The origins and underpinning principles of e-scape

In this article I describe the context within which we developed project e-scape and the early work that laid the foundations of the project. E-scape (e-solutions for creative assessment in portfolio environments) is centred on two innovations. The first concerns a web-based approach to portfolio building; allowing learners to build their portfolios in real-time, directly from hand-held peripheral technologies in studios, workshops, laboratories, and from off-site settings. The second concerns the development of a radical web-based approach to the assessment of performance as captured in these portfolios. In many parts of the world, portfolios feature as part of school-based assessments—including those undertaken for school-leaving and certification purposes. In this setting assessment reliability is critical and (judged by practice in England & Wales) is typically far from satisfactory. The approach developed within e-scape has radically improved assessment reliability. Whilst these two innovations represent the most dramatic outcomes of the project, they arose from a set if principles held by the team of researchers in the Technology Education Research Unit (TERU) at Goldsmiths University of London. And central to these principles is that both the portfolio and the assessment approaches should be embedded in a view of active learning, such that engagement with them has a positive impact on classroom practice. As the title suggests, this paper outlines the origins, underlying principles and early development of project e-scape.     

Evolving project e-scape for national assessment

In the opening paper in this Special Edition I outlined the major issues that led to the establishment of project e-scape. The project was intended to develop systems and approaches that enabled learners to build real-time web-based portfolios of their performance (initially) in design & technology and additionally to build systems and approaches to facilitate the web-based assessment of those portfolios. The project was commissioned by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) with additional ‘buy-in’ from Awarding Bodies—who were seen by QCA as the leading beneficiaries of a successful project. The project was designed in three phases. I have outlined—in the Introduction to this Special Edition—the early exploratory work that we undertook within phase 1, the aim of which was to prove the viability of the concept. This was achieved, and QCA then commissioned phase 2 with a brief to build a working prototype system and run it through a national pilot-testing programme in 2006. Age 15 was the target age-group, aligning as closely as we could with the Awarding Body requirements for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) that runs with age 16 learners. The successes of the phase 2 prototype—both as classroom activity and as reliable assessment—led QCA and Becta (the body responsible for funding ICT developments in schools) to commission phase 3 in which we explored the potential of the e-scape system for wider application. Specifically, we were required to demonstrate the transferability of the system to other curriculum areas beyond design & technology, and the scalability of the system if it were to be used for national assessment purposes, with hundreds of thousands of candidates. In this paper, I outline the approach that we adopted through the e-scape research; describe the major elements of the work both in terms of classroom/curriculum practice and in terms of new approaches to assessment; and analyse some of the key issues that arise from it.     

Assessing scientific and technological enquiry skills at age 11 using the e-scape system

This article reports on the outcomes from the e-scape Primary Scientific and Technological Understanding Assessment Project (2009–2010), which aimed to support primary teachers in developing valid portfolio-based tasks to assess pupils’ scientific and technological enquiry skills at age 11. This was part of the wider ‘e-scape’ project (2003-present), which has developed an innovative controlled alternative to design & technology and science public assessment at age 16. Teachers from eight primary schools were trained in the use of an online task-authoring tool to develop and trial assessment activities based on current classroom work. To compile their e-portfolios of assessment evidence, pupils used netbook devices, which afford multi-modal responses (text, drawing, photo, audio, video, spreadsheet) whilst leaving space on pupils’ tables for practical investigations. Once the pupil e-portfolios had been uploaded to the secure e-scape website, teachers assessed them using a ‘comparative judgement’ approach to produce a rank order with a high reliability coefficient. Participant teachers recognised the strength of the e-scape approach in terms of facilitating and managing pupils’ responses to assessment tasks in the classroom, which they successfully adapted to suit primary pedagogy. In particular, the benefits of scaffolding complex assessment tasks through the step-wise e-scape process in the authoring tool represented for some of the teachers a pedagogically significant development in terms of their planning.     

The internationalisation of SMEs from China: The case of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region

This paper aims to study the international expansion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in an emerging economy. Mathews’ (2006: 5–27) linkage–leverage–learning (LLL) model is the framework applied to analyse the process of international expansion of SMEs. To operationalise the study of the barriers, the LLL model was linked to the work of Leonidou (2004: 279–302). The data was collected from 125 SMEs operating in Ningxia, China, and then analysed using multivariate regressions; the models used the firms’ export intensity at the regional, national and international level as dependent variables. Four models were run: two analysing the internal and external barriers hindering firms’ international expansion, and the other two models studying the characteristics of Chinese international companies (state funding and ownership) as independent variables. The results show that 12 of the barriers defined by Leonidou (2004) are hindering the expansion of Ningxia’s SMEs, that the ownership from the state does not play an important role in this expansion, and that the support from the state in the form of funds is helpful in the first stages of the expansion (regional level) and the funds from private sources are key to cross the country’s boundaries.     

Mobility norms,risk aversion,and career satisfaction of Chinese employees

Drawing on Turner’s (American Sociological Review, 25:855–867, 1960) framework of contest and sponsored mobility norms, this study investigated factors that affect employees’ career satisfaction in the Chinese setting. Using two organization-referenced variables, procedural justice and perceived organizational support (POS), to represent contest mobility norm and sponsored mobility norm, we evaluated their effects on career satisfaction. We also explored the moderating role of risk aversion on these relationships. Several hypotheses were developed and tested on a sample of 239 employees working in a foreign-invested enterprise in China. The results of regression analysis showed that procedural justice and POS contributed to career satisfaction in a cumulative manner. Further, among the risk-averse employees, the relationship between POS and career satisfaction was stronger.     

The attitudes of interior design students towards sustainability

To measure attitudes toward environmental issues, interior design students responded to a four-part survey: demographics, ecology, sustainability, and comments. The ecology section was composed of modifications of questions from the New Ecological Paradigm Scale (Dunlap et al. Journal of Environmental Education, 9:10–19, 2000). The researchers composed the items in the sustainable section to reflect perceptions related to the use of sustainable products and solutions in interior design scenarios. Although the ecology and sustainability survey results exhibited great variability, responses to individual items mostly averaged towards the more pro-environmental and pro-sustainability sides of the scales. While average scores on the ecology section of the survey showed the respondents as a group to be moderately pro-environmental, most items revealed a considerable amount of undecided ratings and quite a few students who perceived the environment to be somewhat invincible. The data also indicated a discrepancy between what students think they know (sustainability section) and what the students actually reveal in their open-ended answers (comments section). The survey results imply that educators, who themselves are likely to be pro-environment, cannot merely assume that their students share the same values and attitudes. Beginning instruction with explanations and examples of sustainable methods and products will not be sufficient to communicate the delicate balance between Human use of resources and Nature’s ability to replenish. Design educators need to set the stage for sustainability rather than just assume that students will embrace the concept. Hopefully, more research studies will inspire others to evaluate their own students’ feelings about the environment.     

Building innovative organizations in China: The “execution+” organization

This paper explores how to build innovative organizations in China. Using grounded inductive theory building with ten case studies of commercial organizations in China’s information and communication technology (ICT) industries, we find that because China is entrenched in the paradigm of execution and its two-tier talent structure lacks a competent pool of middle-level talent, it calls for a new organizational form: “execution+.” The key to building “execution+” organization lies in building a competent middle tier by taking advantage of apprenticeship type of training. Our findings have implications for theories of organization design and organizational learning.     

Antitrust in High-Tech Industries

Recent economic growth has been led by high-technology industries (See Jorgenson, Ho & Stiroh (2005) for a summary of the research on the recent acceleration of productivity growth). Many firms in these industries have achieved a dominant market position, thereby attracting the attention of competition authorities, often resulting in major monopolization cases. Unfortunately, this attention has not resulted in improved market outcomes. In this paper, we evaluate the effect of Section 2 Sherman Act cases brought against IBM, AT&T, and Microsoft. We conclude that these cases had limited effect on consumer welfare because they did not stimulate entry or innovation. In these industries, competition authorities cannot expect to promote simply an expansion of output and lower commodity prices; rather they should focus their remedies on promoting innovation—new products that replace or compete with the dominant firm’s products.     

Technological literacy: a multliteracies approach for democracy

Throughout history various grand narratives have impacted on technology education. In the current post modern era of globalization, technology education continues to struggle for relevance and definition, and takes various forms in different countries, but none seem resoundingly successful. The current development of what some have termed a digital democracy (Web 2.0)—the explosion of a new type of information technology which has become an integral characteristic of young people’s lives, is the starting point for this paper. Mainstream literacy theory was reconceptualised in the 1990’s with the foresight of anticipating the significance of a range of literacies. Broad conceptions of Technological Literacy have always accommodated multiple literacies, but must now essentially do so in a dynamic way through the pre-existing pedagogy of design.     

Assessment is for learning: supporting feedback

This paper describes an action research, school situated project conducted with partnership funding from Learning and Teaching Scotland, Scottish Qualifications Authority and Becta, the UK government’s agency for communications technology in education. Based on e-scape (e-solutions for creative assessment in portfolio environments), developed by Goldsmiths, University of London, the Scottish project focussed on integrating innovative methods of capturing evidence of creative performance with providing formative feedback to learners. Classroom trials were conducted with Primary 7 through to Secondary 3 learners (10–15 year olds) in 2 different local education authorities. Learner and teacher thoughts were recorded through blogs, e-forums and interviews; the authored design challenges were shared through the web-based e-scape authoring system and e-folios reviewed by participant teachers and researchers. This paper provides a summary of the reactions and responses from teacher practitioner, learner and researcher perspectives based on their experiences and the results of the classroom trials. It discusses the potential contribution in terms of supporting learning, teaching and assessment within the framework of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (2004) Technologies (2009) learning area. It is hoped that e-scape scotland supports pedagogies which enable the capture of creative thinking in real time for authentic and formative assessment and addresses some of the issues for classroom practice and practitioners.     

Do computers improve the drawing of a geometrical figure for 10?year-old children?

Nowadays, computer aided design (CAD) is widely used by designers. Would children learn to draw more easily and more efficiently if they were taught with computerised tools? To answer this question, we made an experiment designed to compare two methods for children to do the same drawing: the classical ‘pen and paper’ method and a CAD method. We asked two groups of 14 children to draw a geometrical figure: the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (ROCF). The first group drew it with a pen on a sheet of paper (‘paper’ group) and the second on a computer screen with CAD software (‘computer’ group). Two drawing conditions were studied: ‘Copying’ the figure and drawing from memory. Results showed that the ‘computer’ group was better at copying the figure but that both groups performed equally well when the figure was drawn from memory. These preliminary results suggest that using a CAD tool could help children while they copy a model, but that it does not improve their ability to draw the same figure using their own, internal model.     

Affective and continuance commitment and their relations with deviant workplace behaviors in Korea

This study examined the nature of the relations between affective and continuance components of organizational commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991, Human Resource Management Review, 1: 61–89) and deviant workplace behaviors (DWB; Bennett & Robinson, 2003) in a sample of 120 Korean employees and their supervisors. As expected, we found that affective commitment was negatively related, and continuance commitment was positively, albeit modestly, related to supervisor ratings of DWB. Implications for the theory and practice are discussed.     

The Role of Published Materials in Curriculum Development and Implementation for Secondary School Design and Technology in England and Wales

This paper discusses the ways in which teachers exploited a set of curriculum materials published as a vehicle for curriculum innovation, and the relationship between chosen modes of exploitation and teachers’ own perceptions of how the materials had ’added value’ to their teaching. The materials in question were developed by the Nuffield Design and Technology Project (’the Project’) to offer a pedagogy appropriate to the statutory curriculum for secondary school design and technology education in England and Wales (DFE/WO 1995). The Project had sought both to inform the statutory curriculum, and respond to its requirements. An earlier case study (Givens 1997) laid the foundations for the survey that is reported here. This paper focuses on the teaching of pupils aged 11–14. It finds that while most teachers made at least some use of all the various components of the publications, they were selective. While the Study Guide, which carries out a meta-cognitive dialogue with pupils, was generally underused, those teachers who did use it perceived greater value added by the materials as a whole to the quality of pupils’ work, their effectiveness in design and technology and their autonomy. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Endogenous Mergers of Complements with Mixed Bundling

This paper studies endogenous mergers of complements with mixed bundling, by allowing both for joint and separate consumption. After merger, partner firms decrease the price of the bundled system. In addition, when markets for individual components are sufficiently important, partner firms find it strategically advantageous to raise the prices of stand-alone products, thus making substitute ‘mix-and-match’ composite products less attractive to consumers. Even though these effects favor the profitability of mergers, merging is not always an equilibrium outcome. The reason is that outsiders respond by cutting their prices to retain their market share, and mergers can be unprofitable when competition is intense. From a welfare analysis, we observe that the number of mergers that are observed in equilibrium may be either excessive (when markets for individual components are important) or suboptimal (when markets for individual components are less important).     

Shared and shared alike? Founders' prior shared experience and performance of newly founded banks

Research summary: Pre‐entry industry experience is a central construct in the founding team literature. Research on prior shared experience (PSE) emphasizes that founding teams face challenges integrating and acting on independent experiences, so PSE should be beneficial for new venture performance. Existing studies, however, typically study PSE in blunt terms, expecting that more is better. Instrumental variable analyses of a unique sample of 344 commercial banks founded in four U.S. states between 1996 and 2006 showed that industry‐specific PSE may be more or less beneficial, depending on several founding team characteristics. Our findings provide nuance and caution to the narrative that PSE is always beneficial. Under some circumstances, firms with founding team PSE may be no better off than those without founding team PSE, suggesting more research is necessary to understand when and why founding team experience matters to new firms. Managerial summary: Pre‐entry experience of founding teams affects new firm performance, but is hard for founders to leverage separately gained experience. Knowledge moves more readily if sets of managers leave together to start a new firm. But, it may be simplistic to conclude that prior shared experience (PSE) is always good, or better than the sum of independent experiences. In a set of banks founded in four U.S. states between 1996 and 2006, we find that PSE is not necessarily a direct pathway to better bank performance. Characteristics of the PSE, such as the part of industry the former and new banks operate in, can lower its benefit. We also found that the benefits of PSE erode as the entire founding team develops shared history after startup. Our findings have implications for entrepreneurs, investors, and policy‐makers. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Teaching and learning the nature of technical artifacts

Artifacts are probably our most obvious everyday encounter with technology. Therefore, a good understanding of the nature of technical artifacts is a relevant part of technological literacy. In this article we draw from the philosophy of technology to develop a conceptualization of technical artifacts that can be used for educational purposes. Furthermore we report a small exploratory empirical study to see to what extent teachers’ intuitive ideas about artifacts match with the way philosophers write about the nature of artifacts. Finally, we suggest a teaching and learning strategy for improving (student) teachers’ concepts of technical artifacts through practical activities.     

Using ‘Electronic Portfolios’ to Challenge Current Orthodoxies in the Presentation of an Initial Teacher Training Design and Technology Activity

The paper examines the extent to which a University undergraduate curriculum initiative provided initial teacher trainees with opportunities to challenge orthodox design methodologies through the production of an electronic portfolio within and extended design and technology activity. It was found that the ‘electronic portfolio’ served primarily as a developmental tool for promoting creative continuity and sound, reflective, design practice within a structured educational design challenge. The portfolio also provided a focus for the development of ‘e’ learning skills as it facilitated the use of new technologies in the compilation of the portfolio. Additionally, the portfolio provided trainees with a means by which they were able to demonstrate their capability to prospective employers. The use of the ‘electronic portfolio’ challenges current orthodoxy and methods routinely employed to present and assess trainees’ creative work, which have been shown to constrain innovative practice. The paper concludes that the use of the ‘electronic’ portfolio was successful in facilitating trainees’ engagement with a creative Design and Technology process.     

Sharing the wealth: social comparisons and pay dispersion in the CEO's top team

The antecedents and consequences of pay dispersion are studied using theory that focuses on the social comparisons that occur among members of the CEO's top team. Results from a sample of large public firms indicate that when members of this elite group were similar on a variety of dimensions, and thus likely to compare their pay, the board allowed less dispersion. In addition, pay dispersion was negatively related to company performance, particularly when it exceeded what could be justified by characteristics of the industry, firm, or team. But the strength of that relationship depended on how uniformly members of the team would benefit from subsequent performance gains. Specifically, the negative effect was particularly strong in firms where major differences in compensation—that is, some executives were given significantly more stock options—combined with a volatile stock price to provide only a few team members with the opportunity to realize very large financial gains in the future. The study demonstrates that the social‐psychological factors that affect comparisons among members of the CEO's top team impact the board's pay setting process, which in turn affects pay dispersion, and ultimately firm performance. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.