Search Results for
"Students"

Purpose – Seeks to examine the extent to which education systems around the world embrace vocational schooling and the degree to which exposure to vocational schooling differs by gender and race. Design/methodology/approach – Uses distributional analysis applied to cross-country data from Unesco to examine shares of secondary school students enrolled in the vocational track, by gender. Also uses descriptive statistics based on US Department of Education data to examine fields of study within the vocational track. Findings – The emphasis on vocational education and access to different types of training across demographic groups varies considerably around the world. European countries in particular, long known for their heavy emphasis on specialized vocational schooling, have relatively high vocational school shares in secondary school. At the other end of the distribution, almost 30 countries in the sample, most of them low-income, have vocational school shares below 4 percent. In the majority of countries, a higher share of male secondary school students enroll in the vocational track compared with female students. Latin American countries stand out for having a high female representation among vocational school students. In the USA, male students cluster in trade and industrial courses, while female students cluster in business preparation courses. Also, white students are relatively concentrated in the trades, black and Hispanic students cluster in business courses, and Asian students are concentrated in technical courses. Originality/value – These stylized facts set the stage for new research on vocational education and for new policy initiatives that create new opportunities for specialization in vocational training. © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

This paper explores case study research of the group process for teachers as learners in an Online Learning Module delivered in a blended problem-based learning (PBL) environment. Blended learning, as the name suggests, consists of a blend of at least two pedagogical approaches: within the context of this research, blended learning is the integration of the PBL face-to-face learning in a classroom with an e-learning environment. The 10-week module was part of an accredited Postgraduate Diploma in Third Level Learning and Teaching for academic staff (lecturers, librarians, learning technology support staff) from a range of higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland. This Postgraduate Diploma attracts academic staff keen to experience and implement a variety of pedagogical approaches within their own teaching. Over the four years of the modules existence, there have been a wide variety of subject disciplines in higher education represented. This paper shares experiences and lessons learnt from the case study, and provides a set of recommendations for other teachers pursuing this form of blended PBL with students.

In the Netherlands auditors can be trained in a part-time educational track in which students combine working and studying or in a full-time educational track. The former training is relatively firm-specific whereas the latter training is relatively general. Applying human capital theory, we expect higher wage growth for full-time educated auditors than for dual-educated auditors. Furthermore, full-time educated auditors may have better outside options than part-time educated auditors. This may make it easier for them to switch employers than for the part-time educated auditors. The predictions on tenure and wages of differently educated auditors are supported by the estimation results in this paper. The part-time, dual track appears an important route for students from a lower socioeconomic background. © 2006 Taylor & Francis.

Background: The British medical student population has undergone rapid diversification over the last decades. This study focuses on medical students' views about their experiences in relation to ethnicity and gender during their undergraduate training within the context of the hidden curriculum in one British medical school as part of a wider qualitative research project into undergraduate medical education. Method: We interviewed 36 undergraduate medical students in one British Medical School, across all five years of training using a semi-structured interview schedule. We selected them by random and quota sampling, stratified by sex and ethnicity and used the whole medical school population as a sampling frame. Data analyses involved the identification of common themes, reported by means of illustrative quotations and simple counts. Results: The students provided information about variations patterned by gender in their motivation and influences when deciding to study medicine. Issues in relation to ethnicity were: gaining independence from parents, perceived limitations to career prospects, incompatibility of some religious beliefs with some medical practices and acquired open-mindedness towards students and patients from different ethnic backgrounds. Despite claiming no experiences of gender difference during medical training, female and male students expressed gender stereotypes, e.g. that women bring particularly caring and sympathetic attitudes to medicine, or that surgery requires the physical strength and competitiveness stereotypically associated with men that are likely to support the continuation of gender differentiation in medical careers. Conclusion: The key themes identified in this paper in relation to ethnicity and to gender have important implications for medical educators and for those concerned with professional development. The results suggest a need to open up aspects of these relatively covert elements of student culture to scrutiny and debate and to take an explicitly wider view of the influence of what has sometimes been called the hidden curriculum upon the training of medical professionals and the practice of medicine. © 2006Lempp and Seale; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Background. Research on individual learning approaches (or learning styles) is split in two traditions, one of which is biased towards academic learning, and the other towards learning from direct experience. Aims. In the reported study, the two traditions are linked by investigating the relationships between school-based (academic) and work-based (experiential) learning approaches of students in vocational education programs. Samples. Participants were 899 students of a Dutch school for secondary vocational education; 758 provided data on school-based learning, and 407 provided data on work-based learning, resulting in an overlap of 266 students from whom data were obtained on learning in both settings. Methods. Learning approaches in school and work settings were measured with questionnaires. Using factor analysis and cluster analysis, items and students were grouped, both with respect to school- and work-based learning. Results. The study identified two academic learning dimensions (constructive learning and reproductive learning), and three experiential learning dimensions (analysis, initiative, and immersion). Construction and analysis were correlated positively, and reproduction and initiative negatively. Cluster analysis resulted in the identification of three school-based learning orientations and three work-based learning orientations. The relation between the two types of learning orientations, expressed in Cramér's V, appeared to be weak. Conclusions. It is concluded that learning approaches are relatively context specific, which implies that neither theoretical tradition can claim general applicability. © 2006 The British Psychological Society.

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) has been instituted in the graduate and undergraduate curricula in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech. The basic learning unit of the PBL approach is the tutorial group, comprising six to eight students and a facilitator. The role of the facilitator is to asks probing questions at the process level with the intent of explicitly revealing group behaviors by drawing attention to student actions. The target areas for assessment of a PBL class are self-directed inquiry, knowledge building, collaboration skills, and problem solving strategies.

This paper reports on findings from a practice audit and literature review into Integration of Learning for Practice, conducted in Scotland between November 2003 and February 2004. Findings from the practice audit suggest that although the integration of learning is one of the key aspirations of social work education, and there are many different approaches currently in use which attempt to enhance learning integration, students, practitioners, service users and social work lecturers all agree that more needs to be done in this area. The review of literature indicates some ways in which this might be taken forward. The paper concludes that for integration of learning for practice to succeed, we need a re-imagining of the traditional boundaries between field and classroom, and practice teacher and social work academic. © 2006, The Board of Social Work Education.

A capacity for self-directed, life-long learning is often cited as a critical skill for tomorrow's engineers. The student response to high levels of self-directed learning, however, is not always positive, particularly in introductory level courses. Some students enthusiastically embrace the control over their learning in open-ended situations. Other students, however, become frustrated and disheartened, and ask to be returned to a comfortable state of structure, guidance, and traditional learning. The self-directed knowledge acquisition in technical disciplines has historically been a controversial approach that deserves our close examination, as some students cite self-direction as a positive contributor to learning, while others report decreases in learning due to student control. In this paper, we explore the issues surrounding student directed learning in a project-based introductory materials science course. We present preliminary data on the student responses to open-ended projects and self-guided learning, with particular emphasis on the development of and changes in attitudes and self-perceptions of learning throughout the semester. Possible causes of student responses to self-directed learning are considered, and particular attention is focused on student comfort in self-directed environments and its relation to learning processes. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2006.