Higher education policy in post-devolution UK: more convergence than divergence?

Many researchers studying the impact of parliamentary devolution conclude that education policies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are diverging. They attribute this to five factors: the redistribution of formal powers associated with devolution; differences in values, ideologies and policy discourses across the four territories; the different composition, interests and policy styles of their policy communities; the different ‘situational logics’ of policy-making and the mutual independence of policy decisions in the different territories. This article reviews trends in higher education (HE) policy across the UK since parliamentary devolution. It focuses on policies for student fees and student support, for widening participation, for supporting research and for the HE contribution to economic development, skills and employability. On balance, it finds as much evidence of policy convergence, or at least of constraints on divergence, as of policy divergence. It argues that each of the five factors claimed to promote divergence can be associated with corresponding pressures for convergence.     

Interpreting experimental data: the views of upper secondary school and university science students

In this paper we examine students' views about the interpretation of experimental data within a specified science context. A written survey was completed by 731 science students drawn from upper secondary schools and universities in five European countries. An additional 19 upper secondary science students were interviewed individually after they had completed the survey. A minority of students emphasized the role of models in the interpretation of the data, despite the emphasis placed on theoretical models within the survey text. A substantial proportion of respondents focused on the quantity and quality of the data to be interpreted. Post-survey interviews showed that many students had difficulty in articulating a view concerning the role of theoretical models. Our data support previous studies, typically involving younger respondents, which have found that science students tend not to recognize the role of theoretical models in the interpretation of data.     

Developing conceptions of teaching and the scholarship of teaching through a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education

There is increasing pressure toward professionalisation of university teaching, through the attendance of academic development courses and programmes. This is based on the expectation that such courses lead to more student‐focused perspectives on teaching and learning and more effective teaching and learning practices. In this study we interviewed alumni of a Graduate Certificate programme, to explore its effects on teachers’ self‐reported experiences of teaching and the scholarship of teaching. This suggested that the programme had been successful in fostering the development of more complex experiences for most interviewees.

En Australie comme à l’étranger, les pressions visant la professionnalisation de l’enseignement universitaire se font sentir, en particulier par la participation à des cours et des programmes de développement pédagogique. Ceci repose sur la prémisse selon laquelle les cours de développement pédagogique dans l’enseignement supérieur, du certificat postgradué au niveau master, mènent au développement de perspectives pédagogiques qui sont davantage centrées sur l’apprenant, de même qu’à l’adoption de pratiques pédagogiques davantage efficaces. Dans le cadre de cette étude, nous avons effectué des entretiens auprès de diplômés d’un programme de certificat postgradué de façon à explorer si le programme affectait les expériences d’enseignement et de Scholarship of Teaching de ces enseignants, telles qu’ils les rapportaient. Les témoignages autour de ces expériences suggèrent que le programme a réussi à favoriser le développement d’expériences davantage complexes pour la majorité des personnes interviewées.     

A scalable and incremental project-based learning approach for CS1/CS2 courses

Cupi2 is a project that promotes an integral solution to problems in teaching/learning programming using a large and structured courseware, and a student-centered pedagogical model (Villalobos and Casallas 2006a; Villalobos et al. 2009a, b; Jiménez and Villalobos 2010). As a cornerstone of Cupi2, we use incremental projects intended to motivate students, and to develop high-level programming skills throughout their learning. A critical factor of these projects is that they are specially designed so that students are engaged in activities that complete a scaffold of a complete program. However, both the scaffolds and the activities needed to complete these incomplete programs must be arranged carefully by instructors in order to stress the adequate contents for students, and at the same time, to help those students acquire programming skills effectively. Jointly, scaffold versions need to comply with high quality standards, representing a high time consuming activity for instructors, and therefore, increased costs for institutions. In this paper, we describe the way we overcome these challenges using a software factory that supports the projects’ design in a scalable way.     

Social pedagogy in schools: student teacher attitudes in England and Norway

This study explored the views of student teachers in England and Norway regarding the extent to which they felt the school should take the lead role (in comparison to the roles played by parents and other professional agencies) in addressing the needs of pupils identified by the school as experiencing a problem. A questionnaire comprising 30 problem areas was developed and distributed to student teachers at two universities in England and at two universities in Norway. A total of 542 student teachers participated in the study. The findings indicated that the ratings by student teachers in both countries of these problem areas fell broadly into four main groupings (in terms of the strength of feeling that the school should take the lead role): these concerned poor basic core attainment, disaffection, anti-social behaviour, and unhealthy lifestyles, respectively, except for one very important caveat: concerns regarding bullying received a high rating and were located in the first grouping. These findings are interpreted in the context of whether schools might be ready to adopt a social pedagogical approach to offering targeted support to pupils experiencing such problems and the implications this may have for inclusive education and initial teacher education.     

Consultative Paper on the Secondary School Curriculum

After introducing the author, some themes central to the article are explored through one school's eight year involvement with the Improving the Quality of Education for All (IQEA) school's improvement initiative. A short account of Sharnbrook Upper Schools evolving journey is presented, based around three different models. From this issues related to maintenance and development, and to leadership are explored. The final phase of the article suggests limitations to the models of transactional and transformational leadership as a means of providing leadership for the long haul in school improvement. Deriving from an analysis of contemporary research about leadership and from grounded understandings about alternative approaches to leadership (in both principle and practice) new leadership themes are presented, which are based around values, shared leadership contexts and capacity creation through learning.     

Women's path into science and engineering majors: a structural equation model

The intent of this study was to investigate the adequacy of Weidman's (1985 Weidman, J. C. 1985. “Undergraduate socialization: A conceptual approach”. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, Edited by: Smart, J. C. Vol. V, 298–322. New York: Agathon Press.  [Google Scholar], 1989 Weidman, J. C. 1989. “The world of higher education: A socialization-theoretical perspective”. In The social world of adolescents: International perspectives, Edited by: Hurrelmann, K. and Engel, U. 87–105. New York: W. de Gruyter.  [Google Scholar]) theoretical undergraduate socialization model as an empirical-based causal model pertaining to women's career path choice into a science or engineering (SE) major via structural equation modeling. Data were obtained from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (1996–2001) from the U.S. Department of Education. Results indicate that Weidman's model was somewhat supported. Results from the evaluation of the causal model suggest that women's path into an SE major was influenced by both collegiate and non-collegiate factors, with 1st-year college grades and high school math grades being the dominant indirect influences.     

Popular Music

Frank Tirro Jazz: A History (New York: Norton, 1977—$16.95 in trade edition; $12.95 in text edition, both hardback)

Leonard Feather Inside Jazz (New York: Da Capo, 1977—$4.95, paper)

Jim Haskins The Cotton Club (New York: Random House, 1977—$15.00, with paperback edition available)

Jeff Todd Titon Early Downhome Blues: A Musical and Cultural Analysis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977—$16.50)     

International trends in health science librarianship. Part 5 Latin America and the Caribbean

This is the 5th in a series of articles exploring international trends in health science librarianship in Latin America and the Caribbean in the first decade of the 21st century. The invited authors are from Argentina, Bermuda and Mexico. Future issues will track trends in Central Europe and the Middle East. JM