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1 – 10 of over 1000Private supplementary tutoring is expanding fast around the world. Recognising that examination boards are major shapers of curricular load, the purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
Private supplementary tutoring is expanding fast around the world. Recognising that examination boards are major shapers of curricular load, the purpose of this paper is to identify the roles of examination boards at Grades 8, 9 and 10 in Bengaluru, India. Two boards were chosen, with one having a heavier perceived curricular load than the other.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used mixed methods with a questionnaire survey of 687 students in Grades 8, 9 and 10, and 51 face-to-face, semi-structured interviews.
Findings
Perhaps surprisingly, the findings did not reveal significant differences in tutoring demand by students. Both groups viewed the board examinations as having high stakes, and accordingly invested in extensive private tutoring. Competition emanating from credentialism was the main driver of the decision to receive tutoring among both cohorts.
Originality/value
Although previous studies have explored various components of demand for tutoring, to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first to explore the impact of examination boards on demand for tutoring. Since the system of schools being affiliated to examination boards is common not only in India but also in many other countries, the study has broad international relevance.
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Carolyn Timms, Deborah Graham and David Cottrell
The present study seeks to elucidate observed mismatches with workload in teacher respondents to a survey exploring aspects of the work environment.
Abstract
Purpose
The present study seeks to elucidate observed mismatches with workload in teacher respondents to a survey exploring aspects of the work environment.
Design/methodology/approach
This phase of the study constituted a pen and paper survey of 298 currently serving teachers in independent schools in Queensland, Australia. Measures used in the research included the Areas of Worklife Survey (AWLS), which identifies matches or mismatches between the worker and organization on six areas of worklife, the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI), and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES).
Findings
One sample t‐tests revealed respondents reported significantly higher matches in the control, community, fairness and values areas of work life than previously surveyed populations, whereas they reported no difference in reward, and significantly more mismatch with workload. Respondents reported significantly higher levels than previously established norms on the OLBI dimension of exhaustion, but similar levels of disengagement. Responses to the UWES revealed significantly higher dedication and absorption and lower vigor than previously established norms. In addition, respondents reported working long hours in order to fulfill all obligations. Expansion of the quantitative data with respondent comments indicated that teachers working independent schools in Queensland have reached a level of workload that is unsustainable and which constitutes a serious risk to their mental and physical health.
Originality/value
This article pinpoints the many reasons why demands made on teachers have extended to a level which is making their work unsustainable and will be of interest to those involved in the teaching profession.
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Rami Hanandeh, Sakher M.A. Alnajdawi, Ammar Almansour and Hamzah Elrehail
Entrepreneurship education at universities aims to create entrepreneurial thinking and spread the culture of entrepreneurial awareness, skills and attitudes to students to…
Abstract
Purpose
Entrepreneurship education at universities aims to create entrepreneurial thinking and spread the culture of entrepreneurial awareness, skills and attitudes to students to stimulate their entrepreneurship intentions as graduates. This study investigates the impact of entrepreneurship education on innovative start-up intention as well as the mediating role of entrepreneurial mind-sets of university students.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for analysis with (n = 204) valid questionnaires collected from university students.
Findings
The main findings show that entrepreneurial mind-sets mediate the relationship between entrepreneurship education and innovative start-up intention.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the body of knowledge by its application in a higher educational institution and enriches the literature with new evidence that entrepreneurship education could enhance innovative start-up intention.
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YORAM NEUMANN, ARIE REICHEL and ISMAEL ABU SAAD
The purpose of this study is to focus on Israeli Beduin school teachers and examine the nature of their satisfaction with the job, perception of organizational climate, and their…
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to focus on Israeli Beduin school teachers and examine the nature of their satisfaction with the job, perception of organizational climate, and their interaction. The 185 elementary school teachers included in the study are predominantly Israeli Arabs, expected to function within a modern organization and become change agents to the Beduin pupils. Job satisfaction has been measured by twenty‐three items, resulting in two major factors: task issues and interaction with other people. Organizational climate includes fifty‐four items, condensed into two factors: principal‐teachers relations, and negative feelings about the school's atmosphere. The effect of climate on satisfaction was examined in two separate regression models, one where the dependent variable is the task aspect of satisfaction, and the other is the human relations aspect. Climate factors have been found to have a strong and meaningful explanatory power only in the former satisfaction model. The latter has an overall weak explanatory value. Throughout the analyses, the role of principal‐teachers relations appears to be dominant.
Equitable practices of fair and just treatment are vital inpromoting quality education and permeate Deming′s 14 points of qualitymanagement. When inequitable practices exist, they…
Abstract
Equitable practices of fair and just treatment are vital in promoting quality education and permeate Deming′s 14 points of quality management. When inequitable practices exist, they have a negative impact on worker motivation, quality of work performance and job satisfaction. Inequitable practices can be both overt and covert with lose‐lose confrontations resulting for both worker and administrator. Hidden inequities violate the sense of fair and just treatment which is deeply embedded in our culture. Administrator actions which run counter to the concept of fairness and justice cause worker discontent and detract from quality workmanship. Fusing together the tenets of equity theory and Deming′s 14 points, administrators can provide equal ratios of inputs to outcomes in the workplace, increase worker morale, and provide fair and equitable treatment.
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Pressure for reform and change in the public services will continue irrespective of the political composition of governments. There are many interrelated pressures for change…
Abstract
Pressure for reform and change in the public services will continue irrespective of the political composition of governments. There are many interrelated pressures for change, some of the key ones being the need to contain public spending (to under 40 per cent GNP?) in the face of ever increasing global competition, changing demographic and employment patterns, increasing need and demand for services, and the need to find innovative solutions to obdurate problems of local levels ‐ health, housing, community safety, unemployment and so on. Above all, this will require greater productivity; changing skill boundaries, demarcations and mixes; far greater applications of technology and innovative community‐based multi‐agency working ‐ beyond rhetoric. Unfortunately, much current research, scholarship and commentary is “locked into” individual public sectors ‐ health, education, public administration and so on. This means that it is likely to be informed by existing frames of reference which already lie within these sectors. A wider flow of ideas, theory and critical analysis across private and all public sectors could lead to the development of new paradigms of insight, understanding and practice. This would prove a further impetus for a bottom‐up social movement with a communitarianist agenda. Unfortunately this is most unlikely to be promoted top‐ down because most politicians are also “locked into” the binary thinking of Fordist modernism.
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Aggression is a destructive experience in terms of social and public health. The purpose of this paper is to determine the role of depressive mood, premenstrual dysphoric disorder…
Abstract
Purpose
Aggression is a destructive experience in terms of social and public health. The purpose of this paper is to determine the role of depressive mood, premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and premenstrual syndrome (PMS) in adolescent girls’ aggression.
Design/methodology/approach
In a cross-sectional study, 510 girl students were selected by multistage cluster sampling from Lahijan and Sangar high schools (Northern Iran) in the 2017–2018 academic year, and each of them responded to the short version of Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-13), Premenstrual Symptoms Screening Tool and Ahvaz Aggression Inventory. Data were analyzed by point-biserial and Pearson’s correlation coefficients, univariate analysis of covariance in the form of 2 × 3 factorial design and Hochberg’s GT2 post hoc test.
Findings
The questionnaires of 475 students were returned correctly (survey validity=93 percent). The results of ANCOVA after adjustment for confounding variables such as age and physical illness history revealed that the existence of main effect for depressive mood (F=31.50, df=1, p<0.0001) and PMS and PMDD diagnoses (F=11.39, df=2, p<0.0001) were associated with increased aggression. However, there was no significant interaction effect on aggression levels (p>0.05). Additionally, post hoc tests revealed no significant differences between the diagnosis of PMS and PMDD in terms of aggression (p>0.05).
Research limitations/implications
The present study has some limitations. Depressive mood and diagnoses of PMS and PMDD were defined through relying on the self-report data and cut points suggested by the questionnaires. Obviously, change of measurement tools or even cut points reduces the results reliability and repeatability. Furthermore, the research plan does not allow us to infer causal relations and does not provide information about the direction of the relationship between depression symptoms, PMS and PMDD diagnoses, and aggression. Finally, the present study is relied on high schools’ data, and the results cannot be generalized to other adolescent girls.
Originality/value
Despite the limitations of this study, its findings offer new insights into the factors influencing the perpetration of aggression in Iranian adolescent girls. Depressed adolescent girls and those receiving a PMS or PMDD diagnosis are more likely to develop aggression. These findings can be used in high schools to design educational and health-based interventions in order to reduce and prevent anger and resentment in adolescent girls.
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It is part of educational folklore that Australian State schoolsystems are highly centralised. A corollary of the lore is that schoolsgenerally lack the organisational flexibility…
Abstract
It is part of educational folklore that Australian State school systems are highly centralised. A corollary of the lore is that schools generally lack the organisational flexibility to cater adequately for the diverse educational needs of their students. This article tests these beliefs as they relate to the States of Queensland and New South Wales. The research finds that the form of system‐level directives is more prescriptive in the latter State. In both States, however, the proportion of time which must be devoted to prescribed activities is less than many would expect, both for teachers and pupils. Even where head office directives appear to constrain, regional office staff can practise “benign neglect” in their policing of the directives, if they can see that there are educationally sound reasons for doing so. The article finds that there is sufficient substance in the folklore to give conservative principals an excuse to resist introducing innovations in their schools. Any principals who are determined to adapt their schools′ operations to better serve the educational needs of their students are however, unlikely to be prevented by central directives.
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This chapter acknowledges the current dearth of direct evidence of student learning and discusses the limited value academic and co-curricular transcripts (CCTs) provided to…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter acknowledges the current dearth of direct evidence of student learning and discusses the limited value academic and co-curricular transcripts (CCTs) provided to students, educators, and employers.
Methodology/approach
This chapter studies the myriad outlets in which students acquire useful academic and non-academic skills outside of the grade point system. Disadvantages in the arbitration and secular nature of the common transcript are also addressed.
Findings
Exploring and responding to the concerns from a diverse chorus of higher education constituents and calls for increased accountability and improved student learning in higher education, this chapter proposes the development of an outcomes-based CCT, as an extension of the traditional CCT, to take advantage of the rich and numerous learning opportunities within the living laboratory of co-curricular experiences where students repeatedly demonstrate and hone their skills and competencies throughout their collegiate experience.
Originality/value
The chapter discusses a number of examples and models of what such a program might look like and provides insights and suggestions as to how it could be implemented thoughtfully and effectively. It also explores several of the benefits and challenges associated with implementing an outcomes-based CCT.
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Brett Whitaker and Whitney Whitaker
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a puzzle-based video game that allows Leadership educators to facilitate a highly interactive and behaviorally intense experience within a…
Abstract
Purpose
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a puzzle-based video game that allows Leadership educators to facilitate a highly interactive and behaviorally intense experience within a traditional classroom environment. In this manuscript, we discuss appropriate use cases, curricular alignments and provide a sample lesson plan outlining one way of using the game.
Design/methodology/approach
The cooperative and team-based nature of this game provides opportunities to create interactive lessons on a variety of topics, such as communication, group dynamics, leadership, conflict strategies and cognitive load.
Findings
Our primary reflection is that this game provides a good balance between fun engagement and rigorous learning. While deploying this game in several leadership and psychology courses, students have shown excitement and enthusiasm about playing the game, especially when we have built up some anticipation for it while discussing cognitive load theory (CLT) or other content in the classes leading up to the experience.
Originality/value
The game provides a unique behavioral experience that is useful in several different educational outlets. Fundamentally, the game provides the opportunity for creating three dynamics among small groups of students: cognitive overload, intergroup stress and conflict and communication in stressful environments. Each of these three could be applicable in various courses and curriculum.
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