Business and Higher Education Partner to Develop a High‐Skilled Workforce: A Case Study

The workforce development literature contains little scholarly work on how organizations in a community work together to develop a high‐skilled workforce. This exploratory case study examined business and higher education partnerships that were instrumental in creating such an educational infrastructure for information technology in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The findings from this case study provide insight into the chronology of key events and the leaders' characteristics and their interactions. Tulsa's IT workforce‐development infrastructure was negotiated one partnership at a time, bridging diverse interests, until a workforce‐development system emerged. The infrastructure grew as the result of accident, purposeful activity, serendipity, and negotiated processes and structures. The leaders' differing motivations and energy, their history of collaboration and mutual trust, and their different perspectives influenced the information technology workforce development infrastructure that developed. The insights into inter‐organization processes that resulted from the study can contribute to theory building in human performance technology and to our understanding of how to address gaps between desired and actual workforce performance at a community level.     

Critical Issues Facing America's Community Colleges: A Summary of the Community College Futures Assembly 2008

Three focus groups consisting of board of trustee members, community college presidents, senior administrators, administrators, and faculty members developed critical issues facing community colleges with respect to instructional planning and services; planning, governance, and finance; and workforce development. Thereafter, the delegation of more than 200 voted on various aspects of the most critical issue divulged in the 2008 Community College Futures Assembly: general education assessment is coming. The findings, including opportunities and challenges, potential implications for community college administrators, and future research topics are also discussed, mostly in the context of workforce development opportunities.     

A Longitudinal View of the Liberal Arts Curriculum a Decade After Merger: A Multiple Case Study of Community Colleges in Connecticut,Kentucky, and Louisiana

This study is an examination of the state of the liberal arts curriculum in community colleges in three geographic regions of the United States. From a constructivist paradigm and using globalization theory as a theoretical framework, this multiple case study examined faculty work life and administrative processes related to curriculum change in merged community and technical colleges. Through an examination of research on globalization, mergers, and trends in the general education and liberal arts curriculum, a gap in the literature emerged in the studies of community college curriculums after merger. This study considers whether the focus on workforce development and decrease in the transfer mission has diminished the liberal arts courses in the college curriculum. Research on liberal arts courses identified them as courses that emphasize higher order thinking and the development of intellectual skills needed to engage in a democratic society. If students are not exposed to these skills, it may have a detrimental effect on a democratic society. Study findings suggested that the English and communication curriculums are narrowing and the mission is more toward workforce skill preparation. Also, the changing demographics of today[#x02019]s community college students, as well as the ongoing budget constraints, create challenges and frustrations for faculty members.     

Exploring burnout among university faculty: incidence,performance, and demographic issues

This study examines burnout and related issues among 265 university faculty members. The study estimates the percentage of incidence of highest levels of burnout is at half the rate of the general workforce. Female faculty members have significantly higher mean scores on emotional exhaustion than males, while male faculty have higher scores on depersonalization. Significant differences were not found across race/ethnicity groups but age is inversely correlated to emotional exhaustion. Burnout shows significant correlations with numbers of students taught, time invested in various activities, and numerical student evaluations. Suggestions are given to administrators for using a preventive strategy to anticipate burnout, rather than relying on reactive techniques, once it has occurred.     

Self-selection and Its Impact on Team Diversity and Performance

ABSTRACT : Increased diversity in the workforce brings several benefits. However, organizations may also face challenges as they seek to embrace diversity within team-based work environments. In this paper, we attempt to gauge the magnitude of this challenge by examining the level of diversity that results when individuals self-select their own team members. We describe a quasi-experimental field study in which we examine the ways individuals select project team members and how the resulting group composition is connected to the success or failure of those teams. We find that teams are most likely to form through prior acquaintance and/or demographic similarities. Linking composition to group process and performance, we find that ethnic diversity decreased similarity of work values but did not affect group performance, which is primarily predicted by satisfaction and conflict. We discuss the results in terms of the challenges and opportunities organizations face with a diverse workforce and a team-based work environment.     

Live and Learn: Informal Learning Among Future Professionals

Although most workplace learning occurs informally, instructional design and technology professionals often focus their attention on more formal interventions, such as training. This article addresses a research study that examined the perception and use of informal learning strategies among instructional design and technology graduate students, the future members of the workforce of instructional designers and performance improvement practitioners. Results of this study may have implications for both instructional design and technology graduate programs and managers of instructional design and technology teams in organizations.     

Decision-making in interdisciplinary treatment teams

Interdisciplinary teams for the treatment of child abuse and neglect are becoming more common. Studies have shown that decisions made by groups who have had the opportunity to discuss their perspectives are more accurate than judgments made by individuals. Why this may be true is not clear. The purpose of the present study was to discover the procedures an interdisciplinary treatment team uses in making decisions. A single interdisciplinary incest treatment team was observed over a 15-month period. Open-ended interviews with team members also were conducted. Findings show that the interdisciplinary treatment team made its decisions using procedures analogous to procedures used in social research to establish reliability and validity. The decision-making process of the team was characterized by multiple observations of family members by multiple observers in multiple settings over time. This decision-making process is similar to processes used by many other treatment teams. The findings of the present research, then, are likely to be generalizable to other teams whose decision-making processes are similar.     

The Whole PIE: A roadmap to comprehensive excellence

Responding to the alarming numbers of dissatisfied members of the U.S. workforce, this article introduces a workable plan of action titled “The Whole PIE,” which is useful for members of the workforce at all levels, to enhance their internal locus of control and enhance the quality of life at work for themselves and others. Starting with actions geared toward personal (“P”) performance enhancement, and subsequently graduating to actions at the interactive (“I”) and external (“E”) level, the text leads the reader toward a comprehensive perspective (The Whole “PIE”) in which short‐term and long‐term actors and factors are considered in one's workplace performance.     

Transnational families,ICTs and mobile learning

This article focuses on findings from an Economic and Social Research Council study in England about the uses of information and communication technologies (ICTs) among 15 highly mobile migrant workers within their transnational families. Using an extended case study approach including ethnographic methods and a thematic analysis, patterns appeared about learning within transnational families using ICTs. The findings were that their mobile learning was: (1) infused with caring; (2) multi-directional and involved multiple members; (3) translated tacit knowledge; and (4) enabled linguistic gifting. Implications for lifelong education centre on practice and policies that build on how transnational families communicate using ICTs. The study conclusions focus on the complexities of mobile learning within these families, showing that they are difficult to capture, but nonetheless important.     

Networks for Success: Preparing Mexican American AVID College Students for Credentials,Completion, and the Workforce

This qualitative study examines how Mexican American students participating in an AVID for Higher Education course perceived their preparation for the workforce and efficacy of completing a college credential. A focus group approach was used to explore how social and cultural networks (networks for success) contribute to college completion. The study is guided by the theoretical framework of building social networks through the availability and reception of social capital. Findings include Mexican American students’ efficacious beliefs of how networks for success assist in their persistence toward college graduation and entry into the workforce. Major themes are college success and social/cultural capital.     

Professionalization as an advocacy strategy: a content analysis of Canadian child care social movement organizations’ 2008 discursive resources

Do early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals make good advocates? Canadian advocates have fought for better child care policies since the mid-1940s. What has happened to this advocacy with the recent increased professionalization of the ECEC sector? How does increased professionalization limit, innovate or expand advocacy strategies? This content analysis of seven Canadian child care social movement organizations’ discursive resources in 2008 examines how different types of child care social movement organizations communicated their positions to their members and the public to manage a changing economic and political climate. Preliminary findings indicate that both ECEC workforce sector associations and grassroots organizations shared common advocacy messages, played down problems associated with a market approach to child care, and framed child care as a business case in their messaging. The authors suggest this reflects a nascent discursive move towards the professionalization of Canadian child care movement advocacy messages.     

The workplace experiences of beginning teachers in three countries: a message for initial teacher education from the field

Previous research indicates that beginning teachers are not fully prepared for what awaits them in the workforce. This study highlights the value of partnerships among higher education providers, schools and employers and links the experiences of beginning teachers to initial teacher education (ITE). Real-life experiences from the field provide information regarding beginning teachers’ complex teaching positions that is beneficial to prospective teachers and teacher educators. This transnational qualitative study, completed in Norway, South Africa and Australia, adopted a Vygotskian social constructivist theoretical stance. Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy was applied to offer an in-depth understanding of the effects of classroom experiences on beginning teachers’ professional identities and feelings of ‘belonging’ and ‘at homeness’ in their positions. The results of this study highlight the school leaders’ perceptions of how well graduate teachers are prepared to meet the demands of the workforce. The study concludes by demonstrating the value of linking beginning teachers’ experiences to interventions and the development of ITE programmes. This study’s evidence-based findings support its recommendations for policy-makers and its reflections on the link between ITE and employment.     

Enacting policy: the capacity of school leaders to support early career teachers through policy work

Early career teachers often feel overwhelmed by the complex, intense and unpredictable nature of their work. Recently, policy initiatives have been introduced to provide new teachers with extra release-time from face-to-face classroom teaching duties to assist them in their transition to the workforce. This paper reports on a critical policy study that investigated the enactment of this policy initiative. A data set was created from a larger qualitative study which investigated early career teacher resilience. Drawing on a policy enactment theoretical ‘toolbox’, the findings indicate that school leaders can empower early career teachers to move beyond being ‘receivers’ of policy to assume a more active policy role. This paper argues that school leaders are very powerful in their capacity to enact policy to ensure strategic access to appropriate on-going learning opportunities to support early career teachers.     

What does it take to be a “successful teacher”? Universities’ role in preparing the future early-years workforce

Within the knowledge era, Early Childhood Education has been attracting continued interest from scholars globally. In this regard, several studies have been conducted, with results identifying the multifarious attributes which members of the early years workforce should possess. But what does this imply for Early Childhood Teacher Education Departments? An exploratory quantitative study was conducted with a random sample of first-year and graduate students of the Department of Early Childhood Education of the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece, with the aim of recording students’ perceived views on the skills, knowledge and attitudes required for working in early years and their expectations of their studies. Results have identified some divergence between freshmen’s and graduates’ perceptions on required attributes, as well as on the role of their studies in preparing them to enter the early childhood teacher profession, with significant implications for improving university curricula, as well as for undertaking further research in the field.     

Teacher qualifications and early learning: Effects of certification,degree, and experience on first-grade student achievement

A fundamental issue inherent to education policy is whether teacher qualifications such as certification status, degree level, preparation, and experience predict student achievement. While existing research provides some direction regarding the potential importance of these qualifications for productivity in secondary schools, less is known about their importance for productivity in elementary schools. This study draws on data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) to analyze the relationship between elementary school teacher qualifications and first-grade achievement in reading and mathematics. While we find no effects for certification status, we report positive effects for teachers’ degree type and experience on reading achievement. We also discover potential contextual effects of teachers’ qualifications on student achievement, with first-graders demonstrating higher levels of reading and mathematics achievement in schools where teachers report higher levels of coursework emphasis in these subject areas. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy and future research.     

Staff responsiveness to transformation initiatives and diversity at a South African university

Abstract

South African organisations and particularly institutions of higher learning have been confronted with workforces that increasingly reflect the diversity of the South African population. This changing workforce composition implies that the multitude of individual and cultural differences and similarities become increasingly apparent among employees. These differences and similarities can be disruptive and may lead to disharmony, but if managed appropriately, they can also result in increased vigour, stimulation and energy. The importance of workforce diversity in especially a university environment cannot be over-emphasised, as these positive consequences are conducive and sustain universities in their role to expand knowledge that benefits the communities within which they operate. Various transformative initiatives to address diversity, have been devised and implemented, but the impact needs to be measured and assessed to enable leaders to manage diverse workforces more effectively. This article therefore aims to firstly, statistically identify the underlying dimensions of diversity within the largest university in Africa, namely the University of South Africa (Unisa). The responsiveness of university staff members who attended transformative diversity-training workshops are secondly investigated by comparing their responses to that of a matched sample of non-participating staff members. These workshops aimed to sensitise academic, administrative and professional staff at middle-management level to the new realities of an increasing diverse workforce. It is evident that the workshops had a positive impact and that they could be described as successful. The importance of noting that diversity interventions not only entail creating awareness of diversity issues, but also applying the principles of diversity management on a continuous basis, is underscored in this article.     

Sorting it Out: The Effects of Charter Expansion on Teacher and Student Composition at Traditional Public Schools

Since their introduction in the 1990s, charter schools have grown from a small-scale experiment to a ubiquitous feature of the public education landscape. The current study uses the legislative removal of a cap on the maximum number of charters in North Carolina as a natural experiment to assess the impacts of charter school growth on teacher quality and student composition in traditional public schools (TPS) at different levels of local market penetration. Using an instrumental variable difference-in-differences approach to account for endogenous charter demand, we find that intensive local charter entry reduces the inflow of new teachers at nearby TPS, leading to a more experienced and credentialed teaching workforce on average. However, we find that the entry of charters serving predominantly White students leads to reductions in average teacher experience, effectiveness, and credentials at nearby TPS. Overall these findings suggest that the composition of the teacher workforce in TPS will continue to change as charter schools further expand, and that the spillover effects of future charter expansion will vary by the types of students served by charters.     

‘Certified to make a difference’: the motivation and perceptions of newly qualified early years teachers in England

The last 20 years have brought numerous workforce reforms to the early years sector, enacted in the name of professionalisation, including the recent introduction of a new postgraduate qualification, the Early Years Teacher Status. This article features data from interviews with 22 participants who had just completed this award and situates their views in the relevant policy context and alongside a discussion of what it means to professionalise the early years sector and create a graduate led workforce. The data support findings from similar studies of Early Years Professionals, namely that the interviewees are passionate about working with young children. They view the sector as in need of change, and themselves as potential leaders and agents of change. The participants endorse the view that up-skilling the workforce is essential to the professionalisation of the sector and improving the quality of early years education.     

The professional identities of teacher educators in three further education colleges: an entanglement of discourse and practice

Initial teacher education programmes have been identified as crucial to meeting the twin policy aims of professionalising the further education (FE) workforce and achieving improved learner outcomes, yet college-based teacher educators are underrepresented in published research and commentary. Drawing on a case study of teacher educators employed by three FE colleges in England, this paper argues that the contested and politicised nature of the FE sector presents a unique set of circumstances that distinguishes this population from other members of their professional group and severely restricts the identities available to them. Through a thematic discursive analysis of documentation, observation and interview data, it is argued that FE positions teacher educator identity through political governance, through the business practices of colleges and through the sector’s historical relationships with vocational and higher education. Within this distinctive context, teacher educators experience competing identities of ‘qualified and credible’, ‘teacher’, ‘different from others’, ‘part of FE’ and ‘employee’ that are entangled with the dominant discourses of English further education. After discussing the implications of these findings for a professional profile of teacher educators, the paper concludes that teacher educators are better understood as a heterogeneous occupational group in order to avoid obscuring professional concerns linked to policy landscapes.     

In response to David Greenwood’s ‘Place mobility and faculty life: mindfulness through change’ through the lens of science teacher education programs

In writing this review, I draw on the experience of David Greenwood (Cult Stud Sci Educ 10:5–16, 2015) whose ethnographic study sheds light on his growth as a faculty member who has taught in various settings that are quite different from the culture that he grew up with. I extend his thoughts on ecological mindfulness to encompass a culturally aware method of teaching based on place sensitized more to the needs of science teacher preparation programs. The methods used in writing the review included literature searches for articles that incorporate ecological mindfulness and culturally responsive teaching in science teacher preparation programs and reflected ideas voiced in Greenwood’s article. Although he seems that he is primarily addressing other faculty members, his experiences can be used as lifelong lessons for preservice teachers entering a primarily homogeneous workforce expected to teach an increasingly diverse student population. His humor, use of Haiku, poetry and mindfulness as a way of becoming one with a culture that he is not accustomed has many lessons that prove useful in training more culturally responsive teachers. In light of an increasingly diverse US student population versus a stagnantly homogeneous teaching workforce, his reflective practice will prove useful to teachers who are expected to teach students with cultures different from their own.