Interest in the problem of method biases has a long history in the behavioral sciences. Despite this, a comprehensive summary of the potential sources of method biases and how to control for them does not exist. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which method biases influence behavioral research results, identify potential sources of method biases, discuss the cognitive processes through which method biases influence responses to measures, evaluate the many different procedural and statistical techniques that can be used to control method biases, and provide recommendations for how to select appropriate procedural and statistical remedies for different types of research settings.
To do justice to students and as a matter of professional duty, faculty members should be at the center of defining and measuring undergraduate learning outcomes, argue Josipa Roksa and Richard Arum.
Ontario’s professors and academic librarians are on the front lines of Ontario’s universities. They are uniquely positioned to assess the performance of the sector, and to evaluate the ways in which proposed reforms may impact their institutions and their work.
In early 2012, Ontario-based education media began reporting that the Government of Ontario was entertaining a number of significant changes to the structure, academic content, and program delivery methods of universities. Some of these reported changes were introduced in a leaked discussion paper titled 3x3: Revolutionizing Ontario’s Post-Secondary Education System for the 21st Century. Key proposals within this report include:
This report assesses the University of Ottawa’s economic, social, and community impact.
As a leading research-intensive institution with a unique bilingual education mandate in Ontario, the university is currently, and is positioned to continue to be, an important generator of ideas, an innovation leader, a national top-10 research facility, a magnet for domestic and international talent, a collaborative learning network for graduates and faculty, an expert advisor to companies and governments, and a force in provincial and national innovation.
Paid Parental Leave LESSONS FROM OECD COUNTRIES AND SELECTED U.S. STATES
The United States is at a crossroads in its policies towards the family and gender equality. Currently America provides basic support for children, fathers, and mothers in the form of unpaid parental leave, child-related tax breaks, and limited public childcare. Alternatively, the United States’ OECD peers empower families through paid parental leave and comprehensive investments in infants and children.
Discussed below are seven classroom strategies that are frequently encouraged by teacher trainers and/or administrators and are assumed to be useful. However, when examined more closely what one sees is that they are actually highly ineffective and tend to encourage negative effects on the classroom climate, students’ psychology and level of function and order in the class. We need to therefore stop suggesting teachers use them, and if they have been suggested to you, you might politely decline and instead consider implementing better alternative practices that will get you long-term positive results such as those described below.
The reading and math skills of 15-year-old immigrant students, as measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) between 2000 and 2012, vary across regions of Canada.
Regional variations were also observed in the high school and university completion rates of youth who immigrated in Canada before the age of 15, as measured in 2011.
Grade Inflation, Higher and Higher
The most common grade is A -- at all kinds of colleges. But while grade point averages are increasing at four-year institutions, that's not the case at community colleges.
Certaines données utilisées dans ce guide sont tirées du projet de recherche-action Modes de travail et de collaboration
à l’ère d’Internet réalisé sous l’égide du CEFRIO. Ce projet visait essentiellement à étudier la mise en place,
le fonctionnement, l’évolution et les résultats générés par une série de communautés de pratique virtuelles. Rappelons
qu’il poursuivait trois grands objectifs :
Mental health is a pressing concern for post-secondary students in Canada. The 2016 National College Health Association survey of Canadian post-secondary students demon-strates that a significant number of students are experiencing mental health problems and illnesses: 44.4% of surveyed students reported that at some point in the previous twelve months they felt “so depressed it was difficult to function”; 13% had seriously considered suicide; 2.1% had attempted suicide, and 18.4% reported being “diagnosed or treated by a professional” for anxiety. 1 The growing prominence of mental health issues among post-secondary students is not limited to Canada – it has been noted by practitioners
Ontario is reviewing its university funding model, an enrolment-based formula through which the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities distributes a $3.5B annual provincial operating grant to the province’s 20 publicly assisted universities.
We examined the existing model in our June 2015 paper The Ontario University Funding Model in Context. We observed that the model is a relatively small (27 %) component of total university system revenues. We concluded that this small slice of funding must be managed in a focussed and strategic way if it is to be effective in shaping behaviour towards desired provincial objectives (HEQCO, 2015).
Much of our work as educators consists of designing and delivering experiences in which students can develop their understanding and application of concepts and skills in our disciplines. Given that we have only 16 weeks with our students, we need various ways for deepening and expanding these formative experiences in our field. Visiting experts can be a wonderful way of developing expertise, and leveraging online tools like Skype and Zoom can open up powerful possibilities for new collaboration and conversation.
A message in bold and italics emblazons the home page of the Lakehead University Student Union food bank’s
website. “We are in desperate need of food!!!” it reads. “Any amount that you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks to everyone who helps out!!!” The page urges students at the Thunder Bay, Ont., school to get in touch if they
have “an emergency need for food.” The urgency of the post reflects a troubling new trend on university campuses. As
post-secondary education costs continue to rise, students are finding it increasingly difficult to afford food. Across the
country, food-bank visits are up, and a new study shows almost half of 450 students surveyed at Lakehead lack food
security.
How international university students think about home significantly influences their migration plans upon graduation, according to a new study from the University of British Columbia.
“A lot of research focuses on where international students go to study, but few focus on where they go after graduation,” said study author Cary Wu, a PhD candidate in UBC’s department of sociology and an international student from China. “Our study shows that migration plans for international students are far more complex than this binary of stay or return.”
PANEL MANDATE, SCOPE
OF REVIEW, AND PRINCIPLES
ABSTRACT
Canadian accomplishments in science and scholarly inquiry have long been a source of national pride. However, by various measures, Canada’s research competitiveness has eroded in recent years when compared with international peers. The change coincided with a period of flat-lining of federal spending through the four core funding agencies that support researchers in universities, colleges, institutes, and research hospitals. In those years funds were also directed preferentially to priority-driven and partnership oriented research, reducing available support for independent, investigator-led research by frontline scientists and scholars.
The proportion of federally derived funding for research has also declined. Canada ranks well globally n higher education expenditures on research and development as a percentage of GDP, but is an outlier in that funding from federal government sources accounts for less than 25 per cent of that total, while institutions now underwrite 50 per cent of these costs with adverse effects on both research and education.
A requirement for quality assurance is becoming more prevalent in higher education today as institutions are being asked to demonstrate that they are providing robust, meaningful learning experiences for students. Many institutions are adopting curriculum review frameworks as part of their overall quality assurance strategy. Three leaders at various levels who were engaged in a year-long curriculum review process share reflections about their experiences and challenges while conducting an undergraduate program review. Their theoretical framework for an effective curriculum review process is shared in
this paper. The leaders offer institutional, faculty, and course level insights, and make five recommendations for a collaborative curriculum review process: (1) setting clear expectations; (2) maintaining open, consistent communication; (3) incorporating multiple levels of leadership; (4) engaging various groups of stakeholders; and (5) implementing through actionable items.
This paper presents an empirical analysis of the Ontario-led strategic man-date agreement (SMA) planning exercise. Focusing on the self-generated stra-tegic mandates of five universities (McMaster, Ottawa, Queen’s, Toronto, and Western), we asked how universities responded to this exercise of strategic visioning? The answer to this question is important because the SMA process is unique in Ontario, and universities’ responses revealed aspects of their self-understanding. We adopted an organizational theory approach to understand the structure and nature of universities as organizations and explored how they might confront pressures for change. Analysis of the universities’ own proposed strategic mandates found elements of both conformity and striking differentiation, even within this sample of five research-intensive university SMAs. Directions for further work on this planning exercise and on higher education reform more generally are discussed.
Public education must serve the public and so it’s important to understand public perceptions of their education systems. This is CEA’s fourth such report and is based on a survey of over 2,400 Canadians between January and May 2007.
The changing nature of work is a hot topic these days and policy makers across the globe must grapple with the challenges it presents. In our search for solutions, we need to remember that the future of work is inextricably linked to the future of education.
It is this linkage that makes Joseph Aoun’s new book, Robot-Proof, a must-read for anyone who is thinking about workforce development or education policy – though, of course, if you’re thinking about one, you should be thinking about the other.
When Western Illinois University’s Board of Trustees on Friday approved cutting four degree programs as majors and modifying four more, it looked like another chapter of belt tightening at a cash-strapped public institution suffering collateral damage amid state budget difficulties.
But administrators didn’t come out and blame finances. The programs arrived on the chopping block because they exhibited declining or low enrollment, Western Illinois leaders said -- not because the university needed to find millions of dollars in savings to make up for an expected plunge.