Developing Computer-Assisted Interactive Video Courseware for Instruction

This study reports the results of a funded project aimed at the production and evaluation of instructional materials suitable for use on an interactive videodisc system. More specifically, this project involved the development of visual materials on a videodisc, preparation of a computer-assisted interactive videodisc courseware on the concept of weather forecasting using these materials, reporting on the process of development, and testing the product with a group drawn from the intended audience.     

Faculty in Transition: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Role of Perceived Control and Type of Institution in Adjustment to Postsecondary Institutions

As postsecondary institutions undergo major changes in the coming years, they will be hardpressed to maintain the quality of their programs unless they can successfully attract and retain new faculty. Understanding something about the experiences of new faculty should enable postsecondary institutions to be more effective in the recruitment process. The present study examined the adjustment of newly hired faculty at the point of entry into their institutions and subsequently for a three-year period. It was expected that perceived personal control, teaching experience, gender, type of institution, and time would be particularly critical to the adjustment of new faculty. Three surveys were administered one year apart to newly hired, tenure-track faculty who responded to questions about their adjustment experiences. The results indicated that perceived control is a critical factor affecting new hires' emotional well-being, stress levels, job satisfaction, etc., either by itself or in combination with institution type and time. Overall, new hires who were identified as having greater control believed they had more control over their teaching and career in general, were more satisfied with their teaching and their career, had less teaching- and career-related job stress, and were less likely to consider quitting their job. The type of institution also affected new hires' adjustment, with the liberal arts colleges and a comprehensive I institution having the most negative impact compared with a community college and a research I institution. Finally, time had an unexpected negative effect on adjustment. These finding were discussed in relation to the career development of faculty.     

Learning Styles and Student Experience in Management Courses

Two learning style instruments ‐‐ Kolb's and Fox's were administered to students and staff at an Australian CAE. Only Fox's instruments were reasonably reliable over time, and some factors in both instruments measured were correlated. In addition, measured factors did not correlate usefully with preferences for education methods, preferences for academic subjects, easiness of those subjects, achievement in those subjects, staff discipline, years of study, age or salary. Although Fox's instrument is preferred to Kolb's, the usefulness of the instruments to educators appears to be limited.     

Attributional (explanatory) thinking about failure in new achievement settings

Attributional (explanatory) thinking involves the appraisal of factors that contribute to performance and is instrumental to motivation and goal striving. Little is understood, however, concerning attributional thinking when multiple causes are involved in the transition to new achievement settings. Our study examined such complex attributional thinking in the transition from high school to university, a shift from familiar to novel learning environments, in the context of Weiner’s attribution theory (1972, 1985, 1995, 2006). At the start of the academic year, students rated the extent to which each of six common attributions contributed to poor performance to ascertain their relative importance to each other. A fixed order of attributions was reported as contributing to poor performance that was identical across five independent cohorts of first-year students (effort, test difficulty, strategy, professor quality, ability, luck, respectively). Cluster analysis revealed that students differed in combining these attributions into clusters suggesting diminished or enhanced control over poor performance. These differences in attribution clusters were associated with cognitive and affective outcomes at the start of Term 1, and with course grades and GPA at the end of Term 2. Student differences in complex attributional thinking are discussed in terms of transitions to new achievement settings.     

Action research in graduate management research programs

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how action research may be applied to graduate management research programs. After distinguishing action research from traditional research and establishing that the former is more appropriate for developing managerial competencies than the latter, the paper discusses issues of conducting action research within a graduate management research program. These issues centre on the key concept of distinguishing between action research project and a thesis action research project. Distinctions between action research projects at Masters and PhD levels are noted. It is argued that ideally the core action research project has to be part of the PhD candidate's full-time work. Future difficulties are canvassed.     

Educating for innovation: students’ perceptions of the learning environment and of their own innovation competence

Learning Environments Research - Developing students’ innovation competence is becoming increasingly important in higher education, yet few studies have actually investigated whether current...