Success Breeds Success. Moroccan and Turkish Student Mentors in the Netherlands

Of all the major migrant groups in theNetherlands, Turkish and Moroccan pupilsperform the least well in school. Althoughsmaller in number there is also a Turkish andMoroccan group that is successful in school. Inseveral projects these successful Turkish andMoroccan higher education students give, as astudent mentor, guidance and counselling toTurkish and Moroccan pupils in secondaryeducation. International literature hasextensively reviewed the effects of mentoring.The content of mentoring as such, however, hasnot been studied so much. In the article I willfocus on this somehow neglected aspect in theresearch. I will, based on my own qualitativeresearch, go into depth on how mentoring ispracticed on a daily basis. With the aim todevelop (the beginning of) a methodology I willlook how a mentor relationship develops overtime and describe the variety of themes amentor relationships deals with.     

Comparing higher education systems

This paper discusses the range of comparative studies which might legitimately be attempted. It considers the separate issue of whether they must necessarily be directed towards the testing of pre-constructed hypotheses. It describes how the Brunel-Gothenburg-Bergen international team is attempting to compare their three national systems and academic working within them.     

A selective analysis of empirical findings in networked learning research in higher education: Questing for coherence

In this paper, we have attempted two ambitious tasks. We have undertaken a wide-ranging survey of the Network learning (NL) literature, and tried to identify the emerging themes of this work. We have selected three of these themes, and in each case tried to identify the main theoretical perspectives in use, the main directions of the studies, and the key ideas being addressed and researched. We have also tried to indicate where the main research effort might be directed in order to help to ‘fill in the gaps’ and achieve some coherence for the theme. Our second major task has arisen from our assertion that the field of Networked Learning research is theoretically fragmented. We have argued that this situation arises because Networked Learning research is a new field, and is drawing upon a wide range of theoretical perspectives. However, unless we can achieve some synthesis of these perspectives we may find it difficult to establish a coherent research programme in the field. We argue that one way of developing some coherence is to make theory and praxis interact explicitly, in other words, to ‘converse’ with each other in our research. By this we mean, to use theory to interrogate praxis, and use praxis to modify and develop theory, thus moving towards perspectives that are changing theory, modifying and improving it. As part of this argument, we have briefly surveyed the current level of Theory–Praxis Conversation, either explicit, or implicit, in the thematic research we have described. It is clear that some outstanding work is being done to make theory work, and to modify it in the light of research into praxis. However, it is also the case that much current Networked Learning research does not interrogate the theory that it uses to contextualise it. We see Theory–Praxis Conversation as a way of thinking explicitly about how we might make the work of interrogating theory in our research more explicit and systematic. In this way, our ‘Quest for Coherence’ may, we hope, help Networked Learning research to climb up to the higher ground, and give us a wider ranging view of learning in networked environments.     

Computerized Cognitive Diagnostic Adaptive Testing: Effect on Remedial Instruction as Empirical Validation

The purpose of this study is to show the usefulness of cognitive diagnoses for remedial instruction. Cognitive diagnoses were done by an adaptive testing system using the rule-space methodology, which was developed by K. K. Tatsuoka and her associates (K. K. Tatsuoka, 1983, 1990; K. K. Tatsuoka & M. M. atsuoka, 1987; M. M. Tatsuoka & K. K. Tatsuoka, 1989). The results of the study strongly indicate that knowing students'knowledge states prior to remediation is very effective and that the rule-space method can effectively diagnose students' knowledge states and can point out ways for remediating their errors quickly with minimum effort. It is also found that the design of instructional units for remediation can be effectively guided by the rule-space model, because the determination of all possible knowledge states in a domain of interest, given an incidence matrix, is based on a partially ordered tree structure of knowledge states, which is equivalent to item-score patterns determined logically from the incidence matrix.     

HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE WORLD OF WORK: AN OVERVIEW

This article presents an overview of the state of the art in studies of higher education and the world of work, based on papers, some of which are published in this issue, presented at the 1992 annual meeting of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers. It considers the contributions made to the study of the subject by different disciplines and sketches the range of relationships between higher education and work. It discusses the contribution of higher education to the labour market, its diversity and dynamics, and the employment experiences of graduates. It analyses the different value systems of the two sides, their expressions of needs, and reciprocal impacts. It asks what role government and institutions play in effecting the relationship. It analyses the knowledge and skills content of higher education. And, finally, it offers a research agenda. The emphasis of the paper is on the substantive issues against their institutional and structural aspects.