Cultural factors influencing Eastern and Western engineering students’ choice of university

Insight into factors that affect students’ choice of university is useful when designing study programmes, especially in global competition for students. This study focuses on Taiwanese and Norwegian students’ preferences for university, study programme, course qualities and future career qualities. Hofstede's model was used to predict culture-related differences. A pair-wise decision questionnaire was used to conduct measurements. Cultural differences were observed in relation to choice of university, course qualities and future careers. Discipline of study had only minor impact on students’ preferences. The results suggest that a career-relevant curriculum is culture-neutral. Moreover, personal advice is the most preferred factor among Taiwanese students when choosing university.     

多语多方言地区高校语言学人才培养模式研究——以贺州学院为例

贺州市位于湘粤桂三省区交界处,是一个多民族、多方言地区.贺州学院的生源主要来自广西壮族自治区,大部分学生的母语为少数民族语言或汉语方言.我们以贺州学院为例探讨研究多语多方言地区汉语言人才的培养模式,发挥学生的语言优势,培养语言学人才.     

First-year university students’ academic success: the importance of academic adjustment

Considering the pivotal role of academic adjustment for student success, it is important to gain insight into how several motivational and behavioural factors affect academic adjustment and the extent to which academic adjustment influences student success. This empirical study investigated how intrinsic motivation, academic self-efficacy, self-regulated study behaviour and satisfaction with the chosen degree programme influenced academic adjustment in university and how these variables and adjustment affected three important indicators of student success: grade point average (GPA), attained number of credits (ECTS) and intention to persist. The sample consisted of 243 first-year university students in the Netherlands. Structural equation modelling showed that academic adjustment was influenced by intrinsic motivation, self-regulated study behaviour and degree programme satisfaction, which together explained 72% of the variance in adjustment. Motivational and behavioural variables did not influence GPA and credits directly but through academic adjustment. Furthermore, only satisfaction with the degree programme predicted intention to persist. These results point to the importance of academic adjustment in predicting university GPA and credits and the pivotal role of satisfaction with the degree programme in predicting intention to persist. Universities could integrate the development of self-regulated study skills—the biggest contributor to academic adjustment—in the first-year programme. Moreover, looking at the importance of students’ satisfaction with the programme, communication and collaboration between secondary schools and universities should be enhanced in order to help students to choose a university degree programme that matches their abilities, interests and values.     

The Usefulness of the University in the United States to the Whole Education System and its Potential for Programme Innovation

This article provides a conceptual assessment of the changing and potential uses of the American university to the national education system and to the development of the so‐called learning society. The author argues that the role played by American universities over the past fifty years in the domain of research and development gave rise to interuniversity competition that has been marked by a high level of innovation and change. Moreover, the university will continue to be a source of new ideas during the current trend of reduced budgets, increased accountability, and a more diversified and fragmented educational system. In spite of political constraints, examples exist of programmes within the university system that are both financially feasible and progressive in regard to the aims of the learning society. An example of an innovative programme, the Interactive Electronic Classroom of the New School for Social Research (New York City) is provided.     

美国实施“优秀科学教师专业标准”经验述评

美国一向把科学教育看做提高国家竞争力的重要基础,高度关注科学教师的质量。建立专业标准是提高教师质量的基础和前提。联邦政府在长期支持"国家教学专业标准委员会"建立优秀科学教学专业标准并认证优秀科学教师的基础上,近年又在教育发展战略上强调"只有优秀的教师才能培养优秀的学生,高素质的教师队伍是保证教育质量的关键",并从政策上和经费投入上提出"投资卓越教学",推广优秀科学教师实践,借以加强科学教师队伍建设,进而促进整个教育质量提高。本文旨在解读分析美国"国家教学专业标准委员会"开发的优秀科学教师专业标准的准则、内容、特点,从而为我国试行教师专业标准提供可资借鉴的经验。     

Facing Bipolar: The Young Adult's Guide to Dealing with Bipolar Disorder,by Russell Federman and J. Anderson Thomson,Jr.

Comprehensive—yet cost-effective—provision of psychological care is a timely concern for most college counseling centers. The current review summarizes the components of a program designed to meet such seemingly discordant demands. The Counselor-in-Residence program places live-in, doctoral students in clinical psychology/counselor education, in residence halls in order to provide on-site, easily accessible, and professionally supervised mental health support services for residents and residence life staff. The process of program development and implementation of the Counselor-in-Residence program at a medium-sized Midwestern university is discussed.     

The road to self-assessment: exemplar marking before peer review develops first-year students’ capacity to judge the quality of a scientific report

Lack of clarity about assessment criteria and standards is a source of anxiety for many first-year university students. The Developing Understanding of Assessment for Learning (DUAL) programme was designed as a staged approach to gradually familiarise students with expectations, and to provide opportunities for the development of the skills required to successfully complete assessment tasks. This paper investigated the students’ perceptions of the first two components of the DUAL programme, which assist first-year biology students to engage with stated assessment criteria and standards in order to develop their capacity to make judgements about scientific report exemplars, their peers’ scientific reports and ultimately their own. The study found strong evidence (96% of responses) that the marking and discussion of exemplar reports with peers and demonstrators clarified expectations of scientific report writing. A key feature of this element of DUAL was the opportunity for structured discussion about assessment criteria and standards between peers and markers (demonstrators). During these discussions, students can clarify explicit statements and develop a tacit knowledge base to enhance their ability to judge the quality of others’ work and their own. The peer review exercise (the second element of DUAL) was not rated as highly, with 65% of students finding the process helpful for improving their report. The negative reactions by a sizeable minority of students highlight the need to clearly communicate the expectations and benefits of peer review, with a focus on how the process of giving feedback to peers might benefit a student as much as receiving feedback on their own report.     

新疆高校少数民族大学生竞争意识教育中需注意的关系问题

随着全球化步伐的加快,竞争无处不在,当代大学生想要在激烈的竞争中站稳脚跟必须要具有正确的竞争观念,而少数民族大学生由于自身的特点在全国大学生中又是一个特殊的群体。少数民族大学生的竞争意识教育对于自身价值的实现、民族的未来发展和援疆建设的人才供给都至关重要。文章主要针对竞争意识教育中需注意的竞争和平等、竞争和合作、竞争和法制三对关系进行思考和分析,以求提高竞争意识教育的有效性,促进新疆民族地区的长久发展。     

The assessment of student PowerPoint presentations—attempting the impossible?

Assessing students through their Microsoft PowerPoint presentations might be thought to be impossible, a waste of time or a fascination with new technology which will pass sooner or later. However, to make a judgement on such assertions requires examining the strengths and weaknesses of such a form of assessment. Examples within an academic setting are few and far between, but this paper explores one such case—a Microsoft PowerPoint assessment used in an undergraduate Bachelor programme in Travel and Tourism in a Norwegian university college. The goal of this essay is to look at its validity, measured in terms of how well its empirical evidence and theoretical rationales support the adequacy of its inferences on assessment.     

新建本科院校“十二五”期间生源状况探析——兼论安康学院“十二五”期间学生规模

学生规模是高校发展规划的重要指标,也是编制规划最基础的数据。学生规模是由生源状况决定的。新建本科院校未来五年的生源将面临基础教育在校学生数量减少、同行竞争等不利因素,同时国家教育目标的战略性调整和重点高校人才培养定位的转型,也会给新建本科院校的生源带来一些正面影响。各高校在设计未来五年学生规模时,不仅要研究这些共性问题,还应加强自身具体情况和特殊性的研究。     

Recruiting Students from China

For the past several decades, China has sent many students to other higher education systems for education overseas. The Taiwanese higher education sector, which is facing intense international competition, is also attempting to recruit students from China in order to internationalize its higher education and solve the problem of overprovision of university places. However, due to national security concerns and youth employment opportunities, recruiting Chinese students has aroused controversies on the island, and the government in Taiwan proposed a "three limits and six noes" policy to promote the interests of local students and societies. However, this inward-looking policy may bring a wide range of dilemmas, such as the conflict of policy objectives between enhancing international competitiveness and promoting a more restricted recruiting policy, concerns about the quality of students admitted from China, the effectiveness of saving the private sector, the imbalanced flow of students crossing the Taiwan Strait, and the inequitable treatment of different tracks of nonlocal students.     

Self‐assessment in university assessment of prior learning procedures

Competency‐based university education, in which lifelong learning and flexible learning are key elements, demands a renewed vision on assessment. Within this vision, Assessment of Prior Learning (APL), in which learners have to show their prior learning in order for their goals to be recognised, becomes an important element. This article focuses on a first step in APL, namely students’ self‐assessment of their prior learning before entering university education. The main aim of the presented study is to examine the suitability of the use of self‐assessment in APL. First, in an explorative study, the main sources for self‐assessment are derived and the relation between sources and domain of study is investigated. Second, in a pre‐test post‐test research design, the hypothesis that students’ self‐assessment of prior learning related to a course changes after studying a domain‐specific course is tested. Pre‐test results reveal that students indicate that they have prior knowledge related to the chosen university programme. In general, this prior learning is obtained from study experience, work experience, books, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, TV, radio, film or video. A relation is found between the type of source and the university programme. The hypothesis that students change their self‐assessment after a study period could not be confirmed. Based on these results, it is concluded that self‐assessment in APL might be a suitable tool. Implications for further research are discussed.     

A Case Study in the Integration of Assessment and General Education: Lessons learned from a complex process

This paper tracks an ongoing, 15-year initiative to reform and assess a general education programme at a regional comprehensive university in the US. The paper identifies four key phases in the process, chronicling emergent challenges, describing key setbacks and highlighting noteworthy successes. The authors identify five key lessons that may prove useful to other institutions planning or currently attempting to integrate assessment into their general education programme, and conclude that designing and implementing general education assessment is more challenging than assessing other programmes in post-secondary settings because it is influenced by more internal and external constituencies than any other assessment process.     

To what extent is capital expenditure in UK higher education meeting the pedagogical needs of staff and students?

Capital expenditure at United Kingdom (UK) universities is rapidly rising, with new buildings erected on the premise that national and international competitiveness must be maintained. We examine students’ engagement with and conceptualisation of university estate, and explore broader questions about the extent to which building design can support, and indeed change, students’ approaches to learning. Drawing on data collected from 10 staff members and over 200 students at a major UK institution, including detailed one-to-one interviews, we capture users’ often complex interactions with their university environment. Our findings confirm that when asked what would most improve their learning experience, students do not rank building design highly; interactional factors, such as contact time with staff, are considered more valuable. Our conclusion is that returns on capital investment would be boosted if pedagogical needs were prioritised more highly in the design of university buildings, and pedagogical opportunities communicated more clearly to users upon completion.     

Exploring the heterogeneity of class in higher education: social and cultural differentiation in Danish university programmes

This paper examines the relationship between social background, choice of university programme and academic culture among Danish university students. Statistically and sociologically, university students are often treated as a homogeneous group, but the ever-increasing number of students in higher education demands a closer examination of the hidden heterogeneity in the students’ social origin and educational strategies. Using a mixed-method approach (register data and ethnographic observations and interviews) the paper focuses on the students’ class origins and on different cultural practices in three Danish university programmes. It is shown that the Danish university field is characterized by a significant variation in social selectivity from programme to programme, and it is argued that these different social profiles correspond with distinctively different cultural practices in the programmes. Correspondingly, the students have distinctively different strategies towards education and future work life.     

Aspiration for global cultural capital in the stratified realm of global higher education: why do Korean students go to US graduate schools?

This study aims to understand Korean students’ motivations for studying in US graduate schools. For this purpose, I conducted in‐depth interviews with 50 Korean graduate students who were enrolled in a research‐centered US university at the time of the interview. In these interviews, I sought to understand how their motivations are connected not only with their family, school, and occupational backgrounds, but also with the stratification of global higher education. Theoretically, this paper attempts to combine the concept of global positional competition with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital in the field of global education. By critically examining a push–pull model of transnational higher education choice‐making, this study situates Korean students’ aspirations in the contexts of global power and the hierarchy of knowledge‐degree production and consumption. After analyzing the students’ qualitative interviews, I classify their motivations for earning US degrees within four categories: enhancing their class positions and enlarging their job opportunities; pursuing learning in the global center of learning; escaping the undemocratic system and culture in Korean universities; and fulfilling desires to become cosmopolitan elites armed with English communication skills and connections within the global professional network. Based on this analysis, I argue that Korean students pursue advanced degrees in the United States in order to succeed in the global positional competition within Korea as well as in the global job marketplace. As they pursue advanced US degrees, Korean students internalize US hegemony as it reproduces the global hierarchy of higher education, but at the same time Korean students see US higher education as a means of liberation that resolves some of the inner contradictions of Korean higher education, including gender discrimination, a degree caste system, and an authoritarian learning culture. Therefore, this study links Korean students’ aspiration for global cultural capital to complex and irregular structures and relations of class, gender, nationality, and higher education that extend across local, national, and global dimensions simultaneously.     

试论当下高校校园刊物的生存与发展——以上海交通大学的《表达》与复旦大学的《北辰》为例

大学校园应当是一片思想净土,文学陶冶年轻学子心性的良剂,文学类的校园期刊是莘莘学子们尽情挥洒才情的伊甸园。通过对上海交通大学的《表达》和复旦大学的《北辰》的比较研究,分析了当下校园文学刊物的生存现状及其未来发展的思考。     

Using the Objective Borderline Method (OBM) to support Board of Examiners’ decisions in a medical programme

Decisions about progress through an academic programme are made by Boards of Examiners, on the basis of students’ course assessments. For most students such pass/fail grading decisions are straightforward. However, for those students whose results are borderline (either at a pass/fail boundary or boundaries between grades) the exercise of some discretion by university staff is required. In the interests of the transparency of the exercise of this discretion and to increase the chances that the ‘right’ decision is made, we tested the validity of the second version of the Objective Borderline Method (OBM2) decision-making tool in a medical programme. Our results suggest that application of OBM2 provides valid data to help university staff make robust decisions about a student’s progression through a programme, and with which to defend these decisions if that should be required.     

以学科竞赛为支撑构建省级大学生科技创新交流平台

提高大学生的实践能力和创新能力是高校必须面对和破解的难题,桂林电子科技大学教务处,以学科竞赛为支撑,通过建立省级大学生科技文化活动月、构建开放互动的省级培训体系、打造省级大学生科技创新交流平台、充分发挥国家级实验教学示范中心的示范作用等措施,在广西构建了大学生科技创新交流平台,经多年实践,对提高广西高校大学生实践能力和创新能力发挥了积极的促进作用。     

建设和谐校园文化是构建和谐高校的关键

当今时代,文化越来越成为民族凝聚力和创造力的重要源泉、越来越成为综合国力竞争的重要因素。要应对好高等教育的新形势、新局面,处理好当前高校面对的新问题、新矛盾,构建具有中国特色的社会主义和谐高校,就必须牢牢把握建设和谐校园文化这一关键,保持＂先进性＂,突出＂创新性＂,坚持＂多样性＂,使高校校园文化成为和谐高校凝聚力、向心力和感召力的源泉和广大师生的精神家园。