The authors studied a group of professors at a large school of medicine in the western United States to determine the extent to which they were aware of past or current educational research, their feelings about the enterprise of educational research, and how they made pedagogical decisions. The study emphasizes a qualitative analysis of the data by using in-depth, confidential interviews; many typical responses are quoted. The authors found little or no knowledge of past or current educational research even among those professors who thought such research to be valuable. The possible reasons for this finding are discussed.
Arguably the trend that has had the greatest impact upon education, especially vocational education and training, but also, perhaps to a lesser degree, general schooling and higher education, has been the heavy emphasis on learning outcomes. Learning outcomes are defined as 'statements of what a learner knows, understands and is able to do after completion of learning' (Cedefop, 2009). This emphasis has had a profound influence on not only the nature of teaching and learning processes but also the types and frequency of evaluations of courses and subjects and the focus of audit and regulatory regimes. A plethora of reports worldwide have surfaced over the decades fuelling the press towards learning outcomes from the highest levels. Mastery learning and competency-based training policies and programs were a significant stage catalysing the shift away from the broad and general aims of earlier liberal education programs, towards the more focussed, explicit training objectives of the Mager (1984) variety (with the three elements of performance, criteria and conditions) and onto the even more tightly framed, precisely worded learning outcomes that are found in competency standards (with their element statements, performance criteria and range of variables). In the Australian context, perhaps this shift has been most commonly depicted in the transition from the technical and further education of the Kangan era to the competency-based training of the Training Reform Agenda era. As Jones (2018) has eloquently stated: The paradigm shift from Kangan to the Training Reform Agenda and beyond was a struggle between two conflicting sets of ideas about what vocational education ought to be, evolving in two very different economic and social milieux.
This research examines what practitioners in vocational education and training (VET) organisations and external auditors judge to be the key issues in the current and future delivery of e-assessment. Applying the framework of legitimacy theory, the study examined the tensions around the use and growth of eassessment in training organisations, and challenges to both training bodies and auditors around their legitimacy to operate. Forty-eight interviews, 10 focus groups and two industry workshops were completed with practitioners and auditors who had in-depth experience in e-assessment and audit practices. Results revealed tensions between training providers and auditors around the current validity, authenticity and security of e-assessment. However, there was also strong agreement between the groups about the practical steps for resolving these tensions between auditors and VET institutions.
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