Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Educational Management, Volume 28, Issue 1.
Welcome to the first issue of 2014 which also includes a conference report on the NAESP conference in Baltimore 2013. In this issue you will see seven papers on educational management with authors from Australia, USA, Malaysia, Finland, South Africa,Chile and Israel. There are a wide range of topics from student loyalty to online programmes, Moodle, University service quality,knowledge management, student perceptions of change, student mobility and deputy principals in Arab schools.
In the first paper from Macquarie University New South Wales (Jayde Cahir et al.) contribute work on the implementation of Moodle. Many universities are in the process of changing their learning management systems to Moodle yet there is little research on the impact of this change. The paper explores the results of an initial pilot which was conducted as the first stage of implementing Moodle at an Australian University. Although the paper concentrates on a small pilot at one University it highlights an ongoing issue that has consequences throughout the higher education sector.
The second paper is by Ali Deghan of Wesleyan College, Georgia, USA, with other colleagues from East Michigan University and the University of Toledo. The fast expansion of low cost internet access and increased demand for innovative educational systems has meant the growth in popularity of online learning which has reduced barriers for students. The study seeks to examine the relationships among servicer quality, commitment, satisfaction, reputation and loyalty. A model is developed grounded in relationship marketing theory which includes and tests these variables.
The next contribution is from Sean Yit Chong and Pervaiz Ahmed of Monash University, Sunway campus, Malaysia. In the HE sector,literature service quality remains a field of concern and despite the growing research base there seems to be a lack of consensus in the meaning of university service quality, partly because of its complexity. The use of student opinion is a key factor. The scope of the study is framed to address these research questions:
How do business university undergraduates in Malaysia make sense of their university service quality experience?
What is the essence of the university service quality experience as described by the business undergraduates in Malaysia?
A work is submitted by Pirio Syysnummi and Hari Laihonen of Tampere University of Technology on the subject of management perception of knowledge education in Finland. The aim of the paper is to bridge a knowledge gap regarding managerial processes that support teachers in their diverse knowledge tasks. A qualitative case approach was applied to uncover the knowledge processes of a vocational education organisation in Finland. The results of the study indicate that knowledge management is so closely related to education organisations’ value creation processes that it should be considered an essential part of modern educational management. Based on this notion the paper argues that more emphasis is needed especially on mastering knowledge that relates to the education function and the creation of enabling knowledge structures that support this function.
Paper 5 is by Joseph Seabi and colleagues from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and is on the experiences of university students on the transformation in South Africa. This study investigates the students’ perception of the challenges they face at one University in South Africa. The study also explores students’ perceptions of transformation directly and their ideas related to the facilitating of this process. The authors reflect briefly on colonialism and apartheid in South Africa and the state of higher education after 18 years of democracy.
The next submission is on student mobility in Southern Chile from a case study perspective. An exploratory study is presented to analyse the experiences of students in an exchange programme over a five-year period and the academic performance of local students abroad.
In the final paper, Khalid Arar of the Centre for Academic Studies, Graduate school of Education, Jaljulia, Israel has contributed a piece on an era of reform in Arab schools as perceived by deputy principals. The deputy principals perceived their role as arduous and complex possibly as a result of vague role definitions. They mostly dealt with administration rather than pedagogy to shape school vision and policy. Mostly these deputies did not aspire to be promoted further to principals.
NAESP conference report
This year I attended the National Association of Elementary School Principal' National Conference in Baltimore, Maryland,USA between 11 July and 13 July. This is a major conference for those involved in the leadership and practice of elementary/primary schools i.e. approximately four to 11 years old. The theme of the conference was "Best practices for better schools", and as the title suggests the conference is chiefly for those involved in the practical aspects of primary education. Given that this is part of IJEM's goal i.e. to encourage the links between academia and practitioners I was keen to check the latest innovations. The range of seminars and general sessions available seemed to reflect the need to be aware of raising standards for all students. Indeed the opening general session was attended by the US Secretary of State of Education, Arne Duncan who reflected on what seemed to be a vigorous approach by government to helping teachers to help all, irrespective of background. The problems are not dissimilar to the UK-student debt, national debt and attempts to overcome the problems. Student debt is a particular concern of democratically elected governments which are anxious not to create higher education only for those who can afford it. Mr Duncan was well received and said many things that the audience related to no mean achievement for a politician in education and a rarity in the UK.
This session also included Dr Freeman Hrabowski a Baltimore University President, who reflected on background and education,especially poignant as he was at an early age part of Dr Luther King's marches for equality in education.
A plenary session was led by Gabe Zichermann who talked about the "gamification" revolution – i.e. the way in which people can learn through the utilisation of "games" to engender interest in subjects. He emphasised that it was not just any games but targeted games for particular purposes. Examples were given of the raising of standards in several schools including the use of "monopoly" by an expert player who happened to be a teacher who used the board game to raise the standards of maths with his students.
Perhaps the best keynote speaker was Michael Fullan whom I last heard at the ICP conference in Toronto two years earlier. He is the author of Professional Capital and out now Stratosphere. His work is biased towards purposeful action. He has four key concepts focused on realising the moral imperative of "raising the bar" and closing the gap for all students.
The four factors are:
"simplicity" - identifying a small number of core factors must be included in the focus and realising that the problem is how to make them gel;
"motion leadership" - i.e. the kind of leadership actions that cause "positive movement" forward in individuals, schools and systems;
"whole system reform" - making the entire system the focus-all schools, all students in clusters, regions, states and countries;and
"the skinny" -a summary term for the previous three and in which is the essence of what you need to know to get success-an essence that can be easily grasped by leaders who apply themselves.
Dr Fullan talked about the need for the "right drivers" in education as too often educators go down the wrong track. Team work is one of the keys to success. In the new world technology plays a key role in learning but to be successful it is not necessary for the teacher to know it all but to harness others to help-teachers and students become partners as the latter will always be ahead in new developments and they can help their peers. In such an environment technology becomes a powerful accelerator for learning where teachers and students partner.
"Teaching with poverty in mind" was a plenary session hosted by Eric Jensen, a man brought up in an extremely hostile environment who moved school nine times as a youngster. The point was he knew the impact this has on students and he produced a lot evidence showing the physiological changes in the brain as a result of low unchallenging behaviour. Schemes such as brain gym make use of such knowledge. A small amount of physical exercise makes positive changes in the brain and regular focused mental work can engender positive changes. Poverty is a major factor in low achievement yet good teaching can help overcome these factors and again he showed evidence of tremendous high school achievements in very poor areas – one of the messages was to aim high and for teachers to try to be sympathetic to the impact that poor backgrounds have on the children's behaviour and on self perception.
On the fourth day Todd C. Whitaker spoke on "getting all teachers to be like out best teachers". Dr Whitaker is Professor of Education at Indiana State University and a former principal, the first at the age of 25. His humorous presentation on how to deal with both good and mediocre teachers within a school setting was practical advice on handling complex teacher situations.
The final major presentation was from Dr Adam Saenz who gave a personal life perspective of his upbringing, his school life,and how he began to turn his life around gradually. This was an emotional lecture, by someone who wasn’t playing to the cameras. Here was a PhD who had consistently rejected school, yet eventually comments made by two of his teachers stayed with him and helped him fulfil his potential. This was a former pupil telling principals what it was like to be like he was and to encourage them not to give in on any of them because they did not know the impact they had in later life.
This was a worthwhile conference which must have helped recharge the batteries of the principals present.
Brian Roberts
