Academic discipline and risk perception of technologies: An empirical study

This article brings together two areas of research: studies on risk perception of technologies and studies on vocational/career choice. This is an important link since decisions concerning technologies are influenced by decision makers’ risk perceptions and these in turn may be related to educational and career paths.We analyze students of different academic disciplines with regard to their risk perception of four technologies. The aim is to find out whether there is a relationship between area of study (as a precursor of vocational and career choice) and risk perception of technologies regarding health, environment and society. The four technologies under study are renewable energies, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and information and communication technologies (ICT). Key results are: irrespective of academic discipline risk of genetic engineering on average is rated highest and renewable energies lowest. This holds for all the risks studied (environmental, health, societal risks). On average, students from different academic disciplines differ in their risk perception. Factor analyses show that common dimensions of risk are the technologies and not the kind of risk. Regression analyses show that the variables influencing perceived risks vary between the technological fields.     

Sleep Disturbance and Expressive Language Development in Preschool‐Age Children With Down Syndrome

Recent evidence has suggested that sleep may facilitate language learning. This study examined variation in language ability in 29 toddlers with Down syndrome (DS) in relation to levels of sleep disruption. Toddlers with DS and poor sleep (66%, n = 19) showed greater deficits on parent‐reported and objective measures of language, including vocabulary and syntax. Correlations between sleep and language were found in groups with equivalent medical and social backgrounds and after control for relevant behavioral comorbidities, including autism symptoms. These results emphasize the important role of quality sleep in all children's expressive language development, and may help increase our understanding of the etiology of language deficits in developmental disorders, potentially leading to new treatment approaches.     

‘Observation has set in’: comparing students and peers as reviewers of teaching

Peer review is a powerful method to enhance teaching in higher education. Peers, however, may not be the most relevant people in evaluating teaching success; as the most important stakeholders in learning, students’ evaluations need to be heard. Whilst some efforts to capture ‘the student voice’ are simplistic and may foster consumerist approaches, adopting ‘radical collegiality’ towards students may provide the benefits of peer review whilst avoiding some of its disadvantages. Here we describe the Students as Colleagues project, which trained student volunteers as evaluators of teaching. To assess the ability of students to provide useful reviews, we compared their evaluative feedback with that from academic peers, using a paired design and qualitative and quantitative data. Students gave significantly more positive comments, and just as many negative and directive comments, as academic peers. Student colleagues emphasised the positive personal (rather than professional) capacities of their reviewees, encouraged expressed vulnerability and drew on their broad experiences as students rather than from professional perspectives. Participation changed how students saw their abilities and helped ‘humanise’ both the reviewees and the university as a whole. Our results and standpoint theory suggest that students’ evaluative feedback is the most valuable perspective to inform teaching enhancement.     

Edouard claparede

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Cognitive and metacognitive components of learning: Search for the locus of retarded perfomance

The introduction to this article gives a short overview of the main theoretical ideas which have been advanced to explain the low cognitive perfomances of retarded persons in learning and problem solving. The question of how retarded learners organize and control their problem solving activities led the authors to conduct a series of single case studies investigating qualitative and dynamic aspects of retarded learning. Metacognitive training research, socio-cognitive theories and a schema-theoretical top-down/bottom-up model of information processing constitute the theoretical background. In a tutorial setting mentally retarded and learning disabled subjects were presented tasks which consist of connecting amorphous clouds of dots in order to reproduce geometrical model figures. Verbal and behavioral data were collected to precisely describe the subjects problem solving activities. Post-hoc a two-dimensional category system listing 28 different problem solving components was developed. The first dimension introduces a distinction between explorative, elaborative, planning and control components, the second dimension specifies whether the components are initiated topdown or bottom-up. This category system is presented in detail followed by a few examples of analyzed problem solving sequences. Finally, the proposed model and inherent methodological problems are discussed.     

A Framework for Transition: Supporting 'Learning to Learn' in Higher Education

In this paper, a framework for developing first‐year students' learning is proposed. Its aim is to increase university managers' and teachers' awareness of two issues: (1) that the currently predominant ‘skills’ approaches to the enhancement of student learning are based on a deficiency model and achieve little more than remedying the overt problems of individual students and (2) that a holistic, subject‐specific approach is needed to support all students in the complex process of learning to learn in higher education. The framework aims at facilitating transition to university by helping students to understand what is expected from them at university, by addressing their conceptions of learning and knowledge and by gradually developing their competence as independent learners as well as their competence in constructing knowledge in their discipline. Different contexts are used to apply complementary methods for the development of learning. As the framework relies on the engagement of academic teachers, it is critical that university managers and policy makers give appropriate recognition to effective teaching. This involves instigating changes in conceptions of teaching, providing opportunities for educational development and setting incentives for teachers' commitment to student learning.     

Developing the reflective practitioner: placement and the ways of knowing of business and accounting undergraduates

This study aims to identify how students' epistemological beliefs or ways of knowing (comprising cognitive, intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects) develop during work-based placement. Data comprise 32 semi-structured interviews with 17 business and accounting students at a UK university. Findings show that the taking of responsibility is the key stimulus for development: intrapersonally through a changing sense of self and interpersonally though changing relationships with others. A lack of cognitive development appears to arise from a student focus on how they participate within the workplace, rather than on their workplace practice. These findings support the need for a connective view of the curriculum: strengthening connections between formal (university) learning and informal (placement) learning, and between ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ development. In particular, there should be an emphasis on the student's ability to identify relationships between work experience, the knowledge and skills that underpin practice, as well as the context of participation.