Tweeting the lecture : how social media can increase student engagement in higher education

‘Probing with the prototype’: using a prototype e-participation platform as a digital cultural probe to investigate youth engagement with the environment

This study describes how we used a prototype e-participation plat-form as a digital cultural probe to investigate youth motivation and engagement strategies. This is a novel way of considering digital cultural probes which can contribute to the better creation of e-participation platforms. This probe has been conducted as part of the research project STEP which aims at creating an e-participation platform to engage young European Citizens in environmental decision making. Our probe technique has given an insight into the environ-mental issues concerning young people across Europe as well as possible strat-egies for encouraging participation. How the e-participation platform can be utilised to support youth engagement through opportunities for social interac-tion and leadership is discussed. This study leads to a better understanding of how young people can co-operate with each other to provide collective intelli-gence and how this knowledge could contribute to effective e-participation of young people.

A network approach to overcoming barriers to market engagement for SMEs in energy efficiency initiatives such as the Green Deal

The Green Deal (GD) was launched in 2013 by the UK Government as a market-led scheme to encourage uptake of energy efficiency measures in the UK and create green sector jobs. The scheme closed in July 2015 after 30 months due to government concerns over low uptake and industry standards but additional factors potentially contributed to its failure such as poor scheme design and lack of understanding of the customer and supply chain journey. We explore the role of key delivery agents of GD services, specifically SMEs, and we use the LoCal-Net project as a case study to examine the use of networks to identify and reduce barriers to SME market engagement. We find that SMEs experienced multiple barriers to interaction with the GD such as lack of access to information, training, and confusion over delivery of the scheme but benefited from interaction with the network to access information, improve understanding of the scheme, increasing networking opportunities and forming new business models and partnerships to reduce risk. The importance of SMEs as delivery agents and their role in the design of market-led schemes such as the GD are discussed with recommendations for improving SME engagement in green sector initiatives.

An integrated measure of student perceptions of feedback, engagement and school identification

Teacher feedback influences student learning, identity construction and trajectories. This study tests the measurement properties of a questionnaire designed to assess (a) student perceptions about teacher feedback; (b) student identification with school, and; (c) student engagement. 1089 students in grades 6 through 10 (mean age 13.4) participated in the study. Factor analyses yield dimensions of School Identification, Effective Feedback, Person-Centered Feedback, Engagement, and Social Acceptance. Internal consistency for principal dimensions varied between .77 and .89. The instrument is suitable for assessing student school identification, behavioral engagement, and perceptions of teacher feedback.

Thomas Olk / Birger Hartnuß (Hrsg.): Handbuch Bürgerschaftliches Engagement. Weinheim / Basel: Beltz Juventa 2011 [Rezension]

Rezension von: Thomas Olk / Birger Hartnuß (Hrsg.): Handbuch Bürgerschaftliches Engagement, Weinheim / Basel: Beltz Juventa 2011 (844 S.; ISBN 978-3-7799-0795-4)

An Examination of Parental Engagement During the Middle School Years

The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the previously unexamined phenomenon of middle school parental engagement in a large urban/suburban/rural school district of 209 schools in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Across 22 middle schools serving grades six-eight, this study collected and examined perceptions of the three key adult stakeholder groups – administrators, teachers, and parents – most actively involved in middle school parental engagement as described within the theoretical framework of academic socialization. Their reports of observable parental engagement activities were used to document how district stakeholders operationalize behaviors that represent the five actionable constructs and three themes of academic socialization to determine how the district “fares” in employing academic socialization as a middle school parent engagement strategy. The study also applied quantitative descriptive analysis through a one-way ANOVA to determine the significance of observable variations in actionable constructs between the perspectives of the three stakeholder groups. Finally, the study illuminated, through regression modeling, when confounding factors/independent variables such as race, income, school size, administrator and teacher experience, parents’ educational background, etc., impacted operationalization of academic socialization behaviors for middle school parent and family engagement. Rejecting the null hypothesis, the study found that the three stakeholder groups had statistically significant differences in perceptions of their implementation of activities aligned to academic socialization. This study ultimately illuminated ways in which these adult stakeholder groups share similar and varied perceptions about their engagement actions that support the achievement and maturation of middle school students. Significantly, this study provided key findings that illuminated areas that can be systemically addressed to transform middle school parent engagement practices through applied academic socialization theory into consistent and effective collaborative efforts between the home and school. The process of operationalizing academic socialization was outlined in terms that any school or district can follow to improve programs and practices of middle school parental engagement to serve in the best interests of students during this period of great transition for both child/adolescent growth and development and adult navigation of systems to provide support for students in this unique stage of growth and maturation.

Étude exploratoire des concepts de la complémentarité et de la symétrie a l'intérieur de la dyade éducateur/adolescent en milieu institutionnel

Au Québec, l'intervention spécialisée auprès de jeunes adolescents en difficulté d'adaptation a été, il y a plus de trente ans, toute l'inspiration d'une nouvelle discipline en sciences humaines, la psycho-éducation. Inspirée des travaux de Freud, Redl, Erickson, Piaget pour ne nommer que ceux-là, l'intervention psycho-éducative (Gendreau, 1978) a eu, entre autres, pour lieux d'application les institutions pour jeunes étiquetés mésadaptés socio-affectifs et délinquants. Boscoville à Montréal et l'institut Val-du-Lac ici à Sherbrooke ont été à ce sujet deux piliers représentatifs, véhiculant les concepts de la pensée psychoéducative dans l'intervention. Plus spécifiquement, ce sont les travaux de Guindon (1970) qui ont contribué à opérationnaliser la pensée psycho-éducative dans la volonté thérapeutique de rééduquer des jeunes en institution. Ce modèle d'intervention que l 'on retrouve dans l 'ouvrage "Les étapes de la rééducation des jeunes délinquants... et des autres" (Guindon, 1970) a été source d'inspiration pour la plupart des institutions ayant connu le jour à la fin des années soixante et au début des années soixante-dix. Au cours de ce mémoire, nous utiliserons l’expression "jeune en difficulté d'adaptation" pour identifier les sujets qu'accompagne l’éducateur. Nous partageons le désir exprimé par Gendreau (1978), d'éviter le plus possible l'étiquetage (délinquants, mésadaptés, inadaptés, exceptionnels...) de façon à rejoindre un éventail plus grand de personnes susceptibles de bénéficier d'un support spécifique dans leur démarche de réalisation. Le Relais St-François, qui est pour cette recherche l’endroit d'observation désigné, est une institution de l’Estrie qui a connu, elle aussi, l'influence du modèle de Guindon. Toutefois, déjà en 1973, la philosophie d'intervention de cette maison pour jeunes en difficulté d'adaptation portait un regard plus critique sur le modèle des étapes de rééducation. À la lumière des expériences vécues par ses aînées dans le domaine, Boscoville et Val-du-Lac et à cause de facteurs tels la diminution du temps des séjours en institution par les jeunes, leur retour en institution suite à un premier séjour (etc.), le Relais a tenté de négocier le modèle de Guindon (1970). D'autres théories, d'autres écoles de pensée comme le behaviorisme, la réalité thérapie (etc.) sont venues enrichir l'approche de Guindon. [...]