Transition from school: A review of Australian research

With rising rates of unemployment amongst young people in Australia as in other industrialised countries, considerable research has been undertaken on the transition from school: nearly 500 studies have been done in the past five years. This paper reviews them.The assumption of most researchers is that the major transition from school is to work. Other transitions, such as from adolescence to adulthood, are relatively neglected. Although the issue is approached from four main disciplinary standpoints — educational, psychological, social and economic — the theoretical assumptions and practical conclusions can be put in the two categories of supply and demand. Supply is preparing young people for roles, on the assumption that better preparation will not only raise employability, but might also call jobs into being. Demand can mean creating new jobs in the private and public sectors, developing new forms of cooperative employment, or reallocating the jobs which already exist through work-sharing, more part-time work, early retirement for older people or rewarding some groups to refrain from wage employment.The impression is that policy is not led by research, but that research is stimulated by policy and action. The roles of research indeed are mainly design, monitoring and evaluation. Four gaps in research in Australia are identified: better social book-keeping, longitudinal studies, rigorous case-studies and policy analysis.     

Improving study success and diversity in Dutch higher education using performance agreements

Tertiary Education and Management - More and more governments have started to introduce elements of performance in the funding mechanisms for their higher education institutions. An example is a...     

Relational marketing in knowledge-intensive business services: an analysis of the computer services sector

This paper addresses the marketing approaches adopted by Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS) companies, whose main production factor and outcome is knowledge. Given the key role that client-provider cognitive interactions play in the provision of such services, the study adopts the conceptual framework of Service-Dominant (S-D) logic, that the recent literature considers being fully in line with the core characteristics of KIBS companies. Starting from the assumption that service is the fundamental basis of any economic exchange, this logic suggests a shift from the traditional ‘market to’ approach, which has been developed for tangible goods, to a ‘market with’ approach, where customers and providers collaborate along the whole marketing process. The research was carried out by means of a multiple case study of 20 small computer services companies in Italy, and aimed to understand if (and to what extent) the marketing initiatives of such companies are consistent with the S-D logic, and to discuss the major challenges that they have to face in order to follow the new logic.     

论心理健康教育的《意见》与《纲要》在山区农村中学的贯彻与落实

教育部印发《关于加强中小学心理健康教育的若干意见》和《中小学心理健康教育指导纲要》是指导山区农村中学心理健康教育工作的纲领性文件。本文从创新教育理念 ,优化环境氛围、培训师资队伍、开发课程教材、开展理论与实践研究等方面阐述对山区农村中学贯彻落实《意见》与《纲要》精神的看法。     

Butches,Bullies and Buffoons: Images of Physical Education Teachers in the Movies

The purpose of this study was to examine the cinematic images of physical educators during the past decade. This study is approached from two perspectives: (a) framing and (b) social cognition. Framing, an approach to media studies most often reserved for critical analysis of news, provides useful generalities for a formative study of movie images, which directs explicit attention toward the construction and use of media frames. Contemporary social cognition theory blends social learning theory with an understanding of the power of media images. Media observers (i.e. movie viewers) can acquire symbolic representations of behavior through media images and these images are powerful and informative enough to inform subsequent behavior. Using the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), each researcher compiled a list of movies. After an initial list from the IMDB was compiled, researchers added films that they knew, from personal knowledge, included physical education teachers. A final list of 18 movies was distributed to each of the four coders, with a stipulation that the coding take place during a specified time period of no more than three months. Each researcher observed the videotapes independently while noting the dialogue and camera shots of all scenes involving physical educators for emerging frames of reference regarding physical education teachers. Ethnographic content analysis, a media studies variation of the constant comparative method, aided in the identification of frames (categories and themes) that emerged from the data. The researchers independently made notes concerning the video observations and then later developed a system of classification by comparing notes and discovering regularities within the data. The constant comparative method was used to assist in the assessment and grouping of framing approaches. Agreement between researchers had to be 100% for a frame to be included in research findings. It was agreed that frames had to be constructed by both verbal and visual indicators in the films, and it had to be strongly associated with at least three films. Although nuances in setting, plot and the personalities of characters might arguably make frames in each film studied 'unique', several frames emerged as characteristic of depictions of physical educators: (a) there is no distinction between physical educators and coaches, (b) physical educators are incompetent teachers, (c) physical educators are drill sergeants and are the proverbial 'bully from hell' who enjoys seeing a student humiliated, and (d) characteristics of physical educators are gendered: women are often depicted as 'butch' or lesbian; men, as buffoons devoid of 'masculine' leadership qualities. An understanding of these frames is important because it provides clues about social cognition and behavior in regard to issues of physical education--from the classroom to the school board meeting, from decisions made about participation in physical education class to decisions made about the priority of physical education in the school setting.     

Application of functional principal component analysis in race walking: An emerging methodology

This study considered the problem of identifying and evaluating the factors of individual performance during race walking. In particular, the study explored the use of functional principal component analysis (f-PCA), a multivariate data analysis, for assessing and classifying the kinematics and kinetics of the knee joint in competitive race walkers. Seven race walkers of international and national level participated to the study. An optoelectronic system and a force platform were used to capture three-dimensional kinematics and kinetics of lower limbs during the race walking cycle. Functional principal component analysis was applied bilaterally to the sagittal knee angle and net moment data, because knee joint motion is fundamental to race walking technique. Scatterplots of principal component scores provided evidence of athletes' technical differences and asymmetries even when traditional analysis (mean ± s curves) was not effective. Principal components provided indications for race walkers' classification and identified potentially important technical differences between higher and lower skilled athletes. Therefore, f-PCA might represent a future aid for the fine analysis of sports movements, if consistently applied to performance monitoring.     

Uneasy writing: The defining moments of high-stakes literacy testing

The authors report on an exploratory study that investigated Grade 10 students’ responses to a large-scale, high-stakes literacy test, the results of which determine high school graduation in Ontario, Canada. Through focus-group and individual interviews, the authors found that students perceived the test as evaluating their English skills rather than their cross-curricular literacy as is the stated purpose by the test administrators. Furthermore, the test contributed to students’ narrow definition of writing. Rather than promoting writing as a powerful tool for thinking and expressing ideas, students understood writing to be a fill-in-the-blanks response to particular genres. The authors conclude by pointing out the power of such tests to define unintended learning in schools.     

Establishing research universities in Ukrainian higher education: the incomplete journey of a structural reform

The idea of the research university as a key institution for social and economic development in knowledge-intensive societies has been adopted by the Ukrainian government after the fall of the communist regime. Establishing research universities is a long journey during which many things might happen. To understand this journey better in the case of Ukrainian research universities, we applied an analytical framework derived from the concept of travel and translation of ideas. This concept analyses reform through three types of editing rules: the rules of context, logic and formulation. These editing rules have guided our analysis of data gathered from policy documents complemented by face-to-face interviews. We conclude that the idea as introduced came to little, as the turbulent political context precluded long-term planning and universities were faced with conflicting policies.