Developing intercultural competences of university teachers under the view of action research

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Hanesová ◽  
Anna Zelenková
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
University Teachers

scholarly journals Intercultural competence of university teachers: a challenge of internationalization

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Zelenková ◽  
Dana Hanesová
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
English Language ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Medium Study ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Significant Deficit ◽  
Intercultural Mediators

Abstract The aim of the authors is to respond to the growing demands on the intercultural competence of university teachers due to intensified internationalization pressures on higher education, especially due to the growing number of students and teachers’ international exchanges. They report on an intercultural course design responding to this need, presenting a case study from Slovakia. First, they define the need of intercultural competence of university teachers, especially those teaching in English-medium study programmes. Then they share a) findings from a needs analysis preceding the design of a new curriculum for an intercultural competence course (ICC) at Matej Bel University (MBU) with three aims (development of linguistic, cultural and pedagogic competences); and b) results from action research during piloting the ICC course. A comparison of 2011 and 2018 surveys pointed to the growing dominance of the English language, including an increasing command of English by MBU teachers. The ICC curriculum, tailored to the pre-identified teachers’ needs, proved to be a feasible way of facilitating their intercultural competence. Its implementation revealed persistent prejudices and difficulties associated with overcoming them. It also confirmed a significant deficit in preparing university teachers for their role as intercultural mediators in English-medium courses.

scholarly journals Development and Assessment of Key Skills in Undergraduate Students: An action-research experience

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Fernández-Santander ◽  
María José García-García ◽  
Beatriz Sáez-Pizarro ◽  
María José Terrón-López
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Employability Skills ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Font Size ◽  
Education Students ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Key Skills ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Development Assessment

<p><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 11pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Employers look for professionals able to work in a team, able to approach the problems, with the capacity to analyze and resolve problems, under the constant renewal of knowledge and competencies. In this paper, a group of University teachers from different areas of knowledge presents an experience to introduce key employability skills in the higher education students’ curricula. This work has been developed under the action research scope. The first goal was to make an analysis of terms referred to key skills, generating an integrated denomination for each competency. The elaboration of general templates for key skills is proposed here as a useful tool that provides information about development, assessment and marking of each skill. Different types of rubrics and assessment templates, used during this experience, are presented.</span></p>

scholarly journals Encouraging Reflection and Critical Friendship in Preservice Teacher Education

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 87-112
Author(s):  
Branko Bognar ◽  
Irena Krumes
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Reflective Thinking ◽  
Professional Competence ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Critical Friends ◽  
Research Cycle ◽  
Reflective Practitioners ◽  
Education Courses

Reflectivity is an important professional competence of contemporary teachers. In order to explore how to encourage students’ reflection, we conducted a two-year action research project impelling them to become mutual critical friends. For critical friendship communication and other project activities, we utilised Moodle – an online learning management system. On the basis of the analysed data that were gathered at the end of each action research cycle, we determined that the students felt comfortable in the role of critical friends and that critical friends’ reflections were particularly pleasant for them. They experienced the comments of their critical friends as friendly, encouraging, useful, specific, interesting, detailed, positive, professional and clear. The majority of students (91%) think that the critical friendship discussion should be continued within the course Correlated-integrated systems in Croatian language teaching, and 85% of them suggest introducing this approach in other teachers’ education courses. We determined that the technical mode of reflective thinking prevails in the students’ correspondence. The practical or contextual level could rarely be observed while critical reflection was completely absent in 11 of 14 discussions. Reflective thinking of students (future teachers) should be fostered from the beginning of their studies within various courses, particularly in the pedagogical and methodological ones. To encourage their students to be critically reflective, university teachers should embrace reflective thinking by becoming critically-reflective practitioners and conducting action research in their teaching practices.

University teachers’ action research: An adventure into uncharted waters?

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 262
Author(s):  
Ali Rahimi ◽  
Ahmad Madani ◽  
Hamid Rahimi
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
High Reliability ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Research Skills ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Diagnostic Skills

One of the main approaches of educational systems in enhancing the teaching quality has been increasing teachers’ action research skills. The objective of this study has been identification of university teachers’ action research skills in higher education in Iran. The population under study has been all teachers at University of Kashan, Iran (283) from which 189 teachers have been randomly selected. The instrument employed has been a self-made questionnaire which assessed teachers’ action research skills based upon four factors (diagnostic Skills, attitude towards action research, data collection skills, and practical action research abilities). The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by Cronbach’s Alfa as 0.852 and this is indicative of the high reliability and internal consistency of the instrument. This study clearly showed that a large number of university teachers have no information about the role of action research in improving the quality of teaching and learning. Data analysis showed that even noticeable differences are not observed in the behavior of teachers familiar with action research and those who are unfamiliar with it. The most interesting finding of this study was the discovery that all university teachers were able to recognize the issues and topics related to their profession (topic recognition skill) and are deeply preoccupied with such issues (attitude towards action research), but they lacked the necessary skills to cope with these issues and make the relevant practical decisions (data collection skills and practical action research). To overcome this deficiency, the researchers suggest in-service educational programs organized by university authorities with the aim of turning teachers to researchers familiar with action research skills.Keywords: Action research, Teaching, Educational Supervision, Enhancement of Teaching Quality,  University Teachers.  

Wiser Reasoning and Less Disgust Have the Potential to Better Achieve Suicide Prevention

Crisis ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Chao S. Hu ◽  
Jiajia Ji ◽  
Jinhao Huang ◽  
Zhe Feng ◽  
Dong Xie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Suicide Prevention ◽  
Cause Of Death ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Reaction ◽  
Suicide Method ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Advice Giving ◽  
Prevention Techniques

Abstract. Background: High school and university teachers need to advise students against attempting suicide, the second leading cause of death among 15–29-year-olds. Aims: To investigate the role of reasoning and emotion in advising against suicide. Method: We conducted a study with 130 students at a university that specializes in teachers' education. Participants sat in front of a camera, videotaping their advising against suicide. Three raters scored their transcribed advice on "wise reasoning" (i.e., expert forms of reasoning: considering a variety of conditions, awareness of the limitation of one's knowledge, taking others' perspectives). Four registered psychologists experienced in suicide prevention techniques rated the transcripts on the potential for suicide prevention. Finally, using the software Facereader 7.1, we analyzed participants' micro-facial expressions during advice-giving. Results: Wiser reasoning and less disgust predicted higher potential for suicide prevention. Moreover, higher potential for suicide prevention was associated with more surprise. Limitations: The actual efficacy of suicide prevention was not assessed. Conclusion: Wise reasoning and counter-stereotypic ideas that trigger surprise probably contribute to the potential for suicide prevention. This advising paradigm may help train teachers in advising students against suicide, measuring wise reasoning, and monitoring a harmful emotional reaction, that is, disgust.

Evaluation of the Academic Setting in Spain 1This study was financed by the University of Oviedo.

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Fernández ◽  
Miguel A. Mateo ◽  
José Muñiz
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Climate ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Academic Setting ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Evaluation Questionnaire ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
The University

The conditions are investigated in which Spanish university teachers carry out their teaching and research functions. 655 teachers from the University of Oviedo took part in this study by completing the Academic Setting Evaluation Questionnaire (ASEQ). Of the three dimensions assessed in the ASEQ, Satisfaction received the lowest ratings, Social Climate was rated higher, and Relations with students was rated the highest. These results are similar to those found in two studies carried out in the academic years 1986/87 and 1989/90. Their relevance for higher education is twofold because these data can be used as a complement of those obtained by means of students' opinions, and the crossing of both types of data can facilitate decision making in order to improve the quality of the work (teaching and research) of the university institutions.

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