Supervision to enhance educational and vocational guidance practice: A review

Supervision to support the work of career practitioners is evident in many countries, but is not universal. This author presents a literature review, intending to emphasise the prime importance of developing supervision for guidance work. The author also considers the issues facing those training to develop the role of supervisors in southeast England. It is hoped the issues discussed will be pertinent for educational and vocational guidance services in other countries where supervision is a marginal or developing activity.     

Variations in the rate at which students cross the boundaries between Australian vocational and higher education

This paper considers the rate at which students are crossing the boundaries between Australian vocational and higher education. It finds that public universities admit a higher proportion of students on the basis of a vocational education qualification than do private colleges and that private colleges broadly do not admit a higher proportion of students from a low socioeconomic status background than public universities do. Vocational education transfers are most important in the higher education fields of nursing (22 % of commencing students), education (13 %) and information technology (12 %). Upward transfers are least important in the natural and physical sciences (3.5 %) and engineering and related technologies (6 %). Some 17 % of commencing students are from a low socioeconomic status background, but nursing (24 %) and education (22 %) provide more opportunities for students from a low socioeconomic status background. Conversely, fewer opportunities are provided in architecture and building (12 %) and the creative arts (14 %). There is considerable variation in the proportion of students that higher education institutions admit on the basis of vocational qualifications, even in a relatively homogeneous field such as nursing. Some of this apparent variation may be explained by different treatment of admissions data, but much remains unexplained.     

How Different Are Higher Education Institutions in the UK,US and Australia? The Significance of Government Involvement

Governments in the UK and many other countries have long sought to promote the diversity of their higher education institutions. However, diversity is hard to define, harder to measure and even more difficult to compare between countries. Most empirical analyses of the diversity of higher education systems use categorical variables, which shape the extent of diversity found. This study examines continuous variables of institutions’ enrolment size and proportions of postgraduate, fulltime and international students to find the extent of variation amongst doctoral granting and all higher education institutions in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia. The study finds that there is less variety amongst all higher education institutions in the United Kingdom than in Australia, which in turn has much less variety than the United States. The paper argues that the extent of government involvement in higher education is not so important for institutional variety as the form that it takes. More tentatively, the paper suggests that the more limited the range of institutions for which government funding is available the stronger government involvement is needed to have variety among the limited range of institutions for which government financial support is available.     

School inspections in low- and middle-income countries: Explaining impact and mechanisms of impact

Many efforts to implement and improve school inspections have been modelled on examples from high-income countries, and many studies on the effectiveness of such systems have also only been carried out in these countries. However, local contexts in low- and middle-income countries are very different from those in developed countries, and findings about the effectiveness of school inspections from Western studies are therefore not easily transferable to low- and middle-income countries. Existing literature portrays complex and varied links amongst governance context, policy, design of accountability systems, mechanisms of impact and school outcomes that make translation of conditions across studies challenging. This paper presents the results of a systematic review about the conditions under which school inspections lead to improvement in schools and to positive learning outcomes for schoolchildren in low- and middle-income countries, especially the poorest and most marginalised.     

Looking back to look forward: M��ori cultural values and the impact on career

The career stories of 22 M??ori in this study expressed the dynamic cultural contexts in which career processes have been enacted. A new typology of cultural career identities was developed focusing on diversity among M??ori on issues pertaining to what being M??ori means to them and the subsequent influence on participants?? career stories. The three types presented in this study provide a template from which to begin discussions on the intersection between culture and career.     

Ecological rationality in teachers' conceptions of assessment across samples from Cyprus and New Zealand

Teacher conceptions of assessment are influential mediators of how assessment policy initiatives are implemented in schools. Four hierarchical, intercorrelated factors (i.e., assessment for improvement, school accountability, and student accountability, and assessment as irrelevant) of how teachers' conceive of assessment have been reported. However, most studies have been conducted only in English in jurisdictions with policies of low-stakes testing. This paper extends the research by surveying 249 Greek-Cypriot teachers with a Greek translation of the Teachers' Conceptions of Assessment inventory. Cyprus has a relatively low-stakes assessment policy during the compulsory school years, suggesting, under the assumption of ecological rationality, that conceptions would be similar to previous English-language studies. Exploratory factor analysis of the Cyprus data led to a five-factor solution with 24 items within two inversely correlated second-order factors (i.e., assessment is positive and negative; r = −0.49). A multigroup nested invariance confirmatory factor analysis found statistical invariance between the Cyprus and the New Zealand data. Mean score differences were small for two improvement-oriented conceptions, moderate for assessment that is bad, and large for school accountability and ignoring assessment factors. Similarities and differences in conceptions appear to reflect commonalities and discrepancies in educational system policies and practices.