Still Academic and National – Internationalisation in Norwegian Research and Higher Education

The paper discusses strategies for internationalisation in Norwegian research and higher educational institutions in terms of understanding them in relation to the organisations’ relation to environments and/or in relation to the organisations basic values and identities. The empirical material consists of six case studies (3 universities, 2 university colleges and 1 research institute). Points of departure are observed through increasing competition, normative transformations in terms of increasing economic justifications of internationalisation and impetus to coherent strategic actions. To what extent does the Norwegian landscape of responses to internationalisation fit such interpretations? Based on this case study we may safely conclude that increased competition as a major driver of internationalisation policies and practices in these organisations is still to come. An economic justification of policies and practices is not the major reason to internationalise, given the perceptions of these organisations. They are currently deeply embedded in academic rationales for internationalisation.     

Sourcing in Text Comprehension: a Review of Interventions Targeting Sourcing Skills

The process of using information about documents such as the author, genre, and date of publication while evaluating and interpreting those documents’ content was labeled “sourcing” in a seminal paper by Wineburg (Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 73, 1991). Studies in various domains have adapted the term sourcing while referring to central reading skills in modern information societies. In this review, we discuss the concept of sourcing grounded in research from social psychology, information sciences, and text comprehension. Based on that, we reviewed 18 intervention studies in educational settings, in order to identify how sourcing was operationalized in the studies, the nature of the interventions, and how successful they were. The review shows that interventions for younger students emphasized source credibility, whereas interventions among older students also emphasized the role of sourcing in interpretation. None of the studies measured how students search for source features or specifically which features they attend to. Regarding the nature of the studies, the use of multiple partly conflicting documents was common, with that condition positively related to outcome measures. Another characteristic was the use of inquiry tasks. A majority of the studies do not apply findings from persuasion theory and information science indicating that credibility assessment requires effort and motivation. Future interventions should more strongly emphasize the relationship between sourcing and motivation.     

Investigating agentive urban learning: an assembly of situated experiences for sustainable futures

ABSTRACT

In this article we explore the dynamic between the pedagogical and the urban, attending to ‘agentive urban learning’. By this we mean processes by which young people build agency in the urban context, in using the resources of the city to develop their own agency, and of developing agency to act within the city. By agency, we refer to the capacity to imagine and act to create individual and collective futures. Our interest is how young people develop such agentive urban learning themselves and how it might be enhanced pedagogically at school and university. Three case studies explore different facets—the first how young people themselves develop this agency in situated settings and the tools that they use to reflect upon the future; the second how digital tools might be used to enhance students’ understanding of the city as a site of change, in this instance, climate change; and the third how such agency might be developed collectively in partnership with other city dwellers. We conclude that a diversity of students’ engagement in urban contexts of learning offers ways from which to further investigate how identity, setting, and stakeholder relationships matter as part of potentially sustainable agentive learning futures.     

Legal Regulation and Professional Discretion in Schools

ABSTRACT

The paper aims to analyse how pupils’ equal educational opportunities are warranted. We focus on how regulations of adapted education and the right to special needs education provide school leaders’ and teachers’ room for discretionary decision-making, how it is interpreted and how discretionary power is justified. The paper draws on findings from an interdisciplinary study (education and law) on the transformation of legal standards into professional actions in schools. This paper employs interview data from three compulsory schools (grades 1–10), legal documents, and public reports, and the analysis is guided by a conceptual distinction between structural and epistemic aspects of discretion. Based on our findings, we question whether the discretionary space regarding special needs education gives too many opportunities for action and, hence, weakens pupils’ legal rights. Under the guise of a common school, there is a risk that pupils’ special needs are made invisible.     

The effects of transfer in teaching vocabulary to school children: An analysis of the dependencies between lists of trained and non-trained words

In the present study, 81 Norwegian students were taught the meaning of words by the Word Generation (WG) method and 51 Norwegian students were taught by an approach inspired by the Thinking Schools (TS) concept. Two sets of words were used: a set of words to be trained and a set of non-trained control words. The two teaching methods yielded no significant differences for the trained words, but the WG participants performed better than the TS participants on the non-trained words. An analysis of the dependencies between the trained words and non-trained words suggested that the participants of the WG program, in contrast to the TS students, profited from a transfer effect that resulted in augmented scores on the non-trained words.     

Relationships between learning approach,procrastination and academic achievement amongst first-year university students

Individual differences in student learning influence academic performance, and two aspects influencing the learning process are the particular learning approach the students use and procrastination behaviour. We examined the relationships between learning approaches, procrastination and academic achievement (measured 1 year later as the grade point average (GPA)) amongst 428 first-year university students. Deep and strategic learning approaches positively predicted GPA, and a mediation analysis showed that the strategic learning approach also partly mediated the effect between deep learning approach and GPA. Less procrastination was associated with a strategic learning approach, but procrastination tendencies did not predict GPA. Recommendations are made for educating new students in cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies, helping reduce their procrastination and facilitating the use of deep and strategic learning approaches.     

From concept to reality in implementing the Knowledge Triangle

The concept of Knowledge Triangle (KT) links together research, education and innovation and replaces the traditional ‘one way’ flow of knowledge, essentially from research to education, by a ‘both ways’ circular motion between all the corners of a triangle that, besides research and education, also includes innovation, the ‘poor relation’ of many universities. What are the main issues – barriers and drivers – and what could be done in order to make the concept of KT a strong reality in engineering education? In this paper, the authors intend to bring some answers by analysing three cases coming from actors operating at the three corners of the KT: students, academic staff and engineers in industry.     

Towards a semantic e-learning theory by using a modelling approach

In the present study, a semantic perspective on e‐learning theory is advanced and a modelling approach is used. This modelling approach towards the new learning theory is based on the four SECI phases of knowledge conversion: Socialisation, Externalisation, Combination and Internalisation, introduced by Nonaka in 1994, and involving two levels of knowledge—tacit and explicit. In the Socialisation phase, the teacher–student interaction activates the exploratory learning behaviour. This phase is emotionally and socially loaded. The Externalisation phase is partly emotional but a cognitive dimension is also needed, which requires creativity. This phase works optimally if it is collaborative in nature. In the Combination phase, an ability for hypothetical–deductive thinking is needed for the modelling approach. During the Internalisation phase, the learning process requires that students engage in seeking to understand and explain natural phenomena, which further demands testing of the theoretical concepts.     

Students' Misbehaviours in Turkish and English Primary Classrooms

This paper deals with the comparison of students' misbehaviours in Turkish and English primary classrooms. A field study was conducted in order to discern students' misbehaviours based on students' age, gender, time of day, seating arrangement, types of learning activities and subject matter. Semi-structured in-depth interview and systematic classroom observation were used to collect data from two different cultural contexts. Participants in this study were 20 primary school teachers. The results show that there are differences and similarities between Turkish and English primary classrooms in terms of the causes and types of students' misbehaviours. Certain misbehaviours that are caused by different cultural and educational contexts are frequently observed either in English or in Turkish classrooms.     

Fleeing through the globalised education system: the role of violence and conflict in international student migration

ABSTRACT

This article connects directly to the globalisation of both education and conflict, and attends to the intersection between these phenomena, by focusing on conflict-induced student migration, an area, which has until recently been neglected in studies of higher education and migration, and peace and conflict research. The focus is on the very intersection of these research traditions in trying to understand how increasing globalised student migration is intertwined with the internationalisation of higher education and violent conflicts. The research on which this article is based was carried out at Malmö University, Sweden. The focus is on mapping the linkages between violent conflicts and student migration, using a mixed methods design.