Coaching Students in Research Skills: A difficult task for teachers

The new Dutch curriculum for the upper levels of secondary education requires students to use research skills. Students have to conduct a number of small research projects, culminating in the writing of a research paper as a formal part of the new examinations. Although the literature offers abundant advice on how to write a good research paper, comparatively little research seems to have been done on this subject as it relates to the classroom. This article describes some results of a study which examines the problems encountered by students when carrying out research projects and which looks into the difficulties teachers face when coaching students in research skills. These obstacles are particularly apparent in the initial stages of the research process. Problem finding is revealed to be an underdeveloped skill in education. Although teachers score much better than students on a test of research skills, finding an effective way to channel these superior skills into coaching methods that benefit students remains problematic. It is evident that procedural knowledge cannot be seen separately from declarative knowledge. Working together in interdisciplinary teams might help teachers overcome some of these problems.     

The Local Company Project: Involving Local Companies in Undergraduate Environmental Engineering Education

Technology is changing rapidly and industry needs to adapt continuously. Based on demands expressed by industry, Brunei University in the U.K. has developed a new and challenging undergraduate engineering programme. The programme is designed to address the two major concerns revealed by collaborating companies concerning the education and training of university engineering graduates. Firstly, there is a great need for environmentally aware engineers to help industry to cope with the increasing environmental pressures. Secondly, all engineers need to possess transferable skills, be capable of lifelong learning and of using a flexible approach to problem-solving. Personal as well as professional maturity are seen as the keys to success as a professional engineer. The new programme called Special Environmental Engineering (SEE) employs project-based learning in the educational process. This paper summarizes lessons learned from project-based learning using the SEE Local Company Project as an example.     

No Issue,No Problem? Co-education in Dutch Secondary Physical Education during the Twentieth Century

This article places the current state of Dutch co-education in physical education into a longitudinal perspective. Occasionally, comparisons are made with Germany and England. The dominant, twentieth-century, co-educational tradition in the Netherlands--including its pragmatic argumentation-- has influenced educational ideals, as well as school practice, with respect to physical education. Due to a historical lack of fundamental discussions about co-education, today's problems relating to nationwide co-education in Dutch physical education programmes are trivialised. This is highlighted within this article by an analysis of the only manual on co-education ever published in the Netherlands. In conclusion, the article suggests that because co-education is not regarded as a controversial issue in the Netherlands, gender problems in physical education are neglected.     

A COMMENT ON McCAULEY AND COLBERG'S CONCEPTION OF CROSS-CULTURAL TRANSPORTABILITY OF TESTS

Recently McCauley and Colberg described a theory of transportability, an approach to devising test items for cross-cultural comparative research that are free from unwanted cultural effects. They also provided data to demonstrate the feasibility of their approach. In this comment it is argued that the transportability notion resembles earlier cross-cultural work and does not add new insights into the vexed problem of cross-cultural comparison. It is also stated that McCauley and Colberg's statistical checks do not preclude the possibility of bias.     

Lifelong Learning on Either Side of the Border: the effects of government policy on adult education in The Netherlands and Belgium

Although there is a tendency to develop policy plans on adult education at a European level, there are still large differences between the various EU countries. These national policy contexts depend on historical, cultural, economic and political factors and can have a profound impact on the way adult education is shaped and developed within a country. Two examples of such policies are presented to clarify this point. In the Netherlands, there is a strong emphasis on the vocational side of adult education. This is for a large part the result of the introduction of the Law on Adult and Vocational Education ( Wet Educatie en Beroepsonderwijs ) in 1996. The non vocational branch of the sector was rather marginalised by this new law. In Belgium, there has been a great effort to support, develop and streamline non vocational adult education. The special Flemish government decree ( Decreet betreffende het sociaal-cultureel volwassenenwerk ) of 2003 was very important in that regard. This decree regulates all aspects of non vocational education or socio-cultural work, including funding and quality assurance. Although the Flemish decree could be seen as a good practice of upgrading non-formal adult education through legislation, it could also be considered a typical Flemish case, rooted in the traditions of adult education in Flanders.     

Practising what we preach: working together to further scientific collaboration

The recent shift in Internet usage – from content being simply consumed by users, to content that users create, interact with, and share – has challenged traditional publishing values and processes. This has, in turn, brought opportunities to explore and experiment with new technologies in the publishing industry. Elsevier's social bookmarking and collaboration tool for researchers, 2collab, was launched in November 2007 to address this shift. This article reviews how 2collab was built in close partnership with researchers, and how traditional processes had to be adapted to facilitate this. It outlines the current use of social applications among scientists and shows that nearly 50% of researchers anticipate that social tools like 2collab will have at least some impact on all areas of their research in the next five years.