Little is known about the effect of diverging pedagogies on the development of interactional oral skills in a foreign language. In a controlled study, we evaluated three newly developed instructional programmes that were situated in the same training context, but that differed in instructional focus and type of task. These were compared to the effects of business-as-usual instruction. Multilevel analysis revealed that all experimental groups outperformed the ‘business-as-usual’ control group on oral interaction skills (N = 199), with similar results for the programmes. Positive effects were found on interaction skills for trained contexts of use only. No transfer was found to tasks in other contexts of use. We conclude that receiving contextualised oral interaction instruction is beneficial to the development of pre-vocational learners’ interaction skills.
DOCUMENT
Comparisons of visual perception, response-selection, and response-execution performance were made between Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients and a matched nondiabetic control group. 10 well-controlled male patients with Type 2 diabetes without diabetic complications (M age 58 yr.) and an age and IQ-matched non-diabetic control group consisting of 13 male healthy volunteers (M age 57 yr.) were included. Significant differences were found only between the two groups on response-selection performance, which concerns the selection and preparation of an appropriate motor action.
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Little is known about the effects of different instructional approaches on learner affect in oral interaction in the foreign language classroom. In a randomized experiment with Dutch pre-vocational learners (N = 147), we evaluated the effects of 3 newly developed instructional programs for English as a foreign language (EFL). These programs differed in instructional focus (form-focused vs. interaction strategies- oriented) and type of task (pre-scripted language tasks vs. information gap tasks). Multilevel analyses revealed that learners’ enjoyment of EFL oral interaction was not affected by instruction, that willingness to communicate (WTC) decreased over time, and that self-confidence was positively affected by combining information gap tasks with interactional strategies instruction. In addition, regression analyses revealed that development in learners’ WTC and enjoyment did not have predictive value for achievement in EFL oral interaction, but that development in self-confidence did explain achievement in EFL oral interaction in trained interactional contexts.
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Even learners with good language ability do not automatically engage in interactional encounters in the foreign language. Affective factors, such as speakers’ willingness to communicate (WTC), self-confidence and enjoyment of oral interaction play an important role in this (e.g. Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014; MacIntyre, 2002). Little is known, however, about the effects of different instructional approaches on learner affect in oral interaction in the foreign language classroom. In a randomized experiment with Dutch pre-vocational learners (N = 147), we evaluated the effects of three newly developed instructional programmes for English as a foreign language (EFL). These programmes differed in instructional focus (form-focused vs interaction strategies-oriented) and type of task (pre-scripted language tasks vs information gap tasks). Multilevel repeated measures analyses revealed that learners’ enjoyment of EFL oral interaction was not affected by instruction, that WTC decreased over time, and that self-confidence was positively affected by combining information gap tasks with interactional strategies instruction. In addition, regression analyses revealed that development in learners’ WTC and enjoyment did not have predictive value for task achievement in EFL oral interaction, but that development in self-confidence did explain task achievement in trained interactional contexts. These results suggest that it is worthwhile for practitioners to address the development of self-confidence in their language lessons, and that they could do so my combining the use of information gap tasks with interactional strategy instruction that includes compensation-and meaning negotiation strategies.
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The in-depth assessment of the situation of the European textile and clothing sector is composed by six independent reports with a close focus on key aspects useful to understand the dynamics and the development of the textile and clothing industry, drivers of change – most notably the impact of the financial crisis – and identification of policy responses and best practices. This has been done in six specific tasks leading to the six reports: Task 1 Survey on the situation of the EU textile and clothing sector Task 2 Report on research and development Task 3 Report on SME situation Task 4 Report on restructuring Task 5 Report on training and Education Task 6 Report on innovation practices This present report of task 5 provides an in-depth analysis of what has been done in terms of VET developments over the last decade in three key TC regions in Europe. It investigates industry ‘s attitudes and practices, education and training changes, and eventually tries to identify how mismatches between skills supply and demand have been addressed there and could possibly be addressed in the future in other regions of Europe.
MULTIFILE
Decisions and business rules are essential Components of an organization. Combined, these components form a basis for securing the implementation of new laws, regulations and internal policies into processes, work instructions and information systems. To ensure proper implementation, business rule types must be taken into account, as the functions per type may be different. The current body of knowledge on decision and business rule management offers some insights into different types of business rules, however, these types are often presented as a secondary focus of a contribution or set in stone without proper evidence supporting these claims. This study therefore aims to explore the different business rule types utilized in the body of knowledge as well as practice. This will form a basis to determine possible overlap and inconsistencies and aid in establishing the functional differences between the defined business rule types. By applying a literature review, semi-structured interviews and secondary data analysis, we observed that the current body of knowledge shows serious diffusion with regards to business rule types, the same holds for practice. Therefore, future research should focus to research these differences in detail with the aim to harmonize the proliferation of business rule types.
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Learning teams in higher education executing a collaborative assignment are not always effective. To remedy this, there is a need to determine and understand the variables that influence team effectiveness. This study aimed at developing a conceptual framework, based on research in various contexts on team effectiveness and specifically team and task awareness. Core aspects of the framework were tested to establish its value for future experiments on influencing team effectiveness. Results confirmed the importance of shared mental models, and to some extent mutual performance monitoring for learning teams to become effective, but also of interpersonal trust as being conditional for building adequate shared mental models. Apart from the importance of team and task awareness for team effectiveness it showed that learning teams in higher education tend to be pragmatic by focusing primarily on task aspects of performance and not team aspects. Further steps have to be taken to validate this conceptual framework on team effectiveness.
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A substantial amount of studies have addressed the influence of sound on human performance. In many of these, however, the large acoustic differences between experimental conditions prevent a direct translation of the results to realistic effects of room acoustic interventions. This review identifies those studies which can be, in principle, translated to (changes in) room acoustic parameters and adds to the knowledge about the influence of the indoor sound environment on people. The review procedure is based on the effect room acoustics can have on the relevant quantifiers of the sound environment in a room or space. 272 papers containing empirical findings on the influence of sound or noise on some measure of human performance were found. Of these, only 12 papers complied with this review's criteria. A conceptual framework is suggested based on the analysis of results, positioning the role of room acoustics in the influence of sound on task performance. Furthermore, valuable insights are pre- sented that can be used in future studies on this topic. Whi le the influence of the sound environment on performance is clearly an issue in many situations, evidence regarding the effectiveness of strategies to control the sound environment by room acoustic design is lacking and should be a focus area in future studies.
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Many studies report changes taking place in the field of higher education, changes which present considerable challenges to educational practice. Educational science should contribute to developing design guidance, enabling practitioners to respond to these challenges. Design patterns, as a form of design guidance, show potential since they promise to facilitate the design process and provide common ground for communication. However, the potential of patterns has not been fully exploited yet. We have proposed the introduction of a task conceptualization as an abstract view of the concept chosen as central: the task. The choice of the constituting elements of the task conceptualization has established an analytical perspective for analysis and (re)design of (e)learning environments. One of the constituting elements is that of ‘boundary objects’, which has added a focus on objects facilitating the coordination, alignment and integration of collaborative activities. The presented task conceptualization is deliberately generic in nature, to ease the portability between schools of thought and make it suitable for a wide target audience. The conceptualization and the accompanying graphical and textual representations have shown much promise in supporting the process of analysis and (re)design and add innovative insights to the domain of facilitating the creation of design patterns.
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The aim of this paper is to examine valuer judgement behaviour, by exploring the manifestation of task complexity in Dutch commercial valuation practice. For this purpose, we adopted a grounded theory approach and undertook 18 in-depth interviews with senior valuation professionals across the Netherlands. Our findings indicate a strong presence of situational task complexity in commercial valuation practice, as professionals operating in large valuation teams perceive different elements of task complexity throughout commercial valuation practice in comparison to peers working in small valuation teams or self-employed valuers. Further, coping strategies used to deal with task complexity vary substantially by type of valuer as well. From our data, we deducted three types of task environment constructs in which valuers operate, which basically represent the various levels of professional standards required by clients as well as organisational settings composed to meet client standards. As such, we found that task environment settings strongly coincide with perceptions of task complexity. The presence of situational task complexity in commercial real estate valuation practice points to the need for customisation of professional valuer’s development programs to facilitate valuers to deal with task complexity in different stages of valuation practice and hence contribute to advancing valuer judgement skills.
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