Wann kann Kompetenzdiagnostik negative Auswirkungen haben?

This paper addresses potential negative effects of systematic external competence assessment on different levels of the education system. We discuss possible sources of misinterpretations of competence assessment feedback, potential consequences of feedback and assessment for different education stakeholders (teachers, students, and educational administration) as well as negative effects of systematic competence assessment on the culture of teaching and learning. The paper concludes with some reflections on possibilities to prevent or reduce the discussed negative effects.     

Wie können Ergebnisse der Kompetenzdiagnostik in Forschungsprojekten sinnvoll zurückgemeldet werden?

Reporting on research results to students, teachers and institutions is a big challenge within competence assessment research: students individually have to be given feedback about how they performed, teachers have to be provided with information about their classes, education authorities are interested in actual research results. For feedback being helpful for students, teachers and institutions, the following questions have to be thought of: (1) Who is the feedback given to? What is the aim of the feedback? (2) Which results shall be reported? (3) How should feedback theoretically look like? And (4) how does feedback depend on the given general framework? The given article discusses these questions and offers a “checklist” to research projects with a focus on competence assessment.     

Skizze zur Historiographie der Ästhetischen Bildung

This article is focussing on a historical approach to the term of aesthetic education from three different angles: as history of ideas, biographies and images. Aesthetic education is thereby understood as performative and reflective involvement with aesthetics and the fine arts such as arts, theatre and literature etc. A first approach is defining the history of ideas as a theoretical reconstruction of aesthetic concepts and their educational relevance; this history is also discussing educational theories and their aesthetic implications. It is more or less an implicit and compensatory history because the important contexts are not visible at first sight; and the aesthetic and pedagogical theories often need a reciprocal addition. A biographical perspective is hereby concentrated on the biography of artists. Thereby the educational science of biographies are highlighting the situation of the arts and the artists, the development of becoming an artist, the progression as an artist and the artistic institutions in a educational-aesthetic nexus. Such a perspective is supplementing the history of ideas concerning cultural and socio-historical dimensions as well as institutional and biographic aspects. Finally, the history of images is focusing on the thesis that every picture also includes a programme of aesthetic education. In pictures the process of productive and reflective visualisation is expressed: paintings refer to their production and their understanding. For the method of the historical-educational iconography of aesthetic education a historicizing matrix from production aesthetics, work aesthetics and reception aesthetics is suggested. This matrix is combined with a theory of education as transformation of self-relation, of relations to other individuals and the world. The three approaches just mentioned are exemplified by Leonardo da Vinci and his famous picture “Vitruvian Man” from 1492.     

Was grenzt das Kompetenzkonzept von etablierten Kategorien wie Fähigkeit,Fertigkeit oder Intelligenz ab?

Following a specification of the concept “competence” as it is applied in the context of the priority program we place recent efforts on competence assessment within established distinctions. Besides Cronbach’s differentiation of typical behavior and maximal effort and Cattell’s demarcation of test and questionnaire data additional discriminations against broader terms such as “ability”, “skill”, “talent” but also “intelligence” are desirable and necessary. The utility of the concept of competence relative to established terms needs to be demonstrated unequivocally in the future.     

Event-triggered control for active vehicle suspension systems with network-induced delays

This paper presents a novel event-triggered H_∞ static output-feedback control for active vehicle suspension systems with network-induced delays. The proposed control schema introduces an event-triggering mechanism in the suspension system such that the communication resources can be significantly saved. By applying some improved slack inequalities and an augmented Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional (LKF), a new design condition expressed in the form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) is developed to derive the desired event-triggered controller. The obtained algorithm is then employed to solve the static output-feedback control gain. Compared with the traditional sampled-data H_∞ control scheme, the proposed controller is able to provide an enhanced disturbance attenuation level while saving the control cost. Finally, comparative simulation results are provided to show the performance of the proposed event-triggered controller.     

Culture and country choice of international students: evidence from Ghana

ABSTRACT

This study seeks to examine the influence of the cultural elements on international students’ country choice. It also examines whether individual values moderate the influence of cultural elements on the country choice of international students. Drawing upon a sample size of 223, the data was analysed using structural equation modelling technique. Among the five cultural elements, education, language and social institutions were found to have a positive significant influence on the international student’s country choice. When moderated by individual values education was found to be the only key significant value to international students when selecting a country to further their education. The cultural elements should be given much attention by marketers, government and managers of academic institutions. An improvement in the standards of education in developing countries would attract more students from developed countries.