Capacity Building for International Development Practitioners Through an Off-Campus Graduate Education Program

Problem Andrews University offers a graduate off-campus program in international development, the Master of International Development Administration (MIDA). The stimulus for this study came from the fact that there had never been an extensive investigation of the capacity building impact on the graduates of the off-campus Master of International Development Administration of Andrews University. Coupled with this, there was a very limited body of research on the importance and effect of education in international development when it comes to building the capacity of the practitioners of international development. This study determined the alumni’s perceptions of experiencing individual capacity building and transference of learning to the organizations that employ them. Just as important it also proposed an original grounded theory about capacity building and tested the capacity building theoretical framework of this study. Method The research design used in this investigation is an explanatory ex-post-facto quantitative methodology design. There are also elements of qualitative data within the research process. There were six dependent variables: experienced individual capacity building, project cycle management, course delivery, andragogy, transformational learning, and transference of learning. There were two independent variables: gender and age. A survey questionnaire was developed to collect data on each variable from a random sample of the alumni (n= 70) who took their course work in English was surveyed. Two-way multivariate analysis of variance, one-way analysis of variance, frequency analysis, and path analysis were used to determine similarities, differences, and inter-correlations among the variables. Results Alumni’s overall perception of the MIDA program was excellent, “It enabled me to achieve my goals” (Maurice). Over 92 % of the graduates thought they had experienced individual capacity building while in the program. The use of project cycle management as the basis around which to build the international development curriculum was highly valued by the alumni. Alumni indicated that the courses were delivered by professors that were knowledgeable and were open in their communication with the students. From the alumni’s perspective the principles and concepts of andragogy and transformative learning were upheld. A little over 86% of the respondents perceived they had transferred learning to their organization, while 13% had not. In contrast with the World Bank’s (Chin, 2008) experience which revealed that the transference of individual capacity building learning to the organizations was successful only about half the time. Because of the graduate program in capacity building in international development the alumni perceived that they were transferring their learning to their employing organizations and enabled them to advance the organizations own mission and goals. An unexpected result of the MIDA program was that over half of the alumni who worked for faith-based NGO’s when they entered the program are now employed by a different type of organization. Path analysis confirmed the veracity of the tested components of the study’s theoretical framework. Almost 70 percent of the variable “experiencing individual capacity building” was directly attributed to 4 variables: “project cycle management,” “andragogy,” “course delivery,” and “transformative learning.” Results also showed that 77 percent of “transference of learning” was directly accredited to “experiencing individual capacity building,” and indirectly influenced by the other 4 variables, and about 23% was due to unexplained or unknown factors. Conclusions Results from this study showed that a strong correlation of the alumni’s perception experiencing capacity building as an individual and the transference of their learning to their employing organizations due to the graduate educational program in international development to which they were exposed. i

Sehnsucht and Eros in the Life and Work of Sheldon Vanauken

A review essay on Will Vaus, Sheldon Vanauken: The Man Who Received “A Severe Mercy” (Hamden, CT, 2013). 292 pages. $16.99. ISBN: 9781935688037

A Comparative Study of the Arithmetic Achievement and Attitude of Fifth Grade Children in the Upper and Lower 25 Per Cent Intelligence Groups Using the S.M.S.G Program of Teaching Arithmetic and the Traditional Methods Used in the Highline School District

It was the purpose of this study to (1) compare the learning of basic arithmetic skills of fifth grade children in the upper and lower 25 per cent intelligence groups using traditional arithmetic textbook materials with the learnings of comparable fifth graders using the School Mathematics Study Group methods and materials; and (2) compare the attitudes toward arithmetic of fifth graders using the traditional arithmetic textbook materials with those of fifth graders using the S.M.S.G. methods and materials. The upper and lower 25 per cent intelligence groups were established to help determine if either program would be more beneficial to a particular group

Faculty Making the Emergency Online Transition During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Effects of Prior Online Teaching Experience and Strategies Used to Learn to Teach Online (Special Edition 2022)

Objectives: During the COVID-19 pandemic, university faculty experienced an emergency pivot to online instruction in the Spring 2020 semester. Many had no prior online teaching experience and were given little time to adapt. This study examines pre-pandemic online teaching experience and training strategies used to learn how to teach online during the emergency remote teaching semester, perceptions of change in online teaching ability and the pandemic’s impact on teaching effectiveness, and interest in future online teaching opportunities. Method: Full-time faculty (n = 455) from four public regional universities in the southern United States completed a survey at the start of the Fall 2020 semester. Results: Over 35% had no prior online teaching experience, while 43% had taught several online courses. During the pandemic, in an effort to learn or improve online teaching skills, 13.4% sought peer mentoring, 31.9% completed a training program, and 34.9% both sought mentoring and completed training. Perceived online teaching skills, impact of the pandemic on teaching effectiveness, and interest in future online teaching were significantly related to prior online teaching experience and training sought. Conclusions: Faculty with less online experience perceived a greater negative effect of the pandemic on teaching performance and had less interest in future online teaching. Both mentoring and training enhanced perceived teaching skills, lowered the negative impact of the pandemic on teaching effectiveness, and promoted a positive attitude about future online teaching. Implications for Theory or Practice: The results provide support for the importance of faculty development programs in shaping attitudes and perceived effectiveness in online teaching and add to existent research on university faculty during the pandemic. Evidence from studies such as this provides universities with data that may be used to re-evaluate induction and training to improve instructional delivery in future instances when emergency remote teaching is required

Lonesome Isle : Fox-Trot Song

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/4275/thumbnail.jp