The relationship between individual instructional characteristics and the overall assessment of teaching effectiveness across different instructional contexts

There is an ongoing debate in the student evaluation of teaching literature about whether an overall rating or factorial dimensions of teaching effectiveness should be used in personnel decisions. Marsh and his colleagues have advocated the use of a weighted average approach to computing overall evaluations. A policy-capturing experiment was carried out where students in three different instructional contexts made overall evaluations of hypothetical instructors based on a manipulation of the teaching factors in Marsh's SEEQ. The results indicated (1) amount learned was consistently the most important factor affecting overall evaluations; (2) course difficulty was consistently the least important factor affecting overall evaluations; and (3) there was a strong similarity among the three groups in the relative importance of the various teaching factors in arriving at an overall evaluation. The implications of this research are discussed, as well as directions for future research.     

South African contributions to LGBTI education issues

ABSTRACT

South Africa stands out in the African region for its protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights. This article examines South Africa’s contributions to local policy for LGBTIs and to work on LGBTI issues in education policy and education rights progress internationally. It also considers broader South African contributions to the theorisation of gender and sexuality. Data derive from an analysis of 102 interviews with key informants participating in high-level global networking for LGBTI students’ rights, and documentary analysis showing how stakeholders characterise South African contributions to transnational LGBTI education work. Informants identified how such contributions have a strong human rights emphasis, furthering post-colonial resistance to simplistic gender and sexuality classification schema imposed via imperial colonising dynamics. While South African work in this area has also promoted and facilitated research, it has at times been limited by ambivalence from its leadership. The nation’s early adoption of constitutional rights, relationship rights and educational equity provisions as acts of decolonisation contribute valuable African LGBTI work examples to the region. Their success encourages further funding for South-South transnational LGBTI education work.     

The Pendulum in the 21st Century-Relic or Trendsetter

When identifyinginstruments that have had great influence on the history of physics, none comes to mind more quickly than the pendulum. Though first treated scientifically by Galileo in the 16th century, and in some respects nearly `dead' by the middle of the 20th century; the pendulum experienced `rebirth' by becoming an archetype of chaos. With the resulting acclaim for its surprising behavior at large amplitudes, one might expect that there would already be widespread interest in another of its significant nonlinearities. Such is not the case, however, and the complex motions of small amplitude physical pendula are barely known. The present paper shows that a simply-constructed metallic rod pendulum is capable of demonstrating rich physics in a largely unstudied area.     

A SPECIAL‐PURPOSE STUDIO

The paper describes the design and use of a studio system which arose out of the need to give demonstrations of experimental procedures to practical classes of up to 150 students. Since the requirements could be specified in some detail it was possible to use novel methods of working which turned out to be very efficient and economical.     

Mathematics and mathematics education: Content and people, relation and difference

A broad view of mathematics education takes it as the study of how people learn and do mathematics. Starting with this view, the actual and potential relationships of mathematics education as are search discipline to mathematics as a field of knowledge and activity and to the mathematicians carrying out that activity are analyzed. This leads to the picture of a gulf between the two scientific communities which are based in different cultures of thinking and research. A (meta-)study of mathematics and all its facets termed here mathematicology is proposed. It could serve as common ground for cooperative studies by mathematicians and mathematics educators. Thereby the gulf will not necessarily become narrower but abridge over the differences and mutual misunderstandings could be built.     

The influence of discussion groups in a case-based learning environment

The common practice of using discussion groups during case-based learning makes the role of discussion important in these learning environments. However, little empirical research has been done to investigate the influence of discussion on performance and motivation in case-based learning. The purpose of this article is to present the results of a study conducted to examine the role of discussion groups in a case-based environment. College students completed two cases either individually or in small discussion groups. Measures included two case analyses, an attitude survey, time on task, and document analysis. Results revealed significant performance and time differences between instructional methods on the first case, but not on the second case. In addition, results indicated significant differences in student attitudes between treatments. Overall, participants who worked in groups liked their method significantly better than those who worked alone, felt they learned more working in a group than they would have working alone, and expressed a preference for working in a group if they had to do the class over again. Implications for implementing case-based learning and future research are discussed. Anna E. Flynn is Vice President and NAPM Associate Professor with the National Association of Purchasing Management.