Educational distance from the perspective of self‐direction: an analysis

To establish which factors predict student intentions to contribute towards an OpenCourseWare site, an online questionnaire was distributed among University of Queensland students via email. The 320 participants completed items that were based on the theory of planned behaviour and were designed to measure attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. Measures of altruistic motivation were also included as a predictor for intentions to contribute. Overall, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and altruistic motivation explained 43.1% of the variance in students’ intentions to contribute. Attitudes and altruistic motivation were the strongest predictors, accounting for 7.49% and 7.12%, respectively, with subjective norms accounting for 3.9%. Perceived behavioural control was not found to contribute to the explanatory model. The implications for universities creating new OpenCourseWare sites are discussed. Further research should investigate the effects of barriers on student intentions to develop and contribute and should examine the determinants of faculty support.     

Mentor support and academic achievement

How does the support of mentors based in Study Centres affect the performance of distance education students, both in their course assignments and in their final examinations? Helmut Fritsch and Gerhard Ströhlein ‐ from the Central Institute for Distance Education Research (ZIFF) in the FemUniversitat in West Germany ‐ address this question through an analysis of some of the data collected at the University. In their discussion, they also shed light on some of the methodological problems raised by this kind of analysis, while stressing the system‐specific nature of their findings.     

Frame Syllabus for Biology Teaching at Schools

Summaries

Engish

In 1973, the Association of German Biologists (Verband Deutscher Biologen) published a detailed frame syllabus for biology teaching at primary and secondary school level, covering the age range 6 to 18 years. The proposals were again discussed and evaluated in 1978 and confirmed as a basis for biological education in West German schools by the Schools Commission of the Association of German Biologists and representatives of all Bundeslander.

The frame syllabus represents a major contribution to the development of biological education in a European country and interest in it is likely to extend beyond FR Germany. For this reason, it is published in EJSE. Any comments or observations on the framesyllabus should be sent to Professor Schaefer.     

Innovative Work Behaviour in Vocational Colleges: Understanding How and Why Innovations Are Developed

In workplaces, innovative products and processes are required to address emerging problems and challenges. Therefore, understanding of employees’ innovative work behaviour, including the generation, promotion, and realisation of ideas as components of this behaviour is important. In particular, what fosters innovation development and what triggers these activities is important for its promotion and adoption in contemporary workplaces. To investigate how and why innovations at work are developed and enacted, an explorative study comprising structured interviews with vocational teachers in the German vocational system was conducted. The teachers reported on activities they undertook during the development of a specific innovation. Furthermore, they provided information on factors that made this innovation necessary and that they were activated by. The study indicates that even when opportunities for innovation development existed in a workplace, the needs and goals of teachers were pivotal for these opportunities to be recognised and teachers’ innovative work behaviour to be triggered. By analysing vocational teachers’ work activities, we found that the development of innovations was a complex, iterative and primarily social process. By encouraging teachers to act on opportunities for change and by establishing a collaborative structure at schools, innovation development can be facilitated. We also found that throughout the development of an innovation, reflection played an important role. If the importance of reflective activities is acknowledged by workplaces such as these participants’ vocational schools, this not only fosters innovations but also the teachers’ professional development.     

Establishing an Explanatory Model for Mathematics Identity

This article empirically tests a previously developed theoretical framework for mathematics identity based on students’ beliefs. The study employs data from more than 9,000 college calculus students across the United States to build a robust structural equation model. While it is generally thought that students’ beliefs about their own competence in mathematics directly impact their identity as a “math person,” findings indicate that students’ self‐perceptions related to competence and performance have an indirect effect on their mathematics identity, primarily by association with students’ interest and external recognition in mathematics. Thus, the model indicates that students’ competence and performance beliefs are not sufficient for their mathematics identity development, and it highlights the roles of interest and recognition.     

Skill Acquisition and Reflection‐based Decision Making in a Teaching Laboratory: an evaluative study

This paper continues the tradition of research, development and evaluation of teaching laboratories, and, at the same time, extends earlier research in two directions: by placing more emphasis on the improvement of a reflection‐based decision‐making ability in becoming a teacher (beyond effective skill acquisition), and by concentrating on the improvement of presentation skills, an area neglected in teacher training. Based on research on teaching and teacher training, a training program was developed for enhancing the trainees’ nonverbal expressiveness in presentations that, by fostering reflection‐based decision making through experimenting with presentation skills in a laboratory with feedback and discussions, also improves the clarity, interest and social climate of presentations. The evaluation of the most recent Version of this program reveals that significant gains could be achieved not only in nonverbal expressiveness as an indicator for successful skill acquisition, but also in the global aspects of successful lecturing indicating that the program was also effective for the improvement of the trainees’ reflection‐based decision making.