Teachers’ dilemmatic decision-making: reconciling coexisting policies of increased student retention and performance

In recent years, many countries within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have formulated educational policies aimed at providing better education to more students. However, this may be perceived as constituting dilemmatic spaces, where teachers must make efforts to reconcile coexisting political demands in their everyday work. The purpose of this article is to provide insight into how teachers handle coexisting educational policies of increased student retention and performance. Empirical findings from a one-year field study at a Danish vocational school explore how teachers’ decision-making as response to coexisting demands of increased student retention and performance involves the development of various pedagogical approaches to the students: an active ‘caring’ approach, a passive ‘wait until this class is over’ approach, an active ‘vocational gate-keeping’ approach, and a passive ‘wait and see whether they drop out’ approach. Based on the findings, it is argued that the various pedagogical approaches are developed through social negotiations with leaders, students, and other teachers. Moreover, these pedagogical approaches lead to the development of further negotiated, dilemmatic decisions to be made. Thus, a dynamic approach to teachers’ dilemmatic decision-making is proposed.     

Scaffold instruction at the workplace from a situated perspective

This article proposes the need to address scaffold instructions from a situated learning perspective. Based on an empirical study of how apprentice bakers learn their trade, it is claimed that studies of learning at the workplace yield important insights into our understanding of scaffold instructions. Seen from the perspective of the apprentices, scaffold instruction represents access to more responsibility in practice, it supports their identities as future bakers and they learn bodily know-how. When scaffold instruction failed, it was often in relation to situations where the apprentices were placed in marginal positions in the community of practice or in relation to a central workplace situation.     

Changes in BSc Business Administration and Psychology students’ learning styles over one,two and three years of study

Knowledge on general or discipline-specific changes in the learning styles of university students can be utilised in the design and execution of courses, but little is known of such changes. The study examined the changes in the learning styles of three year groups of BSc Business Administration and Psychology students from admittance to one, two and three years later for the three year groups respectively. Learning styles were measured using the Danish Self-Assessment Learning Styles Inventory, which is an adaptation of Sternberg's MSG Thinking Styles Inventory within the theory of mental self-government. The Hierarchic and Oligarchic learning styles decreased significantly for all three year groups. The Judicial learning style increased significantly for the year groups who had studied for two and three years. The Global learning style increased significantly for the year group who had studied for one year. The findings are discussed in relation to comparable research.     

The mathematical textbook for young students

The mathematical textbook has always been an important influence in mathematics teaching. However, as more modern methods of teaching aim to engage the pupil in mathematical activity the textbook's role has become more problematical. In this paper the author analyses that problem and offers principles and examples from new Polish textbooks which illustrate some possible solutions.     

Overcoming Obstacles to Preventive Conservation Projects in Italy: With a Case Study of the Savoy Carriage Collection of the Presidency of the Republic

ABSTRACT

Working on preventive conservation in Italy is difficult but not impossible. After small successes and setbacks convincing museums to adopt elements of preventive conservation in the 1990s, the first author (Rossi Doria) was contracted for 15 years to preserve the historic carriages and associated objects of the Presidency of the Republic of Italy. This required patience to overcome or circumvent obstacles such as an inflexible bureaucracy and the absence of any formal recognition of preventive conservation within the educational and contractual systems for heritage conservation. The key factors in his success were the support of the curators, the financial and planning autonomy of the Presidency, and the obvious need for conservation and preservation of these elegant and complex objects. The program began in 2001 with the recovery of the forgotten collection from inappropriate storage in several locations. The entire collection was surveyed and recorded, not only the carriages but also thousands of harnesses, saddles, clothing, fabrics, weapons and memorabilia. Multiple preventive and interventive actions were undertaken, such as pest eradication for all sensitive materials, environmental surveys, and everyday maintenance, as well as complex treatments for the ornate carriages. Analysis by country of published articles on preventive conservation and of IIC membership both confirm that the topic is not as well established in Italy as in many other countries. Some reasons and solutions are proposed.     

Google Scholar and Web of Science: Examining gender differences in citation coverage across five scientific disciplines

Many studies demonstrate differences in the coverage of citing publications in Google Scholar (GS) and Web of Science (WoS). Here, we examine to what extent citation data from the two databases reflect the scholarly impact of women and men differently. Our conjecture is that WoS carries an indirect gender bias in its selection criteria for citation sources that GS avoids due to criteria that are more inclusive. Using a sample of 1250 U.S. researchers in Sociology, Political Science, Economics, Cardiology and Chemistry, we examine gender differences in the average citation coverage of the two databases. We also calculate database-specific h-indices for all authors in the sample. In repeated simulations of hiring scenarios, we use these indices to examine whether women's appointment rates increase if hiring decisions rely on data from GS in lieu of WoS. We find no systematic gender differences in the citation coverage of the two databases. Further, our results indicate marginal to non-existing effects of database selection on women's success-rates in the simulations. In line with the existing literature, we find the citation coverage in WoS to be largest in Cardiology and Chemistry and smallest in Political Science and Sociology. The concordance between author-based h-indices measured by GS and WoS is largest for Chemistry followed by Cardiology, Political Science, Sociology and Economics.     

The myth of global science collaboration—Collaboration patterns in epistemic communities

Scientific collaboration is often perceived as a joint global process that involves researchers worldwide, regardless of their place of work and residence. Globalization of science, in this respect, implies that collaboration among scientists takes place along the lines of common topics and irrespective of the spatial distances between the collaborators. The networks of collaborators, termed ‘epistemic communities’, should thus have a space-independent structure. This paper shows that such a notion of globalized scientific collaboration is not supported by empirical data. It introduces a novel approach of analyzing distance-dependent probabilities of collaboration. The results of the analysis of six distinct scientific fields reveal that intra-country collaboration is about 10–50 times more likely to occur than international collaboration. Moreover, strong dependencies exist between collaboration activity (measured in co-authorships) and spatial distance when confined to national borders. However, the fact that distance becomes irrelevant once collaboration is taken to the international scale suggests a globalized science system that is strongly influenced by the gravity of local science clusters. The similarity of the probability functions of the six science fields analyzed suggests a universal mode of spatial governance that is independent from the mode of knowledge creation in science.     

Lesetechniken für die Inspektion von Software-Anforderungsdokumenten Ein kontrolliertes Experiment zur Untersuchung der Effektivit?t und Verwendung von Zeit bei der Anwendung verschiedener Lesetechniken

Inspektion hilft bereits in frühen Phasen der Softwareentwicklung, die Qualit?t von Softwareprodukten zu bestimmen und Nachbearbeitungsaufwand einzusparen. Lesetechniken sind ein Ansatz, der die Aufmerksamkeit von Inspektoren beim individuellen Lesen auf bestimmte Fehlermengen lenken und dadurch die Arbeit mehrerer Inspektoren untereinander koordinieren soll. Diese Arbeit berichtet über ein Experiment, das einerseits die Effektivit?t und Effizienz mehrerer Lesetechniken auf individueller und auf Teamebene miteinander vergleicht und andererseits Zusammenh?nge der Verwendung von Lesezeit mit der Effektivit?t von bestimmten Inspektorengruppen untersucht.     

Eine generische Komponente zur rechnergestützten Nutzung von Aufbauorganisationen

Zusammenfassung.   Die klassische Unterscheidung zwischen Aufbau- und Ablauforganisation eines Unternehmens deutet auf eine getrennte rechnergestützte Realisierung dieser beiden fundamentalen Komponenten einer Organisation hin. Dieser Beitrag unterstützt diese These, verweist aber gleichzeitig auf die integrierende Bedeutung einer rechnergestützten Aufbauorganisationsverwaltung, welche unterschiedliche Realisierungsformen der Ablauforganisation (unter anderem workflow-management und eCommerce) bedient. Die generelle Konzeption und Umsetzung einer solchen Aufbauorganisationsverwaltung wird in diesem Beitrag vorgestellt. Eingegangen am 14. Februar 2000 / Angenommen am 31. Mai 2000