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

Growth and properties of strained VOx thin films with controlled stoichiometry

We have succeeded in growing epitaxial films of rocksalt VOx on MgO(001) substrates. The oxygen content as a function of oxygen flux was determined using 18O2-RBS and the vanadium valence using XAS. The upper and lower stoichiometry limits found are similar to the ones known for bulk material (0.8<x<1.3). From the RHEED oscillation period a large number of vacancies for both vanadium and oxygen were deduced, i.e. ~16% for stoichiometric VO. These numbers are, surprisingly, very similar to those for bulk material and consequently quite strain-insensitive. XAS measurements reveal that the vacancies give rise to strong low symmetry ligand fields to be present. The electrical conductivity of the films is much lower than the conductivity of bulk samples which we attribute to a decrease in the direct overlap between t2g orbitals in the coherently strained layers. The temperature dependence of the conductivity is consistent with a variable range hopping mechanism.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figures included, revised versio

Exogenous factors in collective policy learning: the case of municipal flood risk governance in the Netherlands

Conceptualizing and analyzing collective policy learning processes is a major ongoing theoretical and empirical challenge. A key gap concerns the role of exogenous factors, which remains under-theorized in the policy learning literature. In this paper, we aim to advance the understanding of the role that exogenous factors play in collective learning processes. We propose a typology of exogenous factors (i.e. material, socioeconomic, institutional, discursive), and subsequently apply this in a comparative study of flood risk policymaking in two municipalities in the Netherlands. We find that exogenous factors are indeed essential for understanding collective learning in these cases, as the combined influence with endogenous factors can steer similar learning processes towards different learning products. We conclude our contribution by identifying two opportunities for further developing the collective learning framework, namely regarding the distinction of varying learning products, and the dynamics of exogenous factors over time

Beyond inputs and outputs: Process‐oriented explanation of institutional change in climate adaptation governance

Climate adaptation is a growing imperative across all scales and sectors of governance. This often requires changes in institutions, which can be difficult to realize. Explicitly process‐oriented approaches explaining how and why institutional change occurs are lacking. Overcoming this gap is vital to move beyond either input‐oriented (e.g., capacity) or output‐oriented (e.g., assessment) approaches, to understand how changes actually occur for addressing complex and contested governance issues. This paper analyses causal conditions and mechanisms by which institutions develop in climate adaptation governance. It focuses on urban climate governance through an in‐depth case study of Santiago, Chile, over a 12‐year period (2005–2017), drawing on primary and secondary data, including 26 semistructured interviews with policy, academic, and civil society actors. It identifies and explains a variety of institutional developments across multiple levels (i.e., programmatic, legislative, and constitutional), through a theory‐centric process tracing methodology. This reveals a multiple‐response pattern, involving several causal mechanisms and coexisting institutional logics. Findings suggest that although adaptation may be inherently protracted, institutions can nevertheless develop in both related and novel directions. Overall, the paper argues for a new research agenda on process‐oriented theorizing and analysis in climate and environmental governance