历史与挑战：南非高等教育学科发展--以高等教育与成人教育研究中心为例

1961年南非成为一个独立的共和国后,南非高等教育研究开始发展。南非高等教育学科发展经历了一个历史变迁过程,南非通过在国家层面、院校层面开展高等教育研究,开设高等教育学科专业培养专业研究人员,助推南非高等教育学科的发展。南非高等教育学科发展尚面临诸多挑战。最后以斯坦陵布什大学的高等教育与成人教育研究中心所开展的工作为例,进行具体阐述。     

赵元任语用学思想探讨

在赵元任的语言学研究中,蕴含着一些当代语用学的因子。主要体现在他的语言符号学、语言本质上的行为方式、语境之于语言的意义以及语用歧义等方面的论述中。对此进行梳理挖掘,将有利于促进当代语用学的发展以及语用学思想与理论的传播。     

中西边疆研究的差异性对中国边疆研究的启示

从中西涉及边疆的研究成果来看,西方边疆研究偏向理论及观点的论证,如相互边疆理论、冲击—反应模式、心脏地带理论、高边疆理论;中国边疆研究则偏向学科的建构,如边疆学、边政学、边防学、边安学,这种差异性对解决中西边疆问题产生了不同的影响。从边疆具体问题入手进行历时性与共时性相结合的研究,在解决边疆诸多问题的基础上,形成对边疆问题的共识和解决方案并提升为中国边疆理论则是当前中国边疆研究的方向。     

Transcultural analysis of the effectiveness of a program to promote self-regulated learning in Mozambique,Chile, Portugal,and Spain

The current investigation aims at assessing the effectiveness of an intervention program designed to enhance self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies at the university level, with students from different cultural, linguistic, and educational backgrounds. The central tool of the program is a set of letters in which a fictional first-year student describes his experiences as an SRL student. The program was implemented in four universities in different countries and continents (Portugal, Spain, Chile, and Mozambique), with an experimental group and a comparison group at each university (263 students from experimental groups and 247 from comparison groups). Findings display the effectiveness of the program in enhancing a set of motivational variables related to the study process and the use of SRL strategies. Data were consistent across the different cultural and academic contexts in which the program was implemented. The implications of these findings for university administrators and faculty are discussed.     

Examining the Rule of Thumb of Not Using Multilevel Modeling: The “Design Effect Smaller Than Two” Rule

Educational researchers commonly use the rule of thumb of “design effect smaller than 2” as the justification of not accounting for the multilevel or clustered structure in their data. The rule, however, has not yet been systematically studied in previous research. In the present study, we generated data from three different models (which differ in the location of the clustering effect). With a 3 (design effect) × 5 (cluster size) × 4 (number of clusters) Monte Carlo simulation study we found that the rule should not be applied when researchers: (a) are interested in the effects of higher-level predictors, or (b) have a cluster size less than 10. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed.     

Reexamining the Impact of Nonnormality in Two-Group Comparison Procedures

The authors performed a Monte Carlo simulation to empirically investigate the robustness and power of 4 methods in testing mean differences for 2 independent groups under conditions in which 2 populations may not demonstrate the same pattern of nonnormality. The approaches considered were the t test, Wilcoxon rank-sum test, Welch-James test with trimmed means and Winsorized variances, and a nonparametric bootstrap test. Results showed that the Wilcoxon rank-sum test and Welch-James test with trimmed means and Winsorized variances were not robust in terms of type I error control when the 2 populations showed different patterns of nonnormality. The nonparametric bootstrap test provided power advantages over the t test. The authors discuss other results from the simulation study and provide recommendations.     

Fostering Social and Emotional Skills for Well-Being and Social Progress

Children need a balanced set of cognitive, social and emotional capabilities to adapt to today's demanding, changing and unpredictable world. OECD countries and partner economies recognise the importance on the holistic development of individuals. However, there are big gaps between stakeholders' knowledge, expectations and practices on how to foster such skills. This paper presents evidence on the importance of social and emotional skills; on how policy makers and schools are currently enhancing and monitoring such skills; and, on the existing gaps between knowledge, expectations and practices to mobilise these skills. The paper concludes by pointing ways in which education stakeholders can do more to better develop and mobilise the skills that drive individual's well-being and social progress. The paper draws on findings and frameworks that are being published in a full OECD report entitled ‘Skills for Social Progress: the Power of Social and Emotional Skills’ in the first half of 2015.     

Self-efficacy and vicarious learning in doctoral studies at a distance

Even though there are increasing numbers of PhD students in the distance mode, our current understanding of PhD candidature at a distance is limited and incomplete. On the one end of the spectrum are accounts of unhappy and isolated doctoral students who are separated from communities of practice. At the same time, literature offers accounts of PhD students at a distance who view themselves as agential and autonomous and are happy not to get sidetracked by others. In this reflection we ask what distinguishes the conventional PhD student from one who is studying at a distance, and invite more research on self-efficacy and vicarious learning of PhD students at a distance.     

The medicalization of current educational research and its effects on education policy and school reforms

This paper starts from the assumption of the emergence of an educationalized culture over the last 200 years according to which perceived social problems are translated into educational challenges. As a result, both educational institutions and educational research grew, and educational policy resulted from negotiations between professionals, researchers, and policy makers. The paper argues that specific experiences in the Second World War triggered a fundamental shift in the social and cultural role of academia, leading up to a technocratic culture characterized by confidence in experts rather than in practicing professionals (i.e., teachers and administrators). In this technocratic shift, first a technological system of reasoning emerged, and it was then replaced by a medical “paradigm.” The new paradigm led to a medicalization of social research, in which a particular organistic understanding of the social reality is taken for granted and research is conducted under the mostly undiscussed premises of this particular understanding. The result is that despite the increased importance of research in general, this expertocratic and medical shift of social research led to a massive reduction in reform opportunities by depriving the reform stakeholders of a broad range of education research, professional experience, common sense, and political deliberation.     

Disability,Stigma and Otherness: Perspectives of Parents and Teachers

This qualitative study explored the perspectives of parents and teachers in the US with regard to the meaning and implications of disability in the context of schoolling, and of raising a child with a disability. The findings revealed broad conceptual differences in the perspectives of these two groups. Teachers’ beliefs were generally consistent with medical model perspectives on disability as biologically defined. Parents’ interpretations, more aligned with a sociocultural paradigm, were situated in the cultural meanings ascribed to disability and linked with issues of stigma, marginalisation and access. The findings also revealed the existence of master narratives on families of children with disabilities, entrenched in assumptions of pathological functioning and negative outcomes among these families. Implications for professional–family partnerships in the education of students with disabilities are discussed.