Ranking workplace competencies: Student and graduate perceptions

Students and graduates from a variety of business studies programs at a New Zealand tertiary institution completed a questionnaire in which they ranked the relative importance of a list of 24 competencies for graduates entering the workforce using a 7-point Likert scale. These competencies were identified from literature reports of the characteristics of superior performers in the workplace. The results show a close similarity between students and graduates’ ranking of competencies with computer literacy, customer service orientation, teamwork and co-operation, self-confidence, and willingness to learn ranked most important. There was little difference between the two groups in their rankings of cognitive or ‘hard’ skills and behavioral or ‘soft’ skills. However, the graduates placed greater importance on most of the competencies, resulting in a statistically significant difference between the graduates and students’ ranking of both hard and soft skills. The findings from this study suggest that cooperative education programs may help develop business students’ awareness of the importance of graduate competencies in the workplace

Inclusive education and social competence development

Students with special educational needs are exposed to the same social and cultural effects as any other child. Their social and emotional development also evolves under those influences and they, too, must adjust to the conditions of their environment. In several cases, however, an inadequate learning environment keeps these children from experiencing and learning social skills and abilities (such as self-confidence and independence). Inclusive education for children with special educational needs is not common practice in Hungary even though it is equally well suited to fostering different social skills and abilities in children with either average or non-average development. This paper endeavours to argue for the importance of having inclusive education in Hungary by discussing examples abroad, with special emphasis on research and practical implementations in Great Britain

Middle school students' perceptions of engineering

This paper focuses on implementing engineering education in middle school classrooms (grade levels 7-9). One of the aims of the study was to foster students’ and teachers’ knowledge and understanding of engineering in society. Given the increasing importance of engineering in shaping our daily lives, it is imperative that we foster in students an interest and drive to participate in engineering education, increase their awareness of engineering as a career path, and inform them of the links between engineering and the enabling subjects, mathematics, science, and technology. Data for the study are drawn from five classes across three schools. Grade 7 students’ responded to initial whole class discussions on what is an engineer, what is engineering, what characteristics engineers require, engineers (family/friends) that they know, and subjects that may facilitate an engineering career. Students generally viewed engineers as creative, future-oriented, and artistic problem finders and solvers; planners and designers; “seekers” and inventors; and builders of constructions. Students also viewed engineers as adventurous, decisive, community-minded, reliable, and “smart.” In addition to a range of mathematics and science topics, students identified business studies, ICT, graphics, art, and history as facilitating careers in engineering. Although students displayed a broadened awareness of engineering than the existing research suggests, there was limited knowledge of various engineering fields and a strong perception of engineering as large construction

Is self-assessment in religious education unique?

This paper addresses the question: is self-assessment in religious education unique? It first presents an overview of some challenges for assessment from subject differences, and then reviews the generic literature on self-assessment. It builds on earlier empirical research on self-assessment in religious education, carried out in an English state secondary school (Fancourt 2010); this was used to propose a variant of self-assessment which is tailored to the demands of religious education – reflexive self-assessment. Its implications for more general understandings of the relationship between subject pedagogy and self-assessment are discussed, especially the recognition of values not only in religious education but in other subjects too, reinforcing the need to develop subject-specific variants of self-assessment that reflect the breadth of learning outcomes

Cechy osobowości i „uczucie niepokoju językowego”: analizując ponownie motywację wewnętrzną

This paper reports on the outcomes of the comparative study on motivation of learners of English in further-education English Philology programme in Ukraine and Poland. The research aims to determine principle characteristics of intrinsic motivation, which is among the most effective personal management strategies and as such helps build appropriate L2 study skills. Alongside with inborn personality features, such as extraversion/introversion, such traits as conscientiousness, openness, risk-taking and self-efficacy are formed by sociocultural, and in some cases, historical factors. The students from Ukraine and Poland were chosen for the reason of similarities in historical development of the two countries, as well as relatively different ‘paths’ of development in the more recent period. Similarity and diversity factors retrieved from observation, interviews with students and answers to an open-ended questionnaire provided data which allows to determine the scale of influence of social and historical aspects on decision making and performance of the students alongside with their personal beliefs and expectations. The study also aimed to establish the connection between the systems of individual beliefs of the learners of both countries in the sphere of L2 learning.Niniejszy artykuł został poświęcony wynikom badania porównawczego motywacji osób uczących się języka angielskiego w toku dalszego kształcenia na Wydziale Filologii Angielskiej w Polsce i na Ukrainie. Celem badania jest określenie zasadniczych cech motywacji wewnętrznej, która z pewnością należy do najbardziej skutecznych osobistych strategii a dodatkowo pomaga ona rozwijać umiejętności potrzebne do opanowania języka obcego. Razem z wrodzonymi cechami osobowościowymi, takimi jak ekstrawersja lub introwersja, zdolnością do podejmowania ryzyka, samoefektywnością i innymi, takie cechy osobowości jak uczciwość, otwartość, zdolność do podejmowania ryzyka i inne, są kształtowane przez czynniki społeczno-kulturowe lub historyczne. Studenci z Polski i Ukrainy zostali wybrani ze względu na fakt, że podzielają pewne cechy historycznego rozwoju obu państw, a w pewnym momencie w historii najnowszej te drogi rozeszły się. Czynniki podobieństwa i odmienności sformułowane na podstawie danych uzyskanych z obserwacji, wywiadów, badań otwartego typu pozwoliły określić skalę wpływu aspektów społecznych i historycznych na zdolność do podejmowania decyzji oraz na inne cechy osobowościowe, a także na osobiste przekonania i oczekiwania. Moim celem jest ustalenie związku między systemami osobistych przekonań studentów obu krajów w dziedzinie nauki języka angielskiego jako języka obcego

What Can We Learn From International Student Performance Studies? Some Methodological Remarks

The determinants which are decisive for a successful accumulation of human capital and the transfer of these skills into the labor market are a contentious issue in the literature on the economics of education. Different studies on, for instance, the impact of school resources typically reach different conclusions even if they utilize the same dataset. The reason behind this is that each and every study decisively depends on a set of identification assumptions which are anything but innocuous for the results obtained.This paper aims at clarifying this point by embedding the discussion on the determinants of test success in international performance studies like PISA into a theoretical model of cognitive achievement and an empirical frame of reference.PISA 2000, cognitive achievement, identification

The limits and possibilities of ICT in education

I will begin this article by clarifying the concept of Educational Technology and its related terms. I will then go on to analyse the more conclusive results of research in this field in order to describe the projects in which I have been involved, where technology was used to produce innovation. This article does not mention any cognitive or educational “revolutionary experience”, since this would surpass the limits of what technology is capable of accomplishing. Part of the education of the new generations has to be conservative, i.e., the experience and knowledge constructed by earlier generations has to be passed down. Disciplinary knowledge is an exemplary condensation of human effort and talent. How can technology support the transmission and acquisition of such knowledge? Besides being capable of using technology, should the new generations not also have a rational and educated discourse on the subject? Is this not the role of the school also? These are some of the main issues I wish to address

Do You Always Need a Textbook to Teach Astro 101?

The increasing use of interactive learning strategies in Astro 101 classrooms has led some instructors to consider the usefulness of a textbook in such classes. These strategies provide students a learning modality very different from the traditional lecture supplemented by reading a textbook and homework, and raises the question of whether the learning that takes place during such interactive activities is enough by itself to teach students what we wish them to know about astronomy. To address this question, assessment data is presented from an interactive class, which was first taught with a required textbook, and then with the textbook being optional. Comparison of test scores before and after this change shows no statistical difference in student achievement whether a textbook is required or not. In addition, comparison of test scores of students who purchased the textbook to those who did not, after the textbook became optional, also show no statistical difference between the two groups. The Light and Spectroscopy Concept Inventory (LSCI), a research-validated assessment tool, was given pre- and post-instruction to three classes that had a required textbook, and one for which the textbook was optional, and the results demonstrate that the student learning gains on this central topic were statistically indistinguishable between the two groups. Finally, the Star Properties Concept Inventory (SPCI), another research-validated assessment tool, was administered to a class for which the textbook was optional, and the class performance was higher than that of a group of classes in a national study

Using theoretical-computational conflicts to enrich the concept name of derivative

Recent literature has pointed out pedagogical obstacles associated with the use of computational environments in the learning of mathematics. In this paper, we focus on the pedagogical role of the computer's inherent limitations in the development of learners' concept images of derivative. In particular, we intend to discuss how the approach to this concept can be designed to prompt a positive conversion of those limitations for the enrichment of concept images. We present results of a case study with six undergraduate students in Brazil, dealing with situation of theoretical-computational conflict