Search

It is generally perceived that a substantial number of engineering faculty are still unaware of alternative educational methods, and many who are aware of them choose not to incorporate them into their approach to teaching. There are several likely reasons for this inertia, aside from the inevitable human resistance to change. The primary focus of imparting information is restricted to fulfilling the course requirements and, the upcoming term end examination. It is imperative to adopt a change from teaching to learning paradigm engaging the students in Higher Order Thinking Skills. Knowledge and technological advancements are changing the role of engineering and engineering faculty in the society. Engineering Education reforms need to focus on inductive teaching and stimulated learning. Students should be taught critical thinking skills and creative thinking skills to keep pace with the rapidly changing engineering profession. This paper reports the study done to test and explore the faculty awareness of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives in the cognitive domain and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) and to evaluate question papers set by engineering faculty with respect to HOTS as proposed by Bloom's Taxonomy. Various active learning strategies to enhance critical thinking skills and creative thinking skills of the students are recommended for use by the faculty in their interactions with the students.

Extra classes have been a fixture in the educational system in India. They pre-date all existing educational programmes and examinations. Yet more recently the justification and reasons for the maintenance of these classes have been called into question. There have been unsubstantiated claims that in some cases the classes have been "organized" in some schools as a means to supplement some teachers' emoluments. The charge has been made too that some teachers "hold back" in their teaching duties during regular school hours because they have extra classes or time to complete their syllabus. But some of these "after-school" classes focus on recall of facts instead of understanding important concepts and improving. The fact is that the issue of extra classes is a long-standing and complex one. The main objective of the study is to identify the need for extra classes and to check out the plan of lesson and implementation. To give suggestion to the management for rescheduling the working hours. The issue of extra classes is an educational, economic and social one. Extra classes are creating a lot of stress and tension to the students and teachers who have to come early in the morning and late in the evening. This issue has led to lot of problems like resignation of teachers and students being overburdened. This research has been conducted among the teachers and students studying in grade 10, 11 and 12 in one of the reputed schools in Chennai. To find out the exact requirement of extra classes (whom, when (time) and which subjects). Is it the real reason behind their success? Descriptive research was adopted using non probability convenience method from a reputed school in Chennai with a sample of 120 teachers and 326 students. The main conclusion was that for most class 10 and above learners, it is probably too late for meaningful interventions and that mastering basic content of these subjects should be accomplished at the foundation phase of schooling. The provision of extra classes as a norm should be restricted, as it places great pressure on the students and also on the teachers. A good quality of classroom teaching during the regular working hours can tackle the growth of extra classes. (Contains 12 tables.)

Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system is different from conventional education system. ODL system imparts education through multiple media and techniques to equalize the class room education. Unlike the conventional system, the distant learners (students, adults, employed persons, etc.) may face some problems during their course of study. In this paper authors discuss various problems faced by the ODL learners and propose some good practices to enhance the learner's satisfaction level. The paper further describes the importance of Engineering programmes offered through ODL for working technicians (ITI certificate holders) and working technical supervisors (Engineering Diploma holders). It also talks about the career opportunities and promotion aspects after the completion of their respective programmes.

The present paper attempts to establish that peer team teaching of a prescribed English lesson of 1st year B.Tech course by the students will provide more opportunities to enhance their public speaking skills. This kind of classroom activity will also help them to develop their vocabulary, reading skills, team working skills, etc. It is assumed that the students attain reasonable proficiency in reading and writing when they enter into tertiary level education, but they lack proficiency in speaking skills. In this context, the researcher endeavors to conduct teaching sessions by the students' teams to know whether such classroom activities help students to enhance their public speaking skills. The students' teaching sessions will be facilitated and observed by the researcher. To conduct the sessions, first year B.Tech students will be taken for the sample study and a lesson from the prescribed textbook will be provided to the students to read, explain/ present their own views in front of faculty members and entire class. The study will be covered in 3 hours ELCS lab session followed by feedback session. To collect students' feedback, questionnaires will be generated and used. The main objective of this paper is to provide insight/idea to teachers of English to approach activity based peer language teaching in ESL classrooms. It aspires to establish the fact that students' speaking skills can be improved more if they are motivated and given autonomy to speak in the given context.

This paper is an attempt to study the personality profiles of adolescent boys and girls of Anantnag District of south Kashmir. Out of eleven educational zones of Anantnag, one educational zone i.e., Anantnag was randomly selected. A total of 200 adolescent respondents, comprising of 100 male and 100 female students were obtained through random sampling technique. To assess the personality of the respondents R.B Cattel's personality Questionnaire (14-HSPQ) test was administered on the selected 200 respondents. In order to study the mean differences between boys and girls with respect to various dimensions of personality, t-test was used and the obtained results are interpreted and discussed. The findings of the study reveal that there are certain personality profiles among the adolescent boys and girls which can be improved. In order to improve them the investigators provided some of the inferential suggestions at the end of the paper. Key words: Adolescents, Education and Personality.

Purpose: Earlier studies of social capital have focused on its influence on various aspects of business. There is substantial void in the literature on how social capital enables learning culture in organizations. The purpose of this paper is to explore direct and indirect relations between dimensions of social capital and learning culture in the organizational context. Design/methodology/approach: A survey-based research was conducted in which the questionnaire based on the Dimensions of Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) and social capital was used. Participants in this study were employees from an IT organization based in India. Data was subjected to structural equation modeling to understand causal relations between social capital and learning culture. Findings: This empirical study emphatically shows that parameters of social capital positively influence individual learning. Results show that shared vision, shared narratives in the cognitive dimension; trust and identification in the relational dimension; and mutual confiding in the structural dimension have a positive influence on individual learning. Originality/value: Findings in this paper indicate that a culture of learning in organizations starts with individuals and it can be fueled and sustained by social capital embedded within the organization if managers focus on enabling the factors identified in this study through policies and practices.

This paper explores the issues underlying the credit risk governance mechanism of banking institutions in emerging economies. This is an important area of study given the essential role that banks play in the financial markets of emerging economies and the widespread banking reforms that these economies have implemented. The aim of this study is to draw conclusions about the level of satisfaction among banks' credit risk officials' with respect to Credit Risk (CR) governance mechanism currently installed in their respective commercial banks and proposes a novel research model. The proposed research model is based on the premise that by being in constant touch with the credit risk officials through their opinion surveys and in addition by acting upon the information so gathered can lead to significant improvement in CR governance mechanism in emerging economies. This paper attempts to gain insights into the four important elements underlying Credit Risk (CR) governance mechanism in commercial banks, namely, CR governance organization, CR governance policy and strategy, CR governance operations and systems at transaction level and CR governance operations and systems at portfolio level. The study draws conclusions on the basis of primary data collected from the senior credit risk officials who are themselves involved in designing and implementing CR governance mechanism in their respective banks. It also attempts to identify potential revisions/modifications in the existing CR governance mechanism that may be targeted in near future in emerging economies. The study findings are based on the empirical data collected from thirty commercial banks in India, an emerging economy through a structured questionnaire. The study concluded that Indian credit risk officials had medium level of satisfaction with regard to current CR governance practices followed in their respective banks. It was further concluded that there lays a strong case to take remedial measures with regard to some issues to build up a sustainable CR governance mechanism. The top priority issues identified, such as: sanctioning of authority in accordance with the professional qualification of the personnel, regularity in training, regular revisions in credit risk rating model, monitoring practices at the transaction level and credit portfolio management have clearly highlighted avenues for future areas of improvement and up-gradations in CR governance mechanism in commercial banking sector, a special subset of Corporate Governance.

The concept of social networking has received much attention from academia over the last decade in India. Widespread research has conceptualized the term social networking with almost all of the studies either conceptual or based on case studies. This paper is an attempt to clarify the construct of social networking by developing a reliable and valid questionnaire measuring social networking usage. 420 university students from 6 universities in Jammu and Kashmir were surveyed via a random sampling technique and factor analysis carried out on their responses. The findings revealed that social networking usage can be decomposed into four factors: academic; socialization; entertainment and informativeness. The internal consistency indices, Cronbach's alpha of social networking usage (a= 0.830) indicates good internal reliability. The findings revealed that the newly developed questionnaire has significant psychometric features.

In recent times Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been able to make inroads into the ways information is disseminated among those involved in direct farming and farming related enterprises. This paper arose from a two-year study of the KissanKerala, the e-learning project underway in Kerala, a small state in India. It is more conspicuous when we learn that the KissanKerala project is able to disseminate agricultural information also among digital immigrants. Since 2003, the KissanKerala has been providing advisory services to the farming community in Kerala using a combination of technologies. Salient features of the project are discussed. Noteworthy are its interactive web portal and the online agri-video channel that uses the video sharing platform of YouTube. In this paper, we look at the e-learning strategies adopted; virtual learning environments created and also discuss participative tools used for communication. We have also made an impact-study of the project with a large number of beneficiaries. We learn that the Kissan Kerala is one of the most successful learning projects undertaken in distance mode in India. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Mobile learning is a kind of learning that takes place via a portable handheld electronic device. It also refers to learning via other kinds of mobile devices such as tablet computers, net-books and digital readers. The objective of mobile learning is to provide the learner the ability to assimilate learning anywhere and at anytime. Mobile devices can be used not only to convey information but also can be used as modern comprehension. In present days mobile learning focus on the distance learning through mobile devices. Progression in mobile communication skill will push more educational atmosphere in which the interactive society is interested. The term mobile learning is a much more recent modification, motivated by mobile communications technology and modelled on expressions such as electronic learning, which refers more generally to learning and teaching supported by computers and other electronic devices. The investigator used the survey method to determine the development of global trends of mobile learning in modern research practice as a learning style. The investigator has used two tools for the present study. They are Mobile Learning Questionnaire and Personal data sheet. The major objective of this paper is to establish the progress of mobile learning as a learning style among student teachers and find the correlation between mobile learning and academic achievement among student teachers. The major hypothesis of this paper is there is no significant difference between mobile phone users and others in mobile learning as a learning style among student teachers. Also there is no significant correlation between mobile learning and academic achievement among student teachers. The major finding of this paper is there is significant difference between mobile phone users and others in mobile learning as a learning style among student teachers and there is significant correlation between mobile learning and academic achievement among student teachers. That is, the student teachers who are using mobile device are better than others in mobile learning as a learning style. Also the mobile learning and academic achievement have high correlation in the learning of student teachers. It is concluded that mobile phones increases learning paradigms and also the inventory related to learning.

A satisfaction and dissatisfaction level within an individual influences the motivation level and his/her performance throughout the life. When an individual is satisfied with his/her work, he/she gets pleasure and feels motivated. Obtaining satisfaction from their education system is very important for students as this will lead to better learning possibilities. This paper aims to compare the level of academic satisfaction among the students of Traditional Education System and Open Education System. This paper also investigates academic satisfaction of urban and rural based students and comparing them over traditional (Urban: 110; Rural: 90), and open (Urban: 80; Rural: 71) education system. Statistical tests demonstrate that there is significant difference in the level of academic satisfaction among the students of Open Education System (OES) and Traditional Education System (TES). (Contains 12 tables and 5 figures.)

This paper investigates the teaching of English at undergraduate colleges in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India in the backdrop of Andhra Pradesh English Lecturers' Retraining Program. The program was jointly sponsored and conducted by the Directorate of Collegiate Education, Government of AP and the US State Department English Language Fellow Program. The main aim of the program was to update the teaching skills of English teachers of undergraduate colleges in the State. The program trained teachers to adopt Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) principles so as to enhance English language skills of their students. The paper attempts to identify the possibilities and problems in the implementation of CLT principles and techniques in these colleges. The results indicate that teachers should follow more learner centered ways in their teaching of English.

This article analyses the levels of students' satisfaction and how institution provides infrastructure facilities in the field of higher education. Infrastructure is the fastest growing segment of the higher education scenario. Universities play a very vital role in a country in terms of their potential. It contributes to employment and growth. The basic objective of this paper is to look for students' satisfaction in Sri Venkateswara University. After a careful study of academic standards in higher education, an attempt is made to assess the student satisfaction in different categories of university colleges with regard to infrastructure facilities such as class room and lab facilities, amenities in the hostel, library, sports facilities etc., a framework was developed to examine the satisfaction issues surrounding university. The framework looks at the important interlinks among demographic characteristics, behavior characteristics, infrastructural facilities and overall customer satisfaction. Students first form expectations of service performance prior to purchasing or use. The customer then compares the perceived performance to prior expectations. Customer satisfaction is seen as the outcome of this comparison. The study area for this study was Sri Venkateswara University, Andhra Pradesh. The sample respondents were administered questionnaires randomly. The results of the study show that: appropriate statistical analyses such as factor analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regressions, multivariate analysis of variance, and multivariate analysis of covariance were used to fulfill the respective objectives of the study. This study also tries to highlight the importance of students' satisfaction assurance of service providers and using quality equipment in education. This paper can be useful to the planners and marketers in formulating strategies to maintain or enhance their competitiveness when compared with other universities.

This paper presents the strategies employed by Indian middle-school students working in groups to identify three unfamiliar artefacts. The activity described in this paper was aimed at sensitising students to the close link between form and function and to bring a certain amount of uncertainty in the tasks before the actual design task. It was part of a larger study (Ara et al 2009) that explored students' ideas about design and designers before and after they engaged in design related activities. Twenty two students of class 7 worked in six groups of three or four members and the entire exchange was video-recorded. The verbatim transcription of the conversation within the groups and the actions and gestures executed by students were categorised. Groups came up with various accidental functions for the three artefacts and only three groups were successful in identifying the intended functions of all three artefacts. All groups utilised similar strategies while trying to identify the artefacts however they differed in the frequency of use of these strategies. "Cognitive strategies" included active discussions within the group and "handling strategies" involved manipulation of the artefacts by the group members. Groups which were less interactive, less critical of others ideas and less defensive of their own ideas were unsuccessful in identifying the intended functions of the artefacts. (Contains 5 tables and 5 figures.)

Researchers have theorized that cultural emphasis on education plays a major role in explaining Asian students' achievement. While Asian parents often view education as the main vehicle for upward social mobility, the social and cultural make-up of Asian societies and the context within which education is conducted in Asia often clash with the modern approaches and methodologies adopted into Asian classrooms. Contemporary approaches to education especially in relation to autonomous, learner-centred and online philosophies though theoretically supported and statistically proven successful in the west have been slow to capture Asian learners' interest and engagement. This paper discusses some of the reasons for the problems and challenges that need to be confronted prior to the introduction and effective implementation of autonomous online learning programmes. It further describes an attempt at confronting the above issues through a research project conducted by group of academics from the National University of Malaysia. The paper concludes by featuring some of the principles and strategies employed in the online programme developed for the research and the implication of their use on learner engagement to online autonomous learning programmes.

Tremendous changes are taking place in the world which certainly influence the system of education, and teacher education too cannot remain immune to these global changes. Information Technology (IT] is affecting teachers, individuals and society. Digital learning has opened the doors of classrooms and made knowledge accessible even for those sitting at home. The preparation of teachers has also changed with the passage of time and with the change in expectations of society. Teachers have always played a crucial role in preparing communities and societies towards exploring new horizons and achieving higher levels of progress and development. The teacher educators occupy a pivotal position in the system of education. The success of any educational reform depends upon the quality of teachers and in turn the quality of teachers depends to a large extent on the quality of teacher education. In view of the above fact, the computer education paper was introduced as a compulsory paper in the common core curriculum for B.Ed course, for all the secondary teacher-training institutions in the state. The present researcher conducted a survey with a designed questionnaire to assess the computer usage, computer literacy, and the attitude of B.Ed trainees towards teaching computer education. A sample of 200 B.Ed. students from government and private colleges of education both male and female from the Kakatlya University region, were included to make a through analysis using statistical evidence. The study reveals many facts regarding the availability of computers in educational institutions and the percentage of student and teacher users.

Despite a growing body of evidence, the common causal factors of plagiarism among international students are still widely seen to be poor language skills or a lack of academic integrity on the part of the students. This research uses the experiences of a particular cohort of students to explore these assumptions. It investigates and compares the notion of academic integrity and the understanding of plagiarism of both Indian postgraduate students who are currently studying in Australia and students currently studying at Indian universities. Postgraduate international students from India have studied in English at an undergraduate level in India and have a clear understanding of academic integrity in their own context. However their undergraduate experience occurs in a culturally different context to that of the Australian university system and they face the challenge of learning new academic conventions. This paper argues that students coming from different educational cultures require proper and explicit induction into the principles and philosophy behind many western academic conventions as different conventions of scholarship in the Australian education system can create unique difficulties for them. To accuse international students in general of a lack of integrity because they plagiarise or to blame only their lack of language skills for plagiarising seems to be arguable. Rather, the impact of transition from a different university culture without explicit academic skills orientation and instruction needs to be addressed. The paper also points towards the paradox of punishment in western universities where international students have to prove their integrity and innocence regarding the ethical principles of a new and foreign culture.

One of the challenging issues that has gained much attention, and has in fact sparked much debate, within the emergence and acquisition of World Englishes, is the Native- Non-native accent, especially its relationship with teachers' and learners' identity and selection of an appropriate pedagogic model. This paper investigates the attitudes of 260 English teachers from India and Iran as members of Outer and Expanding Circles, respectively. Using a questionnaire, this study measures cognitive, affective and behavioral attitudes of teachers towards their own English accents in two circles which include the most users of English in the globalized world. The results show that teachers in the Expanding Circle (Kachru, 1992), compared to those in the Outer Circle, had an exonormative orientation, favoring native-speaker and mostly American English pronunciation. Indian teachers were in favor of endonormativity, highly valued their local forms of English while they were in favor of British English. Teachers' preferences will be discussed with consideration of the historical and political backgrounds of the two countries which might have influenced the construction of teachers' identity. The results of this study suggest that, together with encouraging and valuing different varieties of English, it is important to acknowledge and promote ways to raise awareness of teachers and learners towards global spread of English.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has provided the better learning opportunities to the present teachers and learners across the world. In the era of internet, many educational resources are free and lot of free softwares are also available. In our country the basic operating system used in educational institutions are proprietary in nature and we all are dependent to that. But in past few years the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement has broken the outlook of using the paid softwares. In the generation of online learning, where Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are being used by educators for transacting the curriculum based material, we need to use the available FOSS also. The Indian Government is also encouraging the usage of GNU/Linux in all the institutions. Still there are lots of barriers which are making teachers and students reluctant towards the usage of FOSS in education. So in this research paper, the authors have attempted to conduct a small scale research to find out the awareness of FOSS among school teachers along with their usage and barriers. An attempt has also been done to suggest some FOSS, which could be useful for teachers while transacting the curriculum.

This paper summarises experiences of efforts made by twenty individuals when implementing small-scale ICT development projects in their organizations located in seven developing countries. The main focus of these projects was the use of ICT in educational settings. Challenges encountered and the contributing factors for implementation success of the projects are systematically investigated using interviews and follow up surveys. Results show that the typical limitations of technology and infrastructure were the key obstacles. The commitment of individual project managers in the role of "change agents" and organizational support in the were the strengths behind the success of the projects. Based on the outcome of this study, professional development of the change agents is a key factor for the success of projects. IT and infrastructure limitations contributed to the failure of the majority of the ICT related projects.

Logistic regression is a popular tool used to build and evaluate binary choice models. It has been applied in a variety of situations and contexts involving dichotomous choice. In the current paper, we apply it to explain and predict the individual choice of adopting online learning through a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC), a specific artefact in the domain of online, open learning. The MOOC holds promise for a developing country like India to scale quality education to keep up with an overwhelming demand of its large population. Hence the importance of the choice to enter MOOCs in the Indian context cannot be overemphasized. Factors possibly driving MOOC adoption were selected after an extensive literature study and a binary logistic regression model was applied to analyze their influence using data from a primary survey. A variety of different subsets of possible explanatory variables under consideration were experimented with. Due diligence was exercised with respect to model selection and evaluation and a 'best' model was identified and discussed. Among other things, our proposed model suggested that a respondent's online communicative efficacy was the strongest predictor of MOOC usage and similarly their preference for self-directed learning. In terms of practice and policy, the results of this study underline the need for strategies for enhancing digital literacy, online efficacy, self-directed learning and e-readiness of the prospective higher education aspirants in order to help with wider MOOC outreach and adoption in a developing country like India.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of university in shaping pro-environmental behaviour in students. Design/methodology/approach: The paper used goal-framing theory to investigate the relationship between goals and pro-environmental behaviour by comparing the responses of entry- and exit-level students. Structural equation modeling, one-way analysis of variance and other standard statistical analysis have been used to analyse the data collected through questionnaire survey in a central university offering technical education in India. Findings: Pro-environmental intention in students increases with a strong normative goal. The direct and indirect effects indicate hedonic goal and gain goal via normative goal leads to better pro-environmental behaviour. Higher values for normative goal in exit-level students substantiates the role of university. Practical implications: The paper provides scope to improvise and incorporate environmental practices into the habits of the students by aligning their goals and university dimensions including curriculum, campus operations, research and outreach activities. Originality/value: The results make an important contribution in establishing a sustained green culture by offering a new university paradigm.

There is an urgent need to improve elementary and secondary school classroom practices across India and the scale of this challenge is argued to demand new approaches to teacher professional learning. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) represent one such approach and one that, in the context of this study, is considered to provide a means by which to transcend traditional training processes and disrupt conventional pedagogic practices. This paper offers a critical review of a large-scale MOOC deployed in English, and then in Hindi, to support targeted sustainable capacity building within an education development initiative (TESS-India) across seven states in India. The study draws on multiple sources of participant data to identify and examine features, which stimulated a buzz around the MOOCs, leading to over 40,000 registrations and a completion rate of approximately 50% for each of the two MOOCs.

Purpose: Technical education in India contributes a major share to the overall education system and plays a vital role in the social and economic development of the nation. Despite of rapid growth of technical education in last decade in terms of the no. of institutes and intake capacity in India, institutes failed to attract enrollments. Last three years saw, increasing gap in between the actual no. of enrollments and intake capacity; 46% of seats were vacant in Technical Education in India in 2015. The purpose of this paper is to highlight institute's role in promoting enrollments in Technical education. Design methodology: A quantitative research by a survey (through a structured questionnaire) of students who are presently enrolled (Current-students) and those who have completed their study (Alumni) belonging to the institutes offering Technical Education situated in Khandesh region of India and affiliated to the North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon. Findings: The study found that diversified characteristics of enrollments are related with the promotion mix of TE institute in selection of technical educational institute. This study investigates the usefulness of school visits, institution publications, websites, campus visits, word-of-mouth (friends, alumni, school teachers), advertisements (radio, television, magazines) and events on campus, as a tool of promotion. Social Networking and Institute's Website are the new forms of promotion mix in selection TE institute in rural part of India. Research limitations: The survey is delimited to the enrollments of technical education belonging to North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon and located in Khandesh region of India. Practical implications 60-70% of population belongs to rural part of India. Different promotional strategies of promotion mix can be used based on geographic and demographic segmentation. This will enhance, making awareness, fondness regarding Technical Education in the rural part and will act as lubricant in decision making of selecting their technical educational institute.

Purpose: In addition to create challenging and congruent learning opportunities, it is important for Technical Education providers to create a supportive learning environment to help learners acclimate, connect with others and as well as access well-matched student support services to help them complete their studies and make them employable. Skill building is very crucial to ensure employability of academia to understand and make sure good jobs. Unfortunately, most of the Technical Education institutes in India have not identified the importance of such services, resulting huge unemployment and dissatisfied students. The purpose of this paper is to highlight supporting and extension services in connection to operating services in Technical Education and students' perception on them. Design methodology: A quantitative research by a survey (through a structured questionnaire) of students who are studying or have studied Technical Education affiliated to the North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon on their perception regarding operating, supporting and extension services offered by TE institutes. Findings: The research revealed that TE institutes, no doubt, are offering good operating services however lags in supporting and extension services. It is also found that students' satisfaction of selecting TE institute is highly associated to supporting and extension service than operating services offered by the institute. Research limitations: The survey is delimited to the Technical Education belonging to North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon and located in Khandesh region of India. Practical implications: India, compared to other nations, lacks formally trained manpower. In Korea, for example, the skilled workforce is 96 per cent, in Japan 80 per cent, in Germany 76 per cent and in Britain 70 per cent but in India it is only 10 per cent.Technical Education Institutes of India, can gain competitive edge in the future, by effective and creative ways to attract, retain and foster stronger relationships with students by interaction and mechanism of the market and industry. This is only possible by lubricating; operating, supporting and extension services, all services combined.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the papers in this special issue and some issues surrounding choosing management as a career. A jointly developed questionnaire is also presented. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is descriptive in nature. Findings: It is crucial for researchers and practitioners to expand their perspectives to include other cultures and other theoretical perspectives beyond those offered by traditional vocational choice theories. Originality/value: Understanding the antecedents, correlates and consequences of people's vocational choice to become managers will not only help researchers and practitioners and benefit managers, but will improve the understanding of career choice in general. (Contains 1 note.)

Purpose: Educational institutes must embrace the principles of total quality management (TQM) if they seek to remain competitive, and survive and succeed in the long run. An educational institution must embrace the principles of quality management and incorporate them into all of their activities. Starting with a theoretical background, the paper outlines the results of a study conducted on both internal and external customers of the educational system, with select engineering and management institutes as foci of study. The study is an attempt toward developing an integrated customer-centric model of quality management in education, through the use of multiple methodologies so as to be able to evaluate service quality; prioritize improvement of service; and guide and develop educational services by incorporating the voice of the customer (VOC). The purpose of this paper is to establish the prioritization for improvement of service design of an educational system through incorporation of the VOC, be it internal or external customers, through the use of multiple methodologies, leading to generalization of results. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses multiple methodologies with various techniques for analysis through the application of the SERVQUAL; quality function deployment (QFD); interpretive structural modeling (ISM); and path analysis. The SERVQUAL was applied to identify the gap and determine the level of service quality. Following this, QFD, ISM and path analysis were used to identify the set of minimum design characteristics/quality components that would meet the requirements the various internal and external customers of the educational system. The QFD was used to identify the set of minimum design characteristics/quality components that meet the requirements of the various internal and external customers of the educational system. The ISM and path analysis were used to identify and prioritize the design characteristics/quality components that would meet the requirements the various internal and external customers of the educational system. Findings: The findings from the various techniques were amalgamated, and proposed as an integrated model of TQM in higher education. The study helped identify with a customer perspective, the quality components which would help design TQM for higher education institutions in India. Research limitations/implications: The paper could be useful to government bodies, funding agencies, policy makers and administrators in developing a system that could lead to satisfaction of both internal and external customers of the educational system. Originality/value: The study includes within its scope the varied customers of the educational system, namely, internal and external customers of the educational system; the internal customers being the faculty and the administrative staff, and the external customers being the students and the industry (as the employer). This is yet to be seen in other research studies. Also, the integration of the multiple tools and their application to the field of higher education in India, has not yet been made available in the literature.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify challenges for management education in India and explain their nature, significance and interrelations using total interpretive structural modelling (TISM), an innovative version of Warfield's interpretive structural modelling (ISM). Design/methodology/approach: The challenges have been drawn from literature and validated by an empirical study conducted through questionnaires administered electronically and personally to 250 management graduates. TISM has been applied to 14 finalised factors. Findings: All the identified factors, except accreditation, were found to be important. Ineffective regulatory bodies and ineffective leadership emerged as the biggest roadblocks. Several significant interrelations were found which were sometimes not revealed by plain observation. Originality/value: The existing literature has discussed the challenges for management education but not their interrelations. This paper uses TISM to demonstrate the relationships between different challenges and to explain the logic behind the relationships. The results would be useful for the owners (or managers) of management institutes faced with the same challenges.

It is not unusual to find that employers operating in low-pay sectors are reluctant to provide vocational training. Frequently they fear benefitting competitors as better-skilled employees command a more competitive position in the labour market and may choose to leave one employer and take their newly acquired skills elsewhere. However, in contrast the expectation might reasonably be that employers in more skilled sectors would be more enthusiastic about such training particularly when the financial, environmental and human costs, of errors are high. This paper therefore analyses vocational training provision in the more skilled sector of professional seafaring. In this sector, accidents may cause massive environmental damage and loss of life, and may incur substantial fines and financial penalties. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative data, the paper focuses upon the adequacy of the training that is provided to seafarer officers in relation to the introduction of new technology aboard their vessels.

Research on engineering practice is scarce and sharing of qualitative research data can reduce the effort required for an aspiring researcher to obtain enough data from engineering workplaces to draw generalizable conclusions, both qualitative and quantitative. This paper describes how a large shareable qualitative data set on engineering practices was accumulated from 350 interviews and 12 field studies performed by the principal investigator and by students conducting PhD and capstone research projects. Ethical research practice required that sharing and reuse of qualitative data be considered from the start. The researchers' interests and methods were aligned to maintain sufficient consistency to support subsequent analysis and re-analysis of data. Analysis helped to answer questions of fundamental significance for engineering educators: what do engineers do, and why are the performances of engineering enterprises so different in South Asia compared with similar enterprises in Australia? Analysis also demonstrated the overwhelming significance of technical collaboration in engineering practice. Conceiving engineering practice as a series of technical collaboration performances requires a more elaborate understanding of social interactions than is currently the case in engineering schools. Another finding is that global engineering competency could be better described in terms of "working with people who collaborate differently". Research helped to demonstrate that formal treatment of technical collaboration in an engineering curriculum could help avoid student misconceptions about engineering practice that hinder their subsequent engineering performances.

"Mobile Learning" (m-Learning) has emerged as a trend in the field of Open and Distance Learning (ODL). It is removing the time and geographical barriers for learning by placing learning opportunities at the fingertips of learners. ODL institutes in India are also adopting m-learning in different forms; however, it is not fully implemented due to various reasons. This paper aims to explore possible challenges faced by teachers of Open Universities of India in implementation of m-learning. In this context the teachers of Indian Open Universities were surveyed to identify and rate the intensity of various challenges in the successful implementation of m-learning in the ODL system. The findings from respondents (n = 72) revealed that out of thirteen (13) challenges presented to them, the three most important challenges were: (a) lack of support for instructional design for m-learning; (b) lack of institutional policy for m-learning and (c) lack of infrastructure/technological support. These barriers were extrinsic in nature as they were institution dependent. The least important challenges were found to be: (a) intrusion on personal time due to 24 x 7 access; (b) reluctance to adopt technology; and (c) difficulty of use. These barriers were intrinsic in nature as they were person-driven. Challenges of m-learning were found to be the same irrespective of gender. Institutions need to provide adequate institutional support in terms of policy, infrastructure and instructional design for the successful implementation of m-learning.

Purpose: This paper aims to study the relationship between high-performance work system (HPWS) and organizational performance and to examine the role of human resource development (HRD) Climate in mediating the relationship between HPWS and the organizational performance in the context of the power sector of India. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical research paper has been conceptualized on the basis of extensive literature survey and examined through a case-based approach. Data and information collected to examine strength of the proposed hypothesis in the context of a power-based company in India. Findings: Agreeing with most of the research, HPWS is found to be positively related with organizational performance. The result does not agree with the HPWS research conducted in Asian countries. Taking clues from "Black Box" approach, the role of HRD Climate as a mediating factor has been studied. The result proved that HPWS influences organizational performance through a supportive development environment (HRD climate) based on openness, confrontation, trust, authenticity, proaction, autonomy, collaboration and experimentation (OCTAPAC). Research limitations/implications: Designing and implementing HPWS requires the organization to nurture and develop a suitable HRD climate through development of organizational culture based on OCTAPAC. Practical implications: Implications for HRD-HPWS practices such as group-based pay, decentralized participative decisions, self-managed work teams, social and family events, and appraisal based on team goals along with OCTAPAC culture can significantly contribute to the transfer climate by influencing both peer and supervisor. It can significantly contribute to training motivation by influencing both career and job attitudes, and organizational commitment of trainees. Originality/value: The research is unique in its attempt to understand the role HRD climate as intermediating variables to enhance the effectiveness of HPWS. This may add a lot of value in encouraging organizations to establish HRD Climate.

Purpose: This paper aims to study the antecedents and consequences of learning organizations (LOs) in Indian higher educational institutes. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology used is survey-based. Primary data were collected from 300 faculty members of Indian higher educational institutes. Findings: It was found that all the variables, i.e. resonant leadership (RL), knowledge management, intrapreneurship and total quality managt1ent, have a significant moderate impact on LO. It has also been found that LO results in strong employer branding. Research limitations/implications: Discussions are performed and conclusions are drawn in the context of existing literature. The study bears implications for researchers to take on similar research in other contexts. Practical implications: The study bears significant implications for faculty members working in higher educational institutes. It is suggested that RL should be used to contribute toward LOs in institutions. Moreover, this would make the institute emerge as a strong employer brand. Originality/value: This paper identifies significant antecedents and consequences of LOs. It is a pioneering effort to use all these variables together as predictors of LO in Indian context.

Purpose: Management education is at its peak in India. But pedagogy and modes of delivery are not always innovative compared to top international Business Schools. It is through experimentation that the paper may be able to discover what works best in our context. The purpose of this paper is to determine the effectiveness of intensive mode of delivery vs traditional semester-wide teaching of management courses among MBA students of a leading Business School, through one such experiment. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 19 dimensions were used in this study. The questionnaire was tested on two different groups. An independent sample t-test was conducted for each dimension, to find out if the group that was subjected to this experiment had opinions different from the group that did not undergo the accelerated version. Findings: The results indicated perceptions on most of the dimensions disconcerting, barring increase in commitment, engagement, focus, and concentration with intensive mode. Further, this negative perception augmented towards intensive delivery mode, after experiencing traditional delivery. Practical implications: The literature does appear to show controversial outcomes related to intensive mode but more studies are in support of intensive modes of delivery format. The issue of whether students learn better in a semester/trimester of traditional length or with a compressed schedule is a key concern to the innovations in higher education scheduling today. Findings of this study pose a serious threat to all those management institutions which are planning to attempt to speed up the delivery of programmes and courses within them in order to reduce cost or other reasons. Originality/value: In education literature, significant amount of research has been carried out using a time compressed in developed countries. This study is one of the first studies, which focuses on determining the effectiveness of intensive teaching against traditional trimester/semester wide teaching among MBA education in India.