Where is the engineering I applied for? A longitudinal study of students' transition into higher education engineering,and their considerations of staying or leaving

This paper presents results from a qualitative longitudinal study of students' transition into higher education engineering. The study aims at comparing upper-secondary school students' expectations of engineering with their actual experiences when encountering the engineering programme. It explores how this encounter provides a platform for students to become integrated during first year. We find that students' expectations are poorly met by their first-year study programme. In their attempt to bridge the gap between their expectations and their experiences, the students apply three strategies: some endure the gap, some constantly try out different study strategies and some compromised their expectations and identities to become more aligned with the study programme. The findings show that even when students successfully manage to bridge the gap, their strategy may turn out to be counterproductive from a learning point of view. The implications of the study are discussed.     

Students’ Perceptions of E‐learning in University Education

This paper examines students’ perceptions of e‐learning taking students at Jönköping University in Sweden as an example. The students had experiences from two years of e‐learning on campus. Students (n = 150) filled in a questionnaire with closed as well as open‐ended questions. The answers were analysed in a multiple regression analysis, putting the students’ perceptions in relation to gender, age, previous knowledge of computers, attitudes to new technology, learning styles and the way of implementing e‐learning at the university. Advantages and disadvantages of e‐leaming were categorized in a qualitative content analysis. The main conclusion from the study was that the strategy of implementing the e‐leaming system at the university was more important in influencing students’ perceptions than the individual background variables. Students did not regard access to e‐learning on campus as a benefit. Male students, students with previous knowledge of computers and students with positive attitudes to new technologies were all less positive to e‐leaming on campus than other students.     

The association of socio-economic factors with physical fitness and activity behaviours,spinal posture and retinal vessel parameters in first graders in urban Switzerland

Socio-economic status during childhood has been shown to be a strong predictor of adult health outcome. Therefore, we examined associations of parental educational level, household income and migrant background with physical fitness, spinal flexibility, spinal posture as well as retinal vessel diameters in children of an urban Swiss region. A total of 358 first graders of the Swiss canton Basel-Stadt (age: 7.3, SD: 0.4) were examined. Physical fitness (20 m shuttle run test, 20 m sprint, jumping sidewards and balancing backwards), spinal flexibility and spinal posture (MediMouse^®, Idiag, Fehraltdorf, Switzerland) and retinal microcirculation (Static Retinal Vessel Analyzer, Imedos Systems UG, Jena, Germany) were assessed. Parental education, household income, migrant background and activity behaviour were evaluated with a questionnaire. Parental education was associated with child aerobic fitness (P = 0.03) and screen time (P < 0.001). Household income was associated with jumping sidewards (P = 0.009), balancing backwards (P = 0.03) and sports club participation (P = 0.02). Migrant background was associated with BMI (P = 0.001), body fat (P = 0.03), aerobic fitness (P = 0.007), time spent playing outdoors (P < 0.001) and screen time (P < 0.001). For spinal flexibility and retinal vessel diameter, no associations were found (0.06 < P < 0.8). Low parental education, low household income and a migrant background are associated with poor physical fitness, higher BMI and body fat percentage and low-activity behaviour.     

Game-like regulation of universities: Will the new regulatory framework for higher education in Sweden work?

A major reform of higher education in Sweden took place in 1993, making a radical change from central planning by parliament to deregulation, privatisation and performance-related funding. To analyse the new kind of interaction between government and universities, a model based on game theory can be used, where government and universities are seen as actors in an iterated Prisoners' Dilemma. The analysis is based on a model of “responsive regulation”, in which a number of recommendations are made on how cooperation can be achieved in a regulatory relationship. This model is then compared to the new formal regulatory framework in Sweden, which can be described in six points. Secondly I compare the model to the available evidence of what has happened in “real life” since the reform was enacted. This approach adds to the literature on implementation, in which studies usually focus on specific orders from the top, whereas this is about shifting initiative from the central to the local level. As such, it is a starting point in an analysis of how “freedom” is implemented; “will universities take advantage of their greater independence and, if so, how will they do it?”. “What are the necessary prerequisites for this to take place?”.     

Organising professional support staff at higher education institutions: a multidimensional,continuous balancing act

Tertiary Education and Management - Centralisation is a recurrent theme when the organisational structure of contemporary higher education institutions is on the agenda. This may be in large part...     

Exclusion Expected? Cardiac Slowing Upon Peer Exclusion Links Preschool Parent Representations to School-Age Peer Relationships

Attachment theory proposes that children’s representations of interactions with caregivers guide information-processing about others, bridging interpersonal domains. In a longitudinal study (N = 165), preschoolers (M_age = 5.19 years) completed the MacArthur Story Stem Battery to assess parent representations. At school-age (M_age = 8.42 years), children played a virtual ballgame with peers who eventually excluded them to track event-related cardiac slowing, a physiological correlate of rejection, especially when unexpected. At both ages, parents and teachers reported on peer and emotional problems. During exclusion versus inclusion-related events, cardiac slowing was associated with greater positive parent representations and fewer emerging peer problems. Cardiac slowing served as a mediator between positive parent representations and peer problems, supporting a potential psychophysiological mechanism underlying the generalization of attachment-related representations to peer relationships.     

The two faces of political science studies—junior and senior students’ thoughts about their education and their future profession

The article reports on an empirical small scaled interview study among junior and senior students in the political science programme in a Swedish University. The aim is to describe how students at various stages of their studies conceive of their education as well as their future professional life. Questions about their identity as students have also been posed. The results indicate that a programme with a major emphasis on political science appears to have two different faces as experienced by the students. The first half of the programme is experienced as traditional liberal arts studies, i.e., the students enrol in a ‘personal bildung project’ and conceive of political scientists as a kind of watchdog for democracy. Students in the latter part of their studies report an emerging identity as investigators and civil servants and an appreciation of the parts of the studies that enhance their generic skills.     

The effect of textile air permeability on the drag of high-speed winter sports apparel

In a number of sport disciplines characterized by high velocities, aerodynamic performance of sports apparel is a concern. The goal is often to reduce the aerodynamic drag force and thereby increase speed. In the design of optimized competition apparel the fabric properties will be very important. One fabric property which has traditionally been considered an influencing parameter on aerodynamic performance is the air permeability. In this paper the effect of air-permeability, treated as an independent variable, upon aerodynamic drag on a bluff body is investigated. Similar multilayer textiles with internal membranes regulating air permeability were tested on cylindrical models in wind tunnel experiments in order to identify a possible relation between air-permeability and drag force. A weak dependence of flow transition on air-permeability could be found, but this could be considered to have a limited effect on the aerodynamic performance of sports garments.     

THE RELEVANCE AND CONSEQUENCES OF PISA SCIENCE IN A DANISH CONTEXT

This article reports a case study that described and analyzed the changes in the Danish school culture induced and encouraged by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results. The educational policy and reforms that were temporally connected with the publication of the PISA 2000 results are outlined and the related socioeconomic and sociopolitical influences are explicated. Furthermore, we investigated to what degree the PISA science assessment framework and test system were in accordance with the Danish educational goals in science in order to discuss the relevance of PISA as a catalyst for the educational actions taken. The results of our inquiry revealed areas of good correspondence and fundamental differences related to values underlying the Danish school system and PISA, respectively (e.g., Bildung orientation versus cognitive skills/competency orientation, different learning/assessment paradigms). We argue that such differences are crucial when considering curricular relevance, validity, and the use of PISA as an agent of change on the national level.