A tale of two cities’ university rankings: comparing Hong Kong and Singapore

Hong Kong and Singapore were former British colonies, have a predominant Chinese population and value. They began to develop quickly in the late 1960s, become financial hubs of the world in the 21st century. This paper reviews the tertiary education development of the two cities, particularly on the perspective of university rankings. It first elaborates about the emergence of university rankings, and the reason why it becomes a growing exercise, and who would be the benefactors of these exercises. Then it examines the performance of universities of the two cities in the international university ranking systems, makes a general assessment about the relative merits of the higher education systems in both cities. The paper requests ranking comparisons on the detailed items rather than just the sums, and argues that universities in the two cities are on par.     

Finland and Singapore in PISA 2009: similarities and differences in achievements and school management

In PISA 2009, Finland and Singapore were both ranked high among the participating nations and have caught much attention internationally. However, a secondary analysis of the means for Reading achievement show that the differences are rather small and are attributable to spurious precision. Hence, the two nations should be considered as being on par with each other in achievements and be assigned the same rank. Spurious precision as a problem of interpreting and reporting research findings has caught the attention of researchers in several other disciplines, though not in the field of education, and this needs to be rectified. In spite of the finding of no differences in PISA Reading achievement, principals in Finland and Singapore differ somewhat in school management and involvement in school matters. It is suggested that some intervening variables (e.g., teachers’ quality and instruction) are needed to explain the correlation (or the lack of it) between principals’ management styles and student Reading achievement. It is also suggested that school principals’ management styles might have been influenced by the cultural milieus of the countries and have influenced students’ social-emotional development, which is not measured by PISA.     

Engagement@web 2.0 between the government and citizens in Singapore: dialogic communication on Facebook?

Responding to the rapid adoption of new technologies, political parties, both incumbent parties and minor ones, have been quick to leverage web 2.0 technologies for party communication and mobilization. A coterie of work addressed how social media such as Facebook are used as political tools for the promotion of candidate and party campaign platforms. However, a present bias is observed as current literature focus on western democracies. To bridge the gap, this study examines the gradual, yet significant, evolution in technology deployment by the ruling elite in Singapore. This paper traces the developments in e-engagement to bridge the affective gap between the ruling elite and an increasingly IT-savvy population, one which has demonstrated its astuteness in using new media to articulate its disenchantment. Developments in the last five years indicate that the government's earlier endeavor to centralize and streamline its political engagement via a single portal, REACH, is insufficient to say the least. Between the general election in 2006 and the watershed election in May 2011, the repertoire of media tools deployed by the political elite has broadened, with the inclusion of personal blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. In this paper, we apply Kent and Taylor's public relations dialogic communication framework to examine how Facebook fosters greater mutuality, propinquity, and empathy between the government and the electorate. However, problems arising from new technologies themselves inadvertently create risks and challenge the government's ability to commit to dialogic communication.     

Drivers and barriers to the utilisation of gamification and game-based learning in universities: A systematic review of educators' perspectives

While gamification and game-based learning have both been demonstrated to have a host of educational benefits for university students, many university educators do not routinely use these approaches in their teaching. Therefore, this systematic review, conducted using the PRISMA guidelines, sought to identify the primary drivers and barriers to the use of gamification and game-based learning by university educators. A search of multiple databases (Web of Science, Scopus and EBSCO (Business Source Complete; ERIC; Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts)) identified 1330 articles, with 1096 retained after duplicates were removed. Seventeen articles (11 quantitative, two mixed-methods and four qualitative) were included in the systematic review. The primary drivers described by the educators that positively influenced their gamification and game-based learning usage were their beliefs that it encourages student interactions and collaborative learning; provides fun and improves engagement; and can easily be used by students. Alternatively, the university educators' major barriers included a lack of time to develop gamification approaches, lack of proven benefits and classroom setting issues. Many of these and other less commonly reported drivers and barriers can be categorised as attitudinal, design-related or administrative in nature. Such categorisations may assist university educators, teaching support staff and administrators in better understanding the primary factors influencing the utilisation of gamification and game-based learning and develop more effective strategies to overcome these barriers to its successful implementation.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Gamification and game-based learning may have many benefits for university students.
• The majority of university educators do not routinely use gamification and game-based learning in their teaching.

What this paper adds

• University educators' major drivers that positively influence the use of gamification and game-based learning include their perceptions that it encourages student interactions and collaborative learning, provides fun and improves engagement and can easily be used by students.
• University educators' major barriers that negatively influence the use of gamification and game-based learning include their perceptions of a lack of time to develop gamification approaches, lack of proven benefits and classroom setting issues.
• These drivers and barriers may be classified as attitudinal, design-related and administrative, with these categories providing a useful way for universities to develop strategies to better support educators who wish to use these approaches in their teaching.

Implications for practice and policy

• Attitudinal factors such as university educators' intention to use gamification and game-based learning are influenced by a host of their perceptions including attitude, perceived usefulness and ease of use.
• A range of design-related and administrative barriers may need to be overcome to increase the use of gamification and game-based learning in the university sector.