Learning Why More Learning Takes Place in Some Classrooms Than Others

Abstract. The relatively poor average performance of German students on the recent PISA international evaluations of 15- and 16-year-olds' literary skills (2000) and mathematical skills (2003) and the wide variation in performance, with low-income students scoring particularly poorly, have led to calls for reforms of the German educational system. Understanding why students in some classrooms learn more than do those in other classrooms is an important first step in considering alternative reform strategies. Possible explanations include differences in teacher quality, class sizes and peer groups, and also differences among the types of secondary schools that parents select for their children. This paper illustrates a set of techniques that are useful in examining the roles these factors play in predicting why, net of family background and prior achievement, the average achievement of children in some classrooms is much higher than that of children in other classrooms. We illustrate the use of these techniques with a dataset from Bogotá, Colombia, that has two attractive properties. First, some teachers teach multiple classes of students. Second, students are enrolled in schools in two sectors (public and private). Application of the techniques described in this paper could shed light on the reasons why the average academic achievement of German students attending some schools is much higher than that of German students attending other schools.     

The hydroelectricity consumption and economic growth in Asian countries - evidence using an asymmetric cointegration approach

ABSTRACT

This study examines the four commonly tested hypotheses in hydroelectricity consumption – economic growth literature for 12 Asian countries. Our results from a recently developed hidden cointegration technique uncover rich and significant relationships between negative and positive components of the variables under consideration. In particular, we find evidence to support the neutrality hypothesis in five countries (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, and Thailand), the growth hypothesis in four countries (India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan), and both growth and conservation hypotheses in three countries (China, Malaysia, and New Zealand). These findings suggest that appropriate economic policies should be elaborated on the basis of the country’s specific hydroelectricity consumption–growth nexus. Finally, our new evidence suggests that the lack of stable relationship between hydroelectricity consumption and economic growth documented in previous studies for some of these countries could be due to the failure to properly account for the nonlinearity property in the data.     

Academic Economic Opinion in East Asia

Surveys of economists' opinions have been reported from around the world over the past two decades, but never (as far as we are aware) from a non-Western country. This article presents the results of our survey of academic economists drawn from ten East Asian nations. Respondents gave their views on a number of economic propositions ranging across issues of deregulation, government business enterprises, micro-economic and labour market reform, income distribution, and attitudes to the market. Finally, the article reports the results of multidimensional scaling techniques which were used to compare the attitudes of East Asian academic economists toward the market with those of their international colleagues. Overall, we found that while our colleagues in Asia make some allowances for circumstances unique to fast-growing developing economies, their predilection toward market solutions to economic problems reflects that of their (predominantly) Western training. Economists in the ‘Tiger’ nations (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea) more closely reflect the views of colleagues in the market-friendly West (especially North America, Australia and Germany) than do economists in the newly emerging (‘non-Tiger’) nations such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.     

Diversity in foresight: Insights from the fostering of innovation ideas

Foresight activities have often provided support for objectives such as priority-setting, networking and consensual vision-building. In this paper, we draw upon complementary evolutionary perspectives and discuss these objectives from the viewpoint of diversity which may be vital in contexts characterized by technological discontinuities and high uncertainties. We also argue that although the scanning of weak signals has been widely advocated in such contexts, the solicitation of ideas for prospective innovations may provide more focused, action-oriented, and comparable reflections of future developments. For the analysis of such ideas, we develop a collaborative foresight method RPM Screening which consists of phases for the generation, revision, multi-criteria evaluation, and portfolio analysis of innovation ideas. We also report experiences from a pilot project where this method was employed to enhance the work of the Foresight Forum of the Ministry of Trade and Industry in Finland. Encouraging results from this project and other recent applications suggest that RPM Screening can be helpful in foresight processes and the development of shared research agendas.     

Value and exchange: Two windows for economic theorizing

This essay introduces a symposium on value and exchange as alternative organizing concepts for the pursuit of economic theorizing. These concepts pertain to two distinct conceptual windows through which economic phenomena can be examined. The immediate inspiration for this symposium was the articulation of Kohn (2004) of the distinction, a distinction that, in turn, was central to the articulation of Buchanan (1964). Furthermore, this distinction is central to the divergent orientations toward economic theorizing that were set forth in the early 1870s by Carl Menger (1971) and Léon Walras (1874).     

Accident Compensation Reform

The aim of the article is to provide a survey of the major issues involved in the reform of accident Compensation schemes. The article outlines the economic and social pressures for reform of existing accident compensation schemes, discusses the major reform issues and raises the major challenges facing the reform process. The article focuses on the experience of the Victorian Government in developing and implementing its reform of workers compensation (Workcare) and on its proposed reform of the existing compulsory third party motor accidents scheme to illustrate the key issues.     

Teaching accountants to learn and "building blocks" for accounting education

Conclusions Accounting professionals and academicians have expressed significant interest and are pursuing a variety of changes in accounting curricula. There is a broad range of opinions regarding the nature of the changes needed in accounting education, which range from dramatic redesign to little or no change. There is a need to develop a framework for accounting education that is consistent but flexible to accommodate the majority of the accounting educational needs. The "building blocks" of accounting education presented in this paper provide educators with a basic pedagogical framework for an appropriate learning process. The framework of accounting education specifically focuses on the accounting component of the educational process and identifies the nature of courses and appropriate teaching strategies based upon their goals and objectives. Most educators recognize that only "one" accounting curriculum is insufficient to meet the needs of a variety of constituents. Therefore, it is essential to adopt an appropriate general framework for coursework is adopted to address the development of many diverse accounting programs.