Governance Dynamics and the Application of the Multilevel Governance Approach in Vocational Education and Training (VET) in the European Neighbourhood Countries: the case of the ENPI South region

This article analyses moves towards good multilevel governance approaches in Vocational Education and Training (VET) as an effective way to improve VET policy making in transition and developing countries, focusing on the Southern Neighbourhood of the EU (ENPI South). The centralised approaches in public administration and to VET governance still prevail in this region. The new modes of governance applied by the EU in the policy area of education and training are based on the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). They are a source of inspiration to improve VET governance, taking into account the complexity of VET policies and systems. According to current European and international experiences, the most effective, relevant and attractive VET models and systems are demand‐driven. They rely on the effective and accountable participation of both state (national/local public actors) and non‐state VET stakeholders (e.g. employers, sectoral actors, unions) in decision‐making and policy implementation processes. This could also pave the way towards self‐governed and performance‐based VET provider institutions which would give quicker responses to rapidly changing labour market skills, competences and qualification needs. Thus, this means putting in practice more and better inclusion and effective cooperation and coordination of regional and local voices of VET actors and developing stronger social partnerships to engage employers, unions and civil society in shaping and investing in skills development. Furthermore, the role of methodological tools for VET governance is not only to provide an analytical ground to capture data and structure further policy advice. These tools can also be used as ice‐breakers to improve collaboration, inclusiveness, multi‐participation and trust‐building among policy makers as they work together on very sensitive issues such as reviewing country VET governance models, modes and institutional arrangements, and/or planning policy thinking and/or learning for implementing coordination mechanisms for VET policy making. The European Training Foundation (ETF) has implemented a methodology to map, analyse and self‐assess good multilevel governance in VET, inspired by how EU governance soft tools in education and training are being used. This methodology has been applied to the Governance for Employability in the Mediterranean (GEMM) project in the ENPI South region, which is a regional project implemented by the ETF and financed by the European Commission's Directorate General for Neighbourhood and Enlargements Negotiations (NEAR).     

Learning to select the correct answer in multi-stream question answering

Question answering (QA) is the task of automatically answering a question posed in natural language. Currently, there exists several QA approaches, and, according to recent evaluation results, most of them are complementary. That is, different systems are relevant for different kinds of questions. Somehow, this fact indicates that a pertinent combination of various systems should allow to improve the individual results. This paper focuses on this problem, namely, the selection of the correct answer from a given set of responses corresponding to different QA systems. In particular, it proposes a supervised multi-stream approach that decides about the correctness of answers based on a set of features that describe: (i) the compatibility between question and answer types, (ii) the redundancy of answers across streams, as well as (iii) the overlap and non-overlap information between the question–answer pair and the support text. Experimental results are encouraging; evaluated over a set of 190 questions in Spanish and using answers from 17 different QA systems, our multi-stream QA approach could reach an estimated QA performance of 0.74, significantly outperforming the estimated performance from the best individual system (0.53) as well as the result from best traditional multi-stream QA approach (0.60).     

Journal coverage of the Emerging Sources Citation Index

The Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) was created recently, in 2015, but few assessments of its journal coverage have been made. The present study tries to fill that gap by comparing its coverage with that of other international abstracting and indexing (A&I) databases. Using this measure, it is feasible to benchmark this index against the other citation indexes for acceptance criteria. We analysed 6,296 ESCI‐indexed journals, 8,889 Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), 3,258 Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), 1,784 Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), and 22,749 Scopus journals as indexed in July 2017 to determine their inclusion in 105 databases. We found that 19.3% of the ESCI journals are not covered by any other A&I databases, a high figure compared with only 0.5% SCIE, 0.3% SSCI, 0.3% AHCI, and 5.5% Scopus journals. This low coverage suggests that the selection criteria for ESCI journals are not consistent with the overall trend in the other classical citation indexes.     

Is There a Gendered Path to Tenure? A Multi-State Approach to Examine the Academic Trajectories of U.S. Doctoral Recipients in the Sciences

With a focus on possible gender differences, this study used 2003–2013 data from the Survey of Doctorate Recipients to examine individual, institutional, and early employment factors that contribute to career paths of recent doctorates who enter postsecondary academic appointments. Findings showed some noteworthy differences by gender including lower salary and longer time to degree for women, but overall results indicated no strong, comprehensive evidence of a gendered path to tenure during the first decade after degree completion. Scholarly publications and activities such as research and a postdoctoral appointment in early years following degree completion were the most important contributors for both men and women. Implications for policy and planning are discussed.     

Employment outcomes and satisfaction levels in graduates of the gerontology master's programs in Spain

ABSTRACT

There has been an increase in the aging population in developed countries. This has led to a need for trained people in the gerontological field. The most common academic way of specializing in this field in Spain is via a master's program. It is well known that investing in human capital increases knowledge, productivity, and the probability of getting a job. The question is if these kinds of educational programs are useful to provide real preparation for students and if the programs are useful for getting into the job market. We asked graduates to supply the answers. A survey was completed by 144 graduates from the Universities of Salamanca and Seville. Most graduates selected these master's programs to increase their probability of getting a job. A total of 64.6% reported that they had got a job, 38.8% of which got one in the first 2 years after graduating. A total of 55.6% felt that they had got a job thanks to having done the master's program. The usefulness of the acquired knowledge (47.9%) and social networks (28.8%) was seemingly high when getting a job. A high percentage of students (67%) found a job in this field after completing the master's program, and they got their first experience in a relatively short period after graduating. Investment in human capital is considered useful by graduates. The labor market is interested in highly qualified specialists. To have a postgraduate degree is still an advantage in getting a job, even after the 2008 economic crisis.     

Swimming Between: An examination of the Inherent Complexity within Social Justice

Classrooms tend to be absolute spaces, places where fluidity is rejected and nearly everything—from people, to ideas, to practices and policies—is viewed and organized through binary logic. Because binary logic is implicitly accepted as the natural order in schools and the structures resulting from it are highly unmalleable, individuals who differ from the norm are expected to assimilate and adapt so as not to disrupt the structure. Those who are too different from the norm to fit in or who refuse to accept the binary structure are viewed as problems and are often ostracized or blamed for disturbing the system. Even when evidence to dispute the binary logic emerges, such evidence is often ignored or rejected in favor of maintaining the status quo. As such, the need for educators with a social justice orientation is needed. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the process one teacher used to create inclusive spaces for students who identify with differences in order to develop a more critical understanding of the work of social justice teachers. The findings suggest the teacher enacted behaviors and maintained beliefs that contradicted her espoused social justice orientation and her classroom was at once both inclusive and exclusive. The findings illustrate the complexities inherent within the work of equity-oriented educators. Implications for educator preparation is discussed.     

Effects of cooperative learning on perceived competence,motivation, social goals,effort and boredom in prospective Primary Education teachers / Efectos del aprendizaje cooperativo sobre la competencia percibida,la motivación,las relaciones sociales,el esfuerzo y el aburrimiento de futuros docentes de Educación Primaria

Abstract

The main goal of this study was to analyze the effects of an intervention programme based on cooperative learning on several motivational variables in prospective teachers. 264 students of Primary Education Teacher Training participated. Prior to the intervention, a theoretical model was designed to explain the relations among the different variables. The intervention programme was applied to the experimental group during a 12-week period, while the control group experienced a traditional instructional approach. A questionnaire was designed using different validated subscales (PMCSQ-2, BPNS, PLOC, SGS-PE, PES) to gather data. The predictive theoretical model was tested using a structural equation analysis with the data obtained, which showed that the predictive model was correct, and significant improvements were seen in the experimental group only in terms of levels of perceived competence, self-determined motivation, effort, responsibility and relationships, and a significant decrease was seen in boredom. With regard to gender, women showed significantly different results in Competence and Boredom. Cooperative Learning has been proven to be a positive instructional model in Teacher Education.     

Toddlers’ understanding of basic emotions: identification,labeling and causality / La comprensión temprana de las emociones básicas: identificación,etiquetado y causalidad

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the early acquisition pattern of the understanding of basic emotions. Many studies indicate that three-year-old children identify emotions such as joy or sadness, but it is not known how this knowledge arises. Fifty-seven boys and girls between 21 and 32 months were assessed using the Brunet-Lezine-R developmental scale (BL-R) (Josse, 1997) and the Affective knowledge Test (AKT) (Denham, 1986). Through this test we evaluated the children’s knowledge of four basic emotions (happiness, sadness, anger and fear) in three of its components (identification, causality and linguistic labeling). In order to track knowledge acquisition longitudinally, a small subgroup of 19 children was evaluated again six months later. The result of the evaluation by emotions and components allows some conclusions: first, the emotion that older children better understand is anger, followed by happiness and sadness. Second, the first component that children manage is the identification of facial expressions. They then progressively incorporate knowledge about typical causality, and finally, the linguistic labels together with some understanding of atypical causality. The results are discussed from a developmental point of view. This typical developmental pattern also allows some educational and clinical implications.