Education Commons^™

Predicting Graduate Students’ Self-Efficacy For Thesis/Dissertation Completion In Sub-Saharan Africa, Millicent A. Oyugi, Mathew Baker, Alexa J. Lamm, Agnes Oywaya Nkurumwa Dr

Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education

Despite the global surge in enrollment for master's and Ph.D. programs worldwide and, to some extent, in Sub-Saharan Africa, a considerable lag in completing theses and dissertations (TD) persists. Personal, situational, and contextual factors, such as supervision arrangements and research abilities, have been correlated with the time taken for TD completion. However, beyond these variables, there remains a significant gap in our understanding of what precisely predicts TD completion. To contribute to this knowledge deficit, we conducted a study to determine the predictive nature of specific information sources on students' self-efficacy regarding TD completion. These sources encompass gender, graduate program …

Black Lives Matter In Teaching English As A Second Language!, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

The Winter 2020 issue of theIllinois Reading Council Journal published a special issue focusing on “action for equity,” with thoughtful articles and abundant family and classroom resources. This issue of the “wELLcome”column, which is dedicated to topics regarding English language learners (ELLs), continues in that same vein. In this issue, we place the spotlight on ELLs of African descent, their teachers, and their schools.

Survey Of Teachers In Pre-Primary Education (Stepp): Lessons From The Implementation Of The Pilot Study And Field Trial Of International Survey Instruments, Syeda Kashfee Ahmed, Maurice Walker, Yoshie Kaga

Early Childhood Education

The present publication documents the achievements and lessons learned from the first phase of the Survey of Teachers in Pre-primary Education (STEPP) project, implemented by UNESCO from 2016 to 2019, with the participation of seven countries, namely, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Indonesia, Namibia, the Philippines, Togo, and Viet Nam. It is the first international survey for low-and-middle-income countries designed to collect information that is known to affect the quality of pre-primary education from pre-primary teachers and centre heads. The collected information concerns training and professional development, pedagogical and professional practices, working conditions and job satisfaction, and characteristics of pre-primary personnel …

Humanity Education As A School-Based Intervention For Healing, Daniel Gutierrez, Stephanie Dorais, James M. Smith, Freddy Mutanguha

Journal of School-Based Counseling Policy and Evaluation

Violence is a large-scale public health concern that impacts the mental health of people all over the world. There is a critical need for early intervention strategies that prevent violence and foster humanity and well-being. Traditional approaches to violence prevention focus on inhibiting antisocial behavior, overlooking the benefits of promoting positive values, humanity, and prosocial behavior. Aegis Trust is an international organization dedicated to the prevention of future genocides and promotion of humanity globally through education. It developed an educational methodology that has shown evidence of effectiveness in recovering from trauma, promoting humanity, and preventing violence in post-genocide Rwanda and …

My Experience In Swaziland With Give Hope, Fight Poverty, Megan Kaser

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Megan Kaser, a recent 2017 alum in the College of Health and Human Sciences at Purdue University, describes her experience with Give Hope, Fight Poverty (GHFP)—a nonprofit organization in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in physician assistant studies. GHFP’s mission is “to foster philanthropy domestically by designing service-learning programs that engage U.S. college students with rural communities in Swaziland, Africa, and work together to educate, empower, and lift orphaned and vulnerable children—particularly those living in child-headed households— out of poverty” (Give Hope, Fight Poverty, n.d.). By incorporating college students in the implementation of GHFP orphan education …

Reducing The Constraints To School Access And Progress: Assessing The Effects Of A School Scholarship Program In Malawi, Stephen Hunsaker

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The study utilizes a causal-comparative research design to compare the educational experiences and outcomes of two student groups – those who did and those who did not receive a needs-based scholarship to attend secondary or tertiary school. We administered surveys to 89 scholarship recipients and 57 non-recipients in the Dowa, Kasungu and Lilongwe Districts of Malawi. Surveys included items to determine group differences across a range of short and medium-term outcomes, including: career aspirations, attendance rate, withdrawal rate, graduation rate, employment status, time unemployed since graduation, and employment quality (using the Tanzanian Standard Classification of Occupations). This study included students …

What Factors Drive Individual Misperceptions Of The Returns To Schooling In Tanzania? Some Lessons For Education Policy, Plamen Nikolov, Nursat Jimi

Economics Faculty Scholarship

Evidence on educational returns and the factors that determine the demand for schooling in developing countries is extremely scarce. Building on previous studies that show individuals underestimating the returns to schooling, we use two surveys from Tanzania to estimate both the actual and perceived schooling returns and subsequently examine what factors drive individual misperceptions regarding actual returns. Using ordinary least squares and instrumental variable methods, we find that each additional year of schooling in Tanzania increases earnings, on average, by 9 to 11 percent. We find that on average individuals underestimate returns to schooling by 74 to 79 percent and …

Improving Student Learning In Mali, Petra Lietz

International Developments

ACER has been working over the past two years to help develop an internal monitoring and evaluation system in Mali.

International Developments (No.7) 2017

International Developments

In this issue of International Developments we explore collaborative efforts by ACER and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics to develop a global scale that benchmarks student performance in reading and mathematics against a common measure. This project aims to support global efforts to meet the fourth goal of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – to ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning – by 2030. We also report on analysis of assessments around the world to identify how best to operate large-scale assessments in developing countries. This issue of International Developments also looks at ACER’s …

Back To Africa In The 21st Century: The Cultural Reconnection Experiences Of African American Women, Marcia Tate Arunga

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine the lived experiences of 18 African American women who went to Kenya, East Africa as part of a Cultural Reconnection delegation. A qualitative narrative inquiry method was used for data collection. This was an optimal approach to honoring the authentic voices of African American women. Eighteen African American women shared their stories, revelations, feelings and thoughts on reconnecting in their ancestral homeland of Africa. The literature discussed includes diasporic returns as a subject of study, barriers to the return including the causes of historic trauma, and how Black women as culture bearers …

Measuring The Impact Of Citizen-Led Assessments For Improving The Quality Of Education, Mollie Tobin, Petra Lietz

Dr Petra Lietz

Effective communication and advocacy activities are essential components in initiating change in education practices and policies. ACER, through the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Centre provided support to OMAES (Oeuvre Malienne d’Aide à l’Enfance du Sahel), a non-governmental organisation in Mali, for the development of an internal monitoring and evaluation system for the Beekunko assessment in Mali. Bεεkunko is a household-based assessment of children’s learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy for children in Mali whether currently attending school or not, and who are six to 14 years of age. OMAES’ primary aim through Bεεkunko is to motivate stakeholders at various levels …

Measuring The Impact Of Citizen-Led Assessments For Improving The Quality Of Education, Mollie Tobin, Petra Lietz

Assessment GEMS

Effective communication and advocacy activities are essential components in initiating change in education practices and policies. ACER, through the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Centre provided support to OMAES (Oeuvre Malienne d’Aide à l’Enfance du Sahel), a non-governmental organisation in Mali, for the development of an internal monitoring and evaluation system for the Beekunko assessment in Mali. Bεεkunko is a household-based assessment of children’s learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy for children in Mali whether currently attending school or not, and who are six to 14 years of age. OMAES’ primary aim through Bεεkunko is to motivate stakeholders at various levels …

Citizen-Led Educational Monitoring Shows Promise

International Developments

A citizen-led approach to the collection of information about schooling and children’s learning is showing great promise in terms of educational monitoring and policy making.

Assessments To Support Quality Teaching And Learning, Charlotte Waters

International Developments

The focus of post-2015 development goals on educational quality for all is directing attention to assessments that support quality teaching and learning, as Charlotte Waters explains.

The Cure For Early Grades Assessment Difficulties? Take A Tablet, Maurice Walker

International Developments

Monitoring educational development in the early years of schooling is vital if practitioners, and policy makers, are to support students’ learning, but the assessment of student achievement in developing countries can be a logistical headache. Maurice Walker reports on an innovative approach to assessment using tablets that is addressing that.

Through The Camera Lens Of Development: An Exploration Of Ngos' Representations Of Africa, Sebastian Lindstrom

Master's Capstone Projects

The purpose if this qualitative research is to acquire new knowledge in the African visual representational landscape, a digital space carefully filmed and edited by some of the most celebrated and acknowledged, mostly Western, NGOs in the world. The most watched Africa-related video from 50 NGOs were selected, downloaded and analyzed. After continuous re-watching of a 3.5 hour long set of visual data tree themes emerged. One segment relates around the NGOs intervention, another about the term or statement ‘help’, and the last theme is HIV/AIDS. The findings include the realization that the beneficiary was never explaining the intervention of …

Skills Needs Of The Ict Sector In Tanzania, Deirdre Lillis, Fredrick Mtenzi, Diana Mauricaite, Said Jafari, Peter Manifold

Reports

Information and Communication Technology will play a critical role in sustaining the high growth rates experienced by African economies in the last decade. Investment in the ICT sector enables the creation of high quality jobs and acts as an enabling technology for other key industries such as agriculture, mining, finance, health and education. ‘New Software Economy’ models mean international location and company scale are less relevant and enable small organisations to compete globally in niche markets. Unlike many traditional industries which have heavy infrastructure requirements, the key resource of the ICT Sector is its people and the knowledge, skills and …

Regional Focus : Africa, Rachel Outhred

International Developments

Significant work on evaluation and assessment aimed at addressing equity and educational quality in Africa is being undertaken by researchers at ACER.

International Developments (No.3) 2013

International Developments

Table of contents for this issue: (a) Making a difference in developing countries; (b) UNICEF and UNESCO; (c) Regional focus : Africa; (d) Literacy and the most marginalised children.

Correlation Between Literacy Rates In Africa And Latin America And Economic Stability, Shawn Jordan

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Literacy rates in Africa and Latin America are on different ends of the spectrum. Africa is home to some of the poorest countries in the world and Latin America is not too far behind. Literacy rates generally correlate to wealth as a country. The plights of Africa and Latin America are a no different. In general, Africa has some of the lowest literacy rates in the world and has been the place for horrific fighting for decades. This epidemic has hit the women and children especially hard. Women in Africa have an illiteracy rate of 50% (allafrica.com 2010). This is …

Women, Education & The Diaspora, Dr Williams Emeka Obiozor

Dr Williams Emeka Obiozor

Educating the woman is a challenge to many governments in sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria where successive governments have made efforts to promote and support women education and bridging the gender gap in the education, labor and economic sector. This position paper examined issues and challenges of women regarding education and the Diaspora: An experience coming from a Nigerian-American who spent more than a decade living and working in the United States of America. Motivations for leaving an individuals’ homeland are as varied as the immigrants themselves, especially women who leave for opportunity, some for adventure, education, marriage and some to …

Ageing And Women Disabilities In Sub-Sahara, Dr Williams Emeka Obiozor, Uzoamaka Lucynda Koledoye Mrs.

Dr Williams Emeka Obiozor

In a typical African community, women age gracefully, as they bear children, care, train, provide natural support; as well as receive support from their children when they grow older. The presence of infirmities and disabilities affect aging and hinder effective livelihood, human performance and general well-being of sub-Saharan African women. Critical knowledge gaps exist for responding to the general needs of the disabled women which is a concern to the authors. This position paper addressed the issues concerning aging and women disabilities in Sub-Saharan Africa, the challenges, and roles of adult educators could play as support systems and in ensuring …

Applying Focus Groups In Educational Research In Africa, Dr Williams Emeka Obiozor

Dr Williams Emeka Obiozor

The study using focus groups in the West African nation of The Gambia was an experiential research, which provided viable data on girl child education practices, problems and prospects in the African sub region. This paper presents an opportunity to explore peoples’ perceptions on issues of interest and concern to Gambians on girl child education. The 2006-2007 study was conducted through the use of focus groups for data collection, covering six educational regions in the Republic of The Gambia.

Variations Sur La Langue De Molière; L’Enseignementdu Français Aux États-Unis, Thomas C. Spear

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

French has always been among the top foreign languages taught in the American university, even if Spanish occupies the first place. As a result of the social transformations of the 1960s and 1970s and the development of new fields of learning, changes were also introduced gradually into French department programs to include francophone literatures, although in a manner that some have deemed disturbing.

This openness, which is not found in France, has brought about the creation of new faculty positions, some of which are occupied by teachers and writers from Africa and the Caribbean who are making a significant contribution …

La « Littérature Francophone » En Question, Roberta Hatcher

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

While literatures from Africa, the Caribbean and Québec have been taught in U.S French programs since at least the 1970s, the widespread incorporation of «francophone» literature and culture into all levels of the curriculum is a relatively recent phenomenon. Yet the organization of these heterogeneous fields under the umbrella of Francophone Studies has generated little discussion concerning the field’s definition and its relation to French Studies as a whole. This essay examines the category of Francophone Literature, arguing that it is no longer adequate for understanding today’s complex literary and cultural terrain.

Enseigner La Littérature Francophone : À La Recherche De La Banalisation, Cilas Kemedjio

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The emergence of francophone literatures as a field that is increasingly taught in departments of French has led to the creation of numerous positions dedicated to this area. The natural question that specialists face is how to devise strategies to develop and entrench this new discipline in American universities, concerned as they are with budgetary issues. The present study argues that only the constant search for cooperation between Francophonie and related academic fields will facilitate its institutionalization.

Selected Sources Of Funding For The Third World Educational Projects, Joseph M. Ndisya

All Master's Theses

A hundred philanthropic foundations were surveyed with an aim to find out their attitudes toward the educational growth in the developing countries. This was done in order to have an idea of the percentage that would reply positively that they would consider project proposals seeking funds for continuous educational growth in such countries. Of those that replied to the questionnaires, about 50% replied positively thereby agreeing that they would consider such proposals. Hence those developing countries of Latin America, Asia Minor, and Africa could seek more funds to keep their educational development growing a bit faster.