Psychology students’ perception of and engagement with feedback as a function of year of study

Undergraduate students’ perception of feedback and level of engagement with the feedback they receive have gained increasing attention in the educational literature recently to identify areas which require educators’ attention. However, research in this area has generally been based on limited self-selecting samples, and has not considered how students’ relationship with feedback may alter depending on their year of study. To address this, a survey measuring students’ views and practices regarding feedback was completed at a higher education institution by 447 first-, second- and third-year psychology students, representing 77% of the cohort. Findings revealed that third years responded more negatively in both areas than their first- and second-year counterparts, whose ratings on these aspects themselves were far from optimal. These findings highlight the need for early interventions to improve students’ perception of and engagement with feedback in the earlier years, and to prevent the recorded deterioration later on in the degree course.     

Third world woman meets third world man in Athens,Georgia OR manhunt,womanhunt

This article represents an attempt to reconcile discussions of aspects of educational research with recent developments in complexity science. It is argued that current characterizations of and distinctions among research methodologies in education are potentially counterproductive, in large part because they tend to be defined against or in terms of principles and methods that have been rendered problematic within the sciences. To develop this point, the authors draw on several contemporary discourses: poststructuralist methods are used to foreground the Euclidean (plane) geometric roots of much of the vocabulary of educational research; fractal geometry is taken as a source of images and analogies to support alternative conceptions of knowledge, learning and teaching; informed by poststructuralist and fractal geometric notions, the authors turn to complexity science and argue that it is fitted to and offers important elaborations of current discussions of educational research methodologies. In the process, they suggest that it may be time to abandon some of the prominent distinctions used to describe educational research, including ‘quantitative versus qualitative’ and ‘sciences versus humanities’.     

Exploring pedagogical leadership in early years education in Saudi Arabia

The empirical research for this paper was undertaken with leaders of early years setting in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The investigation sought to establish to what extent it was possible to behave in line with the concept of pedagogical leadership in the twenty-first century in an Arab Muslim monarchy, dominated by Islam, where directive leadership and control by the state has been the traditional norm. Education in KSA is now subject to reform, however, with leadership roles and responsibilities becoming a key issue and the early years sector being one of the major targets for development.     

Researching 'my people,' researching myself: Fragments of a reflexive tale

The paper investigates my positionality as a Pakistani Muslim researcher, affiliated with a U.S. institution, conducting ethnographic research with Pakistani Muslim immigrants in California. Three vignettes reconstructed from field-notes and a reflective journal illustrate the tensions and contradictions informing the research process. The first vignette details my shifting subjectivities in relation to a segment of the Muslim community in Northern California. Although my perceived disempowerment of Muslims motivated my research, my failure to subscribe to the Muslim Student Association's version of Islam cost me their disapproval. The second vignette highlights my relationship with one particular research participant. Although I shared the same ethnic background as this participant, my inability to conceive of her empowerment in terms other than those of Western feminism led to tragedy. The last vignette focuses on my interaction with the ethnographic data at my desk and becomes an analysis of the forces in my life that feed into my research.     

Constructing “world-class” as “global”: a case study of the National University of Singapore

This article investigates the ways in which newly-established higher education institutions (HEIs) position themselves as “world-class” through constructing themselves as “global”. With the escalating “free market” and competitive forces arising from the marketization of education, most universities see a construction of themselves as global universities as a necessity, where the global mark is valued as a signal of quality across markets and thus positions the universities as world-class. This study specifically examines how one very successful emerging university, the National University of Singapore, constructs and promotes itself as a global institution through three strategies.