Accelerated degrees in education: a new profile,alternative access to teaching or part of a re-tooling process?

In the UK, the provision of accelerated undergraduate programmes is responding to the needs of an increasingly diverse and career-focused student body and a flexible, ever-changing labour market. These fast track degrees are particularly new in education where recent developments in school autonomy and teacher training have had consequences on the design and delivery of programmes, definition of professional profiles and implications for the future of education as a subject of study in universities. This article portrays a small-scale research study about the views of students undertaking a new two-year accelerated degree in one English university using surveys at the beginning and end of the first academic year. The great majority were not planning to attend the programme but have chosen it for its career options and for being a quicker and cheaper route to access a degree – with teaching as the career goal. After one year, students reported gains in knowledge and skills, recommended the programme and kept their intention to pursue a career in teaching. Overall, we address a gap in the literature and start the discussion about the (dis)association between the students’ career routes and goals, the provision of these programmes and the teacher training offers.     

PhD students’ work conditions and study environment in university- and industry-based PhD programmes

During the last 10 years, new models of funding and training PhD students have been established in Denmark in order to integrate industry into the entire PhD education. Several programmes have been conducted where it is possible to co-finance PhD scholarships or to become an employee as an industrial PhD in a company. An important question is what impact these new conditions will have on the PhD students’ training, work conditions and study environment. In this article, the new type of programmes will be presented together with data analysis of PhD students’ work conditions and study environment in various programmes mainly based on a research project from 2006. The results of this study show no significant difference between PhD students in a traditional university PhD programme and PhD students in an industrial programme concerning working environment. However, the study shows significant differences in the intercultural dimension, where foreign PhD students are significantly more satisfied with their study environment compared with Danish PhD students. In general the workload is very high and the environment is stressful for all PhD students.     

放大科技计划正外部效应途径分析——芬兰科技计划组织机制对我国的启示

以政府资金为主的国家科技计划具有明显的公共产品的性质,政府组织实施科技计划不仅仅是为了促进某一领域或专题的科技水平,更重要的是通过科技计划的辐射作用,提升整个国家的科技实力、科技能力和科技效力,最终促进经济、社会的快速发展。通过对芬兰科技计划组织机制的分析,得出放大科技计划外部效应的4个途径,并提出若干关于科技计划组织管理的政策建议。     

Intercultural sensitivity among university students: measurement of the construct and its relationship with international mobility programmes / Sensibilidad intercultural de los estudiantes universitarios: medición del constructo y su relación con los programas de movilidad internacional

The purpose of this study was to validate the IDI (Intercultural Development Inventory) and to assess the impact of international mobility programmes on the intercultural sensitivity of university students. For this, a quasi-experimental study was carried out using a longitudinal design of repeated pre-test and post-test measures, with an experimental group of students who carried out international mobility programmes and a control group of students who did not. The sample consisted of 3,047 university students. The inventory yielded a five-factor structure (negation/defence, minimization, reversion, acceptance/adaptation and encapsulated marginality) with alpha coefficients ranging from .82 to .91, revealing adequate reliability and validity. The results indicate the effectiveness of the IDI to measure intercultural sensitivity. Although the post-test scores are higher than the pre-test scores for both groups, there are significant differences in favour of the experimental group (p = .000) in all factors except the negation/defence stage. The conclusions focus on the implications of this study for curriculum development and policy at an educational level.     

Relational identities and intergenerational learning in an undergraduate critical food studies course

Abstract

Environmental education (EE) scholars view intergenerational learning as a means to influence adult understandings of and relationships with the environment. Yet EE researchers have studied intergenerational learning in a limited fashion, with no emphasis on its role in higher education. The purpose of this article is to use feminist posthumanist theories to broadly explore intergenerational learning in critical food studies courses taught at the university level. We rely primarily on student coursework and post-course interviews as data sources that convey student perceptions of interactions with their families and the natural world, demonstrating how students develop relational identities shaped by personal experience as well as experiences in the course. To conclude, we discuss both the limitations and implications of this research for the field of EE.     

Investigating the enactment of social presence in blended adult education

ABSTRACT

Background

While open-cohort blended education programmes allow for accessible and flexible study trajectories, they may present social challenges to learners. Social presence is a possible a way of enhancing adult learners’ success. It can lead to an increased perception of community, which may result in lower rates of dropping out.     

Impact of peer mediation programmes to prevent bullying behaviours in secondary schools / El impacto de los programas de mediación entre iguales para prevenir conductas de acoso escolar en los centros de secundaria

The aim of the study was to determine the impact of peer mediation programmes at a secondary school, as compared to another centre that did not have any such programme. The impact would be evaluated by means of three levels of variables: pro-victim attitudes, the roles adopted by the youngsters and the school climate (this last item was analysed from two perspectives: that of the pupils and that of the teachers). In order to attain this goal, students from 12 to 14 years old (N = 323) and 17 teacher-tutors were administered different questionnaires in Time 1 (baseline, prior to intervention) and Time 2 (after programme intervention). Results highlight the validity of peer mediation programmes when it comes to fostering pro-victim attitudes, preventing the increase of negative roles and improving the school climate.     

Supporting students’ assignment writing: what lecturers do in a Master of Education programme

Teachers’ instructional practices surrounding written assignments have been little researched, despite writing remaining the primary means of assessment in higher education, including postgraduate professional development programmes. In this paper, we report a study that explored what a sample of lecturers in a Master of Education programme at an English-medium university in Hong Kong did to support students’ assignment writing. We integrate perspectives provided by the relevant higher education literature, the academic literacies approach and North American rhetorical genre studies to shed light on the findings derived from our analyses of interview and documentary data. We showed that our lecturer participants both engaged in direct instruction on assignment writing and provided indirect support. Our study contributed to the existing literature and raised questions for future research.     

A framework for enabling graduate outcomes in undergraduate programmes

Our research aim was to determine what enables engagement with graduate outcomes in tertiary institutions in Aotearoa/New Zealand. We used a mixed methods approach comprising a survey sent to all tertiary institutions, follow-up interviews with 10 academic leaders and eight case studies of good practice of programmes engaged with graduate outcomes across four institutions. Using a general inductive approach, analysis of the academic leader interviews generated five categories of enablers: external drivers, structural/procedural, development, student achievement and contextual enablers. Combining these enablers led to an integrating framework for institutional engagement in the development of graduate outcomes. Drawing on wider datasets from the survey, interviews and cases studies, relevant strategies were identified that staff and students perceived influenced the development of graduate outcomes. The framework and the associated strategies adopt a ‘whole-of-institution’ approach, which is inclusive of programmes, staff and students and their individual histories, traditions, cultures and purposes thus allowing for each institution’s unique characteristics.