The internationalised university as discourse: institutional self‐presentations,rhetoric and benchmarking in a global market

In the last half century higher education has had to respond to a rapidly accentuated process of globalisation. Consequently, universities worldwide are more concerned with internationalisation than before. Stier identifies three intrinsic internationalisation ideologies (idealism, instrumentalism and educationalism) in higher education. Drawing from these ideologies and using discourse analysis, written documentation on internationalisation from 31 universities in 12 countries has been analysed to explore the self‐presentations that universities project of themselves in discursive space. Focal questions were: (1) what types of rhetorical devices are used in university’s self‐presentations and (2) what are the ideological consequences of this use? Five idealtypical self‐presentations were discussed. One conclusion drawn is that universities must harmonize politically controversial dichotomies, which produces consensus narratives. Yet there are potential tensions between these dichotomies. On the language level these tensions are resolved by harmonising different ideals.     

Democratic Experience and the Democratic Challenge: A Historical and Comparative Citizenship Education Study of Scandinavian Schools

In Scandinavian schools, there is a significant tradition for creating a democratic context of experience; this tradition is gradually being challenged by new political and economic movements and increasing focus on tests, assessments, knowledge, and skills. The purpose of this study is to analyze and discuss the status of the current context of experience in Scandinavian schools and the students' perceptions of the classroom environment. The study is based on a historical and secondary analysis of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS). The ICCS is large-scale comparative study investigating more than 140,000 Year 8 students in more than 5,300 schools from 38 countries. The conclusion is that the Scandinavian school still, to a considerable degree, develops a democratic and open environment. However, this is not without challenges. The results reveal an asymmetry between the open dialogue-based classroom and the students' poor influence in decision-making at school.     

A comparison of haemolytic responses in fore-foot and rear-foot distance runners

This study examined the haemolytic effects of an interval-based running task in fore-foot and rear-foot striking runners. Nineteen male distance runners (10 fore-foot, 9 rear-foot) completed 8 × 3 min repeats at 90% vVO_2peak on a motorised treadmill. Pre- and post-exercise venous blood samples were analysed for serum haptoglobin to quantify the haemolytic response to running. Vertical ground reaction forces were also captured via a force plate beneath the treadmill belt. Haptoglobin levels were significantly decreased following exercise (P = 0.001) in both groups (but not between groups), suggesting that the running task created a haemolytic stress. The ground reaction force data showed strong effect sizes for a greater peak force (d = 1.20) and impulse (d = 1.37) in fore-foot runners, and a greater rate of force development (d = 2.74) in rear-foot runners. The lack of difference in haptoglobin response between groups may be explained by the trend for fore-foot runners to experience greater peak force and impulse during the stance phase of their running gait, potentially negating any impact of the greater rate of force development occurring from the rear-foot runners’ heel strike. Neither type of runner (fore-foot or rear-foot) appears more susceptible to technique-related foot-strike haemolysis.     

The influence of content knowledge on teaching and learning in Traditional and Sport Education contexts: an exploratory study

Background: Our understanding of the role in which content knowledge (CK) can strengthen instructional models and how that knowledge matters for professional development is limited. It is contended that mere use of an instructional model is insufficient to impact psychomotor learning in meaningful ways.

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate how a teacher's enacted pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) differed as a function of CK and Sport Education (SE), and to investigate the relative contribution of CK and Sport Education on student learning in terms of swimming performance.

Methods: Four intact classes comprising 88 secondary school students (age: 16–17 years) were randomly assigned to a Traditional, an Sport Education, a Traditional-CK, and a SE-CK group. All classes were taught by the same teacher during a 10-day unit of instruction in the front crawl.

Results: Results showed that the teacher's PCK differed as a function of improved CK. For verbal representations, the amount of cues in the Traditional-CK and SE-CK groups increased about sixfold compared to the Traditional and the SE group. For visual representations, more partially incorrect demonstrations were observed than correct demonstrations in the Traditional and the SE group. More mature and developmentally appropriate tasks were observed in the Traditional-CK and the SE-CK group compared to the Traditional and the SE group. Students in the Traditional-CK and SE-CK groups demonstrated a significant reduction of their amount of strokes on 50?m compared to the Traditional group. A significant interaction effect revealed a larger increase in swimming performance in the CK groups compared to the Traditional and the SE group. Finally, students in the SE group swam significantly more laps than their counterparts in the other groups.

Discussion and conclusion: These results show the impact on student learning when CK was added to both Traditional and Sport Education conditions and contribute to the literature for pre- and in-service teachers. The Sport Education model did not contribute to students’ swimming performance. Students in the Traditional and the SE group did not get the same quality of instruction as students in the Traditional-CK and SE-CK conditions. The latter groups received content that was presented differently both as a presentation and in terms of the actual task. In short, students in the Traditional and Sport Education conditions experienced the content differently than those in the Traditional-CK and SE-CK conditions. These instructional differences resulted in students in the Traditional-CK and SE-CK conditions improving their swimming performances in terms of technical efficiency and in terms of 50?m times.     

Deviating glucose results in an international dual-center study. A root cause investigation

During a dual-center study on obese and normal weight children and adolescents, focusing on glucose metabolism, we observed a marked difference in glucose results (N = 16,840) between the two sites, Salzburg, Austria and Uppsala, Sweden (P < 0.001). After excluding differences in patient characteristics between the two populations as cause of this finding, we investigated other preanalytic influences. Finally, only the tubes used for blood collection at the two sites were left to evaluate. While the Vacuette FC-Mix tube (Greiner Bio-One, Kremsmünster, Austria) was used in Uppsala, in Salzburg blood collections were performed with a lithium heparin tube (LH-Monovette, Sarstedt, Germany). To prove our hypothesis, we collected two blood samples in either of these tubes from 51 children (Salzburg N = 27, Uppsala N = 24) and compared the measured glucose results. Indeed, we found the suspected bias and calculated a correction formula, which significantly diminished the differences of glucose results between the two sites (P = 0.023). Our finding is in line with those of other studies and although this issue should be widely known, we feel that it is widely neglected, especially when comparing glucose concentrations across Europe, using large databases without any information on preanalytic sample handling.     

Considering student retention as a complex system: a possible way forward for enhancing student retention

This study uses multilayer minimum spanning tree analysis to develop a model for student retention from a complex system perspective, using data obtained from first-year engineering students at a large well-regarded institution in the European Union. The results show that the elements of the system of student retention are related to one another through a network of links and that some of these links were found to be strongly persistent across different scales (group sizes). The links were also seen to group together in different clusters of strongly related elements. Links between elements across a wide range of these clusters would have system-wide influence. It was found that there were no elements that are both persistent and have system-wide effects. This complex system view of student retention explains why actions to enhance student retention aimed at single elements in the system have had such limited impact. This study therefore points to the need for a more system-wide approach to enhancing student retention.     

Regular Feedback from Student Ratings of Instruction: Do College Teachers Improve their Ratings in the Long Run?

The authors examined whether feedback from student ratings of instruction not augmented with consultation helps college teachers to improve their student ratings on a long-term basis. The study reported was conducted in an institution where no previous teaching-effectiveness evaluations had taken place. At the end of each of four consecutive semesters, student ratings were assessed and teachers were provided with feedback. Data from 3122 questionnaires evaluating 12 teachers were analyzed using polynomial and piecewise random coefficient models. Results revealed that student ratings increased from the no-feedback baseline semester to the second semester and then gradually decreased from the second to the fourth semester, although feedback was provided after each semester. The findings suggest that student ratings not augmented with consultation are far less effective than typically assumed when considered from a long-term perspective.     

Confidence and reliability measures in speaker verification

Speaker verification is a biometric identity verification technique whose performance can be severely degraded by the presence of noise. Using a coherent notation, we reformulate and review several methods which have been proposed to quantify the uncertainty in verification results, some with a view to coping with the effects of mismatched training-testing environments. We also include a recently proposed method, which is firmly rooted in a probabilistic approach and interpretation, and explicitly measures signal quality before assigning a reliability value to the speaker verification classifier's decision. We evaluate the performance of the confidence and reliability measures over a noisy 251-users database, showing that taking into account signal-domain quality can lead to better accuracy in prediction of classifier errors. We discuss possible strategies for using the measures in a speaker verification system, balancing acquisition duration and verification error rate.     

Developing Instructional Web Sites – A Software Engineering Approach

This paper focuses on the application of software engineering practices to the development of instructional web sites. The development of a web site, to support a distance or campus-based online course, is a very complex process that involves many instructional and technical aspects, including the instructional purpose of the course, its content, its structure, its interface, and its teaching–learning activities. The use of a method is essential for dealing with the complexity of this process. We describe, in this paper, a software engineering method that helps course designers and teachers to develop high quality instructional web sites. The design of the method was based on the integration of well-known principles, concepts and process models borrowed from instructional design, method engineering, and object-oriented software engineering. The method addresses the managerial processes required to plan, organize, and control the project, as well as the instructional and technical activities involved in the development of high quality course sites.     

The roots and routes of environmental and sustainability education policy research

Environmental Education Research has developed a Virtual Special Issue (VSI) (http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/ceer-vsi) focusing on studies of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) policy. The VSI draws on key examples of research on this topic published in the Journal from the past two decades, for three reasons. First, to provide readers with a series of snapshots into the genealogy of ESE policy research in this field. Second, to encourage renewed attention to previously published work. And third, to offer commentary on the evolution of research trends, approaches and findings.