Assuring the Quality of Engineering Education: issues of effectiveness and the ethos of excellence

This paper examines the possibility of applying industrial principles of quality assurance within the sphere of engineering education. In view of the impending ‘one market Europe’ and the envisaged transnational mobility of professionals, it is important for educators to demonstrate their commitment to quality. It is suggested that to teach about quality within engineering courses is insufficient: it is time to prove the benefits of these concepts through personal commitment and action. The industrial Quality Assurance model, ISO9000 is considered in the context of education and is proposed as a suitable vehicle for the implementation of the requisite attitudinal and cultural changes embodied in Total Quality Management. The possible conflict between the industrial view of quality as fitness for purpose and the educational ethos of striving for excellence is discussed. It is concluded that there is an urgent need for engineering educators to practise what they preach and move towards a customer centred, market driven education system dedicated to continuous self-improvement.     

THE EFFECT OF SERIAL RETESTING ON THE RELATIVE PERFORMANCE OF HIGH- AND LOW-TEST ANXIOUS SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS1

Serial retesting was investigated as a means of improving the test performance of high-anxious students relative to that of their low-anxious peers. The Test Anxiety Scale for Children was given to about 300 seventh grade students in a suburban school; the middle 50% were eliminated to maximize experimental variance. Six groups were established for high and low anxiety levels and for three ability levels. The Academic Promise Tests (except for the Abstract Reasoning Test) were then given four times at 1-week intervals in the fall of the school year. All groups continued to improve significantly in a monotonic, linear fashion, with the greatest improvement occurring on the Numerical Test. Contrary to expectation, there were no significant interactions among previous achievement levels, predispositional test anxiety levels, and test trials. The greatest change on the Numerical Test occurred between the first test trial and the second test trial.     

Indoctrination and Social Context: A System‐based Approach to Identifying the Threat of Indoctrination and the Responsibilities of Educators

Debates about indoctrination raise fundamental questions about the ethics of teaching. This paper presents a philosophical analysis of indoctrination, including 1) an account of what indoctrination is and why it is harmful, and 2) a framework for understanding the responsibilities of teachers and other educational actors to avoid its negative outcomes. I respond to prominent outcomes‐based accounts of indoctrination, which I argue share two limiting features—a narrow focus on the threat indoctrination poses to knowledge and on the dyadic relationship between indoctrinator and indoctrinated person. I propose a system‐based account of indoctrination in which actors with authority contribute to the production or reinforcement of closed‐mindedness, which threatens both knowledge and understanding. By taking a system‐based approach, my account is better equipped to identify the implications of indoctrination for educational policy and practice.     

Leadership and Strategic Management: keys to institutional priorities and planning*

Allocating and managing resources have always been important cornerstones of institutional leadership. Institutional resources include financial, physical and human components. Even in the best of times, it is a challenge to do this effectively. In times of diminished and shrinking resources, distributing these precious commodities across the institutions in the most equitable and productive manner is fraught with complications. As higher education funding streams expand and present more options, they also create new challenges. Leaders today must be well-versed in the emerging realms of philanthropy and entrepreneurialism. Beyond monetary resources, leaders and senior managers must monitor and understand the external environment in order to make discerning decisions about the viability of further infrastructure investments because of changing student demographics or the complexities of personnel within the dynamic culture of social organisations. This article will stress the need for leadership and an institutional planning process as essential prerequisites to effective resource allocations. Portugal will also be discussed as a case study.     

Reducing Aggressive Behavior and Increasing Motivation in School: The Evolution of an Intervention to Strengthen School Adjustment

The pervasive links between problem behaviors and school adjustment suggest that effective intervention programs to enhance school adjustment must focus both on decreasing the motivation to aggress and increasing the motivation to achieve. We describe a program of intervention research to improve social behavior and academic motivation in elementary school students organized around principles of attribution theory. Our intervention curriculum initially focused on reducing children's aggression and was then expanded to include enhancing personal responsibility. A series of efficacy and effectiveness studies have demonstrated that children's attributions in both the social and academic domains can be changed with cost-effective, educational strategies. These changes in children's cognitions have reliably produced positive changes in behavior. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our work for the design of effective interventions.