pertaining to the implementation of this technology or broadly measured student learning gains rather than investigating differences in the responses themselves. Multimedia learning makes use of both words and pictures, and research from cognitive psychology suggests that using both words and illustrations improves student learning. This study analyzed student response data from 561 students taking an introductory earth science course to determine whether including an illustration in a clicker question resulted in a higher percentage of correct responses than questions that did not include a corresponding illustration. Questions on topics pertaining to the solid earth were categorized as illustrated questions if they contained a picture, or graph and text-only if the question only contained text. For each type of question, we calculated the percentage of correct responses for each student and compared the results to student ACT-reading, math, and science scores. A within-groups, repeated measures analysis of covariance with instructor as the covariate yielded no significant differences between the percentage of correct responses to either the text-only or the illustrated questions. Similar non-significant differences were obtained when students were grouped into quartiles according to their ACT-reading, -math, and -science scores. These results suggest that the way in which a conceptest question is written does not affect student responses and supports the claim that conceptest questions are a valid formative assessment tool.     

师生互动理论下小学课堂提问有效性的策略研究——以一堂小学语文课为例

随着新课程改革的发展,课堂提问有效性越来越受到人们的关注。课堂提问是师生互动的表现形式之一,教师在提出问题之前要考虑到学生的特点来设计问题;在提问之时要关注与学生的对话;在提问之后要尊重学生的回答并鼓励学生提问。     

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.     

Assessment of learning gains associated with independent exam analysis in introductory biology

This study evaluates the impact of an independent postmidterm question analysis exercise on the ability of students to answer subsequent exam questions on the same topics. It was conducted in three sections (～400 students/section) of introductory biology. Graded midterms were returned electronically, and each student was assigned a subset of questions answered incorrectly by more than 40% of the class to analyze as homework. The majority of questions were at Bloom's application/analysis level; this exercise therefore emphasized learning at these higher levels of cognition. Students in each section answered final exam questions matched by topic to all homework questions, providing a within-class control group for each question. The percentage of students who correctly answered the matched final exam question was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the Topic Analysis versus Control Analysis group for seven of 19 questions. We identified two factors that influenced activity effectiveness: 1) similarity in topic emphasis of the midterm-final exam question pair and 2) quality of the completed analysis homework. Our data suggest that this easy-to-implement exercise will be useful in large-enrollment classes to help students develop self-regulated learning skills. Additional strategies to help introductory students gain a broader understanding of topic areas are discussed.     

International student migration: a comparison of UK and Indian students’ motivations for studying abroad

ABSTRACT

This paper breaks new ground in its comparative analysis of two international student migration (ISM) streams, one from the Global South to the Global North (India to developed Anglophone countries), and the other within the Global North (UK to North America, Europe and Australia). These two ISM movements reflect different positionalities within the global system of international student movements, and hence necessitate a critical perspective on the assumptions behind such a comparison, which questions the dominance of ‘knowledge’ about ISM that derives from ‘the West’ as a theoretical template. Two methods are employed to collect data: an online questionnaire survey of UK and Indian students who are, or have recently been, studying abroad; and in-depth interviews to UK and Indian international students. Motivations for studying abroad are remarkably similar in the questionnaire results; more subtle differences emerge from the interviews.     

精准扶贫视角下高职家庭经济困难学生思想政治教育的路径研究

虽然国家和学校制定了多元化的资助体系,基本解决了困难学生的经济问题,但是思想政治教育问题还远远没有得到应有的重视。高职院校家庭经济困难学生由于其生活简朴、学习压力大、社交能力相对较差以及心理问题相对突出等特点,导致此类学生思想政治教育活动中诸多问题更加突出。从精准扶贫视角出发,制定更加精准的思想政治教学方案,创新思想政治教学模式,不断提高思政教师综合素质,制定科学合理的思想政治课程效果考评机制,能够有效提高高职家庭经济困难学生思想政治教育效果。     

An empirical study on the determinants of international student mobility: a global perspective

This paper, based on the data of 48 countries and regions from 1999 to 2008, studies the economic and educational determinants of how countries of different types attract international students. The study finds that: the volume of merchandise trade between countries facilitates international student mobility across borders; international students from developing countries put the same weights on educational and economic factors for peer developing countries as potential destinations, while only economic factors are taken into consideration for developed countries as potential destinations. On the other hand, international students from developed countries often value educational factors more for developed countries as possible destinations, while equally weigh educational and economic factors for developing countries as possible destinations. Therefore, countries aiming to attract talents from other countries should pay more attention to attract international students and encourage them to seek working opportunities in local employment markets after finishing study.     

Discourse Analysis as a Tool for Promoting the ‘Critical Literate’ VET Teacher

The paper deals with the concept of ‘Critical Literacy’ in the context of VET teacher education. It focuses on the question of whether and how critical literacy can be developed drawing on elements of discourse research. This is illustrated by means of a higher educational setting, dealing with business administration textbook usage and research. The impact of our learning and teaching setting is illustrated via an empirical longitudinal study (three-phase pre-post design) of students doing a master’s degree in business education at an Austrian university. Data were initially collected directly before and after the university seminar using a semi-standardised questionnaire (n = 54). In order to obtain an insight into the sustainable impact of our discourse analysis course on students’ thought and actions, in the third phase of data collection, eight participants, who in the meantime had four months experience in VET schools as student teachers (120 h) were invited to a qualitative interview. The paper encompasses a theoretical discussion on the concept of critical literacy, applies it to the target group VET teacher students and shows empirical evidence on pros and cons of discourse analytical course design aiming at the critical literate teacher.