Foreign Students in Engineering Education

Institutions for higher engineering education encourage the admission of foreign students, mostly for economic reasons. Data from the situation of foreign students at Delft University of Technology, however, show that admitting foreign students will be profitable only if the students are carefully selected in the country of origin. Furthermore, language proficiency must play an important role in the procedure of admission in the host country. Foreign students' academic achievement has proven to be sufficient although the students appear to suffer from starting problems. Offering social and educational support at the beginning of their stay abroad may help to overcome problems of adjustment. As yet, any possible positive effects of the presence of foreign students on the quality of education or on the general education of regular students in the host country have not been empirically established. They seem to depend highly upon the amount of interaction between foreign and regular students.     

The quality of procedures to assess and credit prior learning: Implications for design

The ever-changing requirements of working life require individuals to develop their competencies throughout their life cycle. This lifelong learning paradigm requires a renewed vision concerning assessment in which, besides formal learning, informal and non-formal learning experiences are also recognized. To support this lifelong learning paradigm, procedures have been developed worldwide to assess and credit prior learning experiences (APL). While research on APL stresses the importance of a high-quality standard, so far the literature has applied only a psychometric quality framework. However, from the perspective of APL, where, besides prior knowledge and skills, competencies need to be measured, it is more appropriate to use a combination of the psychometric and edumetric quality criteria. This article will analyze and describe the relationship between quality criteria and the characteristics of APL. The results have revealed that quality criteria based on both are fundamental for APL, but that some criteria are more recognized than are others. Based on this analysis, design guidelines for APL have been formulated.     

Quality of assessment of prior learning (APL) in university programmes: perceptions of candidates,tutors and assessors

Formal diplomas and certificates have been accepted as proof that students may receive exemption for parts of their educational programme. Nowadays, though, it is socially desirable that informal and non-formal learning experiences are also recognised. Assessment of prior learning (APL) addresses this issue. In APL, the candidate's knowledge, skills or competences required in informal and non-formal learning are measured against a standard to determine whether they match the learning objectives. Although APL is frequently used in workplaces and vocational education, it is practised less in universities, and research is lacking in this context. This study aims to evaluate the first APL procedure in an academic computer science programme, and an adjusted APL procedure in an educational science masters programme. This is done from the perspective of the APL candidates, tutors and assessors, using the theoretical framework by Baartman et al. (2006). The computer science participants comprised 23 candidates from a police software company, four tutors and four assessors. From educational science, nine candidates, two tutors and two assessors participated. The results show that the APL procedure in educational science is viewed significantly more positively than that in computer science; further, the computer science assessors differ considerably from the other participants in their perceptions relating to the quality criterion ‘cognitive complexity’. Explanations for the difference between the two programmes are discussed in this article and assessor and tutor training highly recommended.     

An Analysis of Teaching Competence in Science Teachers Involved in the Design of Context-based Curriculum Materials

The committees for the current Dutch context-based innovation in secondary science education employed teachers to design context-based curriculum materials. A study on the learning of science teachers in design teams for context-based curriculum materials is presented in this paper. In a correlation study, teachers with (n?=?25 and 840 students) and without (n?=?8 and 184 students) context-based curriculum material design experience were compared on context-based competence. Context-based competence comprises context handling, regulation, emphasis, design, and school innovation. Context-based teaching competence was mapped using both qualitative and quantitative research methods in a composite instrument. Due to the differences in design team set-up for different science subjects, teachers with design experience from different science subjects were also compared on their context-based competence. It was found that teachers with design experience showed more context-based competence than their non-designing colleagues. Furthermore, teachers designing for biology showed more context-based competence than their peers from other science subjects.