Internationalization or commodification? A case study of internationalization practices in Taiwan’s higher education

This article examines how commodification and consumerism have sharpened the discourse of internationalization in Taiwan’s higher education. Given the strong sense of crisis in the less prestigious universities, this article argues that internationalization is only a means to survive instead of a pursuit of excellence to these universities. This empirical finding leads us to rethink the concept of internationalization and its relevance and application to Taiwan’s higher education. This article adopts a case study approach to investigate the practices of internationalization, including program and institutional mobility, overseas networking, curriculum design, teaching, and administrative support. The implications of these internationalization practices for sustainability and quality in higher education development are then discussed.     

Implementing impact evaluation in professional practice: A study of support needs within the museum, archive and library sector

This paper reports on research into the professional needs of those embarking on impact evaluation in the museum, archive and library sector. The research used a web portal providing impact evaluation research findings and examples of methods and toolkits as a means of facilitating response and discussion about practitioner attitude to, and resource needs for, impact evaluation in their own organisations. The various challenges associated with impact evaluation are briefly explored in relation to the conflicting interests of policy makers, managers and practitioners working in the frontline. Respondents’ reactions to issues associated with information accessibility are discussed and reflect the complexity of providing adequate support for a wide range of professionals with varying experience and potential or perceived needs. Although the study focused on one sector of practitioners, the findings are relevant to all professionals aiming to develop high quality information services and systems in relation to their end users.     

Child care and family processes: Bi-directional relations between child care quality,home environments,and maternal depression

The current study examined whether within-family changes in child care quality and quantity predicted subsequent changes in home environment quality and maternal depression across early childhood (6 to 54 months of age). Data were drawn from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 1239; 77% White; 48% female; data collection from 1991 to 1996), and were analyzed using Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models. Within-family increases in child care quality predicted modest increases in home environment quality (β = .13–.17). These effects were most robust from child age 6 to 15 months. Increases in child care quality produced small, statistically non-significant, reductions in depression. Time-specific increases in child care quantity were not consistently predictive of either outcome.     

Effect of Time on Perceived Gains from an Undergraduate Research Program

The current study examines the trajectories of student perceived gains as a result of time spent in an undergraduate research experience (URE). Data for the study come from a survey administered at three points over a 1-yr period: before participation in the program, at the end of a Summer segment of research, and at the end of the year. Repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to examine the effect of time on perceived gains in student research skills, research confidence, and understanding of research processes. The results suggest that the students experienced different gains/benefits at developmentally different stages of their UREs. Participants reported gains in fewer areas at the end of the Summer segment compared with the end of the yearlong experience, thus supporting the notion that longer UREs offer students more benefit.     

Cross-cultural examination of test anxiety among US and Singapore students on the Test Anxiety Scale for Elementary Students (TAS-E)

In the present study, the similarity of the factor structure of the Test Anxiety Scale for Elementary Students (TAS-E) and cultural and gender differences in test anxiety were examined in a sample of 1322 US and Singapore elementary students. The similarity of the factor structure of the TAS-E, a measure of test anxiety, was examined to determine whether the same test score interpretation could be made across culture and gender. Coefficient of congruence and salient variable similarity index values indicated that the pairs of matched factors (Physiological Hyperarousal, Social Concerns, Task Irrelevant Behaviour, Worry and Total Test Anxiety factors) of the TAS-E were similar across culture and gender. Results of a 2?×?2 ANOVA and 2?×?2 MANOVA with follow-up ANOVAs revealed that Singapore males scored higher than US males and US females scored higher than Singapore females on the TAS-E Total Test Anxiety scale and the Physiological Hyperarousal subscale. Singapore males also scored higher than US males on the TAS-E Worry subscale. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

On the potential for using immersive virtual environments to support laboratory experiment contextualisation

This paper explores the hypothesis that embedding a laboratory activity into a virtual environment can provide a richer experimental context and hence improve the understanding of the relationship between a theoretical model and the real world, particularly in terms of the model's strengths and weaknesses. While an identified learning objective of laboratories is to support the understanding of the relationship between models and reality, the paper illustrates that this understanding is hindered by inherently limited experiments and that there is scope for improvement. Despite the contextualisation of learning activities having been shown to support learning objectives in many fields, there is traditionally little contextual information presented during laboratory experimentation. The paper argues that the enhancing laboratory activity with contextual information affords an opportunity to improve students’ understanding of the relationship between the theoretical model and the experiment (which is effectively a proxy for the complex real world), thereby improving their understanding of the relationship between the model and reality. The authors propose that these improvements can be achieved by setting remote laboratories within context-rich virtual worlds.     

Investigating orthographic and semantic aspects of word learning in poor comprehenders

This study compared orthographic and semantic aspects of word learning in children who differed in reading comprehension skill. Poor comprehenders and controls matched for age (9–10 years), nonverbal ability and decoding skill were trained to pronounce 20 visually presented nonwords, 10 in a consistent way and 10 in an inconsistent way. They then had an opportunity to infer the meanings of the new words from story context. Orthographic learning was measured in three ways: the number of trials taken to learn to pronounce nonwords correctly, orthographic choice and spelling. Across all measures, consistent items were easier than inconsistent items and poor comprehenders did not differ from control children. Semantic learning was assessed on three occasions, using a nonword–picture matching task. While poor comprehenders showed equivalent semantic learning to controls immediately after exposure to nonword meaning, this knowledge was not well retained over time. Results are discussed in terms of the language and reading skills of poor comprehenders and in relation to current models of reading development.