Negotiating co-ownership of learning in higher education: an underexplored practice for adult learning

Adults who enrol in higher education institutions (HEIs) often have contributions that could serve in enhancing the planning and implementation of their programmes. Importantly, while terms such as active learner engagement and knowledge co-creation dominate adult learning discussions, there are unanswered questions pertaining to how adult learners negotiate co-ownership of their learning. The current empirical study explores the relevant factors that could enhance adult learners’ involvement in negotiating co-ownership of learning in a higher education setting. A mixed method of gathering and analysing data from adult learners (n?=?200) was followed. While structural equation modelling (SEM) served as the quantitative data analysis method, codes, categories and themes developed from the focus group discussions and interviews were used to analyse the qualitative data. The study revealed that negotiating co-ownership of learning among adult learners in HEIs is influenced by the level of engagement and adult learners’ acquisition of relevant core knowledge and skills. The authors discuss the implications of the results by reflecting on the pluses of negotiating co-ownership of learning at the institutional and classroom levels while also showing how the lack of these provisions could hinder effective learning among adult learners.     

Student counselling in Hungary in the mid-nineties

The 1993 Law on Higher Education started the modernization of higher education. The most important aim of this development is to gradually elevate the number of participants in higher education to the 30% level that is typical in developed democratic countries, and to increase openness, flexibility and accessibility. Changes in higher education have necessitated a paradigmatic change in higher education counselling as well: the earlier mental hygienefocussed practice has been expanded to independent career orientation and competent career building through comprehensive information services and individual and group counselling aimed at coping strategies improvement. A new trend also is the increasing volume of peer counselling activity and the training of higher education counsellors.     

Preparing the way for mergers in South African higher and further education institutions: An investigation into staff perceptions

Many higher and furthereducation institutions in South Africa arestruggling to survive in a context of financialstringency, declining student enrolments andincreasing competition. For some of theseinstitutions merging or amalgamation with otherinstitutions in the near future is becoming astrong likelihood. The perceptions of staff whowill be directly affected by these processesseem to be very important, as knowledge andunderstanding of those perceptions will empowerdecision-makers and ensure that effectivemanagement of the merging process can beaccomplished. This investigation focused onstaff perceptions of possible merging of threeinstitutions in the Free State Province, whichhad been identified for possible merging withother institutions. The results indicate thatstaff is not opposed to the idea ofinstitutional combinations or merging, but thatcareful consideration needs to be given toparticularly personal factors and that stafffears will have to be addressed in the processto ensure effective merging.     

Proposal for a cross layer scheme for real-time wireless video

INTRODUCTION Increase in wireless system capacity through 3G services and innovative low bit rate video coding techniques have made it possible to have mobile multimedia services on hand-held systems. High quality real-time multimedia services are slowly be- ing deployed on hand-held systems. However large scale deployment at low cost is still to be realized due to technological challenges such as stringent power control under severely fading environments and the susceptibility of high qu…     

An investigation of mathematics anxiety among sixth through eighth grade students in Turkey

The purpose of the present study is to investigate mathematics anxiety among 220 sixth through eighth grade Turkish students in terms of mathematics achievement levels, perceived enjoyment of the mathematics teaching method, perceived enjoyment of mathematics, and perceived help with mathematics from parents. The Mathematics Anxiety Scale for Primary School Students (Bindak, 2005) was used to assess the levels of mathematics anxiety. A 3 × 2 factorial analysis of variance results showed that there was not a significant interaction effect or main effect of gender; however, there was a significant main effect of grade level. Standard multiple regression analyses show that independent variables accounted for 63% to 70% of variability in the dependent variable. The results also indicate that not only the perceived enjoyment of mathematics, but also the enjoyment of the mathematics teaching method and help with mathematics from parents had a significant effect on mathematics anxiety.     

Current status of cadaver sources in Turkey and a wake‐up call for Turkish anatomists

Persisting difficulties in body procurement in Turkey led to the acquisition of donated, unclaimed, autopsied, and imported bodies regulated under current legislature. Yet, no study had investigated the extent of the on‐going cadaver problem. This study was aimed to outline cadaver sources in anatomy departments and their effectiveness by means of an online survey. Additionally, official websites of each department were investigated regarding any information on body donation. Unclaimed cadavers (84.8%) were the major source for anatomy departments, followed by donated (50%) and imported cadavers (39.1%). Foundation‐based medical faculties were more likely to import cadavers (P = 0.008). There was a moderate increase (r_s = 0.567; P = 0.018) in donation registrations to our department after 2000. The departments in cities with significantly higher City‐Based Gross Domestic Product measures (US$9,900 vs. US$16,772, P = 0.041), frequencies for mid‐ or high‐school graduates (30.4% vs. 31.3%, P = 0.041), and frequencies for under‐ or post‐graduates (13.1% vs. 15.8%, P = 0.24) had managed to use donated cadavers. Anatomy departments’ major reasons for using unclaimed cadavers were education (45.9%), unclaimed cadavers being the only source (24.3%), and receiving inadequate donations (21.6%). Nine out of seventy‐four departments (12.2%) provided information regarding body donation on their websites. Body procurement remains as a serious problem in Turkey and it is apparent that current legislature does not provide a sufficient cadaver inflow. Similarly, anatomy departments’ effectiveness in public awareness of body donation and support in the National Body Donation Campaign seems questionable. Anat Sci Educ 11: 155–165. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.     

The effects of self set or externally set goals on learning in an uncertain environment

Monitoring refers to online awareness and self-evaluation of one's goal-directed actions, while Control refers to the generation and selection of goal-directed actions (Osman, 2010a). The present study examines the extent to which external estimations of performance influence monitoring and control behaviors. To achieve this, a complex dynamic decision making task was used in which three different cues were manipulated in order to control three outcomes. The experiment was divided into two conditions. The Externally guided-condition received information designed to influence people's evaluation of control performance, whereas the Self-guided-condition was not provided this information. The findings revealed that control performance differed according to whether the success of one's actions was evaluated against external or self-guided estimations of performance. This article proposes that Monitoring behaviors can strongly influence control behaviors and this is achieved according to the way in which outcomes of decisions are evaluated. Finally, with respect to adult learning, the findings from this study suggest that setting one's own goals do not lead to improvements in learning when the task is a complex one.     

Massification in higher education: large classes and student learning

In introducing the special issue on Large Class Pedagogy: Opportunities and Challenges of Massification the present editorial takes stock of the emerging literature on this subject. We seek to contribute to the massificaiton debate by considering one result of it: large class teaching in higher education. Here we look to large classes as a problem in promoting student learning, quality education, and consequently as a challenge to socio-economic development. That said, whilst large classes do pose very specific challenges, they also hold promise and opportunities for innovation in support of student learning. Here we consider the contributions to this special issue from a cross section of disciplines and higher education environments.     

Quality Teaching and Learning in Australian and South African Universities: Comparing policies and practices

Over the last decade universities across the world have been grappling with quality and quality assurance issues. In several countries national policies on higher education quality assurance have been evolving, mostly with the purpose of putting external systems of quality assurance in place. In many instances, these policies and systems had less effect on the quality of teaching and learning than had been expected. This paper serves as a comparison of national quality policy developments in two countries, Australia and South Africa, and goes on to investigate the emerging tensions in quality policy processes in these countries. Whereas a number of similarities were discerned, differences were as evident, verifying the underlying assumption of the authors that notions of quality, and quality policies and their implementation are very much dependent on the particular localised contexts in which they exist.