Independence and Prescription in Learning: Researching the Paradox of Advanced GNVQs

This article outlines the context in which General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) have been developed with particular reference to the independent learning dimension of their principles and practice. It provides an overview of the problems associated with the GNVQ approach from the literature and from a study by the authors of twelve post-16 institutions in the process of implementing Advanced GNVQ programmes. It analyses the dimensions of independent learning and argues that GNVQs provide a hybrid learner experience in which autonomy in the organisation of the individual learning process is mediated by a heavily prescribed GNVQ framework. The article concludes by locating this paradox in four central dilemmas characterising post-16 curricular policy in the UK.     

Organizational socialization and induction in universities: Reconceptualizing theory and practice

This paper argues that the theory and practice of induction and socialization of new academic staff in universities have been based on a partial, corporatist, perspective influenced by now defunct structural-functionalist theory. We develop a more sophisticated theoretical understanding of organizational socialization and explore its consequences for the practice of induction of new academic staff. These ideas are based on secondary data derived from a number of studies of new academic appointees (NAAs), 27 in-depth interviews we conducted with academics in ten Canadian and English universities, both chartered and unchartered, and a five year ethnographic study of academic staff in a single unchartered English university.     

院校研究与质量保证——以美国高等教育为例

自从20世纪80年代的"里根改革"以来,美国高校的成本越来越多地要由学生及其家庭而不是政府分担,使得人们愈益关注投资高等教育的收益。因此,美国高等教育质量倍受社会公众的关注。院校研究在高等教育质量保证方面具有积极的促进作用。它为高校能够对外部的报告、认证、项目审批,以及内部项目评议和专项研究等方面的社会问责做出说明,同时也在学生学习评估、教师行为分析以及学籍管理三方面发挥了关键作用。     

New Carpets for Old Brooms? Training teachers for the education industry

This article is a critique of the document The Education Industry and The National Competency Agenda, which was produced by members of the Schools and Curriculum Division of the federal Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) in April 1992. The authors examine the policy context in which the document was produced. They then go on to analyse the case for reform argued in this document, drawing attention to the mechanisms by which the document seeks to inform and persuade its educational audience. A detailed analysis and critique is made of its central assumptions in relation to teacher education, with a more appropriate agenda for reform of teacher education subsequently outlined.     

Curricula for Economic and Social Gain

Economic success is an aim of governments around the world. Their ‘human capital’ stance towards higher education implies the need to develop graduates’ capabilities to the full. The concept of graduate ‘employability’, currently being developed in the light of theory and empirical data, is beginning to find acceptance in the UK. One of the keys to its acceptability in higher education has been the alignment of employability with good learning – that is, learning that is manifested in complex outcomes. However, the achievement of complex outcomes requires a programme-level focus, rather than a focus on individual study units. This article reports on the way such a programme-level approach was adopted in four different universities in the UK, and how relatively small-scale actions have the potential to augment students’ employability. The implications for policy at the levels of the system, the higher education institution and the academic department are discussed.     

Assessment of progressively delayed prompts on guided skill learning in rats

We examined the controlling factors that allow a prompted skill to become autonomous in a discrete-trials implementation of Touchette’s (1971) progressively delayed prompting procedure, but our subjects were rats rather than children with disabilities. Our prompted skill was a left-right lever-press sequence guided by two panel lights. We manipulated (a) the effectiveness of the guiding lights prompt and (b) the presence or absence of a progressively delayed prompt in four groups of rats. The less effective prompt yielded greater autonomy than the more effective prompt. The ability of the progressively delayed prompt procedure to produce behavioral autonomy depended upon characteristics of the obtained delay (trial duration) rather than on the pending prompt. Sequence accuracy was reliably higher in unprompted trials than in prompted trials, and this difference was maintained in the 2 groups that received no prompts but yielded equivalent trial durations. Overall sequence accuracy decreased systematically as trial duration increased. Shorter trials and their greater accuracy were correlated with higher overall reinforcement rates for faster responding. Waiting for delayed prompts (even if no actual prompt was provided) was associated with lower overall reinforcement rate by decreasing accuracy and by lengthening trials. These findings extend results from previous studies regarding the controlling factors in delayed prompting procedures applied to children with disabilities.