Search Results for
"Students"

The relationship between universities of professional education on the one hand and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises on the other hand is seen as an important means to improve the innovative position of these enterprises. In this article, a case with a new of point of view is presented: how do entrepreneurs perceive the lecturers of these universities who are supervising the students doing their internships? The approach of our case study seemed to have worked very well. Our research makes clear that (i) innovation is hardly an explicit topic of the students; (ii) innovativeness is the worst functioning characteristic of the supervising lecturers. This leads to the recommendations that the lecturers should be instructed on the topic of innovation. © 2009, Inderscience Publishers.

With the rapid adoption of online learning and training, educators have drawn different conclusions regarding the viability of e-learning in supporting interactions that result in quality learning experiences and outcomes. This chapter describes several main online educational interaction models, highlights the Community of Inquiry model for contextualizing interaction from a sociocultural constructivist perspective and explains the characteristics of virtual learning communities. This chapter advances current understandings on online group learning processes with findings from a case study on distant students’ experiences during virtual synchronous tutorials. Quantitative and qualitative survey results are presented on student satisfaction with the development of their skills in computer-mediated communication, increased understanding of course content, and enhancement of their overall e-learning experience through collaborative group discussions. Finally, the implications of the findings for designing distance courses and virtual group learning activities are discussed, and recommendations offered to enhance student experiences of online group learning. © 2009 by IGI Global. All rights reserved.

Research in career and technical education stresses job skills, training, as well as knowledge of team work and positive work behavior. However, information regarding affective work performance is often misunderstood or misrepresented, even by well meaning teachers. This chapter is a review of salient factors affecting worker attitudes and behaviors that can be used by CTE educators and researchers to improve their educational strategies. The Occupational Work Ethic Inventory (OWEI) has been used to collect work ethic data from business and industry workers and their supervisors from several occupational areas. These results have been investigated and their relative rating of work ethic factors are reported. CTE specialists and teachers should consider research methods that utilize 21st Century statistics and techniques to assist students in working with groups and in developing work relevant curriculum. Additional research in affective workplace performance utilizing the OWEI could be useful in developing performance standards for performance improvement of workers. © 2009 by IGI Global. All rights reserved.

This study reviews the innovative programme developed in 2004 between the Work-Based Learning unit in the School of Education at Queen’s University, Belfast and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The scheme enables probationary officers to develop new skills by means of an Advanced Diploma in Work-Based Learning linked to the traditional training in operational policing. This new programme not only creates a new approach to police development, but also allows for the accreditation of the Work-Based Learning. The focus of the entire learning experience is within the real world context. Its objective is to enable students to reflect on their own work-related experience, to develop their understanding of appropriate work-based research approaches and methods and to identify and design a work-based project. The aim is to explore the evidence of the positive experience of trainees who have embarked on this new method of learning. Using interviews, observations, focus-groups and questionnaires, a review has been conducted on how the programme is attempting to contribute towards a positive change regarding the abilities of the new police officers. © 2009 by IGI Global. All rights reserved.

As minority engineering educators at the undergraduate level, the authors of this paper are acutely in tune to the issues of attracting minority students to and graduating them from engineering curriculums. There is a definite challenge in the recruitment and retention of quality minority students in the engineering disciplines. It is time to address these challenges in truth and offer solutions that help to address the root causes of current problems. This paper looks at the two divisions of a students' academic career that have the most impact upon their undergraduate success; that is their k-12 foundational education and their first two years in college as an undergraduate. These two divisions are not mutually exclusive nor are they unaffected by outside influences. There are specifically three challenges that need be addressed if we are to seriously make an impact on attracting minorities to engineering careers. The solutions of which must come from a team of agents and processes, acting upon the students' life at decidedly different time intervals and all with a different focus. The first challenge is that of foundational mathematics and science and the critical time frame for the first challenge is that of between 4th and 6th grades. The second challenge is that of instilling a self motivated work ethic towards learning and the critical time frame is ideally 9th grade but no later than the beginning of the 11th grade. The third challenge is that of financial accountability and the critical time frame is from freshman through sophomore years at the undergraduate level. This paper peers into these real challenges of attracting minority students to engineering careers and offers the seeds for implementing solution plans. If a plan is formulated to address these challenges at the correct time frame, then not only will we be able to attract a greater pool of quality minority students to engineering but we will be producing better students overall. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2009.

Background: Most of the efforts to reduce teenagers' tobacco addiction have focused on smoking prevention and little on smoking cessation. A smoking cessation program (TABADO study), associating pharmacologic and cognitive-behavioural strategy, on a particularly vulnerable population (vocational trainees), was developed. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of the program which was offered to all smokers in a population aged 15 to 20 years in Vocational Training Centers (VTC). This paper presents the TABADO study protocol. Methods: The study is quasi-experimental, prospective, evaluative and comparative and takes place during the 2 years of vocational training. The final population will be composed of 2000 trainees entering a VTC in Lorraine, France, during the 2008-2009 period. The intervention group (1000 trainees) benefited from the TABADO program while no specific intervention took place in the "control" group (1000 trainees) other than the treatment and education services usually available. Our primary outcome will be the tobacco abstinence rate at 12 months. Discussion. If the program proves effective, it will be a new tool in the action against smoking in populations that have been seldom targeted until now. In addition, the approach could be expanded to other young subjects from socially disadvantaged backgrounds in the context of a public health policy against smoking among adolescents. © 2009 Minary et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Courses preparing early childhood professionals through institutes of technical and further education utilise competency standards to guide the assessment of students during professional experience. Some universities offering early childhood teacher education courses use the term 'competencies' in practicum assessment forms and draw on teacher competency standards. This article explores how discourses of competence produced within positivist and liberal humanist discourses shape, guide and direct (govern) tertiary supervisors' beliefs about and understandings of the legitimacy of their professional judgement. Tertiary supervisors take up these discourses and use them as the basis upon which they govern themselves. The author argues that one of the effects of governmentality in this instance is that tertiary supervisors regulate and silence their professional judgement and defer to discourses of scientific rationality when assessing students on practicum placements. They produce assessment strategies that enable them to hide their subjective judgement within what appears to be a logical, rational and objective assessment process and position themselves as the rational, objective assessor, and, at the same time, the fair, responsible tertiary supervisor.

The grand narrative of educational policy statements lack clear guidelines on Information Communications Technology (ICT) integration. A review of current academic literature fails to provide consistent strategies for institutions and practitioners determined to adopt ICT in an informed way. This chapter introduces criteria for the successful implementation of ICT-enabled tasks. It argues that the integration of ICT is best supported by a pedagogy that facilitates experiential learning and a development of academic competencies. The context for demonstrating the importance of the informed use of ICT is a research project entitled, "iPod therefore iWrite," in which multiple-media content was developed by students in Japan and the United Kingdom. © 2009, IGI Global.

Research in career and technical education stresses job skills, training, as well as knowledge of team work and positive work behavior. However, information regarding affective work performance is often misunderstood or misrepresented, even by well meaning teachers. This chapter is a review of salient factors affecting worker attitudes and behaviors that can be used by CTE educators and researchers to improve their educational strategies. The Occupational Work Ethic Inventory (OWEI) has been used to collect work ethic data from business and industry workers and their supervisors from several occupational areas. These results have been investigated and their relative rating of work ethic factors are reported. CTE specialists and teachers should consider research methods that utilize 21st Century statistics and techniques to assist students in working with groups and in developing work relevant curriculum. Additional research in affective workplace performance utilizing the OWEI could be useful in developing performance standards for performance improvement of workers. © 2009, IGI Global.

This study reviews the innovative programme developed in 2004 between the Work-Based Learning unit in the School of Education at Queen's University, Belfast and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The scheme enables probationary officers to develop new skills by means of an Advanced Diploma in Work-Based Learning linked to the traditional training in operational policing. This new programme not only creates a new approach to police development, but also allows for the accreditation of the Work-Based Learning. The focus of the entire learning experience is within the real world context. Its objective is to enable students to reflect on their own work-related experience, to develop their understanding of appropriate work-based research approaches and methods and to identify and design a work-based project. The aim is to explore the evidence of the positive experience of trainees who have embarked on this new method of learning. Using interviews, observations, focus-groups and questionnaires, a review has been conducted on how the programme is attempting to contribute towards a positive change regarding the abilities of the new police officers. © 2009, IGI Global.