Rewarding academics: Experiences of the Tenure Track System in Pakistan

Pakistan introduced the Tenure Track System (TTS) as a new performance-based reform in public universities in 2005. The purpose of this study is to understand the experiences of higher education authorities, university leaders and tenure-track faculty about the implementation of this reform. This is a qualitative interpretive study and utilised a nested case study design, focusing on two cases—Science Faculty and Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty in a large provincial university. It utilises three perspectives taken from organisation theory—instrumental, cultural and myth perspectives. The main results show instrumental problems of hierarchical authority and horizontal coordination, lack of expertise to implement, cultural compatibility problems through active resistance from some groups and active use of symbols to modify the impression of a challenging reform implementations. Summing up, this is a Western-inspired reform that meet challenging conditions in Pakistan, making is rather less successful.     

Racial hierarchy and masculine space: Participatory in/equity in computational physics classrooms

ABSTRACT

Background and Context

Computing is being integrated into a range of STEM disciplines. Still, computing remains inaccessible to many minoritized groups, especially girls and certain people of color. In this mixed methods study, we investigated racial and gendered patterns of equity and inequity in high school physics classrooms incorporating computational modeling, with an emphasis on group work.     

Read Two Impress and the Neurological Impress Method: Effects on elementary students’ reading fluency,comprehension, and attitude

This seven-week study examined the effects of the Neurological Impress Method and Read Two Impress on reading comprehension, fluency, and students’ attitude toward reading. The 57 first-, second-, and third-grade students were randomly assigned to three conditions and were pre- and posttested on eight reading measures. Several 3 × 2 factorial analyses of variance revealed significant interaction effects on retell, comprehension questions, and the multidimensional fluency scale as well as time effects on words read correctly per minute and word recognition accuracy. Moreover, a comparison of mean difference effect sizes favored the treatment groups on all reading fluency and comprehension measures. The interventions, however, had little effect on students’ attitude toward reading. Practical implications and future research directions are also discussed.     

The role of theory in instructional design: Some views of an ID practitioner

This article describes how an experienced instructional designer thinks about and uses learning theories to inform instructional design decisions. It uses a vision metaphor to provide a simple heuristic framework for identifying the nature of instructional problems and relating different types of problems to useful theoretical perspectives, methods of instructional analysis, and assessment strategies. Finally, it provides a synopsis of major learning theory perspectives and situations that could be addressed by applying models and strategies representing the different theoretical perspectives.     

Academic drift in Danish professional engineering education. Myth or reality? Opportunity or threat?

This article examines whether and, if so, to what extent academic drift can be said to have taken place in Danish professional engineering education. If the answer is affirmative, what were the driving forces behind it and what are the consequences – if any? First, a theoretical and conceptual framework for the discussion is introduced. This is followed by a case study of institutional change in higher education in Denmark, with a particular emphasis on two institutional examples, the two previously independent engineering colleges that recently merged with universities. The two examples are based on data gathered in interviews with teachers and management in these two engineering colleges (now both part of a university). In conclusion, based on the findings the questions posed in the title of this article are addressed and possible benefits and drawbacks of increased academisation of professional engineering education are discussed.     

Routes of Knowledge: Toward a Methodological Framework for Tracing the Historical Impact of International Organizations

Recent trends in the historiography of international organizations are occupied with tracing their historical impact on national contexts. There is, however, no consensus on how to conduct this type of analysis methodologically. This article examines the methodological challenges arising from this type of research. While a great deal of inspiration can be gathered from contemporary impact assessment studies, substantial conceptual and theoretical development is needed to make the idea of “impact” operational and feasible in historical studies. It is, we argue, through the focus on impact levels, space, and movement that the idea of tracing the historical impact of international organizations becomes a promising research agenda.     

Healthy competition and unsound comparison: reforming educational competition in Singapore

It is frequently claimed that the ‘competition state’ responds to external competition by making competition increasingly central to its internal processes as well. This article discusses education reform in Singapore as departing from the opposite position. In Singapore ‘excessive’ competition in education is now targeted by policy-makers as a major obstacle to making Singapore education competitive in the global ‘knowledge economy’. Nevertheless, the consequence of education reform does not seem to be a reduction of educational competition as such, but rather a transition from an ‘academic’ to a ‘holistic’ form of competition, raising new questions of educational equity and fairness.