Search

This study aims to identify the literacy skills of individuals whose highest level of education was in the field 'teacher training and educational sciences'. The study sample comprised 10,618 individuals in the field of teacher training and educational sciences, selected from 31 countries (participating in the International Adult Skills Assessment Programme during the 2014-2015 survey) using a multi-stage sampling method. The study employed multi-level latent class analysis and three-step analysis in order to determine both the number of multi-level latent classes of educators' literacy scores as well as the selected independent variables' success in predicting those latent classes. The analysis revealed that educators in Germany constituted the group with the highest literacy skills while educators from Singapore comprised the group with the lowest literacy skills. [This study was presented at the 9th International Congress of Educational Research. Ordu University, Ordu, Turkey.]

Seamless learning has a significance that has been increasing in recent years, and an increasing number of studies on the subject in the literature draws attention. This study aimed to examine the research on seamless learning between 1996 and 2020 with the bibliometric analysis method. The Scopus database was used in the collection of the data. After various screening processes, a total of 389 publications were included in the analysis. Descriptive analysis and bibliometric analysis were used in the analysis of the data. The distribution of publications by years, types of publications, sources, and languages were analyzed in the research. Additionally, visual maps were created with analyses of co-author, cocitation, and co-word. At the end of the study, it was seen that there has been an increase in the number of publications from the past to the present, articles and papers were predominant, and that most of the studies were carried out in English. As a result of bibliometric analysis, it was concluded that the most efficient countries in seamless learning were the United Kingdom, the United States, and Singapore. Also, it has been determined that the National Institute of Education, Center for International Education and Exchange, and Kyushu University institutions are dominant. The most frequently mentioned authors cited in studies in many different fields are M. Sharples, L.-H. Wong, and H. Ogata. According to the co-word analysis, the keywords seamless learning, mobile learning, ubiquitous learning, and mobile-assisted language learning stand out in the field of seamless learning.

International comparative ethnographic studies of ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) are difficult to conduct but worth the effort. Comparative studies featuring thick description and polysemic interpretations can challenge taken-for-granted assumptions, expand the menu of the possible, expose the provincialism of national approaches, and illuminate the global circulation of ECEC practices and ideas. Based on reflections on four major comparative international studies I have led, in this paper I describe effective strategies for conducting comparative ethnographic research in ECEC settings, explicate the rationale for doing so, and provide examples of how this approach can impact research, practice, and policy. Issues I address include the rationale for selecting countries for comparison, the formation of a research team, and distributing interpretive voice and power.

This paper presents a compilation of personal reflections from 66 contributors on the impact of, and responses to, COVID-19 in accounting education in 45 different countries around the world. It reveals a commonality of issues, and a variability in responses, many positive outcomes, including the creation of opportunities to realign learning and teaching strategies away from the comfort of traditional formats, but many more that are negative, primarily relating to the impact on faculty and student health and well-being, and the accompanying stress. It identifies issues that need to be addressed in the recovery and redesign stages of the management of this crisis, and it sets a new research agenda for studies in accounting education.

This article maps the scientific production and the contents associated with the sustainable development goals and their integration with universities during the past 21 years. Although many of the topics related to sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been addressed in different studies for decades, it is since 2015 onwards that they gained greater prominence due to the inclusion of higher education as an important actor in the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations SDGs. For the purpose of this paper, a bibliometric analysis of 871 papers, 535 documents in Scopus, and 336 in Web of Science (WoS) from 1998 to 2019 was performed, and the Bibliometrix analysis tool was used. The objective of this mapping is to answer the following research question: Is the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals and Universities a field of study? An analysis of the network of collaborators and trend topics in Scopus and WoS allows us to identify the concurrence and relationships of some keywords, such as sustainable development, sustainability and planning, and some background words, such as humans and global health. In another analysis, the word "higher education" is related to change. This article suggests that the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in Universities is becoming a field of study under exploration, with a peak of production in 2016 and that has remained stable in the last three years, but thanks to the leading role assigned to Universities, intellectual production should increase in the following years.

Since 2000, the number of students trained abroad has increased 100%. This statistic shows how not only many students but also how future employers value this training. It gives students an additional skill, which can be called "internationality". Accordingly a large number of countries intend to rapidly increase the number of students studying abroad. This trend leads to a model of international student mobility that would be perfect if, first, all students could benefit from it; second, if this model did not create some inequalities; and finally, if it did not cause some distortions in the world that may be economic or academic in nature. This paper shows that this is not the case. It is therefore important to analyse these phenomena in order to find solutions to improve the current model of international student mobility.

This paper discusses the noticeable nervousness of many US-based financial statement issuers in adopting IFRS. For contextual purposes, the paper provides an overview of the FASB/IFRS convergence so far and its probable future. A detailed review of convergence in accounting standards is explained through the respective standards for "Pensions and Other Post-Employment Benefits". The paper concludes by suggesting that, while one set of global steps is a noble goal, it might not achieve the desired goal of comparability.

Higher education systems globally have seen major increases in women's participation and the overall trend in OECD countries has been a transition from the traditional male majority in enrolments to a substantial female majority. Prompted by a recent reversal of this trend, this paper explores gender differences in participation in higher education in 27 OECD countries between 1971 and 2015. While increased participation by women was thought to be part of the solution to persistent gender inequalities we argue that this is not an inevitable outcome. Our argument is based on an analysis of changes in the gender composition of the student population, using available secondary data. We explore how changing gender differentials are linked to the concurrent massification of HE, changing distribution of enrolments by field of study, changes in sex segregation by field, features of national education systems and wider social structural differences related to gender. Our analysis examines the complex interaction between discipline-specific levels of sex segregation and overall levels of gender parity. We argue that that sex segregation needs to be considered alongside women's long-standing higher participation rates to understand why the latter has not triggered a transformation in the gendered division of labour.

Cross-border higher education institutions are considered a main way to fulfill the educational internalization in Mainland China; to some extent they represent the attitude of entering the international market. In this paper, the history, status quo, and future of Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run schools are analyzed and discussed. Cross-border higher education institutions in Mainland China have experienced the process from accidental and disorder to a systematic and quality orientation.

As a component of the ongoing development of the mathematics curriculum in China, we compare the country's high school mathematics textbooks with those of several other countries. We base our analysis on the assumption that textbooks, as primary printed teaching resources, are key tools for interpreting educational policy. In this paper, we compare what content is selected and how that content is presented in series of high school textbooks from China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States according to four core domains: algebra, geometry, statistics and probability, and calculus. We then discuss the implications of the analysis for the reform of the high school mathematics curriculum in China, particularly as it applies to the development of textbooks within that process of reform. The comparative results provide us with the opportunity to recognise the distinguishing features of the content and presentation of the Chinese mathematics curriculum and lead to some suggestions for future curriculum development.

Online students use highly emotional language to describe their experiences, indicating that learners do feel a great deal online. This paper draws on Wetherell's exploration of affective practice to theorise learners' responses to the pedagogical and technological online environment. Findings of a research project that focused on two cohorts of online doctoral students are presented, including survey responses and interview data. Thematic analysis indicates that participants experienced positive and negative affects circulating around three sites of intensity: a sense of progression; community interaction and assignment feedback. However, narrative analysis of extracts from the interviews reveal a further level of complexity to the data, drawing attention to the unfinished and shifting character of these affects. The paper concludes by pointing to the implications of this research for designing the online environment in ways that will allow students to experience the full potential of online learning.

Background: Data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) revealed that countries systematically differ in their respondents' literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments skills; skill levels also vary by gender, age, level of education or migration background. Similarly, systematic differences have been documented with respect to adults' participation in education, which can be considered as a means to develop and maintain skills. From a psychological perspective, motivation to learn is considered a key factor associated with both skill development and participation in (further) education. In order to account for motivation when analyzing PIAAC data, four items from the PIAAC background questionnaire were recently compiled into a motivation-to-learn scale. This scale has been found to be invariant (i.e., showing full weak and partial strong measurement invariance) across 21 countries. Methods: This paper presents further analyses using multiple-group graded response models to scrutinize the validity of the motivation-to-learn scale for group comparisons. Results: Results indicate at least partial strong measurement invariance across gender, age groups, level of education, and migration background in most countries under study (all CFI > 0.95, all RMSEA < 0.08). Thus, the scale is suitable for comparing both means and associations across these groups. Conclusions:Results are discussed in light of country characteristics, challenges of measurement invariance testing, and potential future research using PIAAC data.

This paper reports on a questionnaire survey of 16 national libraries designed to clarify how national libraries attempt to justify their web archiving activities. Results indicate they envisage that a) the benefits brought about by their initiatives are greater than the overall costs, b) the costs imposed on libraries are greater than the costs imposed on stakeholders, and c) all of them are making efforts to respond to legal risks in various ways (e.g. legislation, contracting and opt-out policies) although there are trade-off relations in terms of costs for negotiation, scope of access and size and scope of the web archive. The paper discusses whether a basic logic for justification of their web archiving is valid from the perspective of balancing cost-benefit. Further, it highlights the potential, underlying premises of the logic that motivates the intervention of national libraries as public sector organizations. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

This paper empirically examines the impact of academic research on high-tech manufacturing growth of 28 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and emerging countries over the 1991-2005 period. A standard research and development (R&D) expenditure based measure is found to be too general to capture the input in high-tech research. To overcome this problem, a novel proxy for high-tech research investment--the supercomputer capacity--is proposed. Empirical evidence strongly supports this choice of variable. It is also found that academic R&D exerts a larger growth effect on high-tech output than its industry and government counterparts, but only the impact differential between academic and government R&D is statistically significant.

The paper looks at part-time higher educational services for students in the educational systems of Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. A comparative examination of the nature and importance of part-time higher education is then presented. (DB)

This paper is a macro study on higher education R&D and its impact on productivity growth. I measure the social rate of return on higher education R&D in 17 high-income OECD countries using country level data on the percentage of gross expenditure on R&D performed by higher education, business, and government sectors over the period 1981-2006. Empirical results suggest that lagged R&D performed by higher education is positively affecting productivity growth in all specifications. The long-run propensity of productivity growth to R&D performed by the higher education sector is also found to be positive and significant while it is found be insignificant to business R&D. (Contains 13 notes, 3 figures and 8 tables.)

This paper suggests that as university missions have adapted to accommodate major developments associated with, for instance, mass higher education and internationalisation agendas, university workforces have diversified. They now, for instance, incorporate practitioners in areas such as health and social care, and professional staff who support activities as diverse as widening participation, e-learning, and business partnership. This in turn has implications for higher education governance and management structures and processes. Consideration is given to variables likely to affect institutional responses to such changes, and some suggestions are made as to possible ways forward in addressing the interests of an expanding range of professional groupings and stakeholders, as well as those of institutions as a whole. These are likely to involve the development of more flexible organisational frameworks in relation to, for instance, reward and incentive mechanisms and career pathways. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

At least one-third of the 72 million children currently missing out on primary education are estimated to be disabled. With just five years remaining to achieve the Millennium Development and Education for All (EFA) goals, global efforts to ensure all children complete a full cycle of primary education by 2015 will fail if bilateral and multilateral donor support for education does not prioritise the inclusion of disabled children. This paper reviews the commitments and practices of key EFA Fast Track Initiative (FTI) donors in relation to early childhood and primary education for disabled children between 2005 and 2008/9. The review highlights that, while a number of FTI donor partners are beginning to pay greater attention to the inclusion of disabled children in education through their international development cooperation and policy commitments, this has not been accompanied by sustained and systematic action. Weak political will and continued marginalisation of the issue of education for disabled children from the mainstream EFA agenda threatens to impede current efforts towards "education for all". (Contains 9 notes and 1 table.)

The evaluation of government-financed research has become increasingly important in the last few decades in terms of increasing the quality of, and payoff from, the research that is done, reducing the cost of doing it, and lending public credibility to the manner in which research is funded. But there are very large differences throughout the world in the extent to which systems used promote these results. This paper briefly presents the dimensional results of a study designed to comparatively evaluate the national-level research evaluation models in sixteen countries on five merit-defining dimensions. (Contains 6 figures.)

In recent years, a number of analyses assessments used in different countries have appeared. Analyses emerging from international comparisons such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have focused on what might be termed "cross-sectional" comparisons; examining the differences between the assessments in different national systems for students of the same age. Other studies have focused on the study of systems of assessments within a single country, looking at the articulation between the various assessments taken by students at the same ages (another form of cross-sectional analysis within a single system), and by the sequence of assessments taken by an individual over the course of their schooling (a longitudinal focus within a single system). The purpose of this paper is to try to combine both approaches, through the comparison of assessment "systems". The authors' aim is to look at the differences in assessment systems in different countries in order to try to identify the critical design issues. In this context, design issues are not just the features that are designed into the system by its architects. Design issues also include those features of the system that emerge unplanned, but might have panned out differently if different decisions had been taken in the development of the system (good examples of this latter category are the issue of the rate of increase of spread of attainment in the cohort over time, or sex differences in performance). (Contains 4 figures and 4 footnotes.)