From Hard to Soft Governance in Multi‐level Education Systems

Decision‐making in educations systems has become more complex: while decentralisation has moved the locus of power to lower governance levels, the central level still is held responsible for the quality of outcomes. As a consequence, new steering strategies have emerged that tend to apply softer modes of governance as opposed to harder ones in the past. This article aims at shedding empirical and conceptual light on these new developments. It compares two national examples for soft modes of governance with a supra‐national one (the EU's Open Method of Co‐ordination OMC) and argues that OMC might be both a useful analytical lens to categorise new steering mechanisms and a possibly promising policy strategy at the national level.     

Addressing the Needs of First‐Generation College Students: Lessons Learned From Adults From Low‐Education Families

The fact that 1st‐generation college students have lower retention rates than their peers and confront barriers hindering college success is well known. However, less information exists about the effect that 1st‐generation college status has after college completion. In this qualitative study, the career development experiences of adults from families without college education were examined. Three themes were identified: the role of the father, expectations about career, and expectations about college. Implications for college counselors are provided.     

Peer Influence on Ethnic‐Racial Identity Development: A Multi‐Site Investigation

The peer context features prominently in theory, and increasingly in empirical research, about ethnic‐racial identity (ERI) development, but no studies have assessed peer influence on ERI using methods designed to properly assess peer influence. We examined peer influence on ERI centrality, private, and public regard using longitudinal social network analysis. Data were drawn from two sites: a predominantly Latina/o Southwestern (SW) school (N = 1034; Mage = 12.10) and a diverse Midwestern (MW) school (N = 513; Mage = 11.99). Findings showed that peers influenced each other's public regard over time at both sites. However, peer influence on centrality was evident in the SW site, whereas peer influence on private regard was evident in the MW site. Importantly, peer influence was evident after controlling for selection effects. Our integration of developmental, contextual, and social network perspectives offers a fruitful approach to explicate how ERI content may shift in early adolescence as a function of peer influence.     

The Tunisian Educational Reform: From Quantity to Quality and the Need for Monitoring and Assessment

The Tunisian education system, like that of many other Southern nations of intermediate wealth, finds itself pulled in opposing directions. While quantitative advances at different levels of instruction have been easily achieved, a reorientation towards qualitative matters is nowadays more than ever necessary. Reforms at the secondary level, and the perspectives that they open up in terms of an improvement in the quality of educational services for young people, will receive special attention in this article. Radical changes in the traditional status of school inspectors are needed. Furthermore, a new national agency for monitoring and evaluating students' outcomes and schools' performance is indispensable.     

From Theory to Practice: A Cognitive Systems Approach

Theories of learning and teaching have tended in the past to have been derived top‐down, from existing theory. It is increasingly recognised today that such a strategy oversimplifies a complex reality, in which there is a great deal of mutual interaction. One way of handling the situation is to derive contextualised theories, such as phenomenography. Such theories are however part of a more general model based on systems theory, in which all parts of the teaching‐learning context are seen as seeking equilibrium. A “system” may exist at several levels: The student, the classroom, the institution, the community. The task of teacher and of staff developer is to achieve those good teaching practices that are viable within the existing matrix of systems and subsystems. Implications in such areas as improving teaching and assessment, using questionnaires for assessing teaching, training in study skills, and conducting research, are discussed.     

From personal to conventional probabilities: from sample set to sample space

This article is a systematic reflection on a sequence of episodes related to teaching probability. Our central claim is that reducing problems to a consideration of the sample space, which consists of equiprobable outcomes, may not be in accord with learners’ initial ways of reasoning. We suggest a “desirable pedagogical approach” in which the solution builds on the set of outcomes as identified by learners and serves as a bridge towards mathematical convention. To explore prospective high school mathematics teachers’ ideas related to addressing a potential learner’s mistake and their reactions towards the suggested approach, we presented them with two tasks. In Task I, participants (n = 30) were asked to suggest a pedagogical remedy to a frequent mistake found in dealing with a standard probability problem, whereas in Task II, they were asked to solve a probabilistic problem, which they had not encountered previously. We discuss participants’ mathematical solutions to Task II in reference to their pedagogical approaches to Task I. The presented disparity serves in extending the convincing power of the suggested pedagogical approach.     

A New Approach to BEC Assessment

Abstract

Three key researches bearing on YTS are analysed: that of the IMS (Institute for Manpower Studies) which provided the training rationale for YTS; an important economic analysis (Chapman &; Tooze 1987); and Raffe's long‐term study derived from the SYPS (Scottish Young People's Survey). A series of ‘contradictions’ are examined which are likely to undermine YTS, the most serious being MSC's ambiguous role as a manager of both employment and unemployment. The IMS rationale is defective and ideologically based but has become institutionally entrenched. In practice it proves counterproductive, particularly with regard to the OTF (Occupational Training Families) system. Because of this YTS does not meet real labour market needs; there has been a reversal of the roles of supply and demand. Raffe argues that improving the quality of YTS has no bearing on its success or failure. He stresses the ‘primacy of context’ over content, arguing that unless labour market contexts are changed, YTS cannot succeed. In the educational context a ‘vicious circle of low status’ is identified with YTS which it will be hard to break. Recommendations are made which include (a) a second year which is industry — rather than occupationally‐based; (b) unconstrained movement across OTFs in order to reduce a counterproductive bias in that system; (c) YTS should be financed by government and not by employers in order to combat uneven coverage of training endemic in the ‘voluntary’ system; (d) there should be an expansion of the ‘credentialling’ sector of YTS; (e) and/or an expansion of higher status places in the ‘contest’ sector. YTS is then set against current changes in MSC and government policy regarding education and training.     

A Project‐Based Approach to Executive Education

Executive education (EE) has been an important part of business school offerings for nearly as long as there have been business schools. Similarly, business schools were among the first in higher education to adopt online approaches as a means for course delivery. Despite this experience, few business schools have been able to successfully integrate EE with online delivery approaches. This study suggests that a project‐based approach can achieve EE/online delivery integration. The case is first made for a project‐based approach by telling the story of our institution's journey toward a project‐based EE model. Challenges, successes, and plans for the future are then discussed.     

Embedded Mathematics Remediation Using The Math You Need,When You Need It: A 21st‐Century Solution to an Age‐Old Problem

Using the need for math skills in geoscience courses as an example, Helen E. Burn and Eric M. D. Baer from Highline Community College and Jennifer M. Wenner from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh make the case for just‐in‐time embedded remediation to improve student learning while using class time efficiently.     

Teaching for Open‐Mindedness: A Justice‐Oriented Approach

This article explores the pedagogical virtue of open‐mindedness in practice and its relationship to epistemic justice through analysis of a fictional, narrative case. The case focuses on a young white woman who attempts to implement a pedagogy of open‐mindedness as she teaches a unit on the civil rights movement. After presenting the case scenario, Tadashi Dozono and Rebecca Taylor examine three tensions that arise for teachers as they seek to enact a pedagogy of open‐mindedness. First, what form of open‐mindedness should guide them? Second, how should they respond to limits in their own knowledge and understanding? And finally, how should teachers exercise authority within a pedagogy of open‐mindedness? Their analysis confronts the tension between the teacher's own open‐mindedness, on the one hand, and the teacher's subject position, on the other. Through this exploration of open‐mindedness, Dozono and Taylor argue that, in practice, teachers must counteract legacies of epistemic injustice as a necessary part of cultivating their own and their students' access to open‐mindedness.     

Educational Equality: A Politico‐Temporal Approach

In a number of more recent studies, it has been argued that an increasingly presentistic temporal regime has emerged in educational politics since the 1970s. Against this backdrop, with Sweden as an exemplar, the purpose of this study is twofold. Firstly, it serves to elaborate on how this presentist temporal logic in the educational field appears to be entwined with a specific form of equality, which I will refer to as imaginary equality. Arguing that it is motivated to conceive of these two—the tendency of presentism and the imaginary equality—as one problem complex, I maintain that the politico‐temporal order that has emerged since the 1970s runs counter to democracy as a regime for enhancing political freedom. In light of this, the second purpose is to delineate a politically more dynamic way to tackle education as a politico‐temporal challenge. I argue that Hannah Arendt's reflections on the role of education and her idea of the world offer ways to address the problem which calls into question the tenacious and with modernity concomitant division between traditionalism and progressivism. I maintain that we, by cutting across this division, open up for more viable ways of tackling education as a politico‐temporal challenge.     

从评价到决策:考试大数据的价值分析与实践路径

考试大数据是教育大数据的重要组成部分,其中蕴藏着的巨大价值对于实现从单一考试向多元评价转变和精准教育决策有着重要的意义。相较于其他行业的大数据,考试大数据具有更强的真实性和相关性,数据采集和处理也更加复杂。目前,考试大数据应用中存在着数据采集和处理困难、数据共享存在壁垒、专业人才匮乏、安全保护压力巨大等一系列问题。要解决这些问题,应该从顶层制度设计入手,不断加强大数据基础设施建设,促进考试大数据的产、学、研协同发展,完善数据安全保护政策法规和技术措施来确保考试大数据应用的健康发展。     

A Multi‐Institutional Web‐Based Undergraduate Food Product Innovation and Marketing Course

ABSTRACT: Food product development courses at The Pennsylvania State University and Saint Joseph's University were combined into a single course with a common faculty, syllabus, and web‐based course management system. Industry specialists made weekly presentations on critical aspects of the product development and marketing process, via compressed video conferencing and the Web, to students at both locations. Cross‐institutional interdisciplinary student teams completed a comprehensive plan for developing, evaluating, and launching a new product. Assessment of student learning revealed an enhanced understanding of all aspects of the product innovation, development, and marketing processes. The net result is a model learning system transcending disciplines, place, and time.     

从联结主义到联通主义:学习理论的新取向

联结成为探究和解释个体学习现象的一个视角,从行为主义学习观、认知主义学习观到新近的联通主义各个学习流派都曾把联结看成学习发生的基础。而随着信息时代个体学习的社会化和学习情景的复杂化,联结主义学习理论正面临新的挑战。有必要提出一种新的认识框架和联结主义体系来重新建构学习,这将成为指导知识时代学习设计的新基础。     

A Consumer‐Driven Approach to Increase Suggestive Selling

Several research articles have been published demonstrating the effectiveness of behavioral interventions in improving suggestive selling behavior of sales staff (e.g., Johnson & Masotti, 1990; Martinko, White, & Hassell, 1989; Mirman, 1982; Ralis & O'Brien, 1986). Procedures employed in these studies made use of two classes of personnel to implement the intervention: (1) personnel internal to the organization or (2) external consultants. The current study examined the efficacy of a consumer‐driven approach to improve suggestive selling behavior of three employees of a fast food franchise. Customers delivered either a verbal prompt or praise to an employee after they had placed their order. Delivery of a prompt or praise depended on whether or not the employee made a suggestion for an additional food purchase. This consumer‐driven intervention increased suggestive selling behaviors of all three employees, and was associated with higher suggestive sales in each case.     

A Janus‐faced Approach to Learning. A Critical Discussion of Habermas' Pragmatic Approach

A realist approach to learning is what I propose here. This is based on a non‐epistemic dimension whose presence is a necessary assumption for a concept of learning of a life‐world as complementary to learning within a life‐world. I develop my approach in opposition to Jürgen Habermas' pragmatic approach, which seems to lack of something from a realist point of view.     

Needs Assessment as a Change Strategy: A Case Study

Needs assessment provides a tool for gathering data which, when applied back upon the situation it addresses, becomes a first step in a change process. A major criticism of needs assessment has been that frequently the process is an exercise, and that the results are seldom actually applied in the planning process. The question arises whether the process, separate from the intended results, can be beneficial to the organization. This article documents a case study in which needs assessment and a change model were applied in conjunction with each other in such a way that the needs assessment process, independent of data collected, served as a change strategy. In this case, while the results of the needs assessment were important to the planning process, the needs assessment process itself, independent of its conclusions, also contributed to the organization's change goals.