Beyond hard outcomes: ‘soft’ outcomes and engagement as student success

This paper questions current policy discourses that equate student success with hard outcomes like retention, completion and employment. It offers another view, one that uses ‘soft’ outcomes and student engagement literature to widen our understanding of student success. In the paper, we first draw on literature to explore student engagement, usually understood as a means to achieve success, and ‘soft’ outcomes as acceptable student outcomes, as success. We present possible indicators for these forms of success and a matrix of factors which influence such success. We then examine these ideas using data gathered from a project that investigated success as experienced by post-school foundation learners in Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The findings suggest that the ideas have value. Finally, we identify some implications for teachers, arguing that, contrary to some current views, all four quadrants in the matrix are the business of teachers.     

Using a Comprehensive Case‐Based Examination To Evaluate and Integrate Student Learning in Social Work Administration

While the case method has been used in teaching social work practice for many years, its use as an evaluation tool is less common. This analysis describes the use of the case method in a comprehensive examination for MSW students in an Administration concentration. After a brief review of the issues related to student outcome assessment and the curriculum of the Administration concentration, a case debriefing framework is described, along with examples of student responses. The analysis concludes with a discussion of issues and implications for future research.     

Engaging with holistic curriculum outcomes: deconstructing ‘working theories’

International debates persist about what constitutes desirable outcomes from early childhood education experiences. The New Zealand early childhood curriculum brings together academic and social-pedagogic outcomes as interdependent holistic constructs named ‘dispositions’ and ‘working theories’. These constructs are complex notions that require interpretation by researchers and teachers in order to be recognised as outcomes by those with a vested interest in children's education: parents and policy-makers. This paper engages with the construct of working theories. It explains its genesis and outlines research activity thus far. The paper draws on findings from a two-year qualitative research project exploring children's interests, inquiries and working theories. The paper analyses two vignettes of working theories into mutually constitutive components of knowledge, skills and strategies, and attitudes and expectations. It argues that deconstructing working theories into elements able to be recognised by those outside early childhood education provides a way to demystify these innovative outcomes. Such scrutiny may assist parents and policy-makers to understand ways that the learning they value is present in the early years. Further, holistic outcomes are responsive to research and scholarship on appropriate pedagogy that encourages children to develop identities as learners, identities critical to living in the twenty-first century.     

屏蔽二进序列偶的构造

对屏蔽二进序列偶进行研究,证明了一类特殊的差集偶与最佳屏蔽二进序列偶是等价的,以及另一类特殊的差集偶与伪随机屏蔽二进序列偶是等价的;证明了几乎最佳屏蔽二进序列偶与一类特殊的可分差集偶之间的等价关系,为应用差集偶和可分差集偶构造屏蔽二进序列偶提供了理论依据。利用分圆类方法构造与最佳屏蔽二进序列偶等价的差集偶,得到几类最佳屏蔽二进序列偶。