Kerry Shephard

Higher education for sustainability: seeking affective learning outcomes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to interpret aspects of education for sustainability in relation to educational theories of the affective domain (values, attitudes and behaviours) and suggest how the use of these theories, and relevant experience, in other educational areas could benefit education for sustainability.Design/methodology/approach – An analysis based on a literature review of relevant educational endeavours in affective learning.Findings – This paper suggests that most teaching and assessment in higher education focus on cogitative skills of knowledge and understanding rather than on affective outcomes of values, attitudes and behaviours. Some areas of higher education, however, have effectively pursued affective outcomes and these use particular learning and teaching activities to do so. Key issues for consideration include assessing outcomes and evaluating courses, providing academic credit for affective outcomes, key roles for role models and designing realistic and acceptable learn...

Questioning, promoting and evaluating the use of streaming video to support student learning

This paper uses case studies to describe how streaming video is currently used to support student learning in post compulsory education in the UK. It describes the current role of streaming video and identifies processes that could extend the application of streaming in education. It attempts to establish a case for more formal evaluation and communication of educa-tional processes involving streaming and identifies elements of a research agenda that could further develop the application of streaming technology in education.

Conceptions of e-learning and professional development for e-learning held by tertiary educators in New Zealand.

The conceptions an individual holds about a phenomenon can influence and determine associated behaviours and perspectives. Consequently, they have a bearing upon how learning about a phenomenon is undertaken and how that phenomenon is experienced and applied in context. A phenomenographic research approach was used to gather the expressed experiences of e-learning and professional development for e-learning held by teachers and support staff from institutions across New Zealand. Five conceptions of e-learning (as tool and equipment; as a facilitator of interaction; as learning; as a reduction in distance; and as a collaborative enterprise) and four conceptions of professional development for e-learning (as training; as opening up possibilities; as collaboration; and as relevant and purposeful) were discovered. In this report, we discuss the conceptions, and show how they are interrelated through outcome space. Implications for the professional development of tertiary teachers and teaching support staff are outlined. The study provides some insights for individuals, institutions and those responsible for planning and implementing professional development programmes to help them to support the development and progress of e-learning in appropriate and rewarding directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benchmarking the environmental values and attitudes of students in New Zealand's post‐compulsory education

How much do teachers in tertiary education know about the sustainability characteristics of their incoming students and, if this knowledge were to be available, how could their educational approaches be influenced by this knowledge? In New Zealand, Otago Polytechnic has committed itself to the goal that every graduate may think and act as a sustainable practitioner, and staff are changing their approach to teaching to achieve this. This research sought to benchmark the environmental worldview attributes of an incoming cohort of Otago Polytechnic students to support academic staff who need to know more about the sustainability interests and characteristics of their students, so that they may provide appropriate educational programmes. The research was also designed as the first stage of longer‐term research to evaluate the impact of these institutional changes on how students transform during the period of their tertiary education experience. The data and analysis presented here suggest that even before students start to study in the institution different groups have substantially different sustainability values‐sets. The authors anticipate that the research instruments and approaches used in the present study will contribute to a substantial national exploration of the sustainability value‐sets of tertiary students.

Exploring the Use of the Revised New Ecological Paradigm Scale (NEP) to Monitor the Development of Students’ Ecological Worldviews

Higher education institutions are interested in the impact that they and concurrent life experiences may have on students’ sustainability attitudes, but they lack formal processes to monitor changes. We used the NEP to monitor changes in students’ ecological worldviews. We were interested in what variation there would be in a multidisciplinary group, if the NEP could detect changes in students’ ecological worldviews over a limited time period, and to learn more about the NEP and its use. We conclude that the NEP is a valuable research instrument for this study and that monitoring students’ attitudes is a worthwhile precursor to debating the issues institutionally.

Evaluating the use of streaming video to support student learning in a first-year life sciences course for student nurses

Streaming video was used to support the learning of first year student nurses on a Life Sciences module, as one of many innovations designed to increase the range of resources and support available to students. This paper describes the background to this innovation, the procedures adopted and the results of extensive evaluation. The use of streaming video was evaluated in three applications in the module. A total of 656 students used online directed-learning sessions that incorporated streamed video. Just over half of these students actually viewed the video streams. Their feedback showed that 32% found access easy, 59% enjoyed using the resources, and 25% were very confident that they learned from them. Different types of video were used, and embedded in diverse ways, but the results were consistent across the three applications. They suggest that streamed video can contribute to useful resources to support learning by student nurses but, for a variety of reasons, it may not appeal or be adequately accessible to all students at present.

How Do We Measure Affective Learning in Higher Education

Educational outcomes related to sustainability often include affective attributes such as values, attitudes and behaviours. Educators in higher education who attempt to research, monitor, assess or evaluate learning of affective attributes can face a bewildering array of methodologies and approaches and a research literature that spans several fields of enquiry. This article provides an overview of affective learning in the broad area of education for sustainable development, guidance for university teachers and researchers contemplating measuring affective attributes and a frame-work of affective attribute measurement based on the Krathwohl et al. (1964) taxonomy.

Assisting the uptake of on-line resources: why good learning resources are not enough

The proliferation of information resources for learning, and the increased range of media that make up learning resources, introduce new challenges for those supporting the effective use of online resources within education. This paper describes the importance of good on-line resources, and why despite the best efforts of their developers and institutional support staff, their uptake is low. It explores the issues of matching resources available to the identified needs of users and to their perceived expectations. An analysis of common strategies employed in building collections to improve uptake is made. While the impacts of these strategies are limited when separately adopted, it is possible to increase their effectiveness by combining collection-based and user-based strategies. A revised definition of critical mass is offered that is user-oriented and takes into account the human and technological constraints of developing and maintaining online resource services. The process of needs-analysis is linked to the central role of evaluation in building collections of resources that demonstrably meet the needs of users. The paper concludes that elements of both strategies are necessary to build collections that do support learning.

e is for exploration: Assessing hard‐to‐measure learning outcomes

The focus of this paper is on the use of e-technologies to enable higher education to better assess aspects of learning that have proved difficult to assess using more conventional means. Higher education describes the knowledge and abilities it intends its graduates to have acquired before graduation, and it has a wide range of approaches to assess these. Higher education also seeks affective outcomes in the form of values, attitudes, behaviours and related attributes or dispositions, and these have consistently proved more difficult to assess by examination or assignment. After graduation, however, graduates are often assessed within the professions via portfolios, interview and peer or expert review. Assessment may focus on teamwork and networking skills, productivity, creativity and values fit to the profession. How can e-technologies help with these forms of assessment? This paper reviews some of the e-based approaches and explorations that have supported or could support assessment of affective attributes. At each stage, the paper seeks to establish the common elements of assessment in the different regimes and how e-assessment contributes, or may contribute in the future. The paper concludes that many of the strengths of e-assessment lend themselves to an evaluation paradigm rather than to conventional assessment for intended learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring what university teachers think about education for sustainability

The higher education literature reveals the highly subjective nature of thinking about the roles of higher education and its teachers with respect to ‘education for sustainability’. We used Q methodology to help to clarify and categorise commonly held viewpoints about this complex issue held by teachers in one university in New Zealand. We developed 50 statements about the issue and asked 43 participants to rank them and to record their responses to written questions. Our analysis confirms four significantly and qualitatively different viewpoints, one of which advocates for sustainability and for education for sustainability. The other three viewpoints do not, and each has distinct characteristics that prevent those who own them from using their position within the university to encourage students to act sustainably. Our article interprets these viewpoints and discusses their implications to higher education.