The Strategic Management of Universities: Teaching and Research

The university as a producer of highly qualified human resources contributes not only to economic development, but more importantly, to endogenous technical progress. Although certain students of the subject have tried to prove that research and teaching in universities do not complement one another, most professors would disagree. If university teaching contributes to economic development, then it should also contribute to the improvement of teaching which through its effects on students will also contribute to economic development. A poll that the authors helped to direct of senior university managers indicated strong belief that teaching and fundamental research will remain linked and will continue to be very important parts of the missions of universities for the foreseeable future. Applied research will have a slightly lower priority, but its role will steadily increase in importance. Interestingly, very little priority was accorded to lifelong learning and even less, to third age instruction.     

Predictive validity of the IELTS in an English as a medium of instruction environment

As access to a university education has increased globally, there have also been increases in the number of universities that use English as a medium of instruction (EMI) and in the number of non‐English‐speaking students studying in English‐speaking countries. Correspondingly, the English language proficiency of students studying in EMI environments is becoming increasingly significant. Using a large sample of 953 undergraduate students at an EMI university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), this paper examines the predictive validity of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) as it pertains to the academic success of students as determined by grade point average and addresses implications and appropriateness of further language support. Results indicate that IELTS scores are a meaningful predictor of academic success, especially in the EMI environment that exists in the UAE. Lower than the IELTS guidelines, an IELTS 6.0 seems to be a key benchmark that predicts academic success. It may be that this more moderate English proficiency score is a better fit for non‐English‐speaking countries, but that further language support embedded into degree programmes is necessary except at the highest proficiency levels, and that a bilingual option should be considered at the lowest proficiency levels.     

Student achievement and attitude in a satellite‐delivered high school science course

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of satellite‐delivered instruction on student achievement and attitude in a high school anatomy and physiology course. The experimental group included students from seven high schools enrolled in the satellite‐delivered course. The control group consisted of students from seven high schools in which classroom teachers provided instruction. An experimental versus control matched‐pair design was used in the study. Two hypotheses were tested using the t test for dependent samples. The findings show that there was no significant difference between the experimental group and control group in attitude toward anatomy and physiology. However, on the achievement test, the mean post‐test score of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group.     

Empirical comparison of alternative instructional TV technologies

An experiment was conducted to compare training effectiveness and user acceptance of live instruction andsix different alternative Instructional TV (ITV) technologies: multi‐channel 2‐way video with 2‐way audio, single‐channel 2‐way video with 2‐way audio, 1‐way video with 2‐way audio, 1‐way video with 1‐way audio, 1‐way video with intermittent 2‐way audio, and audiographics. Findings were that, in comparison with live instruction, ITV in several different forms was effective both in terms of student performance and acceptance. The most successful ITV technologies were those allowing continuous 2‐way audio communication between classrooms with either 2‐way or 1‐way video. Student test performance was poorer with ITV systems that restricted remote students' ability to converse with or see the instructor and the performance decrement was evident in both local and remote classrooms.

The research described was performed under the sponsorship of the Office of Naval Technology. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors, are not official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Navy department.     

Teaching and Research: What Balance for the Universities of the Twenty‐First Century?

The union of teaching and research in universities has a very long history with roots pre‐dating the Humboldtian conception of the research university. A major part of this union is personal, in the person of the academic staff member who has been trained through research and will invariably engage in both teaching and research in a university. Even researchers working in exclusively research organizations will have been trained in universities. Moreover, the research undertaken in universities will tend to be transparent, partly the result of the normal practices of academic freedom and of the traditions and procedures of university autonomy, and therefore, more likely to be the beneficiary of public trust than the research undertaken in research institutions, the latter tending to be viewed as more secretive and patron‐oriented. Although globalization may require universities to become enterprises of a non‐business type, along the lines of the medieval corporation, even this new paradigm will continue to require a proper balance between research and teaching, the one supporting the other.     

The Stanford Instructional Television Network: A Partnership with Industry

The Stanford Instructional Television Network (SITN), the largest single university provider of live televised graduate level engineering courses in the world, partners with industry to address the issues of competitiveness and job productivity. For over 25 years, SITN has offered engineers, scientists and technical managers a means to extend their education without leaving the workplace. SITN uses microwave, tutored videotape instruction, satellite and two‐way video to deliver over 250 credit courses annually as well as non‐credit programmes, certificate offerings and research seminars to industry and government sites.     

The Problem of Training in Higher Education

As universities are centres of learning, the lecturer/teacher is, so to speak, the basic institutional journeyman who as an academic and scientist devotes much of his/her time to teaching rather than to pure research. The task of teaching, given the massification of universities, the diversity of students, and the advent of the new information technologies, is much more a question of inducing student learning than of mechanically transmitting knowledge. Therefore, newly recruited university lecturers must have come to their posts with an understanding of university pedagogy. As their careers begin, lecturers must be offered continued instruction in the art of teaching and the inducement of learning in others. Good teaching/inducement‐of‐learning work is a contribution to knowledge and should be as well rewarded as the contribution to knowledge that comes from pure research. Prior professional training should also be made available to university teachers taking up administrative responsibilities.     

Test preparation in New Jersey: inquiry‐oriented and didactic responses1

As testing becomes more prevalent as a policy tool in the Anglo‐Saxon world, debates continue as to whether it supports central reforms of instruction or leads to a kind of ‘teaching to the test’ that invalidates results and undermines more challenging instruction. This paper reports on a three‐year study of mathematics testing of nine‐year‐olds in New Jersey. Using a mix of surveys and direct observations with interviews, we conclude that New Jersey's testing policies contributed to both results. Where teachers feel more pressure, they respond with short‐term test preparation and focus on more didactic instructional strategies. When they know more about state and national standards and have the opportunity to learn more, they are inclined to use more inquiry‐oriented approaches and integrate test preparation with regular instruction.     

美国国家技术大学三次转折对我国远程教育的启示

美国国家技术大学(NTU)是世界著名的虚拟大学,与美国著名工科院校合作开展远程工程硕士教育已有20多年历史。但是,近年来NTU经历了三次重大转折:第一次转折,NTU成立了一个赢利性的、非学历教育的远程教育公司,由原来的一所非赢利性大学,分裂为两个实体;第二次转折,NTU被一家更有经济实力的远程教育公司兼并,转变成为该公司的一所附属在线大学(公司);第三次转折,由单独运营的附属大学(公司)转向大公司中另一远程教育大学下属的一个专门学院。本文分析了这三次转折的原因,并提出这三次转折对中国远程教育的启示。     

Transforming support for students with disabilities in UK Higher Education

Intended UK government changes to the Disabled Students’ Allowance will have a significant impact on the support that UK universities provide for students with disabilities. In this article we examine the types of transformation that may be needed to support for university students with disabilities, from a socio‐technical perspective. The research reported in this article involved a year‐long case study in a UK university. The potential changes required to support for students with disabilities within the university studied, to cater for the proposed UK government changes to the Disabled Students’ Allowance, include: providing non‐medical helpers through external agencies; developing a dyslexia screening process; providing enhanced library services, including access to printers and scanners and assistance with assistive software; providing laptops with assistive software; making assistive software available in a limited form in computing laboratories; and more co‐ordinated special examination provision.     

The Diploma in Information Technology with Distance Teaching Methods

The Consortium for Distance University was founded in 1984 to set up a distance teaching university system in Italy. Its activity started in 1986 with the foundation of the Special Purpose School of Information Technology based on distance teaching methods. In 1991 a university diploma was established according to the European educational system. The 3‐year programme includes 28 learning modules and a final apprenticeship. The modules have been developed through a number of learning units, in the form of printed materials and computer‐aided instruction packages that enable learners to organize their own learning autonomously. Assistance to learners takes place in study centres where students meet tutors and use the hardware equipment needed for the software materials. In the academic year 1994/95, an experimental delivery of the university diploma in information technology through the CMC technologies will begin at some Italian universities so that it will be possible to demonstrate how the new modern technologies help students to manage their learning process in real time.     

Die schulpraktische Ausbildung im Rahmen der Lehrerausbildung an den Österreichischen Universitäten

In the course of the fundamental reform of studies at the Austrian universities the education of grammar school teachers was renewed in 1971. In a long tradition (since 1855) teachers for upper secondary education, especially for grammar schools (which lead pupils to the matriculation qualification for university education) were prepared for their teacher admission examination by studies at the universities which comprised besides of subject matters theoretically introducing courses in pedagogy and psychology. Their practical training was organised in a guided probationary year at schools (apprenticeship‐type).

Since 1982 a new integrated (concurrent) preservice teacher education programme is realised at the Austrian universities, which combines subject studies (in two fields) with teachers’ professional preparation (comprising theoretical studies and practical activities and experiences in education and teaching). The new teacher education programme takes 4#fr1/2> years and leads to the academic degree of a master of arts or science, which gives full professional teacher qualification. The profession‐oriented parts include studies in education and psychology (10 semester course units: 150 hours), subject teaching studies (12‐24 semesters course units: 180‐360 hours) and a 12‐week period of practical teaching experience. Each university designs within this framework a specific study programme. An overview is given in the paper; the programme of the university of Graz is shown in more detail as an example.

At present the introduction of a one‐year‐lasting induction period as a second phase of teacher education is discussed and planned, which should be established in 1988‐89.     

Does higher education foster critical and creative learners? An exploration of two universities in South Korea and the USA

This paper describes two studies that explore students' beliefs about critical and creative learning at two universities, and considers the implications of those beliefs in comparison to the universities' stated education goals. One is a mixed method study of students at a top university in Korea, and the second is a comparative study between the Korean university and a United States (US) university. The first study found that both high-achievers and the general population at a top Korean university perceived their critical and creative abilities as lower than their receptive learning abilities, and that higher achievers were neither more critical nor creative than lower achievers. The second study finds that the Korean university students, compared to US students, were more likely to rate their receptive learning ability as higher than their critical and creative learning abilities. Comparisons across year of higher education (HE) suggest that Korean students' perceptions did not significantly change with respect to year in school, while US students' perceptions of critical learning abilities significantly increased across school years. Results are discussed with respect to the impact of culture, epistemological beliefs, and HE instruction on critical and creative learning.     

Peer assessment of oral presentations: effects of student gender,university affiliation and participation in the development of assessment criteria

Peer assessment provides a useful mechanism to develop many positive qualities in students studying in higher education (HE). Potential influences on peer‐awarded marks include student qualities such as gender, HE background (e.g. university affiliation) and participation in the development of the assessment criteria. Many studies that have investigated peer assessment have placed great emphasis on marks from a single tutor, or very few tutors, from a single university. This study examined grades awarded by 11 tutors (affiliated with four universities) to oral presentations delivered on a residential field course by second‐year undergraduate students from two universities studying environmental or biological disciplines. Student assessors awarded marks of fairly high precision (correlating strongly with tutor grades) but averaged 5% higher than their tutors (i.e. of only moderate accuracy). Marginally higher marks (circa 1.6%) were awarded by student assessors to speakers studying at the same university. Gender influences were detected as males tended to grade other male speakers very slightly more highly than female speakers. Marks from females were unaffected by speaker gender. Students who participated in the development of the assessment criteria did not achieve higher grades for their presentations. However, when these ‘participants’ were assessing, they awarded lower marks than their peers (i.e. closer to, but not as low as, those awarded by tutors). Lower marks were also awarded during the middle of sessions, possibly resulting from factors associated with motivation and attention of speakers and markers. Overall, the potential biases in marking by naive assessors examined in this study may influence the validity of marks generated by peer assessment schemes, but the experience of this type of assessment had positive effects on those involved.     

The politics of innovation in French higher education: The university institutes of technology

The creation of the French university institutes of technology (IUTs) in 1966 is characteristic of attempts by a number of industrialized nations to establish institutions of higher education better adapted than the traditional university to new cohorts of post-secondary students. The IUTs provide intensive short-cycle programs to train middle-level personnel in technical and administrative fields. Although the courses are designed as terminal, over one-third of IUT graduates go on to higher education, including a disproportionate number of students from lower social strata. Their staff are drawn from the universities, technical secondary education and the professions. Administratively, the IUTs occupy an uneasy position partly connected with the universities and partly under direct ministerial authority; there is substantial involvement on the part of representatives of employers and trade unions as well. Despite this ambivalence of function and status, the IUTs are now well established as a modestly successful innovation. They represent a major aspect of the attempt by French policy-makers to introduce more effective methods of instruction and evaluation into the universities and to render them more responsive to the needs of the society and the economy.The first draft of this paper was originally presented at the 1974 Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Political Science Association, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., November 7–9, 1974. A similar version appears in: Ladislav Cerych, ed., Between School and Work. Paris: European Cultural Foundation, The Institute of Education, 1975.     

University Admissions and the Prediction of Degree Performance: an Analysis in the Light of Changes to the English Schools’ Examination System

The United Kingdom's Department for Education has recently changed the nature of the AS‐level examinations normally taken by students aspiring to enter higher education degree courses one year into their post‐compulsory education. In the face of protests from universities and other institutions that this would both harm students’ progression towards the A‐level qualifications, on which entry to English universities is normally based, and make it difficult for universities determining which of their applicants were best placed to benefit from their degree courses, the Department conducted research which it claimed showed that degree outcome could be predicted as well from the results of GCSE examinations taken one year before AS‐levels as from AS‐levels themselves. This paper critiques those analyses and their conclusions showing, through a re‐analysis and extended interpretation of the Department's data, that AS‐levels provide a more reliable predictor of degree performance in 2011 than GCSEs and that many students who performed better at AS‐level than at GCSE gained a place, and performed well, at a university with high entrance standards.     

The impact of term‐time employment on higher education students’ academic attainment and achievement

Term‐time employment among Britain’s undergraduates is a growing phenomenon but it has received scant attention from government and policy makers. Although there are numerous studies on the subject, few have explored the impact of term‐time employment on students’ actual attainment and those that have are limited. This article attempts to fill that gap. Using data derived from 1000 students in six UK universities, it quantifies the impact of students’ paid work on their actual marks and degree results, while controlling for their academic attainment on entry to higher education and other factors including their hours of work. It shows that irrespective of the university students attended, term‐time working had a detrimental effect on both their final year marks and their degree results. The more hours students worked, the greater the negative effect. Consequently, students working the average number of hours a week were a third less likely to get a good degree than an identical non‐working student. Some of the least qualified and poorest students are most adversely affected perpetuating existing inequalities in HE. The 2006/07 changes to student finances may help some of them, but term‐time employment is likely to remain part of the HE landscape.     

Institutional and technical constraints on faculty gross productivity in American doctoral universities

Scholars disagree about the manner and extent of environmental structuring of university activities. This study supports arguments that the environment highly structures the relationships between faculty and the academic products of undergraduate instruction, graduate instruction, and research. Multiple correlation coefficients exceeded 90 percent for regressions of faculty size on counts of undergraduate and graduate enrollments and published articles for all universities classified as Research I or II or Doctoral I or II, demonstrating how constrained is doctoral faculty gross productivity in doctoral universities in the United States. Possible institutional and technical constraints are discussed. The regressions reveal economies of scale and economies of scope for some mixes of faculty academic activities, but not for others. Implications on productivity are explored for university type, control, and science emphasis. A typology for productivity studies is also outlined.     

新时期高校学生文化论略

学生是学校中的受教育群体,表现出特有的文化特征,是学校文化中独特的文化形态。2000年后,随着高校的不断扩招和80后、90后的陆续入学,学生文化也随之呈现出新的面貌,对学校管理和教师教学形成新的挑战。本文不在于对学生文化有全新定义（文化本身也无法用一个句式完全囊括）,而重点在分析新时期学生文化特点的基础上,对其在师生互动中的新表现及其对学校教育的挑战作一定分析,并对学校在推动学生文化良性发展中的功能提出建议。