Going Dutch: The Development of Collaborative Practices Between Higher Education and Museums and Galleries

This study reports on a very successful collaboration between teacher education courses in Manchester and Amsterdam and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The central aim of the initiative was to promote and sustain partnerships between Higher Education (HE) institutions, public galleries and schools with a view to developing, delivering and sharing good practice in art and design within a European context.     

The Funding of Higher Education in the UK: a Contribution to the Debate

In this paper we review arguments that have been well rehearsed in the economic literature in the past twenty years and which are relevant to the present debate over student loans and the funding of the higher education sector.
The body of the paper assesses four finding proposals: (1) The Government's mortgage-type loan scheme, (2) The Barr, National Insurance repayment scheme, (3) The Graduate Tax and (4) A Loan scheme based on the individual higher education institution.
Each proposal is assessed in terms of its efficiency impact in six dimensions, (i) set up costs and flexibility, (ii) administrative costs (iii) incentives (iv) information (v) the balance of public and private involvement, and (vi) equity.
We conclude that, overall, we would not recommend any of the alternatives as unambiguously superior on all counts. Insofar as a radical approach is to be implemented we argue that a scheme based on the individual higher education institution, with repayment via the National Insurance system, is probably the best option.     

Using Multidimensional Item Response Theory to Evaluate Educational and Psychological Tests

Many educational and psychological tests are inherently multidimensional, meaning these tests measure two or more dimensions or constructs. The purpose of this module is to illustrate how test practitioners and researchers can apply multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) to understand better what their tests are measuring, how accurately the different composites of ability are being assessed, and how this information can be cycled back into the test development process. Procedures for conducting MIRT analyses–from obtaining evidence that the test is multidimensional, to modeling the test as multidimensional, to illustrating the properties of multidimensional items graphically-are described from both a theoretical and a substantive basis. This module also illustrates these procedures using data from a ninth-grade mathematics achievement test. It concludes with a discussion of future directions in MIRT research.