Development of the Beliefs about Primary Education Scale: Distinguishing a developmental and transmissive dimension

In this article the development and validation of the Beliefs about Primary Education Scale (BPES) are described. The BPES is an 18-item scale for assessing primary school teachers’ beliefs toward the nature of good education, subdivided in a transmissive dimension (TD) and a developmental dimension (DD). Both dimensions assess beliefs toward the general orientation and objectives of education, the nature of the educational content, and desirable ways of knowledge acquisition. An explorative study (n=352$n=352$) revealed a two-factor structure. Both dimensions were uncorrelated, which leads to the suggestion that teachers hold layered belief systems. In a following study (n=381), construct validity of the BPES was confirmed. The BPES’ DD and TD were shown to correlate significantly with constructivist and traditional teaching beliefs.     

Professional development of Russian HEIs' management and faculty in CDIO standards application

The paper presents the approach to complex training of managers and faculty staff for system modernisation of Russian engineering education. As a methodological basis of design and implementation of the faculty development programme, the CDIO (Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate) Approach was chosen due to compliance of its concept to the purposes and tasks of engineering education development in Russia. The authors describe the structure, the content and implementation technology of the programme designed by Tomsk Polytechnic University and Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology with the assistance of Chalmers University of Technology and KTH Royal Institute of Technology and other members of the CDIO Initiative. The programme evaluation based on the questionnaire results showed that the programme content is relevant, has high practical value and high level of novelty for all categories of participants. Therefore, the CDIO approach was recommended for implementation to improve various elements of the engineering programme such as learning outcomes, content and structure, teaching, learning and assessment methods. Besides, the feedback results obtained through programme participants’ survey contribute to identification of problems preventing development of engineering education in Russia and thus serve as milestones for further development of the programme.     

The role of teacher trust in segregated elementary schools: a multilevel repeated measures examination

This study aims to investigate how teachers’ trust in their students relates to reading comprehension achievement in socially and ethnically segregated elementary schools in Flanders (Belgium) by taking into account class composition characteristics. It is examined how student variables, ethnic diversity and the proportion of non-native students in the class, and teachers’ trust in their students relate to reading comprehension achievement and learning growth. A 3-level multivariate repeated measures analysis was conducted. At 2 measurement occasions, reading tests and questionnaires were administered to a sample (n = 417) of 7- and 8-year-old students in 32 classes. Teachers’ trust in their students was found to be a key factor relating to learning growth in reading comprehension, and mediated the relationship between the level of ethnic diversity in the class and learning growth. Teachers with a higher level of trust in their students seem to foster more learning growth in reading comprehension.     

工程教育的环境

学习的环境(Context)是关于理解并学习知识和技能的一整套文化环境。我们认为,产品、过程或者系统的生命周期——构思-设计-实施-操作(以下简称CDIO)即为工程教育的环境,而非内容。教育的背景,我们传授的技能和我们所表达的态度,都表明构思-设计-实施-操作是一个工程师在社会中的职责。这是有效实践的第一准则所反映的中心思想,该准则就是CDIO准则1。本文首先回顾了职业工程实践的环境,指出了社会发展和技术更新带来的不变和变化着的各个方面。然后,我们描述了CDIO的工程教育环境,并突出强调了与CDIO不同但同样可行的其它工程教育环境的模型。在特定环境中进行工程教育的原因是显而易见的,它效法职业实践,有助于学习技能,是应用在工程教育和高等教育中基于环境学习的理论和最好的实践。最后,本文结尾讨论了对于采取适当的环境开展工程教育、更有效地培养工程师的广泛社会需求。突出阐述了中国工程教育的发展,同时也介绍了瑞典和美国对工程教育的需求。     

‘Because Christian was mean and killed innocent people!’: Swedish primary school students’ causal reasoning about the origins of the nation

The topic of this article is how Swedish primary school students aged 12–13 use causal reasoning when they explain a historical event that is usually considered the ‘origin of the nation’. The study is based on student texts about the rise to power of Gustav Vasa, who is traditionally portrayed as the ‘founding father’ of Sweden. The analysis of the students’ causal reasoning takes into account how many, and what kinds of, causal factors the students use. The main finding of the study is that one category of students give causal explanations that adhere very close to the traditional image of the event, with Vasa as an important and heroic agent pitted against an antagonist, king Kristian II. Another category of students instead give generic explanations with very little historical context. Of these, the former category shows greater causal complexity than the latter. In both categories, there are instances of students failing to causally connect agents to the event, suggesting that teaching practices may need to address this issue.     

Teaching sustainable entrepreneurship to engineering students: the case of Delft University of Technology

Sustainability, enhancement of personal skills, social aspects of technology, management and entrepreneurship are of increasing concern for engineers and therefore for engineering education. In 1996 at Delft University of Technology this led to the introduction of a subject on sustainable entrepreneurship and technology in the course programmes of Chemical Engineering and Materials Sciences Engineering. This subject combines lectures, project work in which a business plan is written, sustainability and presentation training. This paper shows that it has been possible to combine entrepreneurship, sustainability and project education successfully in a subject for undergraduate engineering students and describes background, assumptions, outline, results and recent adjustments of this subject. It includes a discussion on how to integrate sustainability and entrepreneurship in terms of triple P (People, Profit, Planet) and how to incorporate it pragmatically in the key elements of a business plan: (1) business idea, mission and strategy; (2) context, stakeholder and market analysis; (3) marketing; (4) production; (5) organisation and management; (6) finance and reporting. Attention is paid to results regarding the business plan, spin-off like start-ups and also to the learning results of both students and lecturers. It ends drawing some lessons derived from the subject’s results and the learning experiences of both students and lecturers.     

Outdoor recreation in exergames: a new step in the detachment from nature?

A new teaching aid—exergames—is increasing in popularity in schools and is regarded as an interesting, varied and effective way of improving students’ fitness. These exercise television games often contain references to physical activities carried out in different outdoor landscapes. The purpose of this article is to examine the views of landscape and nature offered by the games and the consequences this may have for students’ relationships with nature and future environmental commitment. The methodological approach used is companion meaning analysis: the meaning of nature that follows when playing the games. The results show a controlled landscape that is perfectly arranged for the activity (functional specialisation). It is an obvious anthropocentric base and commands an instrumental value where nature is valuable because it satisfies our felt preferences (demand value). Exergames can thus be seen as a further step in an ongoing detachment process from the physical landscape (indoorisation).     

The Role of the Intellectual II--This Time as Other-Criticism

In this article, the author reflects on the points raised, twenty-five years ago, about the role of the intellectual in society. He distinguished, then, between the intellectual in search of truth and the intellectual in search of power. He subdivided the latter group into three subgroups: intellectuals arising from large-scale territorialism; large-scale capitalism; and large-scale abstractionism. He has now reached the conclusion that only intellectuals in search of truth are truly intellectuals; the rest are what he calls "intelligentsia". Like J. A. Hobson, the author traces the many ways in which intelligentsia "sell out" to their sponsors. Although the author's previous article had pessimistic conclusions about the continued domination of thought and knowledge generation by special interests, he now expresses cautious optimism as to the tendency of the Internet and the information revolution to democratize knowledge and creativity and to break the monopoly of moneyed power and special interests over the generation of intellectuals and knowledge.     

ICT teacher training: Evaluation of the curriculum and training approach in Flanders

A policy-evaluation study was set up of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) teacher training in Flanders, focusing on the following questions: (a) What is the validity of the content and format of the teacher training, and (b) to what extent is the ICT teacher training linked to policies of schools? In-depth interviews were organised with respondents of primary, secondary, and adult education schools. The results indicate that ICT school policies are not well developed and reveal a partial match between policies, needs, and the actual in-service training. Innovative applications of ICT are not promoted. The supply-driven approach, the school-based nature, and follow-up activities are questioned.     

Teaching university teachers to become better teachers: the effects of pedagogical training courses at six Swedish universities

ABSTRACT

Do pedagogical training courses for university teachers have desirable effects on the participants? We set out to answer this question by following a panel of 183 university teachers from Sweden’s six largest universities, who participated in pedagogical training courses. Our study reveals that the participants’ self-reported confidence in their role as teachers increased slightly, and their self-assessed pedagogical skills increased notably after they had finished their courses. Even though the courses were rather short, we could also observe some changes in fundamental approaches to teaching in some of the subgroups of respondents, both toward more student-centeredness and, perplexingly, toward more teacher-centeredness. Additionally, most respondents (7 out of 10) found the courses useful or very useful. Course satisfaction was most notable among participants with less than three years of teaching experience. Considering the fact that we find the positive effects of pedagogical training courses to be present mainly in the group of participants with less than three years of teaching experience, we discuss whether a policy of making these courses mandatory for all university teachers implies an overestimation of their impact.