Dilemmas faced by a university president in educational reforms

This paper explores higher education reforms in China in the 1990s. Confronted with the furious conflicts and mismatch between the market economy and the highly state-controlled socialist educational system, educational reforms in China are extremely complex and difficult. The authors present a case study here telling the tragedy of a university president's reforms in China. They have unfolded how the macro system changes impacted on the micro system reforms. They point out that multilayers exist within an organizational culture. Although understanding organizational culture does not guarantee successful reform, however, a thorough understanding of the fabric of an organizational culture may become an effective lever to initiate or implement the context-fitted reforms. The authors try to describe informatively what dilemmas the Chinese IHE leaders were faced with in the 1990s. Seeking new means for school reforms in a time of turbulent policy environment, in a testing period with sharp contradictory forces, school leaders should have not only sharp eyes, clear thinking, and independence but also creativity, endurance, and persistence.     

Memory characteristics and modality in multimedia learning: An aptitude–treatment–interaction study

According to the modality effect in multimedia, a text accompanying a picture should be auditorily presented instead of visually in order to avoid split of attention. In two experimental studies (34 and 78 participants, respectively), the impact and possible compensatory effects of two aptitude variables, that is, memory strategy skills and working memory capacity, on multimedia learning were tested. Aptitude–treatment–interaction effects were found with respect to comprehension (Study 1) and transfer (Study 2). The modality effect was confirmed for less-skilled learners in memory strategy use but not for highly skilled ones. Memory strategy skills and working memory capacity differentially affected multimedia learning, depending on task features and demands.     

Language‐Switching Costs in Bilingual Mathematics Learning

Behavioral studies on bilingual learning have revealed cognitive costs (lower accuracy and/or higher processing time) when the language of application differs from the language of learning. The aim of this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was to provide insights into the cognitive underpinnings of these costs (so‐called language‐switching costs) in mathematics. Twenty‐nine bilingual adults underwent a 4‐day arithmetic training in one language, followed by an fMRI test session in which they had to solve the trained problems in both languages. Language‐switching costs were accompanied by increased activation in areas associated with magnitude processing (intraparietal sulcus), visuo‐spatial imagery (precuneus), numerical stimulus recognition (fusiform gyrus) and executive functions (frontal areas). These findings suggest that language‐switching costs in arithmetic are due to additional numerical information processing. Bilingual education programs need to take these findings into account to reduce language‐switching costs in order to fully exploit the potential of bilingual learning.     

Teacher educators' perspectives on the implementation of beginning teacher standards for physical education in Ireland: developing and regulating the profession?

The physical education teacher education community in Ireland has developed Beginning Teacher Standards for Physical Education (BTSfPE) at the post-primary (secondary) level. This study explored teacher educators' perspectives on how the BTSfPE could be implemented and considered the possible impact on the profession within the discourses of power. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews with teacher educators in physical education (n = 13). Data were analysed inductively and trustworthiness issues were considered. Participants suggested that the teaching standards could serve as a developmental tool to guide individual teacher education programmes and beginning teachers as well as an assessment function to support quality assurance and to hold programmes accountable. The teacher educators were committed to addressing issues of quality and status in physical education in Ireland. However, an agreed vision of how the teaching standards would be used to develop and regulate the profession is necessary to ensure that the intended benefits emerge.     

Impact of Expert Teaching Quality on Novice Academic Performance in the Jigsaw Cooperative Learning Method

We assessed the impact of expert students' instructional quality on the academic performance of novice students in 12th-grade physics classes organized in an expert model of cooperative learning (‘jigsaw classroom’). The instructional quality of 129 expert students was measured by a newly developed rating system. As expected, when aggregating across all four subtopics taught, regression analysis revealed that academic performance of novice students increases with the quality of expert students' instruction. The difficulty of subtopics, however, moderates this effect: higher instructional quality of more difficult subtopics did not lead to better academic performance of novice students. We interpret this finding in the light of Cognitive Load Theory. Demanding tasks cause high intrinsic cognitive load and hindered the novice students' learning.