No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The Multiple Mini Interview reported in this study offers a selection process that is based on the values and personal attributes regarded as desirable for a career in nursing and does not necessarily predict academic success. Its moderate reliability indicates the need for further improvement but it is capable of discriminating between candidates and shows little evidence of bias.

This article is intended to contribute to the current debate as to whether the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) should become a standard assessment tool for undergraduate nursing education as they currently are for medicine. The authors describe how one UK university developed an OSCE for a nursing undergraduate programme with the aim of emphasising the need for nursing students to be competent in clinical skills and offering a means of standardising the assessment of these skills. There has been an increasing number of research studies carried out in this area at international level and this article's main contribution to the literature is the description of the Angoff standard-setting procedure that was used to calibrate the OSCE at this University and which makes it the first nursing OSCE in the UK to incorporate a scientific standard-setting procedure.

Recent research has shown that students' use of information and communications technology (ICT) on teaching practice is necessary for effective future use of ICT in the classroom. However, this paper reports that there are a number of factors affecting the use of ICT by student‐teachers in their school placements. All 110 student‐teachers attending one university's eight Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses completed a questionnaire on their attitudes to ICT in learning and teaching and their initial experiences of the application of ICT in schools. In‐depth interviews with the student‐teachers, as well as univer‐sity tutors and teachers, revealed a range of issues that reflected how student‐teachers perceive their school‐based ICT training and what they think could improve their experiences. Recommendations are offered for the improvement of the ICT school experiences for student‐teachers until teacher training is completed and improved ICT infrastructure is in place in schools. The overriding conclusion is that schools must be supported and resourced properly, and teachers must have effective ICT training, before improvements in school‐based ICT development for student‐teachers can be achieved.

In this article we argue that the need to integrate information and communications technology (ICT) into teacher education courses goes beyond facilitating the development of student teachers' ICT skills. Such skills need to be developed in ways that will enhance students' ability to teach effectively and will also enhance pupil learning. We illustrate this need by reporting on the experience of requiring student teachers to complete a reflective ICT portfolio during their Postgraduate Certificate in Education course, which is designed for students wishing to become teachers in secondary schools. The perceptions and experiences of 110 students across seven curriculum subjects were explored, as well as the views of university tutors and placement teachers. While the reflective portfolio has many benefits, we show that when attempting to integrate ICT in teacher education there are many challenges, not least the perceptions of the tutors and the students regarding the role of ICT in teaching and learning. We show that reflective practice in the application of ICT in teaching needs to be more than an account of incidents of the use of ICT but that the presentational and communicative qualities of ICT shadow its real potential for improving the teaching and learning cycle. Rather than develop personal skills in the use of ICT, we argue that higher education institutions should develop students' ability to reflect on the use of ICT in the context of teaching in the placement schools in which they teach, so that students learn more effectively about teaching, and pupils in schools can explore new ways of learning offered by ICT. Background to the Study

This article considers whether there are underlying problems in research into information and communications technology (ICT) and reflects specifically on the call for researchers to use quantitative methods more in their work. Reasons for potential weaknesses in educational and, more specifically, ICT research are discussed and the ‘quantitative deficit' is considered in the light of such key issues as ‘fitness for purpose'. ICT research needs somehow to create a measure of freedom from the pressure to examine immediate-term issues relating to ICT policy and practice. More time and appropriate research activities need to be found if we are to lay better foundations for theory building from a more cumulative and coherent research base. The authors contend that the debate about whether to use quantitative or qualitative methods is barren, and that the fit-for-purpose principle should be the central issue in methodological design. The article concludes by calling for all ICT research to reflect the principles of disciplined inquiry: ensuring that we tell our research stories better, by making our evidence explicit and the basis of our arguments open to full scrutiny