Modelling Opportunity Recognition Competence as a Foundation for Teaching and Learning in Vocational Education

Due to tremendous worldwide changes, the entrepreneurial imperative demands innovation. Therefore, companies as well as employees require innovative thinking and acting skills to cope with modern challenges. Opportunity Recognition represents the starting point for such entrepreneurial endeavours. Hence, this paper focuses on modelling Opportunity Recognition as well as the development of an Opportunity Recognition competence model as the foundation for teaching and learning in vocational education. Building on vocational situations that trigger innovations (opportunities) and the necessary competence facets that are needed to apply competent vocational behaviour in such situations (Opportunity Recognition), we conduct a systematic literature review and develop a comprehensive Opportunity Recognition competence model. We thereby link the found vocational situations (opportunities) with the found more abstract and latent competence facets of Opportunity Recognition and operationalise them by more observable indicators, which can be construed as evidence for the latent construct and related to successful performance in associated vocational situations. This modelling procedure of “evidence-based reasoning” allows inferences from the observed behaviour to the underlying, although not directly observable, Opportunity Recognition competence. The resulting Opportunity Recognition competence model may serve as a foundation for developing evidence-based curricular goals for vocational education through both instruction and assessment.     

An assessment of the behavior of sexually abused and nonsexually abused children with anatomically correct dolls

The behaviors of two groups of children were observed and recorded in their play with anatomically correct dolls. One group had been determined to have been sexually abused and the other group had not been determined to have been sexually abused. The findings show that significantly more children who had been sexually abused demonstrated sexual behavior(s) with the anatomically correct dolls than did the group of children who had not been sexually abused. These findings suggest that anatomically correct dolls are a useful instrument in sexual abuse investigations.     

Flirting Competence: An Experimental Study on Appropriate and Effective Opening Lines

An experiment was conducted to examine the appropriateness and effectiveness of five flirtatious opening lines enacted by a male participant to initiate conversation with a female participant. Video messages were constructed to represent the following opening lines: direct introductions, direct compliments, humor attempts, cute–flippant lines, and third-party introductions. Participants were 642 college students who viewed one of these five videos and reported on the appropriateness and effectiveness of an opening line after controlling for perceptions of actor physical attractiveness. Results indicated that participants rated the third-party introduction and direct introduction opening lines as the most appropriate, whereas the third-party introduction was perceived as the most effective. Direct compliments, humor attempts, and cute–flippant lines were rated as equally inappropriate and ineffective.     

Dynamics of Engineering Education ?Uniformity or Quality

A number of internal and external pressures bear down on engineering colleges today. These include the shortage of experienced manpower, the rapid rate of scientific discoveries requiring absorption in curricula, the increasing college population, competition by industry for faculty members, and the need for additional income for plant expansion and faculty salaries. Within the body of engineering schools, one faction presses for the scientific reorientation of curricula while another holds to the professional art of design as the principle requirement in engineering colleges. Despite the traditional assumption that education is distinguished by large moments of inertia and that the time scale is measured in terms of generations, we lack sufficient time in a world of latent chaos. Positive and exciting internal forces must be injected into our dynamic system.     

An assessment model for proof comprehension in undergraduate mathematics

Although proof comprehension is fundamental in advanced undergraduate mathematics courses, there has been limited research on what it means to understand a mathematical proof at this level and how such understanding can be assessed. In this paper, we address these issues by presenting a multidimensional model for assessing proof comprehension in undergraduate mathematics. Building on Yang and Lin’s (Educational Studies in Mathematics 67:59–76, 2008) model of reading comprehension of proofs in high school geometry, we contend that in undergraduate mathematics a proof is not only understood in terms of the meaning, logical status, and logical chaining of its statements but also in terms of the proof’s high-level ideas, its main components or modules, the methods it employs, and how it relates to specific examples. We illustrate how each of these types of understanding can be assessed in the context of a proof in number theory.     

Teacher behavior,student interest and affective learning: putting theory to practice

Students of Project Adapt (PA), an instructional program for at-risk middle school students in Brooklyn NY, have displayed startling improvement on cognitive outcome measures. Teacher given grades and standardized tests illuminate the progress students have made since entering the program. The current investigation attempts to analyze PA on students' affective responses in a pre/post-test experimental design. Upon entering PA, students completed measures of interest, affect, and their previous teachers' behavior (pre). These ratings were then compared to end of year ratings on the same instruments (post). Results indicate students' perceive PA teachers utilizing different behaviors than their previous teachers. Additionally, student affect and interest increased significantly. Results of this study have implications for both instructional researchers and educational practitioners.     

Librarians and Mandatory Academic Advising at a Mid-sized Public University: A Case Study

This article provides a case study of librarians being assigned the responsibility of providing academic advising to undeclared students at a mid-sized public university. The experience of academic advising as librarians is explored as well as challenges, benefits, best practices and next steps. The implications and impact of advising on library work is discussed. For the most part, the librarians found that academic advising dovetailed well with the culture of librarianship.