Understanding autonomous peer feedback practices among postgraduate students: a case study in a Chinese university

Academic writing is a social practice in which the writer interacts with both texts and people and uses the interaction as a learning resource. While academic interaction in the classroom setting has been extensively investigated, student interaction that takes place without teacher supervision remains largely unexplored. Since autonomy is a key component of academic interaction, autonomous peer feedback practices among postgraduate students may be of some interest. This paper reports on an exploratory case study of peer feedback among a small group of postgraduate students in a master’s programme in translation studies in a prestigious Chinese university. The findings offer insights into the role of peer feedback in advancing academic literacy and forming scholarly communities in an emerging discipline. The case study provides an opening into the research area of autonomous peer feedback and suggests avenues for further, more substantial research.     

FACULTY ATTITUDES TOWARD INSTITUTIONAL COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES IN U.S. RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES

The present study aims at assessing faculty attitudes toward institutional competitive strategies in U.S. research universities and at exploring some of the correlates of these attitudes.

A stratified random sample of 40 U.S. research university departments, 10 each in physics, sociology, electrical engineering, and education was surveyed by means of a questionnaire.

The major findings of this study suggest that faculty members at research universities express non‐receptive attitudes toward university generic strategies, although, more productive,more satisfied and more committed faculty members are relatively more receptive toward university strategies than less productive, less satisfied and less committed faculty members.

The meaning and the implications of these findings are discussed.     

Tongan students’ attitudes towards their subjects in new zealand relative to their academic achievement

Research indicates that affective attitudes such as liking of a subject and confidence in one’s ability within a subject predict academic performance. Generally, immigrant minority students have positive attitudes and often have low academic performance. This study examines the self-efficacy and liking of subjects of New Zealand students and analyses the relationship of those attitudes towards academic performance in mathematics, writing, and reading by self-reported ethnicity. Data were obtained from the norming samples from the Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning project in New Zealand. Of special interest are the relationships between attitude and performance for Pasifika and Tongan students in New Zealand. Tongan and Pasifika students had positive attitudes, but their mean scores were not significantly different to other ethnic groups except in writing for Tongan students. Tongan and Pasifika students did have lower academic performance than majority and Asian immigrant students in all three subjects. The correlation between liking and self-efficacy was fundamentally zero for Tongan and Pasifika students, while it was weakly positive for majority and Asian immigrant students. Together these results question the power of self-efficacy and liking attitudes to predict academic performance for immigrant students from agrarian or traditional societies. Further, the data suggest that ‘school effects’ are most likely explanations for this relationship, rather than lack of attachment, opposition, or deficiency theories.     

ICT and educational (dis)advantage: families,computers and contemporary social and educational inequalities

Because access to new technologies is unequally distributed, there has been considerable debate about the growing gap between the so‐called information‐rich and information‐poor. Such concerns have led to high‐profile information technology policy initiatives in many countries. In Australia, in an attempt to ‘redress the balance between the information rich and poor’ by providing ‘equal access to the World Wide Web’ (Virtual Communities, 2002 Virtual Communities (2002) About us. Available online at: http://www.virtualcommunities. com.au (accessed 18 August 2002)  [Google Scholar]), the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Virtual Communities (a computer/software distributor) and Primus (an Internet provider) in late 1999 formed an alliance to offer relatively inexpensive computer and Internet access to union members in order to make ‘technology affordable for all Australians’ (Virtual Communities, 2002 Virtual Communities (2002) About us. Available online at: http://www.virtualcommunities. com.au (accessed 18 August 2002)  [Google Scholar]). In this paper, we examine four families, one of which had long‐term Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) access, and three of which took advantage of the Virtual Communities offer to get home computer and Internet access for the first time. We examine their engagement with ICT and suggest that previously disadvantaged family members are not particularly advantaged by their access to ICT.     

RECOGNITION OF STUDIES,DIPLOMAS, AND DEGREES: THE YUGOSLAV EXPERIENCE

The differences, so far as Yugoslav legislation is concerned, between “equivalence” and “recognition” are mads clear, and the Yugoslav instances authorized to make decisions on questions of equivalence and recognition are stated and their procedures, briefly described. The 7 multilateral conventions and the 13 bilateral agreements on equivalence and recognition matters are listed. More is said about the various Yugoslav instances empowered to make decisions and to give Information on questions of equivalence and recognition.     

Two Mandarin readers in Taiwan: characteristics of children with higher and lower reading proficiency levels

This study investigated how two readers of Mandarin with differing reading‐proficiency skills interacted with a narrative passage, as well as what knowledge they brought to and made use of while reading the text. The perspectives of reading comprehension, transactional theory and social‐cognitive models of reading served as this study's theoretical framework. Two Sixth‐Grade participants were selected for inclusion through snowball sampling. The data in this study were obtained from interviews and think‐alouds. Qualitative analysis indicated that the skilled Mandarin reader's stance moved along the efferent/aesthetic continuum, while the less‐skilled Mandarin reader's was mainly efferent. The skilled reader employed strategies of inferencing, summarisation and synthesis during and after reading, while the less‐skilled reader applied bridging inferences, paraphrasing and repetition. The findings of this study corroborate previous findings that proficient readers employ more sophisticated approaches to reading than less‐proficient readers.     

Serbia and Montenegro: the catalytic effects of higher education

Brain drain has been a long‐lasting phenomenon. It existed in the former Yugoslavia, and was affected by various factors, from political through economic ones to the attractive offers for advanced studies and work in scientific institutions or firms in developed countries. Some ad‐hoc analyses were made concerning individual groups or periods, but there was no systematic monitoring and no complete and all‐inclusive data. It is however possible to draw a picture showing trends in the – mostly one‐way – movement towards highly developed countries.

Therefore, the current study has a mosaic character, which – we hope – shall throw some light and try to explain brain drain in the academic circles of Serbia and Montenegro (former SFRY). As the Republic of Serbia represents the largest component part (about 90 percent), most of the data is about Serbia.     

EFL teachers’ perceptions of English language policy at the elementary level in Taiwan

Due in large part to the trends towards economic globalization, English has become the most widely disseminated and ubiquitous international language. The purpose of the study was to investigate what Taiwan’s EFL teachers at the elementary level believe about the policy of English as a compulsory subject and how they perceive the benefits and obstacles of the policy’s implementation. Ten elementary English teachers in Tainan City and its suburban areas participated in this study. Data were collected through teachers’ interviews, classroom observation and document analysis. Results found that all ten teachers agreed with the policy for English as a compulsory subject at the elementary level. They observed both positive and negative sides of this top‐down policy. Classroom observation and interview data revealed that EFL teachers had to plan their English classes with the constraints on a large class of students with mixed levels of proficiency, limited teaching hours and resources. Parents’ expectations of and attitudes towards English learning also became an obstacle.