Teachers' perceptions of the recent curriculum reforms and their implementation: what can we learn from the case of Korean elementary teachers?

This study examines: 1) how Korean elementary school teachers perceive recent curriculum reforms; 2) where their perceptions emanate from; and 3) what support teachers need in order to implement curriculum reforms actively and effectively. This study has shown that teachers generally harbour negative and unconstructive feelings about curriculum reform. These feelings negatively impact their involvement in and commitment to implementing reform. Several issues to be considered for teacher training and support evolved from our analysis of teachers' perceptions of the curriculum reform and the implementation: first, teachers are insufficiently provided with professional development programmes that support curriculum implementation; second, teachers lack opportunities to work through implementation problems and difficulties with peer teachers; and last, contextual and cultural constraints inhibit implementation of curriculum reform. Based upon these findings, this study makes several suggestions for teacher educators and curriculum policymakers.     

Moving feedback forward: theory to practice

There is substantial research interest in tutor feedback and students’ perception and use of such feedback. This paper considers some of the major issues raised in relation to tutor feedback and student learning. We explore some of the current feedback drivers, most notably the need for feedback to move away from simply a monologue from a tutor to a student to a valuable tutor–student dialogue. In relation to moving feedback forward the notions of self regulation, dialogue and social learning are explored and then considered in relation to how such theory can translate into practice. The paper proposes a framework (GOALS) as a tool through which tutors can move theory into practice with the aim of improving student learning from feedback.     

Developing Positive Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Collaboration Among Students in the Health Care Professions

This study examined whether attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration (Physician-Nurse, Physician-Social Worker, Nurse-Social Worker) held by medical, social work, and nursing students changed after completing an interprofessional curriculum consisting of (a) Interprofessional Education Development Session and (b) the Senior Aging and Geriatrics Educator mentoring program. The 15-item original and two modified versions of the Jefferson School of Attitudes Toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration (JSAPNC) were administered as pretest/posttest. Of the 186 participants who completed the pretest, 156 (84%) completed the posttest. Results showed that the medical students (n = 52) reported the most positive change in attitude toward all three pairs of interprofessional collaboration. Social work students (n = 55) reported the least positive attitudes toward Physician-Social Worker collaboration and nursing students (n = 49) reported the least positive attitudes toward Physician-Nurse collaboration. It is recommended to evaluate the interprofessional curriculum and other factors, such as the possible influence of the facilitator in group discussions, and that future studies include a rigorous design that monitors content of each educational session to ensure integrity across groups. Postgraduate follow-up measures could be used to enhance positive attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration.     

Analysis of Korean students’ international mobility by 2-D model: driving force factor and directional factor

The purpose of this study is to understand the dynamics of Korean students’ international mobility to study abroad by using the 2-D Model. The first D, the driving force factor, explains how and what components of the dissatisfaction with domestic higher education perceived by Korean students drives students’ outward mobility to seek foreign higher education. The second D, the directional factor, describes the factors that influence the choice of destination country for students’ outward mobility, and is explained by the comparison of Korean students’ perceptions on the images of universities in the U.S., China, the U.K., and Australia and their expectations for higher education in each country (categorized as ‘academic’–‘environmental’). Two questionnaire surveys were conducted to analyze the two D factors and the research findings were integrated into suggestions for each country’s higher education institutions that can be incorporated into their recruitment strategies for international students.

Combination of modified BPNN algorithms and an efficient feature selection method for text categorization

This paper proposes new modified methods for back propagation neural networks and uses semantic feature space to improve categorization performance and efficiency. The standard back propagation neural network (BPNN) has the drawbacks of slow learning and getting trapped in local minima, leading to a network with poor performance and efficiency. In this paper, we propose two methods to modify the standard BPNN and adopt the semantic feature space (SFS) method to reduce the number of dimensions as well as construct latent semantics between terms. The experimental results show that the modified methods enhanced the performance of the standard BPNN and were more efficient than the standard BPNN. The SFS method cannot only greatly reduce the dimensionality, but also enhances performance and can therefore be used to further improve text categorization systems precisely and efficiently.     

New approaches to stability analysis for time-varying delay systems

In this paper, two new estimation approaches namely delay-dependent-matrix-based (DDMB) reciprocally convex inequality approach and DDMB estimation approach, are introduced for stability analysis of time-varying delay systems. Different from existing estimation techniques with constant matrices, the estimation approaches are with delay-dependent matrices, which can employ more free matrices and utilize more information of both time delay and its derivative. Based on the estimation approaches, less conservative stability criteria with lower computational complexity are derived in the form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, two numerical examples are given to illustrate the advantages of the proposed methods.     

Novel discontinuous control for exponential synchronization of memristive recurrent neural networks with heterogeneous time-varying delays

This paper investigates the exponential synchronization problem of memristive recurrent neural networks (MRNNs) with heterogeneous time-varying delays (HTVDs). First, a novel discontinuous feedback control is designed, in which a tunable scalar is introduced. The tunable scalar makes the controller more flexible in reducing the upper bound of the control gain. Based on this control scheme, the double integral term can be successfully used to construct the LKF. Second, New method for tackling memristive synaptic weights and new estimation technique are presented. Third, based on the LKF and estimation technique, synchronization criterion is derived. In comparison with existing results, the established criterion is less conservatism thanks to the double integral term of the LKF. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to validate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed results.