Report of the Evaluation Committee

1. Introduction

The aim of this essay is to provide a detailed report about the work of the evaluation committee in Module 4.1 ‘Curriculum Development, Course Design, Higher Education Didactics, Evaluation of Teaching’, which took place in the week between 7^th to 11^th of May 2007.

The formation of an evaluation committee was based on a proposal of the professors responsible for the module, Professor Barbara M. Kehm and Professor Matthias Wesseler. The committee was defined as a ‘task force’ which should support the quality of Module 4.1. Its precise task was to monitor the teaching and learning process, and contribute to enhance its quality wherever possible. The project was considered to be a practical exercise on quality assurance for the students, who voluntarily agreed to conduct the evaluation. Not only should the members of the committee define their own ‘external’ evaluation approach, but also focus on their own procedures, materials and outputs, and share their experiences and insights with the whole group. The original members were Shengyin Chen, Christian Noumi, Zarko Dragsic, and myself. This team started the evaluation exercise, and gave first insights in the workflow and provisional reflections of the committee in two short presentations during the module week. Due to internal problems in the group, the composition of the evaluation team slightly changed after that; and in the end, the final presenters of the evaluation findings, outcomes and recommendations on Friday the 11th of May 2007 were Carla Ramirez, Yuanyuan Yu, Christian Noumi, Zarko Dragsic and myself.

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An analysis regarding the status of the degree structure implementation in the higher education systems from Romania and Germany

Starting with the analysis of the Bologna Process’ necessity, as an European reform system, and taking into account the opportunities and needs of the involved countries, the study wants to overhear the different implementation strategies of the new study cycle system in an Eastern European and a Western European country, as well as the extent to which the Bologna principles are implemented rather by heart or by word.

Based on the official declaration and communiqués of the European ministers of education, the country reports, stocktaking reports, country laws, statistics and other articles on this topic, a study of related literature has been done. At the beginning the author wants to create an image about the two higher education systems included in the study, then to shortly present the action lines of the Bologna Process, accentuating the one regarding the cycle system, in order to create the basis for the last part of the study, a comprehensive analysis of the cycle system implementation in Romania and Germany.

The results of the study showed that the different strategies didn’t lead to a faster implementation or a more accurate one, but to a slowly and conscientious process. The different approaches had a positive effect upon the implementation time, and the lack of information of the involved actors is a common problem in both countries.

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Dear students and researchers in the field of higher education,

I welcome you all on occasion of the establishment of this new website. The website started as an idea among some of our students in the international Master Programme “Higher Education” (MAHE) which is offered by the University of Kassel since October 2004.

It is intended to provide a platform for learning, the exchange of information and for networking among all who are interested in this particular field of expertise on a global scale. With the use of new information and communication technologies worldwide exchange of views and knowledge is no longer a problem. I hope that you will contribute to making this new undertaking a success and that the website will eventually become a locally anchored but globally accessible repository of knowledge and information about the field of higher education research. So “glocalize”!

I wish the new website a successful launch and hope that many students and researchers in the field will contribute to it.

Prof. Dr. Barbara M. Kehm
Managing Director of the International Centre for Higher Education Research at Kassel University
Programme Director of MAHE

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INTRODUCTION

Higher education as a field of study is a relatively new concept. Moreover it doesn’t encompass a specific body of knowledge but rather can be considered as a multidisciplinary subject. The disciplines contributing to higher education research include, among others, educational sciences, psychology, sociology, economics, political science, history or law. Depending on the interest and perspective of studies, emphasis can be put on specific approaches: educational with educational sciences and psychology as leading disciplines, management approach relies on business studies, economics and public administration. A third approach consists in addressing higher education research in social science perspective with the help of disciplines such as sociology, political sciences, social history and history among others. Such a broad range of subjects involved provides opportunities for a broad set of theories in the field of higher education research. One of those theories concerns the reasons behind higher education system and their subsequent changes in time. In other words what are the major theoretical approaches contributing to the explanation of higher education systems and their dynamics? It should be noted here that many authors deal with these development based on empirical analysis of specific countries and from that provide theories based on these findings (Fairweather, 2000; Scott, 2007). Other authors approach this question essentially on the process of differentiation or diversity (Clark, 1983, 1996; Huisman, 1995, 1998). There is also a third method by which aspects of changes in systems of higher education are analysed broadly and therefore aims at an explanation convering larger scope than patterns of diversity (Gellert, 1993; Teichler, 1988, 2007). Important also is the fact that our analysis of systems of higher education specifically addresses the aspects of structural development (shape and size) and not the patterns related to teaching and learning. Taking all these aspects into consideration our analysis tries to point from these approaches the aspects specifically providing theoretical explanation of the systems and their evolution and changes. As a first we therefore need to clear the meaning of concepts such as higher education and higher education system, but also provide a common typology of higher education systems in the world. The second part of our task, based on a range of authors’ works is dedicated to the causes behind the existence of specific types of higher education systems and the subsequent changes and evolution it has encounter and might head to in the future.

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Sometimes writing reference list could be so confusing since there are a lot of different rules. Each university or even each faculty use different rule in writing reference list. The different rule of writing reference list is normal because they refer to different style guide.

There are a lot of styles guide available. MLA (Modern Language Association of America) style; the Chicago Manual of Style; the Oxford Guide to Style are some examples of style guide. Difference reference of style guides chosen will result in totally different way of writing reference list.

The most widely accepted style guides in social science is the APA (American Psychological Association) style. In some higher education journal (e.g. Journal of Studies in International Education, Higher Education) it is stated clearly that author must submit their paper according to APA style.

This article will excerpt some most-used list of reference according to APA style (APA Publication Manual 5th Edition).

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1. Introduction

1.1 Reasons for the Formation of UNESCO

The goal of Higher Education has always been to generate new knowledge, train officials of high standard, to offer efficient response to societal demands and to overcome these tasks in an applicable system of moral principles. Before the end of the Second World War (1939-1945), there was the call for oneness in the intellectual and scientific communities. Universities and higher education Institutions exposed their zeal to fasten the bond of cooperation which they realised was the cause for misunderstanding amongst nations resulting to wars regardless of frontiers. The formation by the United Nations of a defined body called UNESCO (United Nations Education and Scientific Organisation) in 1945 was partly to oversee the implementation of higher education priorities.

The UNESCO had as prime objective the promotion of education as a whole in the national, regional and international community on the bases of capabilities and as a right designed by nature, to bring together nations and obtain a culture of peace. The organisation had to make and apply laws for the improvement of higher education and to have a better position for its recognition in the field, UNESCO in 1960 adopted into its constitution Article 26 of the Unilateral Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which stipulates that “everyone has the right to education” and that “higher education shall be accessible to all, on the basis of merit”. Furthermore, it recalled the Convention Against Discrimination (CAD) and called on states signatories to its accord, to “make higher education accessible to all on the merits of abilities.”

These steps though small, were all hopeful beginning towards its fight for the world wide recognition and improvement of higher education and the glories accompanying it to educators, students and the society which receives the services all over the world.

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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether income difference between male and female graduates still exist after controlling variables that contributing to income difference. Those variables are types of work, working hours and field of study. The European graduates’ data from CHEERS project is utilized in this study. From 2000 respondents in CHEERS dataset, 50.1% are female and 49.8% are male. After controlling the hypothesized influences, the result of t-test analysis showed that there is still income difference between female and male graduates. Female graduate annually earn 17% - 20% less income than their male colleagues.

Introduction

It was obvious that despite the increase of women’s participation in higher education and the labour force, they still work in a strongly sex-segregated market and under job condition which men would have rejected (Barbezat, 1987; Currie, 1991). The most apparent gap between female and male in the labour force is the remuneration difference. However, since 1980’s, it is reported that the gender pay gap has narrowed dramatically and women have increasingly entered traditionally male occupation (Blau and Kahn, 2000).

Those studies conducted to analyse the income difference between female and male have always shown a difference in remuneration. Female graduates earned less than their male counterparts (Mora, Garcia-Aracil, and Vila, 2007; Glinskaya & Mroz, 2000; Hinze, 2000). Recent studies by Vermeulen-Kerstens (2006) concluded that gender is the best predictor of career earnings. Furthermore Vermeulen-Kerstens noted that in the scope of Netherlands, where the study took place, this finding indicates that attempts by governments and other agencies aimed at decreasing the income gap between males and females are still unsuccessful. Vermeulen-Kerstens also raising a question about what is needed to be done to help female graduates become as successful in their career as their male colleagues.

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This article is basically ripped off from Field’s Discovering Statistics Using SPSS for Windows with some minor subjective interpretation from me. So if you have access to the book just read it instead of this article. It is really a good book for you who want to learn SPSS and statistics. Highly recommended book !

Factor analysis was first used in 1904 by Charles Spearman, a Psychologist from United Kingdom. Spearman used factor analysis in his models of human intelligence. With factor analysis he developed theory that variety of cognitive test could all be explained by one single factor which called g factor. Later on Raymond Cattell, psychologist from US, used factor analysis in most of his research on intelligence which lead to the development of his theory on Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence. 16 Personality Factor (16PF) test is also one of Raymond Cattell’s research results based on factor analysis.

…factor analysis is used to study the patterns of relationship among many dependent variables, with the goal of discovering something about the nature of independent variables that affect them. Factor analysis is quiet different to other statistical analysis method. Many statistical analysis methods are used to investigate the relation between independent and dependent variables. In contrast, factor analysis is used to study the patterns of relationship among many dependent variables, with the goal of discovering something about the nature of independent variables that affect them. The tricky part is that those independent variables were not measure directly. Thus answers obtained by factor analysis are necessarily more hypothetical and tentative than is true when independent variables are observed directly (Darlington, 1997).

Factor analysis in psychology is most often associated with intelligence research. Nevertheless, the use of factor analysis can be observed in other domain of psychology such as personality, attitudes, etc. The trait theorists in psychology have been used factor analysis to measure personality traits. The Extraversion- Introversion and the Neuroticism traits by Eysenck and 16 Personality Factor questionnaires (16 PF) by Cattell are some of the examples of implementation of Factor Analysis (Field, 2000). Furthermore, factor analysis is used widely in other social sciences, education, business fields, biological science, etc.

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