Education(al) Research,Educational Policy‐Making and Practice

Professor Whitty has endorsed the consensus that research into education is empirical social science, distinguishing ‘educational research’ which seeks directly to influence practice, and ‘education research’ that has substantive value but no necessary practical application. The status of the science here is problematic. The positivist approach is incoherent and so supports neither option. Critical educational science is virtually policy‐inert. The interpretive approach is empirically sound but, because of the value component in education, does not support education research either, or account for this component. A solution to the latter problem is sought in the debate between Carr and Hirst on the relationship between philosophy and education. This shows Carr making claims that rely on a conception of philosophy that he rejects, while Hirst insists on this conception, uses it to justify practical claims, but denies that this is possible. To achieve a practically relevant analysis of educational research, both need to include second‐order, normative, conceptual enquiry into the philosophies that drive educational policy‐making and partly regulate teaching methodology. Deweyan, first‐order, ‘reflective practice’ needs, then, to be supplemented with second‐order reflection. Educational research is philosophy‐ not science‐driven, and is value‐led. Consequently, it has the status not of scientific discovery but of practical recommendation.     

Student Involvement in University Life — Beyond Political Activism and University Governance: a view from Central and Eastern Europe

Since the 1980s and early 1990s, much attention has focused on the position of students as stakeholders in the process of higher education. The importance of student evaluation is now widely recognised; in many countries, the move toward fee‐based funding has increased the power of students as ‘consumers’ of their education. At the same time, it is often asserted that students are reluctant to participate in university life, concerned primarily (sometimes exclusively) with obtaining their formal qualification and less with wider aspects of higher education. The views and attitudes prevalent in the student population and within institutions themselves on such issues vary widely. This debate is an international one, but is especially relevant in the rapidly changing higher education systems of Central and Eastern Europe.     

Perception,imagery, visualization and engineering graphics

We have conducted action research involving an instructional intervention over a 20-year period. This has demonstrated that spatial ability influences academic performance in engineering, and can be increased through instruction focused on using perception and mental imagery in three-dimensional representation. Prior to our intervention, the first-year engineering graphics course at our university had a failure rate of 36% for all engineering students and failure rates of 80% for African students studying at our university. Similar high failure rates were reported in engineering drawing and design courses at other Southern African universities, and similar association between low scores on tests of spatial ability and academic performance, suggesting that the problem was one encountered by many engineering students, not just by students at our university. Over the initial 2 years of the intervention, pass rates for the first-year engineering graphics course increased from 64 to 76%. With further changes in teaching, and the training of senior students as tutors to support the lecturing and practical activities provided in the course, the pass rates have risen to 88% annually, over a period in which the composition of the first-year student has become increasingly diverse, with greater numbers of students entering the university from disadvantaged educational backgrounds. The instructional model we have used is based on Piagetian principles, and confirms Piaget's theories with respect to the trainability of spatial ability in adulthood. Our findings suggest the importance of early identification of students with difficulty, as well as the potential value of an intervention aimed at training the processes involved in visualization through three-dimensional modelling and representation of objects. While spatial ability appears to be trainable through the methods we have developed, our research also indicates that level of spatial ability at time of intake to university is an important influence on academic performance, suggesting the value of instruction in visualization and three-dimensional representation at school level. Social factors are also important influences on academic performance, suggesting the value of tutorial-based interventions aimed at improving spatial ability in those university and technikon courses for which visualization and three-dimensional representation are a requirement.     

Client Personality as a Mediator of the Effects of Recording

Clients' ratings measuring the extent to which they felt inhibited by audio-recorded sessions (for supervisory purposes) were correlated with their scores on each scale of the Adjective Check List. Inhibition was positively related to scores in Self-Control, Endurance, Order, Abasement, Deference, and Counseling Readiness. It was negatively related to Lability, Exhibition, and Autonomy scores. The pattern of correlations was similar for clients with personal-social versus educational-vocational problems, although those of the latter group tended to be higher. Unexpectedly, inhibition ratings of educational-vocational clients manifested a strong positive relationship with their level of counseling readiness.     

Examining Engineering Students in Developing Countries: the case for three-part questions

This paper presents a method for assessing the three major objectives in the teaching of vocational and technical courses. These objectives are identified as material assimilation, application to real practical problems and resourcefulness of the student. The method was developed and tested over a period of more than 10 years on the Applied Electricity course, taught to first year engineering students at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. Analysis show that with the three-part-question method of examination the distribution of student scores is normal and the information deduced can be useful to both lecturer and student.