Cross-national structure of economic competence: Insights from a German and Russian assessment

In this paper, we present a study, which models and measures the competencies of higher education students in business and economics—within and across countries. To measure student competencies in a valid and reliable way, the Test of Understanding in College Economics was used, which assesses microeconomic and macroeconomic competencies. The test was translated into several languages and adapted for different university contexts. In the presented study, the test contents were also compared with regard to the educational standards and the university curricula in Russia and Germany. Our findings from the cross-national analysis suggest one strong general factor of economic competence, which encompasses micro- and macroeconomic dimensions. This points to a stronger interconnection between learning and understanding economic contents than previous research suggests and indicates far-reaching curricular and instructional consequences for higher education economics as well as needs for further research, which are discussed in this paper.

PSYCHOLINGUISTIC PROFILE OF MODERN STUDENTS OF ECONOMIC SPECIALTIES

Within the article some aspects of manifestation of linguistic, terminological, communicative-pragmatic, textual, discursive competencies of the psycholinguistic profile of specialists in economic sphere are characterized. The influence of personal traits of an preceptor-economist on the formation of linguistic personality of an emerging economist is determined. Scientific works are analyzed, which allow to define a linguistic personality as a personality expressed in language and through language; as a person who is a native speaker and communicator, a holder of communicative competence. There are three levels of language proficiency: verbal-semantic, linguocognitive, pragmatic, the boundaries between which are quite fragile, vague; they also determine the stages of formation of linguistic personality. The requirements to the economic competence of a specialist are determined, which ensure the appropriate level of language proficiency, as lexical units of the language system occupy a priority place in professional speech of economic specialists: economic terminology of narrow and wide use, professionalisms, socially marked vocabulary, etc. The intralinguistic reasons for the dynamic penetration of lexical borrowings into professional speech of modern economists in connection with the nominative necessity are analyzed. With all due respect to foreign language culture, economic experts themselves are increasingly advocating the ecology of professional language, trying to use at least sporadically synonymous Ukrainian equivalents to the borrowings. Important communicative features of professional speech have been determined: content, accuracy, consistency, concise presentation of thoughts, provability, correctness and appropriateness of the terms use, information saturation, purity of speech, expressiveness of diction, melodiousness. Thus, indicators of general cultural, linguistic, terminological competence of an economist are deep knowledge of features of economic terminology, theory and practice of speech influence, attentive attitude to specific vocabulary and professional terms. Formation of the psycholinguistic profile of the personality of a novice economist depends on the fundamental language training, example and influence of the personal traits of the preceptoreconomist. The language development of a modern students of economic specialties largely depends on the state support, but above all on their own desire for self-development and selfrealization.

Development of economic competence of students at general grammar schools through a non-formal opportunity to learn with experts

For many years empirical studies have repeatedly pointed to the need to improve the economic competence of adolescent and young adults. This demand is already reflected – at least in part – in the inclusion of economic content in the curriculum of general educational schools. However, the curricular implementation seems to be only partially comprehensive enough to sufficiently support the acquisition of economic competence, so that non-formal and informal learning opportunities do not lose their importance as a supplement to the general curriculum-based framework. The research situation, however, is hardly given with regard to empirical findings on the effectiveness of such learning opportunities for the acquisition of economic competence. Therefore, our intervention study examines the role of non-formal learning opportunities in the economic field as a supplement to normal economic teaching lessons and how these learning opportunities affect the competence development of students in general educational schools. The results show that the intervention group was able to improve its economic competence significantly more than the control group. Furthermore, it becomes clear that over the intervention period the influence of personal factors loses relevance for the prediction of economic competence, but only for the intervention group.

The Triumph of New Labour

This chapter covers the three consecutive election victories recorded by ‘New’ Labour, under Tony Blair, and assesses the reasons for the party’s remarkable run of success after almost two decades in opposition. The key events of the 1992–7 parliament are recorded, showing how John Major’s Conservatives lost their reputation for economic competence shortly after the 1992 contest and never recovered from the blow of ‘Black Wednesday’. The chapter shows that the Conservatives were also seriously divided in the wake of the Maastricht Treaty (1992), and their prospects were impaired by allegations of ‘sleaze’. By contrast, Labour under Blair seemed fresh and relatively united. Apart from recounting the party’s successful campaigns in 1997, 2001, and 2005, the chapter also examines the reasons for the eventual decline of New Labour, in particular the feud between Blair and his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, but also the decision to support the USA in its war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (beginning in 2003). As a consequence of these troubles, New Labour’s landslide margin of victory in 1997 and 2001 was reduced significantly in 2005, despite the continuing unpopularity of the Conservatives. The anti-war Liberal Democrats emerged as a serious threat on Labour’s left. Changes in voting behaviour are also noted, in particular the continuing decline of social class as a factor in electoral outcomes.

THE CHALLENGES TO CPEC: FUTURE OF STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT IN THE SOUTH ASIA

Seven decades-long strategic partnership of Pakistan and China has survived all political weathers. Mainly, it grew up in two major domains i.e. political and military cooperation. But in 2015 both countries have entered into a new era of economic cooperation by signing a commercial agreement i.e. China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It is a flagship project of Chinese strategic plan of socioeconomic and political cooperation through regional connectivity; Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013. Today, CPEC has become a widely discussed aspect of Pak-China relations for several reasons. First, CPEC provides shortest route to China towards the Middle East and Europe because of the Geo-strategic location of Pakistan especially, Gwadar port. Second, both China and Pakistan want to utilize economic dividends of CPEC for socio-economic development of their underdeveloped areas like the western autonomous region of China, Xinjiang, and the Balochistan province of Pakistan. CPEC has a deep impact on the future strategic alignment in South Asia. This paper explore multiple challenges to CPEC which Pakistan and China are supposed to tackle and another hypothetical connotation of CPEC i.e. complex projection of economic competence.

Qualimetric Assessment of Pedagogical Factors in the Formation of Professional Environmental and Economic Competence of University Graduates

The current situation of green economy digitalization actualizes the problem of developing innovative principles of professional training in universities. The key conditions for the training of highly qualified personnel in accordance with the needs of society and employers as participants of educational relations are of particular importance due to the qualimetric assessment of educational achievements of students (QAA), which has been actualized since 2000 by conceptual research within the framework of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The material for the study was modern approaches, algorithms and models of QAA in higher education institutions. The main methods of research were theoretical analysis of published scientific literature on the problem of digital assessment of the level of professional competence of university graduates in the field of green economy-sustainable development, primarily, their professional environmental and economic competence (PEEC) based on a ranking analysis of expert information on the impact of different factors. At the same time, the problems which are the result of multifactor dependencies typical for pedagogy are put into the structured category and the apparatus of mathematical modelling and selection of optimal solutions is scientifically grounded to solve them. The most significant pedagogical factors were selected according to their influence on the level of PEEC formation as a result of using the method of expert group evaluation and ranking the selected opinions of experts, the consistency of which was previously revealed by calculating the Kendall's concordance coefficient. The principles of the systematic approach applied in the pedagogical research, using the conceptual provisions of quantitative measurements, numerical modelling and mathematical statistics based on factor planning allowed us to present the results of the experiment to identify the final dependence of the level of PEEC formation as a regression model as the initial step in the developed platform (underlying concept) of qualimetric assessment of the dominant factors of PEEC formation. The initial principles of such a concept are formulated, providing opportunities for studying and analyzing the influence of various pedagogical factors and organizational and pedagogical conditions, choosing the ways of generating educational trajectories.