Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a thinking model to recommend to the vocational education institutions for planning their educational business in the face of marketization. Design/methodology/approach: The systems approach is adopted for developing the model. It is not only used for the conceptualization of the principles of…

Objective:: To help close the gap between health promotion research and practice by using systems thinking. Methods: We review 3 national US tobacco control initiatives and a project (ISIS) that has introduced systems thinking to tobacco control, speculating on ways in which systems thinking may add value to health promotion dissemination and…

How might one account for the organization in behavior without attributing it to an internal control structure? The present article develops a theoretical framework called behavioral dynamics that integrates an information-based approach to perception with a dynamical systems approach to action. For a given task, the agent and its environment are…

Dialogue is an encounter between two or more human beings. We will consider how some scientists, philosophers and religious scholars have looked at dialogue and attempt to learn from each tradition while seeing this encounter under the umbrella of "Systems theory", related to thermodynamics and flavored with Buddhist philosophy. The process of…

The Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science is among the world's premier supporters of basic research. The Office of Science enables the U.S. to maintain its competitive edge by funding science that can transform its energy future, supports its national security and seeks to understand the fundamentals of matter and energy itself. To do…

Library transformation requires a cohesive vision and execution. Beyond excellent management, organization, technical deployment and collection development, success of the public library as a sense of place requires additional dimensions. This includes attention to the details of environment, presentation, ambiance, graphics, customer service and…

The present study examined the occupational aspirations and career development influences of children attending Years 6 and 7 at a sample of rural and remote primary schools in the central western region of Queensland. Data was collected by means of the "Revised Career Awareness Survey" (McMahon & Patton, 2001). Australian and New…

Luhmann, a prominent exponent of social systems theory, maintains that in modern, functionally differentiated societies morality is neither possible nor necessary. Against this claim it is argued that democracies want citizens with moral motivation. In contrast to Kohlberg, moral motivation is conceptualised as independent of stage of moral…

Since the publication of McREL's "2003 Annual Report," McREL staff members wrote more than 100 published articles in practitioner and peer-reviewed journals describing what they know from four decades of research on effective schools as well as years of practical experience working to help educators raise student performance: that…

This qualitative analysis investigates the role of tenure-track faculty at Towne University (pseudonym), a regional institution with a long-standing public service mission. Towne has played an important role in the production and continued development of teachers for local schools through extensive K-20 collaboration. Recently, however, Towne…

The author examines early childhood music education in Taiwan through Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory. Factors in the microsystem level that influenced the musical development of children included adult perception of children, child-adult interactions, Taiwanese family structure, and the existing early childhood education system. The…

This paper emerges from an ongoing study which involved, firstly, key informant interviews with strategic personnel within the Irish education system, such personnel representing both service providers and service users. The first part of this paper provides a brief summary of the findings of that aspect of the study in relation to the key…

This study challenges narrow definitions of teacher effectiveness and uses a systems approach to investigate teacher effectiveness as a multi-dimensional, holistic phenomenon. The methods of Nominal Group Technique and Interpretive Structural Modeling were used to assist U.S. and Japanese students separately construct influence structures during…

Equipping engineering students with the skills and knowledge required to be successful global engineers in the 21st century is one of the primary objectives of undergraduate educators. Enabling students to practice self-directed learning, to find solutions to design problems that are sustainable and to recognize that they are part of a global…

Systems thinking plays a key role in producing the understanding of a big picture--a broader view of looking at the overall system needed to develop a learning community more effectively. Practical expectations to improve the functioning of Human systems, here teacher preparedness, on identifying possible interventions, relate at description and…