Awarding teaching excellence: ‘what is it supposed to achieve?’ Teacher perceptions of student-led awards

Although there is lack of agreement as to what constitutes teaching excellence, there remains a steady effort to make an intangible, ambiguous, multifaceted concept incarnate in the form of ‘student-led’ teaching awards schemes within higher education institutions. What teaching staff say about such schemes have largely been ignored. This article attempts to address this gap in knowledge by accounting for the extent that academic teaching staff at one higher education institution in the UK value and perceive their teaching awards scheme. At the same time, this article presents some challenges in implementing a student-led teaching awards scheme for higher education institutions.     

The coherence of vocational education and training in Norway and Spain: national traditions and the reshaping of VET governance in hybrid VET systems

Coherence of national education and training systems is increasingly tabled in European policy debates. Leaning on literature about the emergence and consolidation of national education systems, this article explores the rationale for VET reforms in Norway and Spain by scrutinising attempts to strengthen the coherence of their VET systems. Coherence has been sought through the unification of different strands of vocational education; initial, continuing and active labour market policies (what we call ‘horizontal coherence’) and the mainstreaming of VET curricular elements; plus the systematisation of VET practices across educational levels (‘vertical coherence’). While both countries looked for coherence, their motivations, how they operationalised the term and the emphasis of their actions differed substantially. Spain has experienced a move from the three largely unrelated strands into a more unified system; Norway from a fragile VET system to the availability of more VET courses and apprenticeship arrangements at all educational levels.     

British Media Works

DYNAMICS OF THE BRITISH PRESS, 1961–1984: PATTERNS OF CIRCULATION AND COVER PRICES by Harry Henry (NTC Publications, Symot House, 22 Reading Rd., Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 1AG, 1986, 178 pp.—L40, paper, no ISBN)

STRIKES AND THE MEDIA: COMMUNICATION AND CONFLICT by Nicholas Jones (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986, 220 pp.—L17.50, ISBN 0-631-14697-0)

LEARNING THE MEDIA: AN INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA TEACHING by Manuel Alvarado, et al. (Basingstoke: Macmillan Educational, 1987, 306 pp.—L25, ISBN 0-333-30522-1)

POWER WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY: THE PRESS AND BROADCASTING IN BRITAIN by James Curran and Jean Season (London: Routledge, 1988, 372 pp. price not given, paper, ISBN 0-415-00653-8)

IMAGES INCORPORATED: ADVERTISING AS INDUSTRY AND IDEOLOGY by John Sinclair (London: Croom Helm, 1987, 214 pp.—L9, paper, no ISBN given)

NOISE: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MUSIC by Jacques Attali (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985, 180 pp.—L7.50, paper, no ISBN given)

POLICING DESIRE: PORNOGRAPHY, AIDS AND THE MEDIA by Simon Watney (London: Comedia, 1987, 160 pp—L7, paper, no ISBN given)

BEHIND AND IN FRONT OF THE SCREEN: TELEVISION'S INVOLVEMENT WITH FAMILY LIFE by Barrie Gunter and Michael Svennevig (London: John Libbey, 1987, 98 pp.—L9.50, paper, no ISBN given)

TELEVISION AND SOCIAL CONTROL by Mallory Wober and Barrie Gunter (Aldershot: Gower, 1988, 274 pp.—L25, ISBN 0-566-00764-9)

VIOLENCE ON TELEVISION: WHAT THE VIEWERS THINK by Barrie Gunter and Mallory Wober (London: John Libbey & Co. Ltd., 1988, 74 pp.—L9.50, paper, ISBN 0-86196-172-2)

SEX, CLASS AND REALISM: BRITISH CINEMA, 1956–1963 by John Hill (London: British Film Institute, 1986, 228 pp.—L7.95, paper, ISBN 0-85170-133-7)

BOND AND BEYOND: THE POLITICAL CAREER OF A POPULAR HERO by Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott (Basingstoke: Macmillan Educational, 1987, 316 pp.—L6.95, paper, ISBN 0-333-28621-9)

CINEMA, LITERATURE & SOCIETY: ELITE AND MASS CULTURE IN INTERWAR BRITAIN by Peter Miles and Malcolm Smith (London: Croom Helm, 1987, 271 pp.—L25, no ISBN given)

NATIONAL BROADCASTING UNDER SEIGE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF AUSTRALIA, BRITAIN, ISRAEL, AND WEST GERMANY by Eva Etzioni-Halevy (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1987, 228 pp. price and ISBN not given)

THE UN, UNESCO, AND THE POLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE by Clare Wells (London: Macmillan, 1987, 282 pp., L29.50, no ISBN given)

WORLD NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY by Peter J.S. Dunnett (Beckenham: Croom Helm, 1988, 276 pp.—L30, ISBN 0-07099-0834-2)

TRUTH BETRAYED by W. J. West (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1987, 262 pp.—L13, ISBN 0-7156-2182-3)

COMMUNICATIONS SATELITES: THE TECHNOLOGY OF SPACE COMMUNICATIONS by Larry Blonstein (London: Wm. Heinemann, 1987, 162 pp.—L12.95, paper, ISBN 0-434-90153-9)

EDUCATION ON DIRECT BROADCAST SATELLITES IN EUROPE: REPORT TO THE EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY by George Wedell, et al. (Manchester: The European Institute for the Media, 1987, 148 pp. price and ISBN not given, paper)

THE QUESTION OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE edited by Brian P. Bloomfield (Beckenham: Croom Helm, 1987, 286 pp.—L25, no ISBN given)

COMPUTER GRAPHICS AND APLICATIONS by Dennis Harris (New York and London: Chapman & Hall, 1984, 174 pp.—L21.00, paper, no ISBN given)

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS: STUDIES IN MELODRAMA AND THE WOMEN'S FILM edited by Christine Gledhill (London: British Film Insitute, 1987, 366 pp.—L7, paper, no ISBN given)

BOXED IN: WOMEN AND TELEVISION by Helen Baehr and Gillian Dyer (London and New York: Pandora Press, 1987, 234 pp.—L8, paper, no ISBN given)

A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO JOBS IN FILM AND TELEVISION by Ann Ross Muir (London and New York: Pandora Press, 1987, 342 pp.—L7, paper, no ISBN given)

G.C.H.Q.: THE SECRET WIRELESS WAR, 1900–1986 by Nigel West (London: Coronet Books, 1987, 400 pp. L3.95, paper, ISBN 0-340-41197-X)

2MT WRITTLE: THE BIRTH OF BRITISH BROADCASTING by Tim Wander (Capella Publications, Stowmarket, Suffolk, UK, 1988, 179 pp.—L12.95, ISBN 0-946443-10-6)

THE LAST DAYS OF THE BEEB by Michael Leapman (London: Coronet Books, 1987, 381 pp.—L3.50, paper, ISBN 0-340-41107-4)

THE ECONOMICS OF TELEVISION: THE UK CASE by Richard Collins, et al. (London/Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1988, 136 pp.—$29.95, ISBN 0-8039-8112-0)     

Factors Affecting the Entrepreneurial Intention of Students Pursuing Journalism and Media Studies: Evidence from Spain

The present study empirically analyzes how demographic, familiar, contextual, and personal factors influence the entrepreneurial intention of Journalism and Media Studies students from a Spanish public university. Based on a survey of a randomly selected sample of 310 students, the article addresses the general low entrepreneurial intention of students of Journalism and Media Studies in Spain and how gender (being female) negatively correlates with intentions to develop an entrepreneurial behavior. The study also reveals a positive association between entrepreneurial intention and parental role models, perception of structural support and self-confidence. Academic, legislative, and social implications are finally discussed.     

A survey of video game players in a public,urban research university

A survey was conducted in a public, research university located in a large and diverse metropolitan area in the southeastern part of the USA. The purpose of the survey was to determine both the positive and negative personal, educational, social, and work related consequences of playing video games. Nearly two‐thirds of the 203 participants in this study were of Hispanic heritage. A majority of the sample of participants was derived using a school intercept, as opposed to mall intercept, strategy. The remaining participants were obtained using snowball, and convenience sampling techniques. Statistically significant differences between males and females were found in the areas of communication, decision making in daily lives, leadership skills, collaborating, functioning in a team, and giving directions to others. These differences were favorable to males.     

Foundations of Laic Moral Education in Spain

This article studies the foundations of laic moral education in Spain. Some aspects of laic moral education can also be found in other nations, including the emergence of the laic man or the need for an educating State; other aspects of laic moral education, however, are peculiar to the Spanish case, such as the influence of Krausoinstitutionism and the programmes of 1931 Republicanism. This analysis of laic moral education centres on the bipolarity of traditionalism/liberalism. The article takes 1857 as its starting point, a date that is significant for the birth of laic morality and the Spanish education system. The article’s end point is 1936, on the threshold of the Civil War. This bipolarity of traditional/liberal is in combination, on the one hand, with the demands of Krausoinstitutionism for an independent morality and neutrality in instruction as tools for the attainment of a moral ideal of preparing men and, on the other hand, the Republican vindication of an autonomous morality and school laicism as key to the preparation of citizens, as well as with the demand for a civil morality fostered by an educating State.     

Habla reguladora y control de la memoria: Un esquema teórico de integración de las acciones y operaciones de memorización

Resumen

Se propone la integración de varias líneas de investigación de origen diferente: los estudios dentro del marco teórico de niveles de procesamiento, las investigaciones soviéticas sobre memoria y actividad, los trabajos sobre el desarrollo de las estrategias de memoria y los estudios sobre meta-memoria y control de la memoria. Para ello se distingue entre tres tipos de procesos: operaciones de codificación y recuperación, acciones simples, ligadas a sus condiciones de aplicación, y acciones generales (planes) que exigen el dominio de otras acciones más simples. Estos tres tipos de procesos se integran de modo jerárquico en un marco teórico general de la memoria. En este marco teórico, el lenguaje (el habla reguladora, más exactamente) juega un papel fundamental como instrumento básico de la génesis y control de las acciones de memoria.     

Cognitive Processes,ICT, and Education: A Critical Analysis

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have brought about renewed spaces for the societies of today, full of possibility and transformation. Bordering on the infinite, these spaces have generated new activities and behaviors. This technological scenario is now commonplace, an everyday reality that has taken root in our lives with remarkable speed. Now would therefore be an appropriate time to open up a line of inquiry into how this is shaping educational practice and how it is affecting our cognitive structures. We have chosen to conduct a review of relevant literature that will enable us to adopt a critical analysis to our subject: education and, above all, the learner, seen from the perspective of neuroscience and social analysis. However, the principal aim of this paper is to lay bare the disparities between research findings and current educational practices that use ICT.     

Graduates on the labor market: Formal and informal post-school training investments

The purpose of this article is to obtain an understanding of which factors determine whether an university graduate receives formal on-the-job training or not and the amount of informal training received. Using a cross-sectional survey of Spanish graduates, this paper confirms that the informal training graduates receive in their jobs is more intense among doctors and lawyers – professions that require a more extensive period of learning before reaching the required level of skills. Likewise, those graduates that hold jobs requiring greater know-how than they can actually provide (infra-educated) also receive more informal training. In the case of formal training, the likelihood of taking part in in-house training programs is greater among civil servants and the employees of large private firms. However, the belief that workers with higher ability (a positive signal of a worker’s trainability) should have higher chances of receiving employer-provided formal training is not confirmed in this study.