Looking for students’ personal characteristics predicting study outcome

The central goal of this study is to clarify to what degree former education and students’ personal characteristics (the ‘Big Five personality characteristics’, personal orientations on learning and students’ study approach) may predict study outcome (required credits and study continuance). Analysis of the data gathered through questionnaires of 1,471 Universities of Applied Sciences students make clear that former Education did not come forth as a powerful predictor for Credits or Study Continuance. Significant predictors are Conscientiousness and Ambivalence and Lack of Regulation. The higher the scores on Conscientiousness the more credits students are bound to obtain and the more likely they will continue their education. On the other hand students with high scores on Ambivalence and Lack of Regulation will most likely obtain fewer Credits or drop out more easily. The question arises what these results mean for the present knowledge economy which demands an increase of inhabitants with an advanced level of education. Finally, implications and recommendations for future research are suggested.     

On the interplay between normalisation,bias, and performance of paper impact metrics

We evaluate article-level metrics along two dimensions. Firstly, we analyse metrics’ ranking bias in terms of fields and time. Secondly, we evaluate their performance based on test data that consists of (1) papers that have won high-impact awards and (2) papers that have won prizes for outstanding quality. We consider different citation impact indicators and indirect ranking algorithms in combination with various normalisation approaches (mean-based, percentile-based, co-citation-based, and post hoc rescaling). We execute all experiments on two publication databases which use different field categorisation schemes (author-chosen concept categories and categories based on papers’ semantic information).In terms of bias, we find that citation counts are always less time biased but always more field biased compared to PageRank. Furthermore, rescaling paper scores by a constant number of similarly aged papers reduces time bias more effectively compared to normalising by calendar years. We also find that percentile citation scores are less field and time biased than mean-normalised citation counts.In terms of performance, we find that time-normalised metrics identify high-impact papers better shortly after their publication compared to their non-normalised variants. However, after 7 to 10 years, the non-normalised metrics perform better. A similar trend exists for the set of high-quality papers where these performance cross-over points occur after 5 to 10 years.Lastly, we also find that personalising PageRank with papers’ citation counts reduces time bias but increases field bias. Similarly, using papers’ associated journal impact factors to personalise PageRank increases its field bias. In terms of performance, PageRank should always be personalised with papers’ citation counts and time-rescaled for citation windows smaller than 7 to 10 years.     

International Trends in Health Science Librarianship Part 14: East Africa (Kenya,Uganda, Rwanda)

This is the 14th in a series of articles exploring international trends in health science librarianship in the 21st century. This is the second of four articles pertaining to different regions in the African continent. The present issue focuses on countries in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda). The next feature column will investigate trends in West Africa. JM     

Unravelling the social dynamics of an industry–school partnership: social capital as perspective for co-creation

Increasingly, innovative collaboration between industry and schools is being exploited as a way of improving the quality and relevance of education. Even though these innovations appear to have substantial benefits, often the impact proves to fade away after their implementation. A better understanding of how to sustain complex innovations seems important. Unfortunately, only a limited amount of research investigates the ‘inside’ of complex innovations. This article reports on a three-year, large-scale industry–school programme in the Dutch Leisure sector. The research, from start to finish, adopted a qualitative case study methodology with a mixed-methods approach, drawing upon social capital theory as lens to understand the dynamics of processes and effect on outcomes. Findings indicate that the social capital theory helps to unravel crucial factors of processes and outcomes. The researched innovation process depended not so much on formal project plans and objectives but largely built on the quality of social relationships at all levels. Sustaining this social capital proved crucial, while managing according to a planned change strategy appeared to be counterproductive. The outcomes show to be twofold, in terms of new knowledge and products for the organisations and of sustainable benefits for the professionals, in terms of new abilities.     

The Role of Direct Strategy Instruction and Indirect Activation of Self-Regulated Learning—Evidence from Classroom Observation Studies

Educational Psychology Review - Despite the consensus about the importance of self-regulated learning for academic as well as for lifelong learning, it is still poorly understood as to how teachers...     

四个人和一只箱子

他们是从丛林出来的,四个憔悴的、精疲力竭的野人,走起路来像是在梦游,他们的胡须像一片毡子贴在脸上,浑身疼痛,双腿无处不被蚂蟥叮咬过. 他们憎恨丛林--那是绿色的地狱.他们也互相憎恨.他们更恨他们携带的那 只箱子.但那是教授托付给他们的.教授在临终前让他们许诺把这只箱子交给他住在海边的朋友.     

Die 1960er Jahre als Formationsphase von modernem Doping und Anti-Doping

Many contemporary forms of doping and anti-doping developed in the 1960s regarding substances, social perception, doping and anti-doping strategies and actors. The first significant steps towards regulation were made during this period. Anti-doping in West Germany was based on the principle of partnership between sport and state. However, it was not a specifically German solution but in line with the common anti-doping strategies of most other European countries. At the same time limits and obstacles of anti-doping became apparent.     

Alignment 2.0: Strategic use of new internet technologies in government

This paper challenges the view that strategies for using Web 2.0 should primarily be based upon technological characteristics. The value of the organizational strategic alignment approach for developing specific operational Web 2.0 strategies for government organizations is explored both theoretically and empirically. On the basis of a review of the literature we conclude that there are no a priori reasons why the idea of a fit between IT strategy and business strategic orientation cannot be applied to the development of operational Web 2.0 strategies for government organizations. The empirical exploration based on intervention research at the Dutch Department of Education results in the identification of five configurations: organizational transparency, organizational interactions, policy sector transparency, policy sector interactions and process and policy innovation. These configurations are logically consistent with the strategic orientations of the three directorates of the Department of Education. This overview does not pretend to be exhaustive but validates the idea that an alignment approach leads to differences in operational strategies. The configuration approach provides organizations with useful a starting point for developing their Web 2.0 strategies.