Investigating Students' Perceived Discipline Relevance Subsequent to Playing Educational Computer Games: A Personal Interest and Self-Determination Theory Approach

The purpose of this study is to explain students' perceived relevance of playing an educational game as a means for development of discipline competence. Based on self-determination theory and the concept of personal interest, we propose that: Satisfying students' basic needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness when playing educational games is critical for arousal of intrinsic motivation in learning-through-gaming; Students' interest in the core subject and their intrinsic motivation in learning-through-gaming are important for their perceptions of how relevant they believe the gaming session is for the discipline they are studying. The results from an empirical study indicate that arousal of intrinsic motivation in the ongoing gaming session is more important than pre-gaming interest in the core subject for participants' post-gaming perception of how relevant such gaming is as a means for developing their discipline competence. The results also indicate that satisfying basic needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness is critical for arousal of intrinsic gaming motivation. Our findings have implications for the choice of pedagogical means when utilizing educational games as a complementary alternative to traditional learning methods. To that end, we offer directions for future research.     

The ghostly workings of Danish accountability policies

Abstract

This article proposes a framework for thinking about the ghostly, thus arguing that policy can be understood as a landscape of intersecting and colliding temporalities from which arouse curious workings of barely-there forces, spooky energies and vibrating saturations of affective ambivalences. I present an empirical study of a policy agenda of introducing an assessment culture and improving the management of the Danish public school. I explore how all the routines and habits deemed outdated and sought annihilated by a new policy paradigm continue to haunt head teachers as seething presence of lurking resistance towards the policy aims as well as insidious doubts. Thinking about the ghostly contributes to studies of education policy by locating the reality of power in the mundane everyday doings and experiences of educational practitioners and insisting on the very tangled way people sense and intuit the complexities of contemporary forms of power.     

Feedback for everybody? Exploring the relationship between students’ perceptions of feedback and students’ socioeconomic status

In this article I describe teacher–student feedback as an active process shaped by both the teacher and the student and argue that feedback is influenced by students’ unique experiences and socialisation. Drawing on sociological theories on interaction and communication, I argue that the type and quality of the teacher–student feedback perceived by the student is influenced by the student's background. While many studies have shown that feedback is a key determinant for student learning and achievement, only a few have examined how feedback is perceived by students and if the perception is related to their socioeconomic status (SES). I use data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 in a multilevel regression model to examine differences in students’ perceptions of directive and facilitative feedback. The five Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are used as cases. Regarding directive feedback, I find no relationship between this type of feedback and students’ SES. However, the results indicate that students with high SES perceive more facilitative feedback in Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden than students with low SES. These results indicate that students are not given equal opportunities to learn. I argue that this might create inequalities in the Nordic school systems. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Decomposing Cross-Country Differences in Skills: Evidence from Four Nordic Countries

This paper performs multivariate analysis of skill differences in four Nordic countries as assessed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey of adults aged 16–65. The differences in average skills between Finland and each of the three Scandinavian countries are decomposed into a component that is due to different skill levels in subgroups of the population and a component that is due to differences in the composition of subgroups. The decompositions show that the high Finnish average skill level compared to the three Scandinavian countries can be attributed to the low share of immigrants in Finland and to high scores among Finns with high school and less than high school education. The Finnish average score is pulled substantially downwards as a consequence of the low numeracy skill level among older Finns, which is consistent with an increase in the quantity or quality of Finnish education over time, relative to the other three Nordic countries.     

Teaching about the Gypsies at Levanger College of Education

The author describes an extensive project undertaken at Levanger College of Education since 1976.

The project grew out of a concern about the conflicts which arose annually when gypsy groups passed through Levanger. A group of students carried out extensive research into the situation and background of the gypsies and presented their findings at a cultural evening. This presentation began a process of change in attitudes towards the gypsies, and the project was extended. Later, it involved students in work at the Gypsy School in Oslo and with the production of teaching materials. These have been added to constantly and have been widely disseminated. The project continues, and has been extensively reported.     

Club Foot for football – on the (re)construction of meanings of music and football through a television title sequence

Abstract

This paper explores how music contributes to actualizing meaning potentials in a case of televised football. From the perspective of textual analysis – informed by multimodal discourse analysis and semiotics of music – the paper specifically focusses on the title music and demonstrates how the music contributes to offering impressions of 1) the characteristics of the editorial production of the programme, 2) the type and quality of content of the programme, and 3) for whom the programme and football are particularly relevant. The examination furthermore illustrates how a textual examination of title music should include an exploration of how the title music relates to music from outside the title sequence (transtextuality) as well as how the music relates to non-musical elements throughout the audio-visual sequence (cotextuality). In this respect, the paper presents a text analytical framework applicable to other examples of title music for football and sports programming.     

“Totally different standards”: consumer orientation in study abroad contexts

The paper takes an interest in consumer behavior in international higher education (HE). It takes qualitative narratives of international student experience as a point of departure for a discussion of the degree to which students conceive of their experience in consumer terms when they evaluate their stays abroad. Intentionally, the group of informants consists of culturally diverse subjects (Danish and Chinese students). While the size of the sample does not allow for any wide-ranging conclusions on the connection between cultural background and adoption of consumer identity, it enables the researchers to evaluate whether cultural background seems to pertain to the propensity of students to think and act in a consumer-oriented manner in their experience of the different material and academic standards they were faced with in their study abroad environment. Based on an interest in the role of the student in the era of academic capitalism, the study investigates whether the fact that universities increasingly operate on market and market-like conditions influences students’ way of conceiving of their study abroad experience. To what extent do students perceive themselves as consumers investing in services and products?     

Children’s Perspective on Learning: An International Study in Denmark,Estonia, Germany and Sweden

This article explores how some children in Denmark, Estonia, Germany and Sweden describe their perspective on learning. The aim of the international study is to gain knowledge of how preschool children in Sweden, Denmark, Estonia and Germany reflect and perceive their learning in preschool and other surrounding social contexts. The results are based on 51 focus group interviews from 181 children. The results indicate that, in general, children from all four countries seem to be aware of their own learning. One can conclude that encouraging children to think about what they are doing and why they are doing it makes the activities more goal-oriented from the children’s perspective and thus more conscious. Children are able to describe their own perspectives on learning.