Score Gains, Attitudes, and Behavior Changes Due to Answer-Changing Instruction

Six undergraduate and three graduate classes were given multiple-choice tests with subsequent evaluation of answer changes. The 300 students were tested twice, once before and once after instruction on answer changing. After each test, students were asked to complete two forms. The forms evaluated attitude toward answer changing, reasons for changing, and confidence in final answers. Students showed a significant increase in favorability toward answer changing after instruction. No significant change was found in number of answers changed. Psychology students were found to change significantly more items than were business students. Mean gain score did not change significantly after instruction. It was concluded that although instruction does lead to a change in attitude in answer changing, the number of changes and overall gain due to answer changing do not change. It was also determined that students continue to make significant gains even when their confidence in the final answer is less than 50 on a 100-point scale.     

Working with the new generation of interactive media technologies in schools: CD-I and CDTV

A preliminary evaluation of classroom use of CD-I and CDTV in five schools is described. Information is provided on the pedagogical, operational, and logistical characteristics of these interactive media technologies compared to interactive video. A number of benefits are described, but it is suggested that poorly designed or inappropriate software and technology fatigue amongst teachers contribute to the low take-up of these systems in the classroom.     

Project Cheddarfield: Supporting Co‐Curricular Themes Through Creative Use of Video Course‐Casting

This article chronicles the coordination and better integration of existing institutional resources to support cocurricular themes embedded in the provision of a large enrollment, video‐mediated undergraduate operations management (OM) course. The name Project Cheddarfield refers to a 2008 initiative in which two professors team‐taught an OM course to over 600 undergraduates on two different continents through the repeated rapid exchange of digital video between the United States and Singapore. Simultaneously infused in this core curricular delivery were themes of global awareness and study‐abroad, including the promotion of one particular opportunity that bridged the two campuses. This action research narrative spans over 5 years of related activity leading up to the initiative, as this project is best understood as a trajectory, or the evolving result of design adapting to unfolding realities.     

Twisted roots: The Western impact on Asian higher education

The long historical and contemporary impact of Western academic models, practices and orientations on Asian universities in such countries as India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore shaped the nature of higher education systems in these countries. The Japanese colonial impact in Korea and Taiwan is also significant and an interesting variation on the colonial theme. Several Asian countries, including Thailand, Japan and China were not formally colonized, but the mixture of influence on the academic institutions that has developed in these countries reflects considerable Western influence. Contemporary factors such as the international knowledge system, the numbers of students studying in Western nations and patterns of scientific interaction also have a major impact on the growth of universities in Asia.     

Keeping Secrets: ESP/LSP and the sociology of knowledge

Summary This article examines the notions of ‘specialisation’ or ‘specificity’ as they are used in expressions such as ‘English for special purposes’ (ESP) or languages for specific purposes’ (LSP). It is argued that a given variety of language is not ‘special’ or ‘specific’ in some absolute or objective way, inherent to its formal structures, topics and norms. ‘Specificity’ is, rather, the result of a particular relationship between participant and discourse, between two cultures or worlds of knowledge. For these reasons, it is often not particularly helpful to attempt to describe specific varieties in terms of linguistic features. Instead, we need to situate the problem within a general theory of the sociology of knowledge by asking fundamental questions such as ‘Specialised for who?’ and ‘Who knows what?’, ‘How do they acquire and use their knowledge?’. Such a theory will necessarily be both relative and social: relative to the individual and to the way in which knowledge is socially distributed. But it will also be a theory of discourse, since interactive language‐use is the principal mechanism by which individuals acquire, stock and share all knowledge, ‘specialised’ or otherwise. It is suggested that two factors need to be kept in mind by the didactician interested in LSP. First, is the discourse asymmetric?, i.e. does it assume or contain knowledge which the learner does not have? Secondly, is the discourse non‐collaborative?, i.e. one where no attempt is made to share the knowledge with uninitiated participants.     

Globalized curriculum or global approach to curriculum reform in mathematics education

The mathematics education community has shown considerable awareness of the international status of their discipline. While internationalization of the discipline is not a new phenomenon, globalization is a relatively recent term in educational discourse. This paper presents a theoretical model towards the study of globalization and internationalization in mathematics education based on previous publication by the authors. Secondly, it identifies some key issues that have been discussed in the literature and that may require further discussion and research in the field. In particular it discusses the issue of similarity of mathematics education curricula around the world. The concept of a global curriculum is rejected in favor for more internationalized approach to curriculum reform based on collaboration between mathematics educators.