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One of the main obstacles facing project-based learning (PBL) adoption relates to a lack of understanding by teachers and students in the roles they are required to play in the learning process. This study aims to address this obstacle, so as to better promote regular adoption of PBL pedagogy in educational institutions.

The strategy was to undertake an in-depth case study of PBL courses taught in UNI-X’s undergraduate curriculum. The case study approach is particularly appropriate for this exploratory study because it allows to capture the organizational dynamics of the phenomenon better and also its ability to explain the phenomenon based on interpretation of data.

This paper presents an empirical study on the role perspective of PBL in a collaborative project environment. By drawing upon a case study of UNI-X, the authors argue that a teacher plays the roles of a designer, champion, facilitator and manager in a PBL course. To ensure that learning is effective, students should play the roles of a self-directed learner and a warrior when completing their projects. It is clear that role ambiguity and role conflict could occur in PBL courses and might even impact the effectiveness of student learning.

For researchers, this paper contributes to the PBL literature by introducing a role perspective of PBL. This study identifies a list of roles a teacher and a student could potentially play in a PBL setting. Such understanding could serve as a reminder for a teacher and a student for the roles they need to play in achieving learning outcomes of a PBL course.

Although it is clear that there are many benefits of academic–industry partnership through project-based learning (PBL) courses offered by universities, however, there are challenges in establishing such partnerships that if not addressed, may result in either failure of such collaboration or an unpleasant experience for parties involved. Accordingly, this study aims to address this knowledge gap in the PBL literature by identifying the essence of partnership management and offering insights to managing such partnerships effectively.

This study aims to develop a framework that highlights the essence of partnership management in a PBL setting and validate the framework by conducting a focus group study on a university in Singapore (UNIS)’s PBL programmes called UNIS-X and UNIS-XO.

The results suggest that the key features of partnership management include a value proposition, depth of collaboration, knowledge creation and exchange and continuous feedback. In addition, the findings offer useful insights to managing effective partnerships when engaging industry partners in a PBL programme.

For researchers, this paper contributes to the PBL literature by identifying and validating the key features of effective partnerships in PBL. This serves as one of the first exploratory and validation studies in examining key features of partnership in the PBL literature. For educators, this study offers useful insights to understanding effective partnership management when engaging industry partners in a PBL course. With the knowledge, educators can devise useful actions to ensure these features of a partnership are established and maintained throughout the project.

This AERI-NEPC eBrief, the fourth in a series titled “Understanding validity issues around the world”, looks closely at issues surrounding the validity of test-based actions in educational accountability and school improvement contexts. The specific discussions here focus testing issues in the US. However, the general principles underlying appropriate and inappropriate test use in school reform and high stakes public accountability settings are applicable in both domestic and international settings. This paper aims to present the issues.

This policy brief is based on a synthesis of conference proceedings and review of selected pieces of extant literature. It begins by summarizing perspectives of an invited expert panel on the topic. To that synthesis, the authors add their own analysis of key issues. They conclude by offering recommendations for test developers and test users.

The authors conclude that recurring validity issues arise with tests used in school reform and public accountability contexts, because the external tests tend to be employed as policy instruments to drive reforms in schools, with unrealistic timelines and inadequate resources. To reconcile the validity issues with respect to educational assessment and forge a coherent understanding of validity among multiple public users with different agendas, the authors offer several recommendations, such as: adopt an integrated approach to develop content and standards of proficiency that represent a range of cognitive processes; support studies to examine validity of assessments and the effects of decisions taken with assessment data before results are fed into high stakes accountability-related actions that affect teachers, leaders or schools; align standards, curricula, instruction, assessment, and professional development efforts in schools to maximize success; increase capacity-building efforts to help teachers, administrators, policy makers, and other groups of test users learn more about assessments, particularly, about appropriate interpretation and use of assessment data and reports.

Baker points out that in response to growing demands of reformers and policy-makers for more frequent and rigorous testing programs in US public education, results from a single test tend to get used to meet a variety of public education needs today (e.g. school accountability, school improvement, teacher evaluation, and measurement of student performance). While this may simply be a way to make things more cost-efficient and reduce the extent of student testing in schools, a consequence is inappropriate test use that threatens validity in practice settings. This policy brief confronts this recurring validity challenge and offers recommendations to address the issues.

This study examines the association between the use of a package of contemporary and a package of traditional management accounting practices with organizational change and organizational performance.

Data were collected based on a mail survey distributed to a sample of 740 public sector organizations.

The findings indicate that while the prevalence of traditional practices is still dominant, such practices were not associated with organizational change or performance. Rather, those organizations that use contemporary management accounting practices to a greater extent experienced greater change and stronger performance.

The findings suggest that contemporary management accounting practices can assist public sector practitioners in improving performance and promoting organizational change.

The study provides an empirical insight into the use and effectiveness of management accounting practices in the public sector. The study provides the first empirical analysis of the effect of using a package of management accounting practices in the public sector.

The purpose of this paper is to theorise and develop seven dimensions (strategic supplier partnership, level of information sharing, quality of information sharing, customer service management, internal lean practices, postponement and total quality management) into a supply chain management (SCM) practices (SCMPs) construct and studies its causal relationship with the conceptualised constructs of supply chain performance (SCP) and manufacturing firms’ performance (MFP). The study also explores the causal relationship between SCP and MFP.

Data were collected through a survey questionnaire responded by 249 Jordanian manufacturing firms. The relationships proposed in the developed theoretical framework were represented through three hypotheses: H1 – there is a significant relationship between SCMPs and SCP; H2 – there is a significant relationship between SCMPs and MFP; and H3 – there is a significant relationship between SCP and MFP. Linear regression, ANOVA and Pearson correlation were used to test the hypotheses. The results were further validated using structural equation modelling.

The results indicate that SCMPs have a positive effect on SCP (H1), which in turn also positively affect MFP (H3). Despite this intermediary positive effect of SCMP on MFP through SCP, the study also suggests that SCMPs have a direct and positive effect on MFP (H2).

This study provides hard evidence indicating that higher levels of SCMPs can lead to enhanced supply chain and firms’ performance. It also provides SC managers of manufacturing firms with a multi-dimensional operational measure of the construct of SCMPs for assessing the comprehensiveness of the SCMPs of their firms.

This study is among the very first SCM researches conducted on the Jordanian manufacturing sector, particularly, in relation to the practices that manufacturing firms in this country need to adopt to make their supply chains a solid competitive vehicle for their development. The results have broader implications for all manufacturing companies, particularly in developing economies where the growth of manufacturing and the development of integrated supply chains are key stages in economic development.

Investigated the effect of leadership training and counseling feedback on subordinates’ perceptions of transformational leadership. A total of 40 organizational leaders participated in a 2 (training) × 2 (feedback) design. Data from 180 subordinates showed that both training and feedback resulted in increased subordinate perceptions of leaders’ transformational leadership. Results suggest that both training and feedback are effective means of changing leadership behaviors but that the combination of training and feedback did not result in enhanced transformational leadership.