Applying the Kirkpatrick model: Evaluating an Interaction for Learning Framework curriculum intervention

Global perspectives and interpersonal and intercultural communication competencies are viewed as a priority within higher education. For management educators, globalisation, student mobility and widening pathways present numerous challenges, but afford opportunities for curriculum innovation. The Interaction for Learning Framework (ILF) seeks to help academics introduce curriculum change and increase peer interaction opportunities. Although the framework has many strengths to recommend it, the ILF does not provide a process by which academics can easily evaluate the outcomes produced by its implementation. In this paper, we examine the efficacy of a popular four level training evaluation framework – the Kirkpatrick model – as a way to appraise the outcomes of ILF-based curriculum interventions. We conclude that the Kirkpatrick model offers educators a straightforward basis for evaluation of interventions, but that as with any model the approach to evaluation should be adapted to the particular setting and circumstances

Intercultural relationship development at university: A systematic literature review from an ecological and person-in-context perspective

For more than four decades, issues pertaining to the development of intercultural relationships between international and domestic students in university settings have received scholarly attention. However, there appears to be lack of research exploring the extent to, and the manner in which the individual and environmental dimensions interact with one another to co-create this development. This review addresses this gap by scrutinising English-language refereed journal articles from an ecological and person-in-context perspective. The review, involving a constructionist thematic analysis of systematically searched and screened papers, identified the few empirical studies from that perspective, the vague operationalisation of intercultural relationship development, and the methodological limitations of the empirical work. It also generated content-related themes of the individual–environmental interactions in the development of intercultural relationships. The review concludes by suggesting multiple areas of inquiry that warrant further empirical investigations, and by calling for the amplification and refinement of the research methodologies

Teaching teamwork skills in Australian higher education business disciplines

Australian employers continue to indicate that the development of teamwork skills in graduates is as important as mastering technical skills required for a particular career. In Australia, the reporting on the teaching of teamwork skills has emanated across a range of disciplines including health and engineering, with less of a focus on business related disciplines. Although Australian university business schools appear to value the importance and relevance of developing teamwork skills, implementation of the teaching, learning and assessment of teamwork skills remains somewhat of a pedagogical conundrum. The aim of this paper is to present a systematic literature review so as to better understand the salient issues associated with teaching teamwork skills in Australian higher education business disciplines

An Organizational Change Perspective for the Curriculum Internationalization Process:Bridging the Gap between Strategy and Implementation

Following a rapidly changing external environment, internationalization has become an institutional phenomenon with strategic relevance for universities worldwide. However, the frequently reported gap between theory and practice remains. Engaging staff and achieving successful organizational implementation appears increasingly problematic with more stakeholders and disciplines involved. This study explores the long-time gap between strategy and implementation with Pettigrew's organizational change framework (1987). We conducted a systematic scoping literature review of articles about curriculum internationalization (N = 325) published in English in peer-reviewed journals between 2000 and 2022. Our study demonstrates that the organizational change perspective provides guidelines to improve and facilitate the process. Based on an organizational change perspective we developed a comprehensive framework that may contribute to more effective strategies for staff engagement and meaningful implementation outcomes for curriculum internationalization in higher education.<br/

Action research into the student use of computer-based spaced-repetition vocabulary learning within a Thai Primary English program

The focus of this action research study was the factors influencing participation of young ESL students using spaced-repetition computer software. Sixty-two Thai primary school students from the ages eight to eleven were involved. They were trained in the use of Anki which provided them with questions and answers based on their weekly English vocabulary list. The software was used at home on a voluntary basis. Questionnaires and focus groups using stimulated recall were employed to identify key factors influencing use in the third week. Regular use was achieved when perceived positive learning benefits, enjoyment and rewards outweighed demands on students’ free time. However, forty six students indicated that these benefits were insufficient to encourage use of more than three days a week. The principal conclusion was that learning benefits should be optimised through a tailoring of the language recall task to students’ abilities, but that the software would not be adopted effectively by the majority of users on a voluntary basis

Flow cytometric determination of circulating immune complexes with the indirect granulocyte phagocytosis test

A method for the determination of circulating immune complexes (CIC) was adapted for flow cytometric analysis. Human granulocytes were used to phagocytose IgG-bearing CIC of serum from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. A method for labeling the phagocytosed CIC with FITC-conjugated anti-human IgG was developed where the granulocytes remain in suspension during fixation and labeling. The fluorescence per cell, measured with a flow cytometer, is a measure of the total amount of the phagocytosed IgG. The results indicate that a rapid and quantitative method for the detection and measurement of phagocytosed CIC is possible using the flow cytometer

Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education

BACKGROUND: We have witnessed a rapid increase in the use of Web-based 'collaborationware' in recent years. These Web 2.0 applications, particularly wikis, blogs and podcasts, have been increasingly adopted by many online health-related professional and educational services. Because of their ease of use and rapidity of deployment, they offer the opportunity for powerful information sharing and ease of collaboration. Wikis are Web sites that can be edited by anyone who has access to them. The word 'blog' is a contraction of 'Web Log' – an online Web journal that can offer a resource rich multimedia environment. Podcasts are repositories of audio and video materials that can be "pushed" to subscribers, even without user intervention. These audio and video files can be downloaded to portable media players that can be taken anywhere, providing the potential for "anytime, anywhere" learning experiences (mobile learning). DISCUSSION: Wikis, blogs and podcasts are all relatively easy to use, which partly accounts for their proliferation. The fact that there are many free and Open Source versions of these tools may also be responsible for their explosive growth. Thus it would be relatively easy to implement any or all within a Health Professions' Educational Environment. Paradoxically, some of their disadvantages also relate to their openness and ease of use. With virtually anybody able to alter, edit or otherwise contribute to the collaborative Web pages, it can be problematic to gauge the reliability and accuracy of such resources. While arguably, the very process of collaboration leads to a Darwinian type 'survival of the fittest' content within a Web page, the veracity of these resources can be assured through careful monitoring, moderation, and operation of the collaborationware in a closed and secure digital environment. Empirical research is still needed to build our pedagogic evidence base about the different aspects of these tools in the context of medical/health education. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION: If effectively deployed, wikis, blogs and podcasts could offer a way to enhance students', clinicians' and patients' learning experiences, and deepen levels of learners' engagement and collaboration within digital learning environments. Therefore, research should be conducted to determine the best ways to integrate these tools into existing e-Learning programmes for students, health professionals and patients, taking into account the different, but also overlapping, needs of these three audience classes and the opportunities of virtual collaboration between them. Of particular importance is research into novel integrative applications, to serve as the "glue" to bind the different forms of Web-based collaborationware synergistically in order to provide a coherent wholesome learning experience

The affective economy of internationalisation: migrant academics in and out of Japanese higher education

Internationalisation is a polyvalent policy discourse, saturated in conceptual and ideological ambiguity. It is an assemblage of commodification, exploitation and opportunity and is a container for multiple aspirations, anxieties, and affordances. It combines modernisation, detraditionalisation, and expansiveness, with knowledge capitalism, linguistic imperialism, and market dominance. There are notable policy shadows and silences, especially relating to the emerging subjectivities, motivations and narratives of internationalised subjects, and experiences that expose the gendered, racialised, epistemic and affective inequalities constituting academic mobility. This paper explores the affective economy and policyscape of internationalisation drawing upon interview data gathered in one private and one national university in Japan with 13 migrant academics. What emerged from our study is that internationalisation policies, processes and practices generate multiple affective engagements. Internationalising oneself can be repressive and generative, with migrant academics finding themselves both vulnerable and animated by their diverse and frequently embodied experiences

Standing in the genkan: Adjunct foreign English language teachers in the Japanese higher education internationalisation context

This dissertation explores the experiences, knowledge and beliefs of adjunct foreign English language teachers (AFELT), and how they envisage their role and place in the Japanese university context. These experiences are important when considered against a backdrop of Japanese higher education reform and internationalisation. For example, this research asks, what are the experiences of AFELT? how do they conceptualise their expected role? and what do these suggest about internationalisation in the Japanese university context? This dissertation aims to: first, contribute to the understanding of how AFELT construe themselves as situated in the Japanese university context; second, investigate how AFELT contribute to, or not, internationalisation by illuminating phenomena that afford or constrain AFELT practices; third, examine the conceptual usefulness of applying a multi-theoretical perspective to elicit a richer, more nuanced understanding of stakeholders’ social interaction and ‘place’ at both macro and micro levels of internationalisation. It is these phenomena, including notions of inclusion and exclusion, that situate the research in the broader context of internationalisation. The empirical study presented in this dissertation initiated out of a desire to better understand AFELT experience, role and ‘place’ from an emic perspective. Previous research on Japanese higher education internationalisation is generally quantitative or limited in depth, thus has remained silent on AFELT experience, place, and value. By privileging participant voice, this study makes an original contribution to this field of research. A key feature of this dissertation is its theoretical grounding in interpretive epistemology and constructionist traditions. The epistemological assumption upon which the research is grounded assumes social interaction and socio-cultural/political phenomena such as internationalisation to be complex, multilayered, multidimensional, and dynamic. Qualitative data were therefore generated from successive focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted over a year involving 43 participants working across 66 universities (public and private) in Japan. The findings revealed a complex, multilayered, matrix of intersecting and diverging themes and discursive discourses. At the macro level, a major finding is the significant discontinuity between internationalization and communicative English language education policy and practice in Japan, and how these are enacted at the institutional level. AFELT role and ‘place’ was perceived by participants to be mobilised in essentialist, utilitarian and symbolic terms, with AFELT value indexed to the realisation of internationalisation and marketing strategies rather than to educational outputs. Thus, a significant degree of incongruence concerning the nature, purpose and function of AFELT classes was exposed. According to participants, higher education, broadly speaking, constitutes a social rather than educational experience for many Japanese undergraduate domestic students. From AFELT’s perspective, English language classes are considered as peripheral to the function of the universities in which they work, and not essential to the internationalisation process advocated in the broad internationalisation discourse. As such, AFELT construed their role as being commodified and instrumentalised. They asserted that AFELT were not supported in, or encouraged to facilitate, the development of interculturality in the domestic student population. Yet nevertheless, the majority of participants still felt a responsibility to implement intercultural education and encourage the development of students’ ability to value diversity. At the micro level, the research identified contextual and individual affordances and constraints that impacted upon AFELT communicative English teaching. Participants’ ‘subject positioning’ was identified as a salient factor affording or constraining AFELT professional identity and practice. The research concluded by casting AFELT as aggressively asserting their agency through ‘reflexive positioning’. Through its in-depth examination of AFELT ‘place’ and ‘experience’, this dissertation makes a unique contribution to Japanese internationalisation discourse. The multiple theoretical perspectives appropriated from situative social/psychological person-in-context perspectives, Japanese culture and communication studies, cognitive linguistics, dramaturgy, and Positioning theory to explore AFELT ‘place’ and ‘experience’ provided powerful conceptual lenses to interrogate stakeholder positioning within the internationalisation space. The dissertation highlights the need for further research into: the influence of AFELT as vehicles of, and facilitators for reciprocal intercultural understanding; local cultural affordances and constraints; and, processes to evaluate and support ‘global citizenry’ as graduate outcomes in the Japanese context. Metaphorically, the experience of the Japanese university for adjunct foreign English teachers may be likened to ‘standing in the genkan’, that is, they are invited into the house but are not invited up and into the home, or beyond the confines of the genkan. As such, AFELT are socially positioned between states - neither fully ‘in’ nor ‘out’, ‘visible’ nor ‘invisible’