Journal on Efficiency and Responsibility in Education and Science
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A State-Level Analysis of Mexican Education and Its Impact on Regional, Economic, and Social Development: Two-Stage Network DEA Approach
Get PDFEducation has been considered a cornerstone for human and economic development. Although there is a national educational strategy in most countries, various implementations are at the state level. This paper studies academic efficiency at the primary and secondary levels and the human development dimensions –long and healthy life, being knowledgeable, and enjoying a decent standard of life– at the state level. For this purpose, a network data envelopment analysis (NDEA) with two stages was proposed. The first stage studies the educational process efficiency, while the second evaluates its impact in the form of the human development index. The study found significant differences between the evaluated states in the education stage, where the lowest efficiencies are mainly in the southwest of Mexico. The results also indicate that better education quality leads to greater regional, economic, and social development at the state level. This study contributes to the NDEA applications on the understanding of the impact that education has in improving the development of the regions holistically
Exploring the Practical Impacts of Research Engagement on English Language Teaching: Insights from an Online Community of Practice
Get PDFPractitioner research has been gaining prominence as a means for professional development (PD) since it provides teachers with opportunities to reflect on, comprehend, and transform their practices. However, there is a dearth of research that examines how teachers learn in online communities established to mentor teachers across the world to learn how to do research for PD. This study explores teacher researchers’ use and integration of their research experiences in their teaching as well as uncovering how they develop professionally. To this end, we contacted and interviewed 5 international teacher researchers who participated in our 5-week online training in 2021 within the scope of TESOL’s Electronic Village Online (EVO) and shared the preliminary findings. Interviews lasted around 50 minutes during which teachers reflected on their research experience in retrospect and self-reported how this influenced and informed teaching. Transcripts are analyzed thematically through the NVivo software. Findings indicate that our participants reported practical improvement in their instructions not only during but also after the research. They also highlighted how research implementation with their students created opportunities to revisit their own beliefs and the corresponding practices. The study has implications for in-service teacher educators and research mentors who provide online research-driven PD
Self-compassion as a Newly Observed Dimension of the Student's Personality
Get PDFThe mindfulness-based methods are on the rise in the mental health care of students as well as employees. Therefore, the research on self-compassion is necessary to explore abilities and personality traits that are cultivated by the mindfulness approach. Our research deals with the assessment of the level of self-compassion by the students of the Faculty of Economics and Management at the Czech University of Life Sciences to precise the planned mindfulness-based intervention. Further, the gender and personality specifics as well as a connection to academic achievement are examined. For this purpose, the Self-compassion Scale, and the NEO-PI-R were used. The results proved insignificant correlations between the self-compassion subscales and self-reported grades, but also subtle differences in the structure of the self-compassion by males and females. Further, correlations between the neuroticism and the Self-compassion Scale and its subscales were revealed. Structural equation modeling was involved to gain more complex insight in the researched area
Preconceptions of Happiness and Satisfaction: The Perspective of Children from Czech Primary Schools
Get PDFThe aim of this research was to determine what children aged 10–15 associate with happiness/satisfaction as well as to analyse which factors are related to their feelings of happiness and their evaluation of life satisfaction. A total of 954 children attending Czech primary schools from various socio-cultural backgrounds were surveyed using the incomplete sentence method. The levels of both their happiness and satisfaction were measured using the Subjective Happiness Scale and Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale. The results indicate that the children considered themselves relatively happy and satisfied, and they understood happiness/satisfaction in terms of the concept of eudaimonia (personal growth, achievement of school goals, etc.). Happiness/satisfaction were indicated at a significantly lower level if the children did not feel accepted by their caregivers, described themselves as ‘melancholic’, were raised in a single-parent family, or spent their childhood in institutional care. Further, as the children grew older, their happiness/satisfaction levels declined. Neither gender nor spirituality were found to predict happiness/satisfaction
Sustaining Action Research: A Practical Guide for Institutional Engagement by Anne Burns, Emily Edwards and Neville John Ellis
Get PDFThe volume Sustaining Action Research: A Practical Guide for Institutional Engagement by Burns, Edwards and Ellis looks at Action Research (AR) and similar participant-oriented approaches from a new perspective. Rather than adding to the growing literature of AR research reports and accounts provided by individual teachers or small groups of teachers, the volume looks at how, beyond the micro level, educational leaders can initiate, support, and sustain AR at their institutions and influence educational developments at meso and macro levels. The book provides teachers, teacher educators, mentors, and educational leaders with a wealth of activities that, in themselves, create an AR cycle, moving from the local context of the microcosm of a classroom up to the institutional and, ultimately, the national and even international level. The volume looks at education from a socioecological perspective and convincingly establishes a solid link between theory and practice, where the individual experiences of classroom practitioners are scaffolded by relevant research and the AR process is both reflected on and celebrated at key stages. The presentation is user-friendly, the information is up-to-date, and the resources are both varied and easily accessible
Inquiry and Research Skills for Language Teachers by Kenan Dikilitaş and Ali Bostancioğlu
Get PDFPublished in 2019, Inquiry and Research Skills for Language Teachers is written to assist teacher educators in the design of research methodology courses in English teacher education programs. Conceived in the authors’ conviction that most research courses do not succeed in empowering teachers’ professional practices, the book resorts to Exploratory Practice to configure an approach that appeals to the interrogation of pre-service teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward research to increase engagement and foster inquiry skills. In the book, Kenan Dikilitaş and Ali Bostancioğlu lay out a step-by-step guide for teacher educators to design research courses that are more connected to the realities of future teachers, in the hopes of achieving a long-lasting effect on teachers’ professional identities. The book addresses an audience that is familiar with the challenges teachers face when trying to bridge the gap between theory and practice and implement evidence-based teaching
Measuring the Efficiency of Turkish Research Universities via Two-Stage Network DEA with Shared Inputs Model
Get PDFThe efficiency of universities, which have a network structure of production process, is an essential component of performance measurement in education. However, most previous studies use traditional Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which disregards the network structure of the production process in universities. This study adopts a two-stage Network Data Envelopment Analysis (NDEA) with shared inputs model to assess the overall, teaching and research efficiencies of Turkish research universities. The findings show that only 6 out of 23 research universities are efficient, and some universities with lower world rankings are more efficient than those with higher rankings. On the other hand, no significant difference was found between the efficiency levels of regions with a high level of socio-economic development and regions with a relatively low level of socio-economic development. The study also evaluates the effects of different priority scenarios on efficiency and the optimal allocation of shared inputs between sub-processes. This study provides guidance for universities seeking to improve their performance and for the Council of Higher Education (CHE) in determining incentives for research universities. It also promotes the use of multi-stage NDEA with shared inputs model over traditional DEA for accurate efficiency assessment in the field of education
Constructing teacher identity in teacher collaboration: What does it mean to be a teacher of culturally and linguistically diverse English learners?
Get PDFResearch calls for practice-based inquiry where language teachers conduct exploratory action research to transform their pedagogical practices to impact student achievement. This study builds on the research in practitioner inquiry, teacher collaboration, and teacher identity to investigate how a seventh-grade English Language Arts (ELA) teacher (Heather) constructed her identity as she collaborated with an ESL teacher (Amanda) to plan for and teach ESL students in a collaboratively taught ELA classroom. Our qualitative inquiry included data gathered from two collaborative cycles with three semi-structured interviews, two collaborative planning sessions, fieldnotes of the collaborative teaching sessions, and two reflective journals authored by the ELA teacher. The findings illustrate that Heather constructed her teacher identity as a novice teacher with surface-level understandings of ESL students and a limited knowledge about how to plan for the ESL students in her classroom. Collaboration did not disrupt her deficit student perspectives nor did this partnership pave the way for Heather’s renewed understandings about how to teach ESL students in the ELA classroom. Collaboration, instead, provided Heather access to Amanda, whom Heather positioned as an experienced content teacher who could make the content accessible to ESL students
Exploring Students’ Mathematical Beliefs: Gender, Grade, and Culture Differences
Get PDFThe investigation of students’ conceptions of knowledge of mathematics and the process of knowing mathematics is important to provide an understanding of the phenomena behind students’ performance. However, there is a scarcity of empirical investigation of students’ beliefs about mathematics knowledge in the Indonesian context. This study aims to assess students’ beliefs about mathematics education. The relation of these beliefs with gender, grade, and culture was also examined. Fifteen classes were selected by stratified random sampling methods. 536 students (boys = 217, girls = 319) from 8-9 grades participated in the present study. The result of this study revealed students viewed that their mathematics teachers have tried to make mathematics lessons interesting and perceived that mathematics knowledge continues to expand. Boys’ students hold stronger beliefs that they can understand the most difficult tasks in mathematics than girls’ students. Grade eight students have higher beliefs than ninth-grade students. Javanese students hold stronger beliefs in mathematics performance than Madurese students. The finding of this study provided information on how to design teaching and learning mathematics in the Indonesian context
Ranking of European Universities by DEA-Based Sustainability Indicator
Get PDFThe paper introduces a novel approach to university rankings that considers a university's contribution to sustainable development. It addresses the usual controversies surrounding the construction of rankings using composite indicators. The conventional approach typically involves normalizing sub-indicators and applying subjective weights for aggregation, which raises concerns about the reliability of the rankings. In response to this issue, we propose an alternative method based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) that utilizes flexible weights. Our approach is applied to the data from the UI-GreenMetric World University Ranking. We initially employ a general Benefit of the Doubt DEA model and subsequently enhance its discrimination power by computing super-efficiency. In the third model, we impose weight restrictions on sub-indicators. The results of our analysis offer valuable insights for all stakeholders, as illustrated by the implications derived for Czech universities included in the sample. Furthermore, we compare the results of universities in various European countries, establishing a connection between rankings and the fulfillment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) within individual countries. This research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between university performance, sustainability, and the associated implications for policy and benchmarking