Caught up in the past? Social inclusion,skills, and vocational education and training policy in England

Since the mid-1990s, governments of different political persuasion have tried to reform VET policy to address problems in skills formation and social inclusion. Despite considerable policy activism, success has been somewhat limited, and England failed to overcome the problems associated with its liberal training regime. This article assesses the failure in vocational skills formation as a political economy and a public policy problem. It challenges the determinism in the political economy literature, points to poor public policy-making, and outlines possible policy levers.     

Die Messung von Global Competence im Rahmen von PISA 2018

This work deals with Global Competence as a suggested cross-curricular domain for the PISA study of 2018. Measuring Global Competence is related to a number of challenges, which are elaborated, described and discussed. As these challenges have not been sufficiently targeted up to now, Germany, among several other countries, decided not to assess Global Competence in the upcoming PISA assessment. Conclusively, propositions are made regarding viable options to capture Global Competence in international comparative studies so that established quality standards can be met.     

PISA 2015: how big is the ‘mode effect’ and what has been done about it?

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an important cross-national study of 15-year-olds’ academic knowledge and skills. Educationalists and public policymakers eagerly await the tri-annual results, with particular interest in whether their country has moved up or slid down the international rankings, as compared to earlier rounds. In 2015 a major change was implemented in PISA, with the introduction of computer-based assessment. This has the potential to reduce comparability of PISA test scores across countries and over time. We investigate this issue using PISA 2015 field trial data for three countries: Germany, Sweden, and Ireland. We show how, if left unaccounted for, the change to computer-based testing could limit the comparability of PISA test scores. We then describe the methodology the study organisers have used to account for such mode effects. Our key conclusion is that although the adjustment made is unlikely to overcome all the potential challenges of switching to computer-based tests, it represents an improvement over the alternative of making no adjustment at all.     

Professional Development How To's: Strategies for Surveying Faculty Preferences

The primary purpose of this paper is to report the development, results, and conclusions of a university campus-wide faculty development needs assessment survey. The survey is unique in that it asked faculty to first identify their professional goals and then select activities to help them reach the desired goals. The second purpose is to discuss how faculty at different stages of their careers have different goals.Christine B. Eleser: She also serves as the Chairperson of the University Faculty Excellence CommiteeeSheila W. Chauvin: which she also serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine USA     

National Education and ‘Active Citizenship’: Implications for Citizenship and Citizenship Education in Singapore

Citizenship and values education in one form or other has existed in Singapore since it acquired self‐government in 1959. Much has been written about the different forms that this education has taken over the years. In recent years, there have been efforts at describing and analyzing aspects of National Education, which was introduced in 1997. At the same time, a number of books and papers have been written examining the concept of citizenship in Singapore, which cover the period between the late 1980s to the mid 1990s. In the last five years leading to the millennium, there have been two major sets of changes in Singapore that have had implications for the conception of citizenship and for citizenship education. The first is to do with the introduction of National Education; the second, with the notion of active citizenship. This article describes these recent changes, and discuss their implications for the concept of citizenship and for citizenship education in Singapore.