寻求高等教育的明智增长——美国高等教育结构的历史与趋势

美国庞大的高等教育系统以高校类型和数目众多见长.超越单一的大学模式拓展高等教育是美国率先实现高等教育大众化的关键理念.本文论述了美国扩张高等教育系统的过程,系统当前的结构和特征,以及奥巴马政府的高等教育系统远景目标,突出美国高等教育的成就和挑战.与其它正处于人口增长期的国家别无二致,追求高等教育的"明智增长"对美国来说也是一项有难度的政策和一个困难的政治问题.这个问题在当前全球大范围经济衰退的背景下变得更加复杂.     

一位传教士记录的旧时浙江

Frank England是英国内地会(CIM)成员,他于上个世纪30年代初只身来到中国传讲圣经,先在安庆学习中文,然后在临海生活和工作了20年。其间,他周游浙江的城镇和乡村,用相机记录下了30年代浙江的风土人情。这里介绍的只是其中的一小部分,但也可以大致了解当时的民情民风。     

Ethical gaps in studies of the digital divide

There are many reports about the digital divideand many discrepant interpretations of what thereports indicate. This pattern of competinganalyses, often in relation to identical datasets, has endured for a good part of the lastdecade. It is argued here that a major problemwith much of the digital divide research is afailure to include ethical concerns as anexplicit part of analyzing and interpretingdigital divide gaps. If researchers includemore recognition of ethics with their findingsabout divide gaps, it is likely that they willproduce better research and findings as well asmore defensible linkages between study reportsand policy deliberations.     

The Digital Divide as a Complex and Dynamic Phenomenon

The purpose of this article is to propose a fruitful analytical framework for data supposedly related to the concept of the so-called "digital divide." The extent and the nature of this divide depend on the kind of access defined. Considering the possession of hardware, growing divides among different categories of income, employment, education, age, and ethnicity can be proved to have existed in the 1980s and 1990s according to official American and Dutch statistics. If only by effects of saturation, these gaps will more or less close. However, it is shown that differential access of skills and usage is likely to increase. The growth of a usage gap is projected. Multivariate analyses of Dutch official statistics reveal the striking effect of age and gender as compared to education. The usage gap is related to the evolution of the information and network society. Finally, policy perspectives are discussed.     

A Comparison of the Effects of Practice Tests and Traditional Review on Performance and Calibration

The impact of practice tests on students' calibration and exam performance for multiple-choice and essay items was investigated. The participants were 59 graduate students enrolled in 1 of 2 sections (practice tests and no practice tests) of an introductory research methods in education course. Practice tests were associated with significantly lower scores on the midterm multiple-choice items and less accurate predictions and postdictions on those items. High-achieving students were more accurate in their calibrations than low-achieving students. Among low-achieving students, prediction and postdiction accuracy was significantly higher for essay than for multiple-choice items. In open-ended responses, a large percentage of students who took the practice tests indicated that they were a beneficial review strategy.