The academic research-teaching nexus in eight advanced-industrialized countries

The purpose of this study is to examine the internationalcomplexities of the research-teaching nexus in higher educationalinstitutions. The Carnegie International Survey of the Academic Professionis employed to compare teaching and research activities in eight countries.These countries include the former West Germany, United Kingdom, Sweden, TheUnited States, Australia, Israel, Japan, and South Korea. Findings revealthat teaching and research are not mutually exclusive activities in thework/life of faculty. Research oriented faculty are more likely to viewtheir research commitments as being competitive with teaching. Research isfound to positively affect teaching, but attributes of teaching (e.g.,course load, student demand, etc.) negatively impact research. In addition,the paper finds academic orientation and the number of articles publishedduring the past three years to be the most important factors in determiningthe number of weekly hours spent on research and teaching activities.     

Development and Use of the Approaches to Teaching Inventory

This paper describes how research into approaches to university teaching, from a relational perspective, has been used to develop an inventory to measure the key aspects of the variation in approaches to teaching. The Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI) is one of several that derive from the research perspective applied by Marton and colleagues in Europe (Marton, F., Hounsell, D., and Entwistle, N. (eds.) (1997). The Experience of Learning, 2nd edn., Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh) to student learning. A feature of these inventories is that they measure the response of a group to a particular context, rather than more general characteristics of individuals in that group. Studies using these inventories have consistently shown relations between students' approaches to learning and the quality of their learning outcome. The question of interest to many university teachers is whether there are relations between the way teachers approach their teaching and ways their students approach their learning. This question was answered in a study published in 1999 that used the ATI to show that teacher-focused approaches to teaching were associated with students' reproducing orientations. Subsequent research revealed that in subjects where teachers adopted more student-focused approaches to teaching, their students adopted a deeper approach to learning. Some recent research using the inventory is reviewed along with an analysis of the validity of the ATI. The current version of the inventory is reproduced in this paper.     

DILEMMAS AT A DISTANCE

This paper addresses some of the situations and problems to be found in distance learning for both the teacher and learner. It looks at the general needs of distance learning and, implicitly, on the strategies used to provide feedback in both directions. It uses as examples courses given by live television to branch campus students at distances of 30 to 120 miles from the instructor. Some solutions are suggested to the difficulties found in this specific situation, which should be able to be translated into other learning situations.     

Towards a Metaphysics of Complexity

In this paper I combine aspects of process philosophy and elements from philosophies of difference in order to give some indication of how we might begin to construct a metaphysics of contemporary science. I will focus on the work of Whitehead and Deleuze as representatives of each respective tradition and try to show how their work can be fruitfully articulated together in the context of complexity theory.     

Perceptions and experiences of annual report preparers

Between 1986 and 1993, tertiary education institutions, [TEIs] in New Zealand have transformed their annual reports from being uninformative, untimely and unobtainable documents, to ones that are well-presented, comprehensive and readily available in a timely fashion (Coy, Tower & Dixon, 1994). This paper reports a study of the events and experiences according to report preparers in bringing about this change, including the incentives and difficulties that they have been facing.The study uses data collected from 48 staff involved in report preparation at 15 of the 37 TEIs that are in New Zealand. These data are qualitative, and are analysed from a realist perspective mixing causal analysis and interpretive understanding (Silverman 1985).The study suggests that the mandated changes to reporting are seen as one facet of several recent public sector reforms in New Zealand. Interviewees felt that the changes to reporting were driven externally by legislation, and internally by the stances taken by some chief executive officers and by the professional ardour of some accountants. Moreover, the Audit Office was seen as a prominent agent of change.The general reactions of preparers of reports to the reforms range from strong support to resentment and scepticism. A major concern voiced was the potential for data reported by TEIs to be used for political purposes. On the other hand, improved staff motivation was noted in many institutions as well as greater cost consciousness and awareness of student, needs. However, these positive attributes were probably derived from the reforms in general, and not just from the changes to reporting.     

Formulation of stable difference schemes for systems of initial-value partial differential equations

A general system of initial-value partial differential equations is classified into four categories based on the partial differential operators which define the equations. Specific combinations of the operators are termed “invariants” since they are common to all finite difference approximations to the system of equations. The “invariants” are used to a priori determine if one may formulate a stable difference approximation to a system of partial differential equations. This is in essence a numerical existence theory.     

Four dialogues and metalogues about the nature of science

We analyse and explore, in the form of dialogues and metalogues questions about the dialogic nature of beliefs and students belief talk about the nature of science and scientific knowledge. Following recent advances in discursive psychology, this study focuses not on students' claims but on the discursive resources and dialogical practices that support the particular claims they make. We argue that students' discourse is better understood as a textual bricolage that is sensitive to conversational context, common sense, interpretive repertoires, and textual resources available in the conversational situation. Our text is reflexive as it embodies the discursive construction of knowledge and undercuts any claims to authoritative knowledge. The very conception of “belief” is itself an expression or construction from within the mundane idiom.... We learn to use “belief” in conditions when the “objective facts” are unknown or problematic and we want to indicate the tenuous character of our claim.... The notion of “real world” or “objective reality” is embedded in an extensive, pervasive language game which includes as an intelligible move or possibility the use of the very concept of “belief” itself. (Pollner, 1987, p. 21)     

Relations between teachers' approaches to teaching and students' approaches to learning

This paper reports on an empirical study which shows that qualitatively different approaches to teaching are associated with qualitatively different approaches to learning. More specifically, the results indicate that in the classes where teachers describe their approach to teaching as having a focus on what they do and on transmitting knowledge, students are more likely to report that they adopt a surface approach to the learning of that subject. Conversely, but less strongly, in the classes where students report adopting significantly deeper approaches to learning, teaching staff report adopting approaches to teaching that are more oriented towards students and to changing the students conceptions. The study made use of a teaching approach inventory derived from interviews with academic staff, and a modified approach to learning questionnaire. These conclusions are derived from a factor and cluster analysis of 48 classes (involving 46 science teachers and 3956 science students) in Australian universities. The results complete a chain of relations from teacher thinking to the outcomes of student learning. Previous studies have shown relations between teachers' conceptions of teaching and learning and their approaches to teaching. Numerous studies have shown correlations between students' deeper approaches to learning and higher quality learning outcomes. The results reported here link these two sets of studies. They also highlight the importance, in attempts to improve the quality of student learning, of discouraging teacher-focused transmission teaching and encouraging higher quality, conceptual change/student-focused approaches to teaching.