Coping by Copying? Higher education institutions’ student recruitment strategies

Growing national and international competition for students puts pressure on higher education institutions (HEIs) to develop marketing and student recruitment strategies; these are also driven by financial stress caused by performance-based funding mechanisms. In this paper we explore Norwegian HEIs’ student recruitment strategies. What type of student recruitment strategies do HEIs develop? How are the strategies linked to the institutions’ student market position? We combine qualitative research strategies including in-depth interviews and document analysis with quantitative analyses of the student market positions of different types of institutions in Norway.

     

Continuing education/beyond higher education

Publicly funded institutions, such as NIH, NLM, and state-supported universities, have explicit public service missions that extend beyond the walls of a single institution. During the past few years, national organizations, such as NLM and AAMC, have funded studies and projects to measure how well universities are adapting to technological change and educational reform. The IAIMS models are evidence of universities fostering cooperative rather than duplicative effort. Opportunities and problems facing universities extending systems and services to the private practice setting, to community-based health care HMO's, and to state and local health care agencies are discussed in terms of political, economic, and geographic realities. Instilling lifelong learning concepts begins before the health professional enters practice and is dependent on the emphasis universities place on "excellence in teaching." Without cooperation among core facilities, such as libraries, computer centers, and excellent instructors, continuing education will remain a parochial issue instead of a national thrust toward the continuum of the learning process. If continuing education is to become a high priority for universities and take its place on the education spectrum, flexible policies must be established to accommodate individual practitioners' expectations and interests.     

Discursive geographies in science: space, identity, and scientific discourse among indigenous women in higher education

Despite completing undergraduate degrees in the life sciences, few Indigenous women choose to pursue careers in scientific research. To help us understand how American Indian students engage with science, this ethnographic research describes (1) how four Navajo women identified with science, and (2) the narratives they offered when we discussed their experiences with scientific discourse. Using intensive case studies to describe the experiences of these women, my research focused on their final year of undergraduate study in the life sciences at a university in southwestern US. I point to the processes by which the participants align themselves with ideas, practices, groups, or people in science. As each participant recounted her experiences with scientific discourse, they recreated for me a discursive geography of their lives on the reservation, at home, at community colleges (in some cases), and on the university campus. In the construction and analysis of the narratives for this research, mapping this geography was critical to understanding each participant’s discursive relationship with science. In these discursive spaces, I observed productive “locations of possibility” in which students and their instructors: valued connected knowing; acknowledged each other’s history, culture, and knowledge; began to speak to each other subject-to-subject; and challenged normative views of schooling. I argue that this space, as a location of possibility, has the power to transform the crushing impersonalized schooling that often characterizes “rigorous” scientific programs in a research institution.

Is three‐dimensional videography the cutting edge of surgical skill acquisition?

The process of learning new surgical technical skills is vital to the career of a surgeon. The acquisition of these new skills is influenced greatly by visual‐spatial ability (VSA) and may be difficult for some learners to rapidly assimilate. In many cases, the role of VSA on the acquisition of a novel technical skill has been explored; however, none have probed the impact of a three‐dimensional (3D) video learning module on the acquisition of new surgical skills. The first aim of this study is to capture spatially complex surgical translational flaps using 3D videography and incorporate the footage into a self‐contained e‐learning module designed in line with the principles of cognitive load theory. The second aim is to assess the efficacy of 3D video as a medium to support the acquisition of complex surgical skills in novice surgeons as evaluated using a global ratings scale. It is hypothesized that the addition of depth in 3D viewing will augment the learner's innate visual spatial abilities, thereby enhancing skill acquisition compared to two‐dimensional viewing of the same procedure. Despite growing literature suggesting that 3D correlates directly to enhanced skill acquisition, this study did not differentiate significant results contributing to increased surgical performance. This topic will continue to be explored using more sensitive scales of measurement and more complex “open procedures” capitalizing on the importance of depth perception in surgical manipulation. Anat Sci Educ. © 2012 American Association of Anatomists.     

Misrecognition and science education reform

In this forum, I expand upon Teo and Osborne??s discussion of teacher agency and curriculum reform. I take up and build upon their analysis to further examine one teacher??s frustration in enacting an inquiry-based curriculum and his resulting accommodation of an AP curriculum. In this way I introduce the concept of misrecognition (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977) to open up new ways of thinking about science inquiry and school reform.     

From Policy to Practice in Higher Education: The experiences of disabled students in Norway

Knowledge about disabled students in higher education is fragmented. It is therefore difficult to assess whether policy goals actually promote better conditions for disabled students. The aim of this article is to take a closer look at the experiences of disabled students in Norway and, in light of policy goals, to identify obstacles in the higher education system. This study is based on qualitative data from in-depth interviews with disabled students in higher education. The findings indicate that an educational reform in Norwegian higher education seems to have helped to strengthen disabled tertiary students’ potential for learning, but there are a number of critical periods during their studies when it is imperative for disabled students to get the adjustment needed.     

Now it is time for your child to go to school,how do you feel?

FEELINGS OF ANXIETY and depression were analyzed in a group of 13 mothers of children with Down syndrome (DS) aged 7 to 8 years using a standardized questionnaire, two projective tests and a semistructured interview. The experience of social support and the family situation was evaluated using questionnaires. Thirteen women without handicapped children served as a comparative group. The results were also compared with results obtained in 18 mothers of motor handicapped children and 18 mothers of children with mental retardation and psychotic symptoms. Mood disturbances such as anxiety and depression seemed to be uncommon in the mothers of primary school children with DS. Their experience of social support was not negative although the need for more empathy was expressed by some of them. There were no major differences between the mothers of children with DS and the mothers of motor handicapped children. The results indicate that mothers of children with DS fare better than mothers of children with mental retardation and psychotic symptoms.