Product Differentiation or Spatial Monopoly? The Market Areas of Austrian Universities in Business Education.

Series: SRE - Discussion Paper

Impact of ERA research assessment on university behaviour and their staff

In early 2012, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) undertook research into the effects of the ERA upon university staff involved in research. This was an exploratory, multi-method study conducted between April and September 2012 that included a national survey of 39 senior research administrators, eight focus groups at four institutions, eleven recorded and non-recorded interviews at five institutions, and a Workshop in Melbourne that involved 35 Early Career Researchers.The study acknowledges that institutional behaviour around research performance is changing, but in ways that take autonomy away from researchers, that rewards managerialism, and thus that undermines the public interest, on the basis that the public interest is understood as delivering Australian society public benefit through a world-class, sustainable and diverse research sector. In particular, the primary concern that the NTEU has with the ERA is its susceptibility to misuse by institutions through poor research management practices, and the risk posed to the intergity of the ‘research fabric’ through attacks on intellectual freedo

A Low-Intensity, Hybrid Design Between a Traditional and a Course-Based Research Experience Yields Positive Outcomes for Science Undergraduate Freshmen and Shows Potential for Large-Scale Application

Based on positive student outcomes, providing research experiences from early undergraduate years is recommended for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. To this end, we designed a novel research experience called the “STEMCats Research Experience” (SRE) for a cohort of 119 second-semester freshmen with diverse college preparatory levels, demographics, and academic majors. The SRE targeted student outcomes of enhancing retention in STEM majors, STEM competency development, and STEM academic performance. It was designed as a hybrid of features from apprenticeship-based traditional undergraduate research experience and course-based undergraduate research experience designs, considering five factors: 1) an authentic research experience, 2) a supportive environment, 3) current and future needs for scale, 4) student characteristics and circumstances, and 5) availability and sustainability of institutional resources. Emerging concepts for facilitating and assessing student success and STEM curriculum effectiveness were integrated into the SRE design and outcomes evaluation. Here, we report the efficient and broadly applicable SRE design and, based on the analysis of institutional data and student perceptions, promising student outcomes from its first iteration. Potential improvements for the SRE design and future research directions are discussed

A Clinical Practicum Experience to Prepare Teacher Candidates for Early Literacy Instruction

The purpose of this article is to explore teacher candidates’ tutoring experiences within a university clinical practicum to acquire an understanding about how their unique interactions with struggling readers and research-based methodology contribute to their pedagogical understandings of literacy instruction. This article spotlights teacher education and addresses the question of how teacher educators can guide teacher candidates in putting theory into practice with early readers. The author describes a scaffolded clinical practicum in which preservice teachers have the opportunity assess, teach and reflect on their work with children

Critical Analysis of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need

This paper intends to provide a critique of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need, a psychological model that often goes unquestioned within the education sector. Examples will be given of the authors own professional practice and experience in relation to the Hierarchy of Need (HON) and discussed in terms of the critique. The paper concludes that whilst some elements of the HON may be useful in education it does have some serious flaws that also need to be considered when applying this to practice. This paper hopes to demonstrate that, quite often, the theoretical underpinning and research basis for theories that are widely used in education are neglected, highlighting that each planned action or perspective that may be used within education needs exploring in terms of context, evidence base and relevance

Academic Catalog: 2016-2017

https://digitalcommons.esf.edu/acadcat/1029/thumbnail.jp

Bridging the Research-Practice Gap in Requirements Engineering through Effective Teaching and Peer Learning

In this paper, we introduce the concept of the research practice gap as it is perceived in the field of software requirements engineering. An analysis of this gap has shown that two key causes for the research-practice gap are lack of effective communication and the relatively light coverage of requirements engineering material in University programmes. We discuss the design and delivery of a Masters course in Software Requirements Engineering (SRE) that is designed to overcome some of the issues that have caused the research-practice gap. By encouraging students to share their experiences in a peer learning environment, we aim to improve shared understanding between students (many of whom are current industry practitioners) and researchers (including academic staff members) to improve the potential for effective collaborations, whilst simultaneously developing the requirements engineering skill sets of the enrolled students. Feedback from students in the course is discussed and directions for the future development of the curriculum and learning strategies are given.Comment: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2009

Phrasing Feedback to Improve Students\u27 Writing in a Large First-Year Humanities Course

On a revise-and-resubmit assignment in a large introductory History course, students were provided with feedback that was phrased either as questions, statements, or imperatives. This study examines which form was most likely to lead to improvement in the students’ writing. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used to analyze a data set comprising 669 individual pieces of feedback on 67 sets of papers. Researchers found that, overall, students were most likely to implement feedback phrased as imperatives and least likely to implement feedback phrased as questions, and that the likelihood shifted somewhat depending on which aspect of writing was being commented upon; the extent of change required; the students’ past performance in the course; and the person providing the feedback

Qualitative Inquiry in an Age of Educationalese

In this introduction we reflect on two key questions that initiated this special issue on qualitative inquiry: What can qualitative researchers do to regain their post-paradigm-wars cache? How do we avoid distracting “science wars” in the future? We suggest that the strong tendency to narrow the research methods accepted as “scientific” – because they adopt quantitative perspectives and are presumed a priori to be more rigorous – has created an educationalese, a narrative of rigid categories that has not necessarily contributed to more effective or persuasive educational research. The article ends by suggesting that the use of “knowledge mobilization” strategies would help to strengthen qualitative research and educational research in general

Legitimate Peripheral Participation of Secondary Educators in Scientific Research Experiences: Implications for Teachers\u27 Understanding of the Nature of Science and Classroom Teaching

Both of the national reform efforts (AAAS, 1993; NRC, 1996) encouraged teachers to engage in professional development that included authentic scientific research experiences. The Department of Energy developed a program to match teachers with mentor scientists at national laboratories for three consecutive summers. Teachers produced and presented a poster summarizing their research at the conclusion of each summer. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to better understand how scientific research experiences impacted teachers. Six dimensions were examined: trajectory of participation, content knowledge development, mentor relationships, beliefs about the nature of science, teacher confidence, and classroom practice. These six dimensions were integrated into three research questions which guided the research: the teachers’ ability to increase their level of participation from the first to the last summer of research, the teachers’ changes in their understanding of the nature of science (NOS), and any changes in the teachers’ classroom teaching because of their involvement in the program. In-depth interviews were triangulated with teachers’ posters to provide insights into teachers’ legitimate peripheral participation in the research laboratory. The VNOS-C (Lederman et al., 2002) was administered pre/post to the teachers. Evidence of more informed, developing, and more naive understandings of each of the tenets of NOS was collected and compared to identify changes in teachers’ beliefs. Interviews and follow-up correspondence informed the study of changes in classroom teaching. The teachers became very familiar with their mentors’ research, increased their subject content knowledge, and contributed to their mentor’s work. Mentors utilized teachers’ expertise as communicators when presenting research and hosting other student groups. The teachers’ understanding of the NOS did not change as a result of their immersion in the culture of the laboratory. The lens through which the teachers viewed science influenced how they perceived and interpreted their research experiences. Teachers who held positivist views reinforced them, while the lone teacher who held post-positivist views reinforced their positions. The teachers developed confidence in their ability to facilitate classroom inquiry, increased the number of inquiry-based in their curriculum, introduced advanced placement and scientific research courses, and rejuvenated their enthusiasm for teaching