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To improve the quality of field experience, support field experience cooperation and streamline field experience management, the purpose of this paper is to describe the experience in using Activity Theory to design and develop a web-based field experience tracking system for a special education program.

The authors used Activity Theory to design and develop a web-based field experience tracking system for a special education program. An in-depth evaluation of the developed web-based system including usability testing and actual use of the system was conducted.

The evaluation and data analysis results demonstrate the value of Activity Theory and show that a web-based tracking system is a valuable tool to support the management of pre-service teachers’ field experiences.

This is the first paper to discuss the design and development of field experience tracking system using Activity Theory. This paper can be used to motivate other developers to use Activity theory to design campus-wide information system. The system and methodology the authors used in this project has wider applicability and generalizability, and can be applied to the management of other competency and field based professional training in areas such as nursing, social work and medicine.

The puposes of this study is to examine the impact of primarily bureaucratic socialization; and demographic, experiential, and philosophical orientations (beliefs about key educational concepts) variables on teacher candidates' pupil control ideology (PCI) during a pre‐service teacher education program. The relationship between philosophical orientations and changes to PCI is of particular interest.

Data collected at the beginning and end of their teacher education program from 474 teacher candidates were analysed using multivariate analyses.

Practicum socialization experiences were more closely associated with participants' PCI at the end of the teacher education program than any of the demographic, experiential, or philosophical orientation variables.

An examination of interaction effects among the variables revealed a limited number of situations where the interaction of particular beliefs, demographic, and experience variables appear to minimize the shift to a more custodial PCI. Specific implications are identified in relation to males and elementary teaching, urban practicum placements, and pre‐service teacher education curriculum units pertaining to authenticity of beginning teacher practices.

The study provides a framework within which educators may examine the authenticity of beginning teachers' practice. In particular, educators may wish to carefully consider the evidence suggesting that pre‐service teachers practice may be inauthentic, that is, primarily imitative as a result of custodializing socialization factors, but only in particular circumstances associated with their predominantly humanistic beliefs about education.

With critical reviews of previous studies in workplace learning, this paper aims to investigate workplace learning for pre-service teachers’ practice and quality teaching and learning in technical vocational education and training: key to professional development.

The study adopted multistage sampling technique to select sample for the study. Empirical analysis was adopted to analyse the data collected from technical vocational education and training pre-service teachers.

The result of the study revealed that the constructs of social learning theory had a stronger linkage with the constructive teaching than traditional management.

This study emphasizes the need to adequately train pre-service teachers on instructional delivery processes, building strong relationship with learners and build the ability to organize and execute necessary actions required to successfully carry out a specific educational task in a particular context.

This examination of the higher education landscape now shifts to consider the relationship between the university and the teaching profession. The intention of this chapter is to focus on pre-service teacher education to examine how professional identity and university curriculum have become managed. This chapter will introduce the conception of the scholarly blind eye to illustrate how performativity works in the modernised university and three central arguments are forwarded. Firstly, that pre-service teacher education programs are increasingly managed from outside the university. Secondly, that this represents a significant change to higher education. And thirdly, that higher education is contributing to the reworking of teacher identity.

This study aims to help businesses cope with consumers' no-show behaviour from a multistage perspective. It specifically identifies no-show reasons at each stage of appointment services and proposes the corresponding coping strategies.

By focusing on an outpatient appointment service, we interviewed 921 no-show patients to extract no-show reasons, invited 18 hospital managers to propose coping strategies for these reasons using a Delphi method and evaluated the proposed strategies based on EDAS (Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution).

The results reveal ten reasons for no-show behaviour (i.e. system service quality, overuse, did not know the appointment, self-judgment, forget, waiting time, lateness, uncontrollable problems, time conflict and service coordination), which have nine coping strategy themes (i.e. prepayment, system intelligence, target, subjective norm, system integration, ease of navigation, reminder, confirmation and cancellation). We classify the ten reasons and nine themes into scheduling, waiting and execution stages of an appointment service.

This study provides a package of coping strategies for no-show behaviour to deal with no-show reasons at each appointment service stage. It also extends the research in pre-service management through appointment services.

This article reports on the intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological factors that shaped the professional identity (PI) construction of five ESL Malaysian pre-service teachers (PSTs) during microteaching classes and teaching practicum.

The study is qualitative in nature aiming to give voice to ESL PSTs and allow them share their personal experience while constructing their professional identity. The semi-interview data were supported by observation data to validate what PSTs report in their interview. The researchers chose junctural points in the PI construction journey to follow the developmental line of PI growth and to live the experience with the participant. The project was a co-construction of knowledge and enabled a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon.

This inquiry revealed that PI is dynamic and changing constantly as one reinterprets and reevaluates self and interact and react to the various intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological factors in their context. At the intrapersonal level, lack of practical experience and intrinsic motivation and sense of low self-efficacy created a perception of low PI in the beginning of the simulated practice. The findings also show that supportive interpersonal relationships developed within a facilitating context such as the simulated teaching class smoothed the emergence of high PI. However, when the interpersonal relationships and ecological context in the practicum settings were challenging, they hindered PI development and led to a PI crisis.

The article offers recommendations to enhance the pivotal role of teaching practice during PSTs' journey of becoming.

This study was conducted in one of the understudied contexts in regards of PI construction. It captured a holistic view of the PI construction. It showed that the interplay of interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, in addition to ecological factors, is not isolated from each other. On the contrary, they were like a cycle circumscribing the PSTs and impact their PI construction. Hence, the authors believe that the study contributed with a comprehensive understanding of pre-service PI construction.

Presents a case study of the emergence and early stages of implementation of Queensland Education Department′s policy for devolution of responsibility to State Schools. Has four major purposes: to clarify the rhetoric by which the Department has developed and promoted its devolution policy; critically to examine the efficacy of the policy when it is “played out”, in “reality”, at the “school face”; to explore possible positive outcomes of the policy, potential impediments (within the Department and school community), and prerequisites to effective implementation; and to consider what is needed in pre‐service teacher education to enable future teachers readily to function in a school‐based organizational context. The “message” which emerges from these considerations is that stakeholders at all levels need to be vigilant observers, watching for inconsistencies as they develop, between the rhetoric and the reality of devolution policy in practice – in particular, “regression” towards centralized, bureaucratic control. Proposes an approach to a safeguard mechanism which could be applied at regular intervals. Poses questions at two levels: at the system level and at the level of the community at large.

This chapter explores how Jass Easterman (the author's avatar name) teaches education students concurrently, both pre-service teachers and postgraduate, in Second Life. It discusses how a virtual world can be a valuable teaching and learning tool for the whole group even though they have a variety of overall goals and learning outcomes. Jass brings distant university students located around the world studying at the one institution together to liaise with each other in Second Life. She has created an innovative tutorial model where students go on virtual tours, visit other educational institutions, attend guest lectures, undertake role play activities, and go on Web quests and learn basic building and scripting skills, all from their own homes. Adult learning theories and communities of practice, in a virtual world, underpin all activities. Why Second Life was chosen for these students and what the students say about this type of learning are discussed in this chapter. The value of this tutorial model will be explored and reflected upon and conclusions made of its efficacy.

This paper aims to examine the challenges facing new principals in Africa.

Based on recent research and literature, the paper analyses the experience of principals and proposes an induction model for principalship in Africa.

School principals in Africa face a daunting challenge. They often work in poorly equipped buildings with inadequately trained staff. There is rarely any formal leadership training and principals are appointed on the basis of their teaching record rather than their leadership potential. Induction and support are usually limited.

The paper provides an overview of the limited literature and research on new principals in Africa and develops a grounded conceptualisation of their role.

Offers a “service logic model” as a managerial tool for tackling cross‐functional issues embedded in service systems. Uncovers and describes the logical components inherent in the three key service management functions – marketing, operations and human resources‐and suggests that the real management challenge, above and beyond cross‐functional co‐ordination, is integration of these components as the real drivers of service experience. A step‐by‐step template is offered for using service logic to achieve the fundamental grass roots integration required in the creation of outcomes valued for customers.