Education policy in Poland: The impact of PISA (and other international studies)

The impact of the PISA study on Polish education policy has been significant, but probably different from any other country. Poland has not experienced the so‐called ‘PISA shock’, but its education system has been benefiting considerably from PISA. For experts and policy makers, it has been a useful and reliable instrument that has made it possible to measure the effects of consecutive reforms of the school education system. Moreover, PISA and other international studies have influenced the perception of education policy in Poland. The latter has shifted from an ideology‐driven, centralised policy to an evidence‐informed policy, developed with the involvement of multiple stakeholders, although this has mostly affected the thinking of experts and policy makers rather than the general public. The new government (in power from 2015), following public opinion polls, has reversed most of the previous education reforms, eliminating lower secondary schools introduced in 1999.     

Promoting pro-environmental behaviour in a community in Singapore – from raising awareness to behavioural change

Abstract

Despite heightened awareness about climate change, individuals remain rather indifferent to the issue. The reasons being that many public education programmes rely essentially on information dissemination and do not help individuals understand the given information. The authors believe that there is potential of environmental education for understanding and promoting pro-environmental behaviour. The proposed transformative education for climate change (TrEC) programme focuses on three elements (knowledge, skills and values) to help individuals understand environmental issues and to empower them to take pro-environmental action. This mixed method study was conducted in collaboration with various government agencies and 173 residents in a housing estate in Singapore. The findings suggest that with better understanding (knowledge) about the climate change issue, individuals can make informed decisions (attitude) and be encouraged to adopt pro-environmental behaviour (action).     

Shaping education policy research in an Asia-Pacific context

Globalization increasingly calls for comparing educational policies across countries. In this study, we assemble and analyze academic journal publications of the past decade in order to shape education policy research within an Asia-Pacific context. After examining Asia-Pacific research publication data from the Web of Science, we find a few stylized facts: (1) increasing research collaboration, (2) growing policy evaluation research, (3) swelling empirical research with quantitative methodology and (4) growing attention to higher education. Moreover, education stakeholders show exclusive interest on globalization, private tutoring, and language education policies within and across countries. Finally, we find a significant difference in research impact and diffusion between Asia-Pacific and American education policy studies. Further, we examine what determines research impact and diffusion. Our results indicate that research collaboration, national context, publication year and issue, policy area, and research methodology are significantly associated with publication citations. Based on the findings, we suggest useful implications for future directions on education policy research in an Asia-Pacific context.     

Exercise-induced bronchospasm among athletes in Lower Silesia Province

Abstract

A few studies have reported data on the prevalence of exercise-induced bronchospasm in high school and university athletes. Recently published data suggest that exercise-induced bronchospasm may affect up to 39% of American university athletes. To date, no data describing this pathology in athletes from Central Europe have been published. The aim of the present study was to establish the prevalence of exercise-induced bronchospasm in pupils attending sports mastership classes in secondary school as well as students of the University of Physical Education in Wroclaw. The participants were 77 athletes (30 women and 47 men) aged 16–27 years (mean 17.3 years). Only one athlete (1.29%) diagnosed with atopic asthma before testing experienced a fall in forced expiratory volume in one second (12.9% FEV₁) compared with baseline, which showed that the exercise test result was positive. From a clinical point of view, the ventilation disturbance was asymptomatic. In the other participants, there were slight but statistically significant rises in FEV₁ (P < 0.02). The results of our study indicate a very low prevalence of exercise-induced bronchospasm in the population of athletes examined.     

高校资产管理的新特点与新举措

随着办学条件的不断改善，高校用于资产投入的经费大幅增长，仪器设备的配套和更新有了较大提高，如何对资产进行更有效的管理与维护，发挥最佳效益，成为高校资产管理的一个重要课题。     

An experience curve-based decision support model for prioritizing restoration needs of cultural heritage

Today's restoration and preservation of cultural heritage is an important task because of its historical significance, symbolism, and economic benefits. Decision makers or executors often encounter with taking decisions on which heritage is prioritized to be restored within the limited budget. However, very few tools are available to determine appropriately restoration priorities for the diverse historical heritages, perhaps because of a lack of systematized decision-making aids. This paper proposes an alternative decision support model to prioritize restoration needs within the executable budget. The model is constructed on stochastic analytic hierarchy process (S-AHP) and knowledge-based experience curve (EC); the former requires the input data to be random variables for interpreting probabilistically the ranks of the prioritized heritages and the latter reflects quantitatively the contribution of experts’ knowledge to weighting significant criteria in carrying out an assessment of restoration urgency. The application of 14 cultural heritages in Korea has been conducted, and the results are analyzed to illustrate the model's efficiency.     

Challenging the knowledge‐transfer orthodoxy: Knowledge co‐construction in technology‐enhanced learning for children with autism

Experimental intervention studies constitute the current dominant research designs in the autism education field. Such designs are based on a ‘knowledge‐transfer’ model of evidence‐based practice in which research is conducted by researchers, and is then ‘transferred’ to practitioners to enable them to implement evidence‐based interventions. While these research designs contribute important knowledge, they lead to a gap between what the research evidence may prescribe and what happens in practice, with a concomitant disparity between the priorities of researchers and practitioners. This paper discusses findings from the ESRC‐funded ‘SHAPE’ project, which adopted a different model of evidence‐based practice, focusing on knowledge co‐construction. Pupils (N = 8), teachers (N = 10), a speech and language therapist and a parent in three different school communities investigated creative ways in which children's social communication skills could be enhanced through technology use. Through a participatory methodology, digital stories were used as a method to enable engagement with the practical realities of the classroom and empower practitioners to construct and share their own authentic narratives. Participants articulated precise knowledge about the learning opportunities afforded to them and their pupils through quality interactions that were mediated by the technologies, as evidenced through digital stories. The SHAPE project shows that it is feasible to develop methodologies that enable genuine knowledge co‐construction with school practitioners, parents and pupils. Such co‐construction could offer realistic opportunities for pedagogical emancipation and innovation in evidence‐based practice as an alternative to the currently dominant and narrow model of knowledge transfer.