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Article
Publication date: 12 April 2022

Lucy Millicent Turner, Smitha Hegde, Indrani Karunasagar and Rebecca Turner

India is unique, having enshrined in law the teaching of sustainability education (SE) within all levels of formal education. This study aims to examine the integration and…

Abstract

Purpose

India is unique, having enshrined in law the teaching of sustainability education (SE) within all levels of formal education. This study aims to examine the integration and perceptions of SE within the higher education (HE) sector in India and identify any lessons that can be exported about the teaching of SE from the Indian HE environment.

Design/methodology/approach

Focusing on a science-based teaching and research institute at a private university in India, a quantitative, cross-sectional study examined the extent to which SE was integrated into the university and how it was perceived by students and staff. Data were collected through two online questionnaires administered to lecturers and undergraduate students during the 2017 academic year.

Findings

Most students reported that their university experiences had contributed significantly to their knowledge about sustainability. Results also showed there was a positive association between the teaching and learning about sustainability, although staff and students reported that this could be improved by including more active, student-centred teaching and learning approaches. However, students felt that they had learnt the most about sustainability from the informal “hidden” rather than the “formal” curriculum. This suggests that research is now required into ways to capitalise on this as a medium to further develop, not just Indian, but students’ worldwide sustainability literacy.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to present a detailed study of the perceptions of the contribution of the “formal” and the informal “hidden” curriculum to SE by students and staff at an Indian university.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 23 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 September 2008

Rebecca Turner and Beverley Lloyd‐Walker

The importance of emotional intelligence (EI) for management success has been established. This paper aims to examine the influence of increased EI capabilities on project success.

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Abstract

Purpose

The importance of emotional intelligence (EI) for management success has been established. This paper aims to examine the influence of increased EI capabilities on project success.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper first examines the literature in relation to EI then reports on a case study conducted in the defence contracting sector in the USA. The qualitative, case study approach is supported by pre‐ and post‐training surveys. Regression analysis was conducted to test the effect of the training on EI competencies and the impact of the increase in competencies on employee satisfaction and project success.

Findings

Results of the case study and survey indicate that developing EI capabilities will contribute to increased project management success.

Research limitations/implications

The research reported upon in this paper is limited to one organisation within the defence contracting industry in the USA.

Practical implications

The aim of every project leader is to develop their intended project benefit. The results of the study reported in this paper will have implications for project leaders and project team members as it provides insights into capabilities which have the potential to further improve project performance.

Originality/value

Although the value of EI skills for employees, especially managers and supervisors, has been established, no specific study of the impact of these skills on project performance, using pre‐ and post‐tests, has previously been reported. It will provide a valuable point of comparison for similar research in other non‐defence contracting environments to build a body of knowledge on EI and project performance.

Details

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 1 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8378

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 April 2013

John Fitzsimons and Rebecca Turner

Project‐based learning has been used in a number of disciplines to provide undergraduate students with the opportunity to simulate professional activities and apply theory to…

386

Abstract

Purpose

Project‐based learning has been used in a number of disciplines to provide undergraduate students with the opportunity to simulate professional activities and apply theory to practice. It has been identified as an effective way to develop a range of transferable skills required by employers. This article aims to report a novel application of project‐based learning, which provided students with an opportunity to work on an international collaboration, facilitated by videoconferencing and Web 2.0.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on a number of data sources, this article examines the contribution that project‐based learning made to the development of key skills which employers within the media industry expect graduates to possess.

Findings

Conclusions suggest how project‐based learning can be used more widely to develop a range of employability skills. The international context and the use of new technologies were also seen by students to be important aspects of the project. Students offered some original insights into how these may enhance project‐based learning.

Originality/value

This study deals with a novel application of project‐based learning, which gave students an opportunity to work on an international collaboration, facilitated by videoconferencing and Web 2.0. Students offered some original insights into how the international context and the use of new technologies may enhance project‐based learning.

Details

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, vol. 5 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-7003

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 12 September 2008

Derek H.T. Walker

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Abstract

Details

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 1 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8378

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1993

DANUTA A NITECKI

Letters and opinions published in the Chronicle of Higher Education were analysed to identify metaphors relating to libraries used by faculty, academic administrators and…

Abstract

Letters and opinions published in the Chronicle of Higher Education were analysed to identify metaphors relating to libraries used by faculty, academic administrators and librarians. Metaphors used in communications are assumed to reflect conceptual models held by the communicators. The qualitative methodology used in this study was built on the works of Schön, Reddy and Green. In this exploratory study, fourteen models of libraries were identified through linguistic examination of the appearance of the word stem ‘librar’ among published communications from academics. Differences were found in the conceptual models of libraries held among faculty, academic administrators and librarians. The study's findings suggest that to administrators in this case, libraries are contributors to the social structure of an academic environment, while to faculty, libraries are the repository for physical information resources to support their research. Librarians in the study tend to attribute an activist role to libraries, and to express a conceptual model of a library as a storehouse. The identification of metaphors about libraries, cited by academics, offers library managers insights into academic library users' conceptualisation of libraries.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 49 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Article
Publication date: 16 August 2022

Rachel Roegman, Kevin Tan, Nathan Tanner and Caitlin Yore

Drawing on Coburn and Turner's framework for research on data use, this study looks at how contextual factors support interactions around data. In so doing, the authors contribute…

Abstract

Purpose

Drawing on Coburn and Turner's framework for research on data use, this study looks at how contextual factors support interactions around data. In so doing, the authors contribute to the emerging body of literature on administrators supporting high school students' social-emotional learning (SEL).

Design/methodology/approach

This two-site case study “follows the data” that were shared with administrators at two high schools based on a longitudinal study of students' SEL. One author of this study has been leading a research project of high school students' SEL in two high schools from two different districts in a Midwest university town since 2017. This study follows what happened in both high schools after the author shared students' SEL data with district personnel.

Findings

Findings showed that participants were invested in increasing SEL programming. However, SEL data moved in different ways through the two schools, and all individuals had different ideas about which data were important. Each district dealt with a specific set of organizational norms, existing inequities, and beliefs systems that influenced which SEL data were noticed and how, if at all, data spurred action.

Originality/value

Specific aspects of organizational contexts support and constrain SEL data use. Both cases suggest researchers can guide data use practices that can advance students' SEL. However, each district dealt with a specific set of educational inequities, which influenced which data were noticed and how, if at all, data spurred action. Importantly, data-driven decision-making must be conducted from an equity lens, lest the process replicate existing inequities.

Details

Journal of Educational Administration, vol. 60 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0957-8234

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 September 2019

Sophie Rutter, Elaine G. Toms and Paul David Clough

To design effective task-responsive search systems, sufficient understanding of users’ tasks must be gained and their characteristics described. Although existing…

Abstract

Purpose

To design effective task-responsive search systems, sufficient understanding of users’ tasks must be gained and their characteristics described. Although existing multi-dimensional task schemes can be used to describe users’ search and work tasks, they do not take into account the information use environment (IUE) that contextualises the task. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

With a focus on English primary schools, in four stages a multi-dimensional task scheme was developed that distinguishes between task characteristics generic to all environments, and those that are specific to schools. In Stage 1, a provisional scheme was developed based upon the existing literature. In the next two stages, through interviews with teachers and observations of school children, the provisional scheme was populated and revised. In Stage 4, whether search tasks with the same information use can be distinguished by their characteristics was examined.

Findings

Ten generic characteristics were identified (nature of work task, search task originator, search task flexibility, search task doer, search task necessity, task output, search goal, stage in work task, resources and information use) and four characteristics specific to primary schools (curricular area, use in curricular area, planning and location). For the different information uses, some characteristics are more typical than others.

Practical implications

The resulting scheme, based on children’s real-life information seeking, should be used in the design and evaluation of search systems and digital libraries that support school children. More generally, the scheme can also be used in other environments.

Originality/value

This is the first study to develop a multi-dimensional task scheme that considers encompasses the IUE.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 9 March 2020

Rebecca Wolf, Joseph M. Reilly and Steven M. Ross

This article informs school leaders and staffs about existing research findings on the use of data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Given that teachers are the…

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Abstract

Purpose

This article informs school leaders and staffs about existing research findings on the use of data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Given that teachers are the most important school-based educational resource, decisions regarding the assignment of students to particular classes and teachers are highly impactful for student learning. Classroom compositions of peers can also influence student learning.

Design/methodology/approach

A literature review was conducted on the use of data-driven decision-making in the rostering process. The review addressed the merits of using various quantitative metrics in the rostering process.

Findings

Findings revealed that, despite often being purposeful about rostering, school leaders and staffs have generally not engaged in data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Using data-driven rostering may have benefits, such as limiting the questionable practice of assigning the least effective teachers in the school to the youngest or lowest performing students. School leaders and staffs may also work to minimize negative peer effects due to concentrating low-achieving, low-income, or disruptive students in any one class. Any data-driven system used in rostering, however, would need to be adequately complex to account for multiple influences on student learning. Based on the research reviewed, quantitative data alone may not be sufficient for effective rostering decisions.

Practical implications

Given the rich data available to school leaders and staffs, data-driven decision-making could inform rostering and contribute to more efficacious and equitable classroom assignments.

Originality/value

This article is the first to summarize relevant research across multiple bodies of literature on the opportunities for and challenges of using data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters.

Details

Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning, vol. 14 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2397-7604

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1996

Rebecca Anne Allahyari

American sociology has long been concerned with the social conditioning of American character, particularly with regard to caring for others. This interest can be traced to Alexis…

Abstract

American sociology has long been concerned with the social conditioning of American character, particularly with regard to caring for others. This interest can be traced to Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1899[1838]) in which he reflected on how democratic participation in government and voluntary associations in the 1830s shaped the American character. Tocqueville believed that participation in social institutions, and especially voluntary societies, balanced the potentially excessive individualism he observed in the United States. David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd: A Study of Changing American Character (1950) picked up similar themes in an exploration of the isolation of the individual within modern society. These concerns reached a broad audience more recently in Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton's Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (1985) in which the authors argued that the scale had swung in favor of individualism at the expense of commitment to the social good. Robert Wuthnow (1991) addressed these issues again in Acts of Compassion: Caring for Others and Helping Ourselves, in which he explored how in volunteer work, Americans attempted to reconcile compassion with individualism. These studies, primarily focusing on white, middle‐class Americans, have laid the groundwork for an exploration of the social nature of the American character within the context of caring for others.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 16 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Article
Publication date: 4 September 2017

Rachel Williamson and Rebecca Jesson

This paper aims to investigate the viability of blogging over the summer holidays as an intervention to ameliorate the Summer Learning Effect (SLE) in writing. The SLE is the…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the viability of blogging over the summer holidays as an intervention to ameliorate the Summer Learning Effect (SLE) in writing. The SLE is the impact on achievement of taking a break from school over summer, and has been documented to affect differentially those students who come from low socioeconomic status (SES) communities compared with their more affluent peers. However, previous studies within similar communities suggest that the effect is not inevitable, and is amenable to intervention.

Design/methodology/approach

The present study is set in a group of low SES schools where students already have individual learning blogs. The Summer Learning Journey was designed by the research team in consultation with students and teachers from the schools and trialled in January 2015. The design of the programme drew on previous research that suggested that students would be motivated by interest, rather than achievement, and that literacy activity over summer should be leisure-based.

Findings

Initial evidence suggests that students who participated made measurable improvements compared with their own progress over the previous summer and also compared with a matched control group of students, and that the observed difference continued over the 2016 school year.

Research limitations/implications

The study provides initial evidence of quite substantial differences in achievement for those students who were active bloggers.

Originality/value

The study provides an alternative direction from current summer learning programmes and indicates the potential for designing digital opportunities for learning at times when the school is not in session.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 16 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

1 – 10 of 126