Comparative study of the evaluation of professional competencies by experienced and trainee Spanish primary teachers

Taking as reference the proposals of the European Higher Education Area, the aim of this study is to identify the competencies which a wide sample of teachers in Spanish primary schools (6–12 age group) consider to be important for their professional performance and which they use in their everyday teaching, and to what extent their university training prepared them for their practising professional development. To do this, an ad hoc instrument was devised and applied to experienced practising teachers and to teacher trainees who were on teacher training placements during the last semester of their course. The results of the study show that initial teacher training should deal in depth with the competencies related to the organisation and management of teaching–learning, the use of new technologies in the primary classroom, the involvement of the families, education in values, social skills and skills for working in professional groups. Finally, proposals are made for training based on the articulation between theory and practice, to allow the professional competencies mentioned to be developed and used in practice, as well as encouraging close collaboration between teacher trainers and experienced practising teachers.     

Disseminating Improved Practices: Are Volunteer Farmer Trainers Effective?

Abstract

Purpose: This paper assesses the effectiveness of volunteer farmer trainers in promoting adoption of agricultural technologies in western Kenya. Specifically, the purpose was to assess the type of information they disseminated, farmer trainers' characteristics desirable to farmer trainees, and how trainees evaluate farmer trainers.

Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected through focused group and open discussions, and interviews with 44 farmer trainers (32% women) and 91 trainees (63% women). Effectiveness of training was assessed based on level of learner satisfaction and attributes pertaining to knowledge, skill, attitude and application of the learning on farms. Other topics examined included selection of farmer trainers, organization of training, type, how and to whom information is disseminated, and farmer trainers' constraints and opportunities.

Findings: Farmer trainers played important roles such as mobilizing and training fellow farmers, hosting demonstration plots, bulking and distributing planting materials. They were, however, rated slightly lower in follow-ups and seed bulking. Farmer trainers disseminate on average two to four different types of technology. Crop-based technologies were disseminated more than livestock-based ones because of their simplicity. Technical backstopping from extension workers remains a challenge, which may compromise quality of information disseminated. The survey showed that the approach is sustainable, with farmer trainers continuing their work several years after project support had ended.

Practical implications: The results from this study are of use to development programmes keen on using low-cost, community-based dissemination approaches. Recommendations are also given on selecting farmer trainers, organizing training, types of technologies to disseminate incentives, and sustainability.

Originality/value: The added value lies in filling information gaps in the use and effectiveness of the farmer trainer approach in promoting technology dissemination.     

Identifying the training experiences and needs of bilingual school psychologists

The purpose of this pilot study was to better understand the training experiences of bilingual school psychologists (BSPs) and identify their training needs in the provision of psychological services to English language learner students. The secondary aims of the study were to determine how school psychology programs can better prepare BSPs and incorporate best practices in bilingual competencies into their training models. Six BSPs (Spanish/English‐speakers) participated in the study; findings revealed four themes related to their training experiences: (a) programmatic limitations, (b) assumption that language equals competence, (c) going beyond the classroom, and (d) experiential training. In addition, as a result of their training experiences, the BSPs provided training recommendations in two major areas: (a) trainers and (b) culturally relevant curriculum. Implications for school psychology trainers will be provided.     

The Perceived Impacts of Supervisor Reinforcement and Learning Objective Importance on Transfer of Training

Transfer of training is a major concern for trainers and managers. If training does not transfer to the job, the value of the training is questionable. This study investigated the relationships between: 1) perceived importance of training objectives and perceived transfer of training relative to those objectives, and 2) types of supervisor reinforcement which trainees perceive to be most motivating and the types of reinforcement that they perceive their supervisors actually use. The study was conducted in the context of a Managerial Leadership Program within a large oil refinery and chemical company in Korea. The study found that as either supervisors or trainees perceived a training objective to be more important, they also perceived more transfer of training relative to that objective. The study also found that the types of reinforcement trainees perceived to be most motivating were also the types that they perceived their supervisors used most often.     

在presentation训练中培养TAFE关键能力的尝试

TAFE关键能力是一种通用的、迁移的、对劳动者的未来发展起关键作用的能力。Presenta-tion作为一种课堂活动形式,不但能使学生适应这个社会的职业需求,而且能够综合训练学生的各种能力。本文试图探讨如何在presentation训练中培养学生的关键能力。     

It's a New World: Multiculturalism in a virtual environment

The notion of multiculturalism is vital in our global society. The emergence of efficient and effective distance learning technologies has permitted the integration of innovative techniques in the delivery of multicultural content to individuals who need flexible and convenient education and training opportunities. Strategies form the instructional foundation that promotes engagement of learners. Integral to these strategies are those that relate to personal belief systems and extension of those belief systems to behaviors. This article will add new ways of teaching and learning in the areas of diversity and multiculturalism by offering a model for building highly supportive, engaging online environments, where instructors, trainers, and instructional designers use multiple strategies to build virtual environments that foster a sense of dignity, respect, and understanding: all critical elements in a global environment.     

Training teachers to use new technologies impacts multiple ecologies: Evidence from a national initiative

A pair of papers re-examined the evidence from a national initiative to train all teachers in England to bring them up to the level of newly qualified teachers, who are required to know when to use and when not to use information and communication technologies (ICT) in their professional practice. The first paper confirmed that multilevel evaluation of professional development was robust for ICT teacher training. This second paper contrasts the highest and lowest rated designs for ICT teacher training: an 'organic' approach that provided training in schools was highly rated, whereas a centralised computer-assisted learning approach with online access to trainers was the lowest rated design. The study supports an ecological view of the diffusion of ICT innovations in education and recommends that ICT teacher training be designed to support evolution of each teacher's classroom, school and region, as well as the training of the ICT teacher trainers.     

Web 2.0 and Transfer: Trainers' Use of Technology to Support Employees' Learning Transfer on the Job

We steer transfer research in a new direction by examining the use of Web 2.0 technologies for supporting learning transfer resulting from formal training. We report survey results from training professionals (N = 83) on how their organization uses such methods to cue and support workers’ application of learned knowledge and skills on the job. Guided by the technology acceptance model (TAM) theory, we examined predictor variables found to influence technology use based on empirical and theoretical support in the information technology (IT) literature. Results indicate that trainers are influenced by several individual factors (computer experience, computer anxiety, and computer self‐efficacy), as well as their organization's learning climate, to use Web 2.0 tools to support transfer of learning. Trainers also prefer to use social media, networking applications, and visual media to support transfer among learners. We discuss implications for using Web 2.0 technologies in support of learning transfer and provide directions for future workplace learning research.     

Is the restructured initial professional training in educational psychology fit for purpose?

Following changes to educational psychology training, the research aimed to examine whether the new training is considered “fit for purpose”, using a mixed-methods design. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected via semi-structured online questionnaires completed by recently qualified educational psychologists (RQEPs) who completed training programmes in 2009 and 2010, and principal educational psychologists (PEPs). 64 RQEPs and 15 PEPs responded to the online questionnaires distributed through the Educational Psychology Network (EPNET) and the National Association of Principal Educational Psychologists (NAPEP) forums, as well as via all initial professional training providers in the UK (excluding Scotland). Frequency counts were calculated for quantitative data. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse the qualitative data. Findings suggest that RQEPs gain skills and competencies that are used and valued by services, specifically, professional and interpersonal competencies to face demanding roles. Gaps were identified in relation to providing RQEPs with therapeutic competencies that they and PEPs would value. Discrepancies between the training provided and the realistic educational psychologist (EP) role were highlighted, in addition to the impact these seem to have on RQEPs. Facilitators and barriers to implementation of training were identified. The restructured initial professional training appears to have provided RQEPs with relevant training that is used and valued by services. It seems that some level of “mismatch” in training and job requirements will remain until a consistent educational psychology identity can be formed, either through the profession itself or due to enforced Government changes to the role. Recommendations for RQEPs, Educational Psychology Services, including PEPs, and future programme providers are presented.     

THE ARMY WAY: EFFECTIVE TRAINING WITH TELEVISION.

This paper is an abbreviated version of the co‐authors’ presentation at the Association's Annual Conference in Manchester, 1978. It offers some points for discussion in the debate on how to influence lecturers and trainers to have a new approach to learning, involving a better use of television facilities. We attempt to show how television took its place in army training in both the United States and British Armies, and though a cost‐effective and useful aid in its own right, it also played a part in influencing trainers towards a new training attitude. The US Army has been involved in this field ten years longer than the British Army and thus, because of its experience and size has interesting figures to support the case that may be made for its approach to training and development. This could be an important indication for training methods in a wide range of contexts in the future.     

A NATIONAL INVESTIGATION OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY TRAINERS’ ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS ABOUT EVIDENCE‐BASED PRACTICES

The present investigation examined 460 school psychology trainers’ attitudes and beliefs about the conditions for the education and training of evidence‐based practices (i.e., assessments and interventions) in training programs in the United States and Canada using an online survey. Trainer attitudes and beliefs about education and training in evidence‐based practices were measured using a 24‐item five‐point Likert scale. Overall, trainers had positive views of evidence‐based practices, as well as program and organizational support for such training. However, trainers rated the education and training of evidence‐based assessments more favorably than evidence‐based interventions. In general, trainer characteristics nor program accreditation status, model, or type of degree offered were found to influence trainers’ perceptions about evidence‐based practices. However, trainers with prior experience teaching evidence‐based intervention courses were found to have more supportive views of evidence‐based assessments and interventions than those without such experience. Implications for future training and school practice are discussed.     

Implementing a Classroom-Based Social Skills Training Program in Middle Childhood

Although social skills training (SST) programs have been shown to improve children's long-term developmental outcomes, school personnel are not typically able to implement such programs. This article outlines the institutional and organizational supports, trainer selection criteria, and the training needed for school counselors to successfully implement and sustain a SST program for children. Social skills programs will only become routine in the classroom if the school setting provides administrative support for skills training, and structures to encourage implementation of SST programs (especially substantial and ongoing training based in the classroom setting). In addition to organizational level considerations, SST trainers need to be socially competent, be able to manage children in small groups, be familiar with the theoretical model underlying the SST program, have the opportunity to practice delivering the program, and have positive attitudes toward delivering the program. The procedures for selecting, training, monitoring, and evaluating school counselors who are SST trainers are described.     

M.A.S.S.: A Model for Producing Transfer

Transfer is the application in the workplace of the knowledge, skills and attitudes learned in training. With transfer, trainers hope to link training to increased job performance. However, training alone will not produce transfer. To affect job performance as a result of training, trainers must intentionally promote transfer using a variety of strategies based on known principles of human performance technology. The MASS model, presented in this paper, brings together four of these principles. According to the MASS model, trainers who promote transfer (and who thereby become performance technologists) 1) Motivate trainees to learn and use the training material; 2) increase trainees' Awareness of when to use new skills and ideas; 3) enable trainees to master and to apply Skills; and 4) give trainees psychological and physical Support on the job. When performance technologists follow the MASS model, they can expect to produce trainees who apply at work what they have been taught in training. Use of the model is illustrated with two examples.     

‘Training by Papua New Guinea women,for Papua New Guinea women’: lessons from the development of a co-constructed course for women smallholder farmers

This article examines the lessons from a collaborative project that worked with women agricultural leaders in Papua New Guinea. The project sought to build the capacity of these leaders as trainers in a way that would enable the development of a sustainable community of practice and worked within a critical and place-based pedagogy underpinned by asset-based community development principles. Whilst the process of our collaborative work has a number of salutary lessons, the co-construction of the training course with PNG women farmer leaders did illustrate a particular knowledge design continuum: that is, surfacing knowledge, distilling knowledge, clarifying knowledge and then consolidating knowledge. From this consolidated knowledge, together we were able to design locally valid and locally relevant modules. As the trainers went out to trial their training, they were then engaging in sharing knowledge and reviewing that knowledge which then lead to our collective ability to improve knowledge that will enhance future training in this area.     

Dealing with complex and ill-structured problems: results of a Plan-Do-Check-Act experiment in a business engineering semester

Challenged by increased globalisation and fast technological development, we carried out an experiment in the third semester of a global business engineering programme aimed at identifying conditions for training student in dealing with complex and ill-structured problems of forming a new business. As this includes a fuzzy front end, learning cannot be measured in traditional, quantitative terms; therefore, we have explored the use of reflection to convert tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. The experiment adopted a Plan-Do-Check-Act approach and concluded with developing a plan for new learning initiatives in the subsequent year’s semester. The findings conclude that (1) problem-based learning develops more competencies than ordinarily measured at the examination, especially, the social/communication and personal competencies are developed; (2) students are capable of dealing with a complex and ambiguous problem, if properly guided. Four conditions were identified; (3) most students are not conscious of their learning, but are able to reflect if properly encouraged; and (4) improving engineering education should be considered as an organisational learning process.     

Development and Challenges of the Credit Point System in Dutch Higher Education

This article will focus on the credit point system and especially on the Dutch system. In many countries such a system has a long history, but in others it is a relatively new phenomenon. In the first section, the objectives of credit point systems will be introduced. In the second section the emergence and characteristics of the credit point system in the Netherlands will be presented. In the third section, some results of student behaviour in the first year in Higher education will be shown for different groups of students, such as how many credit points on average they earned and how many hours per week on average they studied. The findings demonstrate how empirical results from student behaviour, combined with the norms of the credit point system, can be used to evaluate the accountability of the academic programmes. In the last section, some challenges for the use of credit point systems in the nearby future will be discussed. Recently, one can see a rapid change from the traditional ways of testing to the assessment of competencies of students and student portfolios.     

Training School-Based Consultants: Some Thoughts On Grains of Sand and Building Anthills

This article reviews the major themes and issues emerging from this special issue on training school-based consultants. It is suggested that the building of anthills from individual and often seemingly disconnected grains of sand provides a useful metaphor for work in this arena. To date we have failed to establish a compelling and integrated body of empirical evidence addressing consultant training, although some excellent preliminary data have been reported. All agree that substantially more scholarly work is essential. It is proposed that the most important challenge facing us is the adoption of a unifying theoretical model to guide the organization and synthesis of our disparate "grains of sand" so that we can create meaningful and coherent "anthills" that can be of value to consultation trainers. Ecological and systems orientations are presented as the most appropriate and powerful approaches to achieve this goal. Small-N and qualitative research methodologies seem particularly well suited to this task. A number of specific research and practice ideas are suggested, although each has yet to garner sufficient empirical support and each is considered to be subsidiary to the adoption of an ecological paradigm to guide trainers and researchers in drafting a blueprint for future scientific work. As sure as worker ants can build phenomenally complex anthills from the most meager beginnings, so can we develop a scientific body of knowledge regarding consultant training. However, substantially more intellectual capital will need to be invested in this task if we are to succeed. Ultimately, it is up to us, as interested scholars, to make this happen.