Continuing professional development: pedagogical practices of interprofessional simulation in health care

The increasing complexity of health care practice makes continuing professional development (CPD) essential for health care professionals. Simulation-based training is a CPD activity that is often applied to improve interprofessional collaboration and the quality of care. The aim of this study is to explore simulation as a pedagogical practice for the CPD of health care professionals. Specifically, the study focuses on how a professional development activity, the simulation, is enacted to support interprofessional collaboration and learning. A practice theory perspective is used as the theoretical framework. In this, the professional practice is conceptualised as being embodied, relational and situated in sociomaterial arrangements. Ten introduction and reflection sessions following interprofessional full-scale manikin-based simulations with professionals were video-recorded. The recordings were analysed following a stepwise qualitative collaborative approach developed for the purpose. The key findings suggest that the professional competence activity is enacted and interconnected with and governed by historical traditions of institutional teaching practices as well as simulation practices. Despite the intentions of team and interprofessional training, the institutional teaching and simulation practices constrain and hinder the intended outcomes of professional development in interprofessional collaboration.     

Towards professionalisation? Restructuring of administrative work force in universities

This article examines the restructuring ofadministrative staff in universities throughempirically documenting such processes andproviding a theoretically foundedinterpretation and analysis of change. Theempirical material is drawn from a context ofNorwegian universities the last two decades.Two major changes can be observed in thisperiod. First, a period of steep growth inuniversity administration in early 1990sfollowed by a period of moderate growth and insome cases even decline. The second dominantdevelopment pattern in the 1980s and 1990s isthe change within administrative staff,which could be interpreted as a professionalisation of administrative staff.The article concludes by presenting possibleexplanations to the structuring of theadministrative work force in universities onthe basis of different theoretical approachesto organisational change.     

Patterns in the form of formative feedback and student response

Formative feedback currently receives attention as an effective means of increasing student learning. However, how to frame feedback to achieve the best effect is an ongoing debate. In this study we analyse a written data-set of 174 segments of teacher feedback and student response, coded using 10 emergent feedback and 14 response categories. As it is argued that feedback is a dialogue between students and teacher, links between feedback and response segments are viewed as a dialogical framework that we visualise and understand using network analysis. From this network we conclude that some ways of formulating feedback are more productive and likely to lead to types of responses that signify learning than others. We thus identify the reflection group of responses, consisting of the categories reflective response, explanation and students investigate own thinking. The feedback categories that link primarily to the reflection group are open question, wondering question and leading question, which we categorise as the questioning group of feedback. We discuss these patterns against a previously published framework, and by discussing specific examples we further our understanding of what makes feedback formative.     

Scaffolding strategies in a rubric-based intervention to promote engineering students’ ability to address wicked problems

ABSTRACT

In recent years, there has been increasing interest within the engineering education research community to prepare engineering students to address wicked problems (WPs) such as climate change, resource scarcity and violent conflict. Previous research suggests that engineering students are able to address WPs if they are given adequate support, but there is a lack of research on what kinds of support are needed. This paper aims to reduce this gap by reporting on students’ performance in, and approaches to, addressing WPs when different scaffolding strategies were used in different parts of a rubric-based intervention. The intervention aimed to provide undergraduate engineering students with an understanding of the nature of WPs and with a structured way of addressing them. For each part of the intervention, we discuss affordances for learning provided by the different scaffolding strategies. The results suggest that strong cognitive scaffolding can support students’ understanding of the nature of WPs and students’ performance in written responses to WPs, but possibly also limits deep engagement with WPs and transfer of learning to other contexts.     

Social Acceptance of Children with Intellectual Disabilities in an Integrated School Setting in Zambia: a pilot study

The social acceptance of a group of Zambian primary school children with intellectual disabilities by two groups of nondisabled children was examined. One group were in direct contact with the children with disabilities over a period of six months while the other was not. Nondisabled boys who had been in contact with children with disabilities had more positive attitudes than boys who had no direct contact, while no exposure effects were observed amongst girls. Gender differences amongst nondisabled children who had contact with peers with disabilities were not significant. Amongst the nondisabled children who had no contact with children with disabilities, girls had more positive attitudes than boys. The findings are preliminary, but offer directions for further research and have some implications for integrating children with disabilities into mainstream schools.     

Implications of facilitated work-based learning implemented as an approach to continuing engineering education

ABSTRACT

The development of employees’ skills and competences has become a key driver of economic growth in the developed world. It is widely recognised that enhancing people’s skills and competences will be a major cause of future competitive advantage. Consequently, companies need to be able to identify precise areas where they have, or can build, distinctive competences. To meet these needs, various models and approaches for continuing engineering education have emerged. One such approach is the facilitated work-based learning (FWBL) model, the aim of which is to introduce an approach to tailor-made courses built on work-based learning (WBL) and problem-based learning (PBL). This paper addresses the implementation of tailor-made continuing engineering education in company settings through the use of FWBL. It draws on a huge amount of documentation produced within the Via Nord project, which was supported by the European Social Fund and engaged various companies in northern Denmark. The aim is to investigate how the FWBL model worked in practice when implemented as a means for tailor-made continuing engineering education applied in a company setting.     

The extended Theory of Planned Behaviour and college grades: the role of cognition and past behaviour in the prediction of students’ academic intentions and achievements

Understanding the underlying processes influencing college students’ academic achievement represents an important goal of educational research. The aim of the present study was to examine the utility of the extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and the relative influence of cognitive processes and measures of past behaviour in the prediction of grade intentions and actual grades in the context of higher education. Our results show that perceived behavioural control (PBC), subjective norms (SN) and past grades emerged as significant predictors and were able to explain 41% of the variance in grade intentions, while the influence of cognitive processes (planning and future orientation) was not significant. With respect to the prediction of actual grades, we found that habitual school attendance and past grades explained 26% of the variance in actual grades. Again, the influence of cognitive processes (planning and future orientation) was not significant. The main discussion is centred on the utility of the extended TPB in the prediction of academic achievement and the complex relationship between cognitive processes and past behaviour in predicting human actions in general. Limitations and implications of the study are also discussed.     

Job satisfaction of University academics: Perspectives from Uganda

Although several studies in the affluent world have examined the job satisfaction and dissatisfaction of lecturers in higher education, little is known about academic job satisfaction in the low-resource countries. This study probes those factors contributing to academic satisfaction and dissatisfaction in higher education in the developing world. Using a sample of 182 respondents drawn from two universities in Uganda, this analysis reports that the factors most prevalent in the prediction of dons’ satisfaction relate to co-worker behaviour, supervision and intrinsic facets of teaching. Analogously, the stimuli that create academic dissatisfaction are largely extrinsic (contextual) factors with respect to facets of remuneration, governance, research, promotion, and working environment. This article discusses these findings in the light of Herzberg’s dichotomy and concludes that any given factor be it intrinsic or extrinsic can either evoke academic satisfaction or induce dissatisfaction. The present analysis finds that while age, rank, and tenure significantly predict academic job satisfaction, no evidence is adduced to support a gender influence on dons’ job satisfaction. Implications for Ugandan academics’ job satisfaction are formulated, recommendations made, and a further research agenda proposed.     

Introducing teachers to new semiotic tools for writing instruction and writing assessment: consequences for students’ writing proficiency

This article reports consequences for student writing quality based on a long-term professional learning project. Project teachers, representing all school subjects in grades 3–7, were presented with a writing construct, ‘Wheel of Writing’, and norms of expectation for writing proficiency. Participating teachers used the writing construct and norms as a basis for writing instruction and writing assessment. The project was conducted in 24 schools across Norway. 3088 students from 20 project schools participated. Two hundred and thirty three students from 4 schools were used as a comparison group. The investigation showed that students in primary school improved their writing quality significantly. Students in lower secondary school did not. However, there was substantial variation in writing quality effects between schools, classes, and individual students. For instance at a number of schools, project students from lower secondary school improved their writing quality significantly. The article discusses potential explanations of the effects.