A single-question qualitative bachelor’s programme evaluation

Conventionally, quantitative surveys are used for student evaluations in higher education, but the validity of this practice has been questioned. In the present study, we investigated a qualitative method for evaluating a bachelor’s programme. Forty-one first-year students and twenty-eight third-year students on a bachelor’s programme in Public Administration were asked to answer a single question in relation to their programme: ‘What could have been done in order to support your learning?’ The students provided rich responses of a depth and breadth not attainable through conventional surveys, making this method worthwhile for educational development at the programme level. The responses focused on students’ own learning rather than on judgement of teacher performance. The results indicate that the students underwent a transition from the first to third year, suggesting a shift in needs. For example, first-year students asked for direct interaction, whereas third-year students asked for feedback on accomplishments. Practical applications are discussed.     

To click or not to click: investigating conflict detection and sourcing in a multiple document hypertext environment

This study investigated whether accessing conflicting claims in other documents by means of hyperlinks embedded within currently read documents may facilitate conflict detection and source-content integration. Norwegian undergraduates (n?=?85) read multiple conflicting documents on a controversial health-related issue, with half of the conflicting claims across documents hyperlinked and the other half not. Moreover, half of the participants were told that they would get more information by clicking on the links (weak prompting condition) while the other half were additionally told that clicking on the links was necessary to get a more complete understanding of the issue (strong prompting condition). Results indicated that the extent to which participants accessed conflicting claims in other documents via the hyperlinks was positively related to their detection of cross-document conflicts as well as their integration of source-content information. A mediational analysis indicated that conflict detection mediated the effect of accessing conflicting claims via the hyperlinks on source-content integration. No relationship was found between the prompting condition and participants’ selection of the hyperlinks. The theoretical significance as well as the practical value of our findings are discussed.

     

Student empowerment in a constructivist values learning environment for a healthy and sustainable world

Learning Environments Research - Civic education is a moral development imperative of the Indonesian national curriculum and the United Nation’s policy on education for sustainable...     

Enhancing Undergraduates' Capabilities Through Team-Based Competitions: The Edward Jones Challenge

The Edward Jones Company recently initiated financial sponsorship of team‐based competitions in six undergraduate business core classes at Baylor University. The challenges were chosen to take place in an introductory freshman business class, Managerial Accounting, Principles of Marketing, Corporate Finance, Operations Management, and Strategic Management. Teams of students in each course competed for monetary awards ranging up to $1,000 per team member. This article describes the rationale behind the Edward Jones Challenge, reviews the literature as to the expected benefits of the group projects involved in the competition, summarizes the projects used in the various classes, analyzes the results of a student survey, tests a set of hypotheses relating project structure to the expected benefits, examines the positive results derived from the Edward Jones initiative, and discusses the lessons learned from the experience.     

The pursuit of belonging in inclusive education – insider perspectives on the meshwork of participation

According to the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [UN 2006. Accessed May 7, 2016. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html], full participation should be premised for everyone with a disability. However, the concept of ‘full participation’ is not clear. In this article, it is argued that the conceptualisation of participation is essential to create a welcoming context for all children in education. In a context characterised by a multiplicity of connections, children with special educational needs participate but at the same time also experience discrimination and exclusion. The aim of this study is to unravel the meaning of full participation, not as a state of being but as a process of becoming. In focus group dialogues, it is demonstrated how full participation is relationally formed inside and between the many connections that pupils seek in order to belong. It is thus a multi-layered concept, closely connected to accessibility and, due to its emergent and entangled nature, also very elusive. It revolves around a sense of belonging, with an important focus on interconnectivity, diminished conditionality and imagination.     

From swiping to casual sex and/or committed relationships: Exploring the experiences of Tinder users

To better understand if and how the mechanics of the process Tinder imposes on its users (i.e., swiping, matching, and starting conversations) influences the resulting sexual or romantic interactions, we collected data from 1038 Belgian Tinder users. Our findings show that a user's swiping quantity does not guarantee a higher number of Tinder matches, women have generally more matches than men and men usually have to start a conversation on Tinder. Moreover, while conversations were positively associated with reported offline Tinder encounters, less than half of our sample reported having had an offline meeting with another Tinder user. Whereas more than one third of these offline encounters led to casual sex, more than a quarter resulted in the formation of a committed relationship. Such findings indicate that Tinder is not “just a hookup app”, as often assumed in public discourse. We argue it is plausible that sexual encounters will eventually lead to committed relationships in a society where initiation of relationship formation with dating has been replaced by hooking up.     

Desirable places: spatial representations and educational strategies in the inner city

This article examines how the outcome of neoliberal educational reforms has affected urban schooling in the inner city of Stockholm – making it into a centralized nexus or a ‘hot-spot’ for students and schools. The aim is to analyse how geographical place and space have become major distinctive criteria in inner-city students’ educational strategies, as well as a comparative advantage for upper-secondary schools in the fierce in-between school competition. The data consist of interviews with close to 120 participants, official statistics and marketing from 55 inner-city upper-secondary schools. Our findings suggest that the growing commodification and upward socio-spatial homogenization of the inner city both affect the way schools use spatial representations in their marketing and also the strategies deployed by students in their school choice.     

Lifelong learning – lifelong returns? A new theoretical framework for the analysis of civic returns on adult learning

Education is associated with a wide range of positive outcomes such as higher wages and employability, but also with increased well-being or volunteering. While previous research focused mainly on returns on formal education in schools or universities, there has been a notable shift in recent years towards the analysis of returns on adult learning. While research has established theory-driven empirical evidence concerning labour market-related outcomes, it fails to identify and coherently explain non-monetary outcomes. The authors of this article review 13 empirical studies on different forms of civic participation as a return on engagement in adult learning. Individuals’ civic participation is one precondition to social cohesion and functioning citizenship at a societal level and thus a factor of high political and societal relevance. All the studies reviewed in this article suggest a positive association between adult learning and civic engagement. To what extent this association is causal, however, remains an open question. The authors argue that any efforts to identify such causality must begin with a number of theoretical assumptions about the mechanisms through which learning may influence civic participation. By linking the theoretical ideas of the studies reviewed with the literature on volunteering, the authors suggest a new theoretical framework, which may guide further research.     

Promoting intercultural friendship among college students

This study assessed the efficacy of a semester-long buddy project in facilitating intercultural friendship development. Results of pre-, post-, and follow-up surveys show significant improvements in knowledge and attitude; correlations between post-project knowledge, attitude, and interest in continued contact; and correlations between interest in continued contact and actual contact in the follow up. The majority of the participants evaluated the project as effective for friendship formation. Of the follow-up respondents, 23% developed friendships with their former buddies. The project serves as an example for assignments with the potential for friendship development, which is essential for optimal intergroup contact.     

Group-Based Emotions: Evidence for Emotion-Performance Relationships in Team Sports

Purpose: In team sports, players have to manage personal interests and group goals, emphasizing intricacies between personal and social identities. The focus of this article was to examine the effect of identity mechanisms on appraisal processes, based on the following research question: Does the level of self-abstraction (low [personal identity] versus high [social identity]) lead to group-based emotions and influence performances? Method: An experimental design was used in which the level of self-abstraction was manipulated through the induction of a self- versus a team-oriented goal. Thirty elite male rugby players (M_age = 19.06, SD = 0.78, randomly split) participated in a match reproducing conditions similar to those of official games. Individual and perceived team-level emotions and performance were measured 17 times during the match. Results: Linear Mixed Effects models showed that a high level of self-abstraction: (a) led to more positive and less negative individual (variances explained: 52% and 46%) and perceived team-referent (variances explained: 57% and 40%) emotions; (b) reduced the correlation of team-referent emotions with individual ones; and (c) positively influenced team and individual performances (variances explained: 50% and 19%). Moreover, after controlling for potential effects of the level of self-abstraction, only positive team-referent emotions influenced performance. Conclusions: This study is the first to experimentally manipulate athletes’ social identity to examine group-based emotions in sport. Challenging the usual intrapersonal approaches, these findings suggested that social identity and its association with team-referent emotions could be one of the key dimensions of emotion-performance relationships in team sports.