Evaluating the Economic and Social Impact of Vocational Rehabilitation Programs in Victoria

The purpose of this paper is to identify some key issues involved in developing economic and societal impact indicators for vocational rehabilitation outcomes. A case study approach is adopted which focuses on the role and performance of the Victorian Accident Rehabilitation Council (VARC)—a key agency in the recently established (September, 1985) WorkCare system in the State of Victoria. This paper is, in part, an outgrowth of a recently completed management review of VARC (Parliamentary Joint Committee on WorkCare, 1988), but it also reflects a number of longstanding concerns by the author in the specification of objectives and performance indicators—internal, client specific, and societal—of public agencies. VARC has not been singled out because its approach and commitment to performance indicators is significantly different than those of other agencies in Victoria or other public sector jurisdictions in Australia, but because it is, in fact, typical.     

The Measurement of Progress and the Role of Education

Some talk of well-being, others of sustainable development, and some of progress. They may differ in their terminology, but those who preach these ideas are part of a growing global consensus — a consensus that believes societies need to look beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to develop a more holistic view of the directions in which they are heading. The strength of the consensus is evidenced by the thousands of initiatives worldwide that seek to measure societal progress. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is advocating and supporting this work through its Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies. The article focuses on two areas.

• • Global views on measuring progress and well-being. Why do increasingly many people consider that measuring progress and well-being is important? What are they trying to achieve and is any agreement emerging around what ‘well-being’ is and how it can be measured?
• • Education and well-being. Do, and should, measures of ‘education’ play a role in any set of key indicators that seek to assess societal well-being? And what are the links between how educated a society is and how, indeed whether, it is progressing against other key economic, social and environmental concerns?

     

Student resistance movements in higher education: an analysis of the depiction of Black Lives Matter student protests in news media

Abstract

Popular media shapes societal perceptions and discourse. The growing use of news media in higher education practices (outreach, admissions, and campus communication) have heightened the need for institutional leadership to not only understand the general impact of popular media but also to comprehend students’ representation, as well as the acquisition and dissemination of media content. In this study, authors present a media content analysis of newspaper coverage of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the well-known periodical, the Chronicle of Higher Education. Ultimately, this study demonstrates (1) organizational leadership can be influenced and disrupted to promote racial justice and (2) the discursive treatment of the BLM in popular media and, and by extension, in the United States’ public imagination. Overall, this study suggests that in situations where institutional policies perpetuate racial inequity, BLM student movements have the capacity to complicate existing discourse about Blackness in higher education and catalyze substantial social change.     

Why are some universities better? An evaluation in terms of organizational culture and academic performance*

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between organizational culture and academic performance among higher education institutions. The sample was composed of 647 faculty members working in the colleges of education, health, engineering, law, economics, and administrative sciences in four central research universities in Turkey. The Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) was used to describe organizational culture, whereas University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) data were used to investigate academic performance. A multilevel analysis in which one unit of analysis (i.e., faculty member) was nested within another (i.e., college) was performed. The original contribution made to the literature by this research is its examination of the relationships between organizational culture and tangible performance indicators (e.g., the number of academic publications and citations). Results show that three different culture types were observed in the universities: Innovative team culture, competitive culture, and hierarchic culture. Although significant relationships were found between academic performance and both competitive culture and innovative team culture, the sole significant predictor of academic performance was competitive culture. One particularly interesting finding was that whereas competitive culture was effective on quantitative indicators (i.e., number of publications and number of citations), only innovative team culture affected the indicators related to effectiveness (i.e., article impact level and citation impact level).     

Toward a “Hard” Metric for Educational Utility

Education is far too costly an enterprise to operate without precise indicators of the successes and consequences of educational interventions. Unfortunately, many educational economists and educators have resisted measuring the societal impacts of educational programs, options, and interventions because a reliable and valid metric did not exist for those consequences. This article explores alternatives to the metrics utilized thus far in measuring the individually oriented “preferences” used in the conceptualization of utility, and argues that a “hard” metric which would either monetize or impute monetary values for both individual and social outcomes is both possible and useful. A hard metric is one that is independently verifiable based upon values attributed to results. While any such metric will be both imperfect and controversial, we suggest that it is more desirable to attempt its development than to take the greater risk of pretending that one is not possible. Three alternative (and related) types of educational results are suggested: products, outputs, and outcomes. Possible results-oriented indicators for each are suggested. These will serve as a basis for developing a useful hard metric for educational utility.     

The impact of school finance reform on indicators of expenditure inequality

Many indicators of per-pupil expenditure inequality vary in response to changes in enrollment patterns as well as in expenditure patterns. Enrollment-compensated indicators of inequality should be used in making prereform, postreform estimates of the impact of school finance reforms. However, neither enrollment-compensated nor uncompensated indicators reveal any short-run impact in a case study of the 1975 New Jersey reform. Despite this lack of change registered by the static indicators, a substantial proportion of districts are found to be mobile, in the sense of moving at least two expenditure deciles over the study period. Enrollment changes are the only identified cause for such mobility.     

The impact of society on educational technology

Much has been written about the impact of the new technologies on society by Jacques Ellul, Stafford Beer, and many others. But there has been very littleanalysis of the reverse—the impact of evolving commercial, political, and institutional interests, and their ideologies, on the development of technology. Educational technology in particular has been and is being shaped by these societal forces.
This article presents a theoretical perspective on the interaction and gives several instances of cultural impact on the development of computer/video-mediated educational technology in the US, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
Increased awareness of societal shaping should lead us to new research areas, and ultimately to more democratic, more fruitful, and more viable educational innovations.     

Research planning and management in non‐traditional research discipline areas

Abstract

In its drive for higher efficiency and effectiveness in higher education, the Australian Commonwealth Government released its policy on higher education, Higher Education: A Policy Statement during the late 1980s which contributed to the introduction of performance indicators to manage and assess the performance of the higher education system. The research component of annual Commonwealth funding to universities, called the Research Quantum, is now distributed by a set of performance indicators: external research income, publications count and higher degree research completions. This paper analysed the impact of these indicators on the research activities of Australian university academics based on Leibenstein's model of X‐efficiency. Although the impact of performance indicators on university academics was found to follow the pressure‐effort relationship, for some respondents, the increase in effort as a result of heightened pressure had involved strategic behaviour. Two conditions that are identified for the minimisation of an institution's X‐inefficiency despite high staff effort are a high ratio of maximising to non‐maximising decisions for both the staff and institution, and for all the institution's essential objectives/activities, and not just those which are measured by the performance indicators. The implications of these findings for the development and application of performance indicators are discussed.     

Towards the creative university: Five forms of creativity and beyond

The Creative University is susceptible to multiple interpretations which are moving in a fluid conceptual space. This conceptual openness can be adequately understood only as a set of discursive formations that reflect underlying societal changes. It is becoming a commonplace to suggest that creativity should no longer be seen as a matter of heroic individuals at work, for creativity is always a networked matter, but that reflection has to be widened to encompass a sense of underlying shifting societal forces, with the economy central stage and hence the emergence of the hybrid idea of the creative economy. Qua institution, the creative university sits uneasily between discourses of economicism and societal flourishing. The creative university, accordingly, has to be seen in this milieu, which is steering the university but which also is affording it new possibilities for creativity. Five levels of creativity are identified that serve as domains in which these forces and affordances coexist. One such level, university reflexive creativity, is singled out as the most significant of the five. The creative university, it follows, unfolds as sets of interactions between individuals, institutional structures and corporate agency. Even as the constraints multiply, so too ever‐wider possibilities for the creative university may be opening.     

Childbirth education in a world of challenges

In this column, the author considers the impact of widespread crises and global tensions on pregnancy and early parenting. Childbirth educators can help alleviate the impact of societal stress on expectant families.     

Efficiency by Performance Indicators? Evidence from Australian Higher Education

In its drive for higher efficiency and effectiveness in higher education, the Australian Commonwealth Government released its policy on higher education, Higher Education: A Policy Statement during the late 1980s which contributed to the introduction of performance indicators to manage and assess the performance of the higher education system. The research component of annual Commonwealth funding to universities, called the Research Quantum, is now distributed by a set of performance indicators: external research income, publications count and higher degree research completions. This paper analysed the impact of these indicators on the research activities of Australian university academics based on Leibenstein's model of X-efficiency. Although the impact of performance indicators on university academics was found to follow the pressure-effort relationship, for some respondents, the increase in effort as a result of heightened pressure had involved strategic behaviour. Two conditions that are identified for the minimisation of an institution's X-inefficiency despite high staff effort are a high ratio of maximising to non-maximising decisions for both the staff and institution, and for all the institution's essential objectives/activities, and not just those which are measured by the performance indicators. The implications of these findings for the development and application of performance indicators are discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Hope and climate change: the importance of hope for environmental engagement among young people

Although many young people think climate change is an important societal issue, studies indicate that pessimism is quite common. Finding ways to instill hope could therefore be seen as vital. However, is hope positively related to engagement or is it only a sign of illusory optimism? The aim of the study was to explore if hope concerning climate change has a significant relation to pro-environmental behavior as well as an impact on behavior when controlling for already well-known predictors such as values, social influence, knowledge, and gender. Two questionnaire studies were performed, one with a group of Swedish teenagers (n?=?723) and one with a group of Swedish young adults (n?=?381). ‘Constructive’ hope had a unique positive influence on pro-environmental behavior. Hope based on denial, however, was negatively correlated with pro-environmental behavior in the two samples and was a significant negative predictor in the teenage group. The conclusion is that hope is not only a pleasant feeling but could also work as a motivational force, if one controls for denial. Implications for education concerning sustainable development are discussed.     

Formal Teacher Competence and its Effect on Pupil Reading Achievement

The main aim of this study was to investigate the impact of formal teacher competence on pupils' reading achievement. The data comes from the Swedish participation in PIRLS 2001 in grade 3. Information was obtained from pupils (n = 5271) and teachers (n = 351). The analyses were conducted using 2-level structural equation modeling. Teacher competence was operationalized with multiple observed indicators and defined as a latent variable. Two measures of achievement were used: PIRLS 2001 reading test results and teacher judgement of pupil performance in the Swedish language. The results reveal that teacher competence was positively and similarly related to both achievement measures. No selection effects in terms of pupil socioeconomic status were found. The current study provides evidence for a strong impact of teacher competence on pupil reading achievement.     

Evaluating student allocation in the Portuguese public higher education system

This paper characterizes and evaluates the student allocation in the Portuguese public higher education system. It describes the supply and demand sides of the system by looking at the numerus clausus across areas of study and institutions, institutions’ degree of diversity, and performance and adjustment indicators based on students’ revealed preferences. Performance indicators quantify the adequacy between demand and supply, across institutions and fields of study, and gauge the performance of public higher education institutions in the competition for candidates. Adjustment indicators allow us to predict the potential impact of changes in higher education regulations on student allocation and its stability. According to these indicators, such changes could result in an expansion for some institutions and fields of study, whereas other institutions might face a reduction.

Contributions of Societal Modernity to Cognitive Development: A Comparison of Four Cultures

This study examined how societal changes associated with modernization are related to cognitive development. Data were from 4 cultural communities that represented a broad range of traditional and modern elements: the Garifuna (Belize), Logoli (Kenya), Newars (Nepal), and Samoans (American Samoa). Naturalistic observations and the performances of 3‐, 5‐, 7‐, and 9‐year‐old children (N = 192) on 7 cognitive measures were examined. Results replicated age‐related improvement on all measures. Contributions of modernity were evident in children’s play behaviors and cognitive performances, especially in skills related to schooling. Modernization and schooling independently predicted differences on most of the measures. Results are discussed in relation to the Flynn effect, the worldwide increase in cognitive scores across generations, and the ways in which societal modernization may contribute to cognitive development.     

Conducting Video Research in the Learning Sciences: Guidance on Selection,Analysis, Technology,and Ethics

Linking research to a compelling societal interest can build financial commitments to research, bring increased attention to findings, and grow support for scaling up impacts. Among many compelling societal interests that learning scientists can cite—such as increasing the quality of life, preparing citizens to make decisions in a complex world, and enhancing social cohesion among a diverse population—economic competitiveness is a compelling societal interest that resonates broadly among stakeholders. Indeed, it is now somewhat common to introduce learning sciences research, as in the Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences and the U.S. National Education Technology Plan, by citing economic rationales. Despite the utility of evoking a potential link between learning research and economic competitiveness in the minds of broader audiences, learning scientists engage in rather little critical discussion of whether such links are meaningful and empirically sound within their own programs of research. This article seeks both to problematize conventional wisdom about links between learning sciences research and economic growth and to suggest possible directions for future research aimed at discovering stronger links. Because the issues are complex, we do not reach firm conclusions. Rather, this article seeks to spark a discussion within the field.     

Responsible research and innovation indicators for science education assessment: how to measure the impact?

ABSTRACT

The emerging paradigm of responsible research and innovation (RRI) in the European Commission policy discourse identifies science education as a key agenda for better equipping students with skills and knowledge to tackle complex societal challenges and foster active citizenship in democratic societies. The operationalisation of this broad approach in science education demands, however, the identification of assessment frameworks able to grasp the complexity of RRI process requirements and learning outcomes within science education practice. This article aims to shed light over the application of the RRI approach in science education by proposing a RRI-based analytical framework for science education assessment. We use such framework to review a sample of empirical studies of science education assessments and critically analyse it under the lenses of RRI criteria. As a result, we identify a set of 86 key RRI assessment indicators in science education related to RRI values, transversal competences and experiential and cognitive aspects of learning. We argue that looking at science education through the lenses of RRI can potentially contribute to the integration of metacognitive skills, emotional aspects and procedural dimensions within impact assessments so as to address the complexity of learning.     

‘Hard science’: a career option for socially and societally interested students? Grade 12 students’ vocational interest gap explored

ABSTRACT

A key theme in science education research concerns the decline in young peoples’ interest in science and the need for professionals in hard science. Goal Congruity Theory posits that an important aspect of the decision whether to pursue hard science for study or as a career is the perception that hard science careers do not fulfil social (working with people) and societal (serving or helping others) interests. In this qualitative study, we explore grade 12 students’ perceptions about the social and societal orientation of hard science careers. Furthermore, we investigate the variation in students’ social and societal interests. Six focus groups were conducted with 58 grade 12 students in Flanders. Our results indicate that a number of students hold stereotypical views about hard science careers’ social orientation, while others believe cooperation with others is an important aspect of hard science careers nowadays. Furthermore, our results show that students believe hard science careers can be societally oriented in the sense that they often associate them with innovation or societal progress. Finally, our results indicate that students may differentiate direct versus indirect societal orientation. These findings contribute to literature regarding social and societal interests and students’ perceptions of hard science careers.     

The securitisation of refugee flows and the schooling of refugees: examining the cases of North Koreans in South Korea and Iraqis in Jordan

Drawing on data collected in South Korea, Jordan and the USA, this paper examines the degree to which security concerns impact the schooling of North Korean refugees in South Korea and Iraqi refugees in Jordan. Operating from a framework examining the intersection of migration and securitisation, the authors find that accounts of negative images of and identity concealment among North Korean students present the most compelling linkages to a larger phenomenon of societal securitisation. At the same time, South Korean perceptions of North Koreans’ level of preparedness for working in a capitalist society present the most compelling linkages to economic securitisation. With respect to Christian Iraqi refugees in Jordan, plausible connections can be drawn between societal security and an Iraqi identity generally. With respect to economic concerns in Jordan, measures taken to restrict Iraqi integration into the labour force can be seen as security actions.