Juggling competing activities: academic staff as doctoral candidates

ABSTRACT

This article explores the experiences of a group of established academic staff in New Zealand and the UK, as they undertake a doctorate in their home institutions. Our interest is in how individuals negotiate this dual status from a cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) stance that explores how rules, tools, community and divisions of labour, and interacting activity systems, shape doctoral experiences. The focus in this article, having analysed their detailed narrative accounts, is on how academics experience three interdependent activity systems: those surrounding the thesis, the institutional context, and the home-life spheres. Issues related to time, workload and supervision issues, variability in collegial support and impact on personal priorities and time emerged. There is a range of particularities – from easy access to resources/supervisors to inflexible institutional regulations – applicable to this group of doctoral candidates. Negotiating life as an academic with concurrent doctoral candidature provides positive outcomes in terms of teaching, research confidence and general personal and professional development. However, a range of difficulties can also be encountered, particularly in relation to personal and professional relationships, and workload management.     

European standards for quality assurance and institutional practices of student assessment in the UK,the Netherlands and the Czech Republic

This article analyses the student assessment procedures of 12 universities in the UK, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic with respect to their alignment with the European standards and guidelines on the quality of assessing higher education students (European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance [ESG] 1.3). Based on qualitative methodology combining document review with semi-structured interviews, the analysis has yielded three major results. First, the assessment procedures of the UK universities studied indicate the highest alignment with the ESG 1.3 when compared to the Czech institutions, with the Dutch universities occupying the middle ground. Second, a preference for summative assessment to account for pressures of massification can be observed at institutions in all three countries. Third, it is argued that contrary to some (ministerial) expectations, the influence of the ESG on institutions seems to be insignificant, due to unawareness of the ESG 1.3 at all of the UK and Dutch universities analysed and only moderate knowledge of ESG 1.3 in the Czech case. For this reason, there seems to be a need for communicating the ESG to higher education institutions rather than revising the scope of the ESG as envisaged in the 2012 Bologna policy document (Bucharest Communiqué).     

Neuroanatomy Learning: Augmented Reality vs. Cross-Sections

Neuroanatomy education is a challenging field which could benefit from modern innovations, such as augmented reality (AR) applications. This study investigates the differences on test scores, cognitive load, and motivation after neuroanatomy learning using AR applications or using cross-sections of the brain. Prior to two practical assignments, a pretest (extended matching questions, double-choice questions and a test on cross-sectional anatomy) and a mental rotation test (MRT) were completed. Sex and MRT scores were used to stratify students over the two groups. The two practical assignments were designed to study (1) general brain anatomy and (2) subcortical structures. Subsequently, participants completed a posttest similar to the pretest and a motivational questionnaire. Finally, a focus group interview was conducted to appraise participants’ perceptions. Medical and biomedical students (n = 31); 19 males (61.3%) and 12 females (38.7%), mean age 19.2 ± 1.7 years participated in this experiment. Students who worked with cross-sections (n = 16) showed significantly more improvement on test scores than students who worked with GreyMapp-AR (P = 0.035) (n = 15). Further analysis showed that this difference was primarily caused by significant improvement on the cross-sectional questions. Students in the cross-section group, moreover, experienced a significantly higher germane (P = 0.009) and extraneous cognitive load (P = 0.016) than students in the GreyMapp-AR group. No significant differences were found in motivational scores. To conclude, this study suggests that AR applications can play a role in future anatomy education as an add-on educational tool, especially in learning three-dimensional relations of anatomical structures.     

Learning through artful knowing

Unfinished and ongoing exploration, Oil Painting, 1.30?*?1?m, September 2015.     

Educational leadership and pupil achievement in primary education

Educational leadership can be defined as the ability of a principal to initiate school improvement, to create a learning-oriented educational climate, and to stimulate and supervise teachers in such a way that the latter may execute their tasks as effectively as possible. In 1989, 1993, and 1998, teacher perceptions of educational leadership of principals in Dutch elementary education were evaluated by means of a Rasch-scale. It turned out that the educational leadership of Dutch principals has grown considerably. In both 1989 and 1993 the effect of educational leadership on pupil achievement was investigated. While in 1989 no significant relationship was found, the results of 1993 show a significant relationship between educational leadership and average pupil achievement over 3 successive years corrected for school environment.     

Tool Support for Teaching the Personal Software Process

Software engineering education can be viewed as a challenging task. Computer science students tend to focus on the programming aspects of a project, and take a “hacking approach” to completing a project, rather than viewing the process. Our course material includes teaching the Personal Software Process (PSP). Students are required to produce defect and effort metrics, as well as project summary reports. Tools to assist information recording and production of reports are difficult for students to access. The cost in terms of financial and learning time is usually too high at the educational level to justify using commercial tools that are available for the professional software engineer. We have developed a tool—Personal Assistant for Software Engineers—to aid students in the learning of the PSP. The tool has been successfully used in four subjects for a semester. Following feedback and evaluation, it has been redesigned, and is currently in stage two. The tool has been useful for students, and has automated the previous manual process of producing time and defect reports, along with project summaries, thus allowing them to focus on the meaning of the information.