California's Commission on Teacher Credentialing (Commission) requires all programs of preliminary multiple and single subject teacher preparation to use a Commission-approved Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) as one of the program completion requirements for prospective teacher candidates. Three TPA models were approved by the Commission: (1)…

In Europe, doctoral education systems have been systematically reformed. These reforms are aimed at improving the quality of research and the competitiveness of European countries. In Finland, the reform project of doctoral education started vigorously in the mid-1990s which has contributed significantly to the emergence of more structured…

The "Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education" reports cite the critical role of professional societies in undergraduate life science education and, since 2008, have called for the increased involvement of professional societies in support of undergraduate education. Our study explored the level of support being provided by…

To ensure optimal standards for AAFCS program accreditation, the Council for Accreditation (CFA) conducted a review and revision of the "2001 AAFCS Standards for Accreditation." The CFA took a three-pronged approach including (a) a review of academic accreditations that had relationships to the FCS disciplines, (b) concept, content, and process…

When someone uses the term "standards," one tends to assume the topic under discussion is K-12 education, but standards for teacher preparation have their own parallel history. In English teacher education, that history has two strands: the NCTE Guidelines for the Preparation of Teachers of English Language Arts, which predate the "standards…

Federal, State and school-based professional development has become a multi-million dollar educational enterprise in Australia. Yet there are no published models for the making of systems-level professional development policy. Reviewing the literature on the characteristics of effective professional development programs, this paper proposes a…

For-profit higher education institutions have grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, largely free of federal regulation. That freedom would be significantly curtailed if the gainful employment standard takes effect. Vocational training programs would be judged by the ratio of the debt that graduates assume relative to their current earnings…

The turn of the century brought a profound change in the accreditation of teacher preparation programs. This shift--from curriculum-based reviews to standards-based reviews--took place in the context of the accountability movement of the late 20th century. The 21st century ushered in what many refer to as "a culture of evidence." From…

This article provides the background and describes the processes involved in establishing a national approach to benchmarking the way universities engage with their local and regional communities in Australia. Local and regional community engagement is a rapidly expanding activity in Australian public universities and is increasingly being seen as…

In this article, the authors examine the key factors that influence student choice of a business major and how business schools can help students make that choice more realistically. Investigating students at a regional university, the authors found that whereas those with better quantitative skills tended to major in accounting or finance, those…

OSCE examinations were held in May and June 2002 for all third and fourth year and some fifth year medical students at the University of Leeds. There has been an arbitrary pass mark of 65% for these examinations. However, we recognise that it is important to adopt a systematic approach towards standard setting in all examinations so held a trial…

Professional development practices in schools have been changing recently, particularly with the mandates regarding professional development through No Child Left Behind. In 2001, the National Staff Development Council revised its standards of professional development to shift thinking in this area and reflect the changing needs of schools,…