Development of a competency mapping tool for undergraduate professional degree programmes,using mechanical engineering as a case study

Mapping the curriculum of a professional degree to the associated competency standard ensures graduates have the competence to perform as professionals. Existing approaches to competence mapping vary greatly in depth, complexity, and effectiveness, and a standardised approach remains elusive. This paper describes a new mapping software tool that streamlines and standardises the competency mapping process. The available analytics facilitate ongoing programme review, management, and accreditation. The complete mapping and analysis of an Australian mechanical engineering degree programme is described as a case study. Each subject is mapped by evaluating the amount and depth of competence development present. Combining subject results then enables highly detailed programme level analysis. The mapping process is designed to be administratively light, with aspects of professional development embedded in the software. The effective competence mapping described in this paper enables quantification of learning within a professional degree programme, and provides a mechanism for holistic programme improvement.     

A meta-analytic investigation of therapy modality outcomes for sexually abused children and adolescents: an exploratory study

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the independent effects of different treatment elements on a number of secondary problems related to childhood and adolescent sexual abuse, as well as investigate a number of different moderators of treatment effectiveness. METHOD: Twenty-eight studies that provided treatment outcome results for children and adolescents who had been sexually abused were included in the meta-analysis. Different aspects of psychological treatment, such as specific treatment modalities (individual, cognitive-behavioral, etc.) or secondary problems (behavior problems, psychological distress, etc.) were investigated. RESULTS: The overall mean weighted effect size for the meta-analysis was d=.72 (SE=.02). The results indicate that psychological treatment after childhood or adolescent sexual abuse tended to result in better outcomes than no treatment. There was significant heterogeneity in the effectiveness of the various psychological treatment elements. Play therapy seemed to be the most effective treatment for social functioning, whereas cognitive-behavioral, abuse-specific, and supportive therapy in either group or individual formats was most effective for behavior problems. Cognitive-behavioral, family, and individual therapy seemed to be the most effective for psychological distress, and abuse-specific, cognitive-behavioral, and group therapy appeared to be the most effective for low self-concept. CONCLUSIONS: The choice of therapy modality should depend on the child's main presenting secondary problem. Further research should be conducted investigating other possible moderators and secondary problem outcomes.     

The Bottom Line for Education and Training

Because business and industry training has become a major economic investment for the companies that support it, training managers are increasingly called upon to demonstrate that their interventions are not only effective but also cost-effective. This article describes a cost-effective methodology. It points out how cost-effectiveness differs from cost-benefit analysis. The technique combines meta-analytic and simple accounting procedures to yield an index of relative cost-effectiveness of training interventions. Using examples from the schools and corporate training, the authors demonstrate how the analysis can be applied to a large variety of training situations.     

Race is nowhere and race is everywhere: narratives from black and white South African university students in post‐apartheid South Africa

This paper examines the life history narratives of a group of 12 black and white male and female undergraduate students at a historically white Afrikaans medium university, now undergoing its own transformation in post‐apartheid South Africa. Conceptualizations of identity and discourse across four elements of context, setting, situated activity and self are employed to examine their accounts. Three framing discourses, comprising the official storyline of a rainbow nation and new higher education policies, the formal storyline of institutional change, and the informal space of relationships and interactions are used to analyse student narratives in terms of how they produce, reproduce and transform race and identity. What emerges is a complicated picture in which identities cannot be simply read off either from the official discourse or from colour and culture as the levels of discourse articulate and collide with a history of racial separateness and context and setting, with particular identity effects.

What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and in this period? And what varieties are coming to prevail? In what ways are they selected and formed, liberated and repressed, made sensitive and blunted? (Mills, 1959 Mills CW (1959) The sociological imagination (London, Oxford University Press) [Crossref] [Google Scholar], p. 7)     

The roles of peritraumatic dissociation, child physical abuse, and child sexual abuse in the development of posttraumatic stress disorder and adult victimization

OBJECTIVE: Previous research has indicated that women who experience childhood physical abuse or childhood sexual abuse are at increased risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and adult victimization. Recently, peritraumatic dissociation (PD) has been suggested as another possible risk factor for PTSD and adult victimization. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of childhood physical and sexual abuse and PD on PTSD and adult victimization. METHOD: A sample of 467 female college students completed questionnaires about childhood and adult sexual and physical abuse experiences, PD, and PTSD symptoms. RESULTS: The combined sexual and physical abuse (CA) and sexual abuse only (SA) groups reported significantly higher numbers of PTSD symptoms than the physical abuse only (PA) and no abuse (NA) groups. The CA and PA groups reported significantly more adult sexual and physical victimization than the SA and NA groups. Across all four groups, higher levels of PD were associated with higher levels of PTSD and adult sexual and physical victimization. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the current study suggest that different types of childhood abuse may lead to different adult problems. The results also indicated that PD may have a broad effect on PTSD development and adult victimization.     

Mission to Planet Markle: Problem-Based Learning for Teaching Elementary Students Difficult Content and Practices

Research in Science Education - Young children can struggle to learn difficult disciplinary content and important skills for practicing science. Problem-based learning (PBL) may be useful for...     

Dimensions of higher education and the public good in South Africa

The focus is on the micro-possibilities of student capabilities formation as the end of public-good higher education, rather than on a systems or organizations approach more commonly found in discussions of the public good and higher education. This does not discount other valuable public-good ends. Using South Africa as a global South context, a capability-based approach to the public good of higher education is proposed for its humanizing ethic, attention to fair opportunities, and participation in terms of what students are able to do and to be in and through higher education. A capability frame is complemented by thinking about decoloniality and epistemic justice to help identify central higher education capabilities. The three proposed intersecting capability dimensions are as follows: personhood self-formation, epistemic contribution, and sufficiency of economic resources, intended to guide university practices and policy interventions in the direction of the public good. By populating the space of the public good with capabilities, a shift is made away from micro-economics which see the public good as a reductionist space of commodities and human capital development. Higher education is rather understood as having both instrumental and intrinsic value, generating an alternative logic to that of neo-liberalism, and an individualist ontology of competition and untrammeled markets. The pressures of the global context are acknowledged so that the public good is understood as both “ideal-aspirational” but also “practical-feasible” in the light of local South African conditions. An expanded capability-based framing would contribute to reducing higher education inequalities as a public-good and public-accountable contribution by universities.     

Mechanisms of attentional cueing during observational learning to facilitate motor skill acquisition

We examined the effectiveness of different cueing conditions during observational learning of a soccer accuracy pass. Sixty participants (30 males, 30 females) were randomly assigned and stratified by sex into one of six groups: discovery learning, verbal instruction, video model with visual cues, video model with verbal cues, video model with visual and verbal cues, and video model only. Each participant completed eight blocks of 10 trials each, with trial blocks 1 and 2 representing the practice phase (no manipulation), trial blocks 3, 4, 5 and 6 the acquisition phase (manipulation administered) and trial blocks 7 and 8 the retention phase (24 h after acquisition, with no manipulation). Absolute error, variable error and kicking form were recorded. The results indicated that those who used video modelling with visual and verbal cues collectively displayed less error and more appropriate form across acquisition and retention trial blocks compared with other groups. Our findings suggest that verbal information in addition to visual cues enhances perceptual representation and retention of modelled activities to improve task reproduction capabilities. Future research directions are proposed with implications for both direct and indirect perception accounts of skill acquisition through observed behaviours.     

Extending Humor Enactment Research

Humor orientation (HO) is an individual difference variable that influences production and delivery of humorous communication. Prior research indicates that people who score higher on HO enact humor more frequently and effectively, which in turn leads to more benefits and advantages in a variety of social and psychological outcomes. Research reported here extends this line of analysis with HO for its relationship to a broad gauge measure of benefit, satisfaction with life, extending HO into understudied domains. This study compared Bulgarian adults (n = 100) to several American samples. Primary findings were that Bulgarians were similar to American samples overall but scored consistently higher than Americans on satisfaction with life (SWL). HO and SWL are correlated (r = .27), a medium effect size.