Social moderation,assessment and assuring standards for accounting graduates

Evidencing student achievement of standards is a growing imperative worldwide. Key stakeholders (including current and prospective students, government, regulators and employers) want confidence that threshold learning standards in an accounting degree have been assured. Australia’s new higher education regulatory environment requires that student achievements are benchmarked against intended programme learning outcomes, guided by published disciplinary standards and a national qualifications framework, and against other higher education providers. Here, we report on a process involving academics from 10 universities, aided by professional practitioners, to establish and equip assessors to reliably assure threshold learning standards in accounting that are nationally comparable. Importantly, we are learning more about how standards are interpreted. Based on the premise that meaning is constructed from tacit experiences, social interactions and intentional reflection on explicit information, we report outcomes of three multi-part calibration interventions, situated around judgements of the quality of the written communication skills exhibited in student work and their related assessment tasks. Qualitative data from 30 participants in the calibration process suggest that they perceive that the process both assists them both in developing a shared understanding of the accounting threshold learning standards and in the redesign of assessment tasks to more validly assess the threshold learning standards.     

The Law of Mass Communications

David G. Clark and Earl R. Hutchinson, Mass Media and the Law: Freedom and Restraint (Wiley-Interscionco, $12.95)

John M. Kittross and Konnoth Harwood, Free & Fair: Courtroom Access and the Fairness Doctrino (Journal of Broadcasting, Temple University, $3.95)

Paul W. MacAvoy's The Crisis of the Regulatory Commissions: An Introduction to a Current Issue of Public Policy (Norton, $5.95; paper, $2.95)

Eric Moon, Book Selection and Consorship in the Sixties (Hawker, $10.95)

Edward De Grazia's Censorship Landmarks (Hawker, $19.75)     

Popular Illustration

Jim Kalett People and Crowds: A Photographic Album for Artists and Designers (New York: Dover Publications, 1978—$5.00, paper)

W.H. Hutchinson The World, The Work & the West of W.H.D. Koerner (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978—$35.00)

Philippe Garner, ed. The Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts: 1890-1940 (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1979—$35.00)

Colin Naylor and Genesis P-Orridge, eds. Contemporary Artists (London: St. James Press/New York: St. Martin's Press, 1977—E25.00/$50.00)     

EDITORS' NOTE

This study examines certain changes made within the Russian newspaper industry both before and after the political transformations occurring in the former Soviet Union. Although these changes began after Gorbachev came to power, the most dramatic changes took place after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The political economy perspective provides a useful means to explain the relation between these socioeconomic transitions and the newspaper industry. Since the failed coup of August 1991, the Russian media have attempted to adapt to conditions persistent with the free market economy. As a result of the free market economy, the Russian newspaper industry currently tends to depend on advertising revenue for survival.     

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND PLURALISM IN ZAMBIA

Today, Zambia has a comparatively unified, somewhat exceptional, approach to religious education despite a wide variety of predominantly Christian denominations. This article retraces the history of the development of religious education from when it was entirely confessional to the present time when it has become largely educational. In so doing it identifies some of the difficulties encountered and some of the problems that lie ahead in promoting an even more religiously pluralistic and educational approach to religious education in a country that has been declared a Christian nation.     

CHILDREN'S SPIRITUALITY AND “THE GOOD SHEPHERD EXPERIENCE”

This article aims to explore the connections between a religious education curriculum's methodology in the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne, Australia and some contemporary theories about children's spirituality. “The Good Shepherd Experience” curriculum is intended for use with 5- and 6-year-old children in the first years of formal schooling. It forms a part of the To Know, Worship and Love religious education text based curriculum, directed for use by schools in the Archdiocese of Melbourne as a key text in the religious education curricula. In exploring connections with children's spirituality, this article analyzes “The Good Shepherd Experience” in terms of wonder (mystery-sensing, contingency, and dependability), play and imagination, and the ability to use religious language and concepts.     

An examination of perceptions of parental influence on attitudes to language learning

Background The assumption that parents have some effect on their children's attitudes to learning is one that few educationalists would challenge. The ways in which this influence is brought to bear are a slightly more complex and contentious matter, however.

Purpose The paper uses data from a tri-national PhD study on pupil attitudes to examine perceptions of the ways in which parents influence children's orientations towards foreign language learning (FLL). The comparative element is useful in providing a contrasting range of settings in which to examine the issue. The paper thus aims to provide some indication of the similarity and importance of particular influences by identifying features that seem significant, irrespective of setting.

Sample A total of 411 learners of French, German and English (as foreign languages), represented in roughly equal numbers from across the ability range, took part in the survey. The pupils, aged 15 – 16, were drawn from two centrally located mixed comprehensive schools in each country—England, Germany and The Netherlands. The schools were similar in terms of size, social intake and their semi-urban location. Care was taken to ensure as close a gender balance as possible.

Design and methods The study was designed as a qualitative survey and involved three data collection instruments. The first stage of data was collected using a written word association prompt distributed to the whole sample. The second stage involved around half the pupils generating written accounts of their attitudes and the factors they perceived to be influential. A total of 80 pupils took part in the final stage, consisting of 14 focus group interviews. A system of open coding was applied to all the data to support the process of inductive category building used in their analysis.

Results The findings offer some evidence for an association between parental and pupil attitudes. Parental influence appears to operate in a number of ways, ranging from the role model potential of positive/negative behaviours and the communication of educational regrets, to the ways in which parents help to construct their children's understandings of language importance and status. The extent of parental language knowledge appears to be an important additional factor.

Conclusions The evidence suggests that the ways in which parents contribute to the construction of their children's understanding of language utility are particularly important, and that this may be a key factor in the more positive attitudes demonstrated by the German pupils and the more negative orientations among the English participants.     

Explanatory accounts in international and comparative higher education research

Developing plausible explanations rooted in theory and supported by evidence is a challenge for comparative higher education studies. The purpose of this article is to consider how comparative studies in higher education might develop accounts that allow the research community to enhance explanatory power. Higher education studies can advance explanations about what is happening and why, as well as interpret the meaning of occurrences by drawing broadly on realist scholarly traditions. Rather than prioritising a methodology, the field should prioritise essential questions and address them with all appropriate empirical tools. Avenues for explanatory research include bounded case studies, multi‐method investigations into specific phenomena, mechanism‐based approaches and macro‐social analysis.