Engineering graduates’ perceptions of how well they were prepared for work in industry

This study investigated how well chemical engineering graduates perceive they were prepared for work in industry. To this end, sixteen interviews were carried out with a purposive sample of recent University of Cape Town chemical engineering graduates. Qualitative analysis of the interview data showed that graduates felt that overall, they were well prepared for work in industry. They perceived their strengths to be their technical background, problem solving skills, formal communication skills and life-long learning abilities. The following areas of weakness were also identified: work in multi-disciplinary teams, leadership, practical preparation and management skills.

The use of interviews for data collection is a significant departure from the methods used in other studies in this area. The rich and contextual data gathered from the interviews justified this choice and contributed to the identification of issues not previously mentioned in the literature. For example, an unexpected finding of the study was that there was a clear link between the technical and non-technical attributes of engineering graduates, a result which has clear implications for the design of undergraduate engineering programmes.     

Is this radical enough? Curriculum reform,change, and the Language of Probability

Utilizing multiple perspectives as theoretical groundings the writer discusses both the need and construction of a Language of Probability as a companion to the extant languages of critique and possibility in critical curriculum theory. If radical curriculum reform is ever to move beyond the realm of the not yet, it is crucial that certain systemic realities are acknowledged and a language developed to deal with the negotiations necessary for the democratic application of critical curriculum theory in the public school systems of this country. Such developments are discussed by the writer relative to the extension of this new language. It is important to note this is neither a purely theoretical nor practical essay. Rather this melds the two mutually supportive positions into a concrete plan for action in radical school reform by beginning to define what are, and what are not, legitimate evaluative criteria for constructing the limits of the project.     

Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory-based assessment with deaf and hard of hearing children in the school setting

The general purpose of the present article is to emphasize contemporary research-based and theory-based assessment, specifically Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory-based assessment (Carroll, 1993, 1997; Horn & Noll, 1997), in work with deaf and hard of hearing students in the school setting. The article focuses on the history of cognitive ability theory and test development and interpretation, as well as contemporary perspectives, including recent applications of CHC-based assessment useful with deaf and hard of hearing students in school-based evaluations. Implications for future research and educational practice are discussed.     

Globalising assessment: an ethnography of literacy assessment,camels and fast food in the Mongolian Gobi

What happens when standardised literacy assessments travel globally? The paper presents an ethnographic account of adult literacy assessment events in rural Mongolia. It examines the dynamics of literacy assessment in terms of the movement and re-contextualisation of test items as they travel globally and are received locally by Mongolian respondents. The analysis of literacy assessment events is informed by Goodwin's ‘participation framework’ on language as embodied and situated interactive phenomena and by Actor Network Theory. Actor Network Theory (ANT) is applied to examine literacy assessment events as processes of translation shaped by an ‘assemblage’ of human and non-human actors (including the assessment texts).     

Classification of legal texts by computer

A suite of computer programs has been developed for representing the full text of lengthy documents in vector form and classifying them by a clustering method. The programs have been applied to the full text of the Conventions and Agreements of the Council of Europe which consist of some 280,000 words in the English version and a similar number in the French. Results of the clustering experiments are presented in the form of dendrograms (tree diagrams) using both the treaty and article as the clustering unit. The conclusion is that vector techniques based on the full text provide an effective method of classifying legal documents.     

Secular and Koranic literacies in South Asia: From colonisation to contemporary practice

This paper explores the distinction between ‘secular’ and ‘Koranic’ schooling and literacy in South Asia. It begins by tracing an archaeology of the distinction between secular ‘literacy’ and religious ‘illiteracy’. It locates the emergence of the distinction in the colonial census of the 19th century, in the development of ‘English’ education, and the responses within madrasa schools. The second part locates these debates and their on-going importance within a contemporary ethnographic setting. It examines the relevance of the distinction in relation to women's literacy practices. The paper argues that both secular and religious literacy practices are significant for women's status and well-being, and illustrates the centrality of religious reading and learning in Bangladesh. The paper challenges the conventional distinction between religious and secular schooling and literacy, noting their complementary and overlapping nature.     

Students with disabilities: Doing what's right

Providing equal educational access to students with disabilities is both a legal and a moral obligation. It is also an important component of the educational experience of all students. The authors offer suggestions for creating inclusive, accessible campus environments.     

Sequential effects of high and low instructional guidance on children’s acquisition of experimentation skills: Is it all in the timing?

We report the effect of different sequences of high vs low levels of instructional guidance on children’s immediate learning and long-term transfer of simple experimental design procedures and concepts, often called “CVS” (Control of Variables Strategy). Third-grade children (N = 57) received instruction in CVS via one of four possible orderings of high or low instructional guidance: high followed by high (HH), high followed by low (HL), low followed by high (LH), and low followed by low (LL). High guidance instruction consisted of a combination of direct instruction and inquiry questions, and low guidance included only inquiry questions. Contrary to the frequent claim that a high degree of instructional guidance leads to shallow learning and transfer, across a number of assessments—including a 5-month post-test—the HH group demonstrated a stronger understanding of CVS than the LL group. Moreover, we found no advantage for preceding high guidance with low guidance. We discuss our findings in relation to perspectives advocating “invention as preparation for future learning”, and the efficacy of “productive failure”.