RECOGNITION OF STUDIES,DIPLOMAS, AND DEGREES: THE YUGOSLAV EXPERIENCE

The differences, so far as Yugoslav legislation is concerned, between “equivalence” and “recognition” are mads clear, and the Yugoslav instances authorized to make decisions on questions of equivalence and recognition are stated and their procedures, briefly described. The 7 multilateral conventions and the 13 bilateral agreements on equivalence and recognition matters are listed. More is said about the various Yugoslav instances empowered to make decisions and to give Information on questions of equivalence and recognition.     

Two Mandarin readers in Taiwan: characteristics of children with higher and lower reading proficiency levels

This study investigated how two readers of Mandarin with differing reading‐proficiency skills interacted with a narrative passage, as well as what knowledge they brought to and made use of while reading the text. The perspectives of reading comprehension, transactional theory and social‐cognitive models of reading served as this study's theoretical framework. Two Sixth‐Grade participants were selected for inclusion through snowball sampling. The data in this study were obtained from interviews and think‐alouds. Qualitative analysis indicated that the skilled Mandarin reader's stance moved along the efferent/aesthetic continuum, while the less‐skilled Mandarin reader's was mainly efferent. The skilled reader employed strategies of inferencing, summarisation and synthesis during and after reading, while the less‐skilled reader applied bridging inferences, paraphrasing and repetition. The findings of this study corroborate previous findings that proficient readers employ more sophisticated approaches to reading than less‐proficient readers.     

Physiotherapy Student Clinical Education: the influence of subjective judgements on observational assessment

The process of assessing students on clinical placements has to date been under‐researched. In particular, while the involvement of subjective judgements in assessing students has been discussed in the literature, there has been no attempt to look for systematic evidence. This paper comprises the first attempt to relate judgement theory to the assessment of vocational education. Preliminary results demonstrate that physiotherapy assessors made subjective judgements of their students, that these contributed to the determination of assessment grades, and that in certain cases these judgements were erroneous. The relationship of these subjective judgements to the awarding of grades via a supposedly objective assessment instrument is not yet known. Given the widespread use of such assessment instruments across different professions, the question raised is whether all observational assessment systems suffer from similar problems. If students are being judged on criteria not included on assessment instruments, perhaps the other criteria being used need to be made more explicit.     

A CASE FOR SELF‐ASSESSMENT BASED ON RECENT STUDIES OF STUDENT LEARNING

An account of an experiment in self‐assessed learning where the lecturer used his authority to give his students responsibility for their own assessment. Students were expected to set their own goals, week‐by‐week, and prepare a self‐assessment, which was open to questioning and discussion by other members of the group, but which involved only the individual student in the final decision.

The difficulties encountered are clearly stated, but the final judgment is that only such methods can achieve deep processing in Higher Education. It is also argued that conventional methods of evaluation are inappropriate for this style of learning.     

Serbia and Montenegro: the catalytic effects of higher education

Brain drain has been a long‐lasting phenomenon. It existed in the former Yugoslavia, and was affected by various factors, from political through economic ones to the attractive offers for advanced studies and work in scientific institutions or firms in developed countries. Some ad‐hoc analyses were made concerning individual groups or periods, but there was no systematic monitoring and no complete and all‐inclusive data. It is however possible to draw a picture showing trends in the – mostly one‐way – movement towards highly developed countries.

Therefore, the current study has a mosaic character, which – we hope – shall throw some light and try to explain brain drain in the academic circles of Serbia and Montenegro (former SFRY). As the Republic of Serbia represents the largest component part (about 90 percent), most of the data is about Serbia.     

EFL teachers’ perceptions of English language policy at the elementary level in Taiwan

Due in large part to the trends towards economic globalization, English has become the most widely disseminated and ubiquitous international language. The purpose of the study was to investigate what Taiwan’s EFL teachers at the elementary level believe about the policy of English as a compulsory subject and how they perceive the benefits and obstacles of the policy’s implementation. Ten elementary English teachers in Tainan City and its suburban areas participated in this study. Data were collected through teachers’ interviews, classroom observation and document analysis. Results found that all ten teachers agreed with the policy for English as a compulsory subject at the elementary level. They observed both positive and negative sides of this top‐down policy. Classroom observation and interview data revealed that EFL teachers had to plan their English classes with the constraints on a large class of students with mixed levels of proficiency, limited teaching hours and resources. Parents’ expectations of and attitudes towards English learning also became an obstacle.     

Learning about the past: exploring the opportunities and challenges of using an outdoor learning approach

This paper examines the potential of outdoor learning for supporting children’s understanding of and attitude towards history. A class of primary school children participated in an intensive experiential, residential history programme. A range of data was collected before, during and after the residential programme, and the findings suggest that the experience had a positive impact on the children’s attitude towards history and enabled many of the children to be able to easily recall highly specific factual knowledge. However, the children’s understanding of history as a provisional construct was not developed, as it was not a strong feature of the programme. Nor was the experiential nature of the experience fully exploited. Overall the study suggests that such a programme has the potential to support children’s learning of the past, but a deeper understanding of history, drawing on the benefits of outdoor learning pedagogy, needs to be planned for more explicitly.