Search results

Implementation of quality management systems in educational institutions has gradually increased over the last few decades, even though there are still questions about the actual usefulness of these systems for improving school processes and outcomes. This study takes an in-depth look at the impact, understood as sustainable medium and long-term changes in the organisation, which implementation of quality management systems has on schools. Specifically, it analyses the effect these systems have on an essential dimension for school efficiency, which is school climate, as well as on satisfaction of the members of the education community.

To achieve this, we conducted an evaluation of the impact of quality management systems on a total of 29 Spanish primary and secondary education schools. This study is part of non-experimental research, since it is not possible to manipulate variables or randomly assign participants or treatment (Kerlinger 2002). This is an “ex post facto” study since the independent variables cannot be manipulated, but rather we wait for developments to occur naturally and then they are analysed. The idea is to validate the hypothesis once the event occurs, trying to find its causes “retrospectively”.

The results showed that quality management systems have a positive impact on aspects such as development of coexistence rules in schools, teacher participation in initiatives to improve schools and a positive climate in schools.

On the other hand, there is no evidence of the impact of these systems on conflict resolution procedures or family participation in school life. The impact of quality management systems on the satisfaction of the members of the school community is also moderate.

The results obtained also show that the impact tends to be greater in private subsidised centres, in small schools, in centres where the system has been implemented for more years and when there is more support and monitoring by the educational authorities.

The paper considers the evolution of a tailored university induction program over time to establish the change in the nature and content of the program.

The induction program is pitched against the conceptual backdrop of academic norms and conventions, language, integration and the role of mentoring. As an exploratory study of a unique and complex induction program it reports on the basis of discourse analysis over time (from 2009 to 2012).

The paper establishes that consideration of feedback by students, university staff (academic and professional) and external stakeholders has allowed the program to morph to a balanced content of academic; social; and socio-academic integration activities.

The paper confirms the framework proposed by Zepke and Leach (2005) and renders a further level of validity to the model when applied in a cross-cultural higher education context.

Practical implications include the value of involving stakeholders as source of knowledge for considering continuous improvements and the notion that a remedial approach to integration of international students proves to be ineffective.

Articulation pathways for Chinese university students into Australian universities create a unique set of expectations and challenges to both the students and the Australian universities. A tailor made induction program is a crucial step in addressing these and requires continuous improvement to retain relevance and optimise impact and resources.

This research examines the effects of University Social Responsibility (USR) on the brand image of private universities in Thailand. Brand image is important for entry into the consideration set as prospective students evaluate options for university study.USR activities may be implicit or explicit, i.e., actively communicated to external stakeholders. We show that explicit USR can help put a university into the brand consideration set.

This pilot research uses qualitative interviews to explore perceptions of six private university executives, six M6 (high school) students, and the parents of the M6 students.

In Thailand, some USR elements are mandated components of quality assurance, but many universities go beyond basic requirements. The university executives talked about USR beyond simply meeting government QA requirements. USR can contribute to competitiveness and it helps produce better, more socially responsible graduates. Communication about USR is done through both online and traditional media, but public knowledge lags somewhat compared to what universities actually do. M6 students are more aware of university USR activities than their parents because of online media and university roadshows at their schools. USR is not the major factor in choosing a university, and many activities are not well known. However, students and parents think that USR is helpful, and some activities directly impact inclusion in the brand consideration set.

Universities can apply these USR activities to strengthen their brand images and become part of the consideration set. However, they need more careful marketing communications to fully inform stakeholders about the whole range of USR.

The researchers have examined how private Thai universities use USR activities as a part of government mandated QA components. These USR activities can contribute to their brand image and help move the university into the brand consideration set.

The purpose of the study was to understand the pull factors that influenced international students’ choice of country and institution for their Master’s education.

This qualitative study relied upon focus group interviews with 70 international students registered in taught Master programmes at a higher education (HE) institution in Malaysia for data collection.

It was found that socio-economic, environmental and personal factors played important role in the international student’s decision making process of choosing the country and HE institution.

The article concludes with recommendations for Malaysian universities to consider in their marketing strategies to promote Malaysia as an international education’s hub.

This article focuses on research into the lives of international students who are currently pursuing their Master education at a public Malaysian university. This article discusses the three attributes that led this particular group of students to select Malaysia and the particular HE institution to further their taught Master programmes.

This research presents the characteristics of leadership (style adopted, sources of power exercised and factors affecting leadership) of high school principals in Greece.

235 school principals were surveyed using questionnaires. These questionnaires assessed how often they adopted specific practices while managing their school, in relevance to their educational, managerial and administrative duties. Thus, the researchers were able to assess the leadership style of the principals (transactional or transformational) and the sources of power exercised (reward, punishment, expertise, example and information).

The majority of school principals in Greece prefer the transformational leadership style instead of the transactional one and they frequently exercise the power of information. There is a strong positive link between the transformational leadership style and the tendency to exercise the power of information. Furthermore, it is shown that the leadership skills grow with the educational/managerial work experience of a school principal.

The researchers explored the notion of leadership within the context of a centralized educational system, where most critical decisions are taken by central educational administration (e.g. the Greek Ministry of Education). The findings reveal that being a transformational leader in this educational context is not due to the personal characteristics of the school manager (e.g. age, sex, studies). This fact provides insight on issues related to the recruitment/selection and training/development of school managers.

Taking into consideration the fact that there is currently a strong debate in Greece on whether school staff should be evaluated or not (and under what kind of criteria), these findings could be very useful to central education authorities as well as the whole educational community. Furthermore, they contribute towards a better understanding on school principals; what their personal characteristics are (education, work experience), what their leadership style is, how they manage their schools and what obstacles they face. Therefore, it is hoped that in the future, better processes could be followed on recruiting, evaluating and promoting managerial staff within school units.

Regulation and privatization of education systems has led to a “league standing” mentality regarding school achievements. The present study examines how school principals deal with the pressures of competition and achievements while aspiring to imbue pupils with values and a broad education.

12 high school principals were interviewed about external demands imposed on them, their educational policy and modes of operation.

Publicly, school supervisors advocate a balance between core studies and education for values and enrichment. Informally they pressure principals to allocate maximal resources to preparing for high risk tests at the expense of other educational activities. School administrators and teachers, while dissatisfied with this approach, maintain a covert informal culture that concentrates mainly on external test achievements, which contrasts to their public value-rich educational vision, and undertake actions that raise educational, management and ethical questions.

Understanding school culture requires a grasp of informal external pressures on school staffs and their influence on the gap between a school’s declared and actual policies.

Placing the schools’ informal culture on the research agenda will increase institutional transparency and may contribute to a greater correspondence between school visions advocating knowledge and values, and the policy actually implemented.

Raising this subject for discussion may contribute to a demand for more transparency in how schools allocate their resources. It may also help to increase the correspondence between the values and vision promulgated by schools and the educational policy they actually implement.

Clearing system in UK enable students without a University place after exam results have been announced to find suitable vacancies, as it is important for universities to fill their vacancies as any shortfall loses them a lot of money, this research examines marketing strategies adopted by UK Universities on their websites during clearing.

134 universities websites was content analysed few weeks before clearing and the day before clearing starts. The categories for the analysis included membership of the three main university groups as well as clearing advertisement strategies and advertising theme presented.

110 universities indicated interest in admitting students through clearing on their websites including 18 of the 24 Russell University Group although more emphasis was laid on adjustment to attract students with better grades. The majority of websites were redesigned to reflect clearing with slides highlighting student satisfaction, guaranteed accommodation and graduate employability.

This exploratory study examines advertising strategies adopted during clearing, it would be interesting to also seek a broader view on advertisement strategies adopted by the Universities throughout the year and extended to a comparative study of higher education marketing across different countries.

As websites have become an integral part of the marketing tools of universities, they should present information relevant to different stakeholders creatively, along with images reflecting their diverse student body and extra-curricular environment. This study will be relevant to university staff dealing with marketing, recruitment and information technology, advertising practitioners and academic researchers.

This study defines the concept of ‘convergence thinking’ as a trading zone for knowledge fusion in the engineering field, and develops its measuring scale.

- Based on results from literature review, this study clarifies a theoretical ground for ‘convergence thinking’. Initial items to measure this concept were verified by content analysis and then finalized. After a pilot test done with 448 college students, gathered data were analysed by item selection and exploratory factor analysis to verify their validity. Next, the main test implemented with 568 college students was analysed with confirmatory factor analysis, for validating the final items to measure ‘convergence thinking’.

As a result, the scale for ‘convergence thinking’ consists of 52 items to measure the following five factors: synthetic thinking, objective utilization of information, logical thinking, intuitive thinking and subjective thinking. Construct validity and criterion-related validity were performed at last to check this scale’s theoretical construct.

Previous studies have performed limited research methods such as literature reviews and case studies in order to introduce a theoretical paradigm for convergence, convergence education and knowledge fusion. However, this study provides scientific results based on quantitative methodology on convergence motive and convergence thinking.

This study collects data from sophomore through senior students in college for its research purpose. It is because we believe that college education has achieved a certain level of convergence capabilities by teaching a series of convergence related subjects. However, this study did not show difference by grades, so it should be careful to standardize research results without differentiating the grade. Thus, future study should reveal the difference of convergence thinking by grades.

In conclusion, the ‘convergence thinking’ scale developed in this study can be standardized and stable enough to apply to other cases.