Cost and value in medical education：the role of statistical process control

Medical education is associated with significant costs[1].These costs have led to a growing interest in how to deliver high quality or high quantity education on a limited budget.This in turn has led to an interest in how best to measure quantity,quality and cost and how to track these variables over time.The ultimate aim of the interest in cost and value in medical education is to

Researches on Innovation of Education： A Retrospect and Prospect

There is almost universal faith in ＂innovation capability＂, which can realize creations with obvioussocial values, and a knowledge-based needs such creation. The crux of the problem herein is to developinnovation capability and offer a good environment for those creation-driven persons in order to facilitate themto play their roles. The creativity hence is equated with a technical, instrumental existence, and innovationcapability therefore is understood as something with creativity for ever. This kind of research cannot wellunderstand the social nature of innovation, and would lead to our over-dependence on those technical factorsin the matter of innovation of education. In our opinion, the longing for innovation is not only the need of theknowledge-based society, but the need of the whole modern society. As Schumpeter argues, between the growthand the development there is not an absolute gap, where seemingly insignificant may exit a truly earthshakingpower. Our ultimate aim is to build an educational theory of innovation based upon the social nature of innovation,that is, to build a meta-theory of the sharing framework of the action of educational innovation.

The Experience of Setting up a New Learning Environment Model in Management Education： Challenges and Frustrations

The aim of this paper is to describe and to reflect on the experience of the authors in setting up a new model of learning environment in management education in a University in Brazil, which was initially called Management Practice Laboratory （MPL）. The MPL environment was conceived as a physical and conceptual space where students could learn and practice the principles and techniques of working in organizations in its three levels operational, tactical, and strategic. The foundations of the project come from social constructivist perspective on learning, from experiential learning literature and from researches that call for a new epistemological ground in management learning. In this paper, the authors will stress some challenges and frustrations with the project since these could be helpful to those interested in similar initiatives. Due to limited space, only two challenges will be stressed： （1） the construction of legitimacy for the project; and （2） the persistent dissonance between theory and practice. The authors conclude that there is room for innovation in the way management is taught and learned in universities since one shows courage to overcome the challenges and frustrations one will certainly deal with

Politics of Language Choice in African Education： The Case of Kenya and Malawi

In August 2015 the government of South Afiica issued Circular S10 of 2015, to inform education authorities that Mandarin would be taught in the schools beginning January 2016. Immediately, the South African Democratic Teachers＇ Union （Sadtu） expressed stiff opposition to it, rejecting it as constituting a ＂new form of colonization＂. The notification informed national and provincial education authorities that Mandarin would be incrementally implemented in schools such that ＂Grades 4-9 and 10 will be implemented in January 2016, followed by grade 11 in 2017 and grade 12 in 2018＂ （Nkosi, 2015）. Part of the justification for the introduction of Mandarin is that China is South Africa＇s biggest trading partner; as such, it is important for the children of South Africa to ＂become proficient in the Confucius language and develop a good understanding of Chinese culture＂ （Nkosi, 2015）. There was nothing said about China＇s reciprocation through changes to the language curriculum of China＇s educational system. Sadtu＇s reaction conforms to the interrogation of the use of language and education as the arena of power politics, exemplified here by the asymmetric power relations between the two countries. This feeds into the realities of African education that, largely, remains shackled through its content and languages of instruction to foreign knowledge systems, reinforced through globalization, science and technology. For instance, with regard to language of instruction the Malawi Government issued the Education Act of 2012 that decreed that English would be studied and used as medium of instruction from grade 1. Language-in-education policies of other African countries differ minimally from that of Malawi. With focus on Kenya and Malawi the paper will examine the politics of language and curricula in African education.

Clues for Architectural Education： Flexibility in Traditional and Modern Turkish House

Traditional Turkish house which characterized with its original shape of the room, plan layout, construction and roof forms has two main spaces as ＂sofa＂ （common space） and the ＂room＂ differentiate it from the houses in different geographies. The flexibility of the room in traditional Turkish house is characterized with its fixed-in-furniture, which supplies all necessities of a person in a house. This paper will discuss the similarities and differences in use of space between traditional Turkish houses and today＇s flats in apartments. The comprehensions will be made through the field works on traditional houses and with the projects of architecture students in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanhul. The concept of the students＇ projects is redesigning their own houses. Since the students come from different regions of Turkey, their houses have both similar and different spatial characteristics. Whether the cultural identity of the user plays a role in use of living space will be discussed. The aim of this study is to put the relation between the past and today＇s use of interior spaces of Turkish houses.

Virtue Education： Josef Pieper＇s Vita Contemplativa as Pedagogical Ground

Virtue education in the United States has lost its clout while the corporatization of higher education may be at its peak. The focus of traditional education has shifted from ideas, wisdom, and the love of learning to having a corporate mindset on progress and skills-based knowledge. In many cases, the focus of attention is on remaining viable/sustainable in times of economic decline rather than learning itself, so the resources supporting institutions of higher education are directed into marketing and public relations practices instead of the infrastructure for thinking and learning. This essay draws together three coordinates to make a case for a return to virtue education in the United States. First, the current condition of higher education is shown to have dubiously strayed from a virtue model. Second, the re-emergence of philosophy as a preferred major and its growth in the academy suggest that people realize that something has to change in higher education as they revert back to a broad liberal arts emphasis. Third, a discussion of virtue education from the lens of Josef Pieper＇s virtue philosophy, grounded in the lSta Contemplativa, offers renewed possibility to reengaged higher education for a sustainable future. Together, I suggest that the tradition of higher education in the United States is no longer viable and return to a virtue education model is an alternative that might make higher education sustainable.

The Place of Religion in Education： A Contemporary Nigerian Perspective

The Nigerian society has been plagued by persistent religious conflicts alongside the problem of insecurity for some time now. This is not a new development, but it has worsened since the last five years with the emergence of the Boko Haram Islamic group. This group claims to be responsible for most violent activities in the northern part of the country for the past few years. Judging from the nature of their activities, Boko Haram, an Arabic phrase which literally means that ＂western education is forbidden＂, is among other factors, largely rooted in religious intolerance. The challenges posed by this group since 2010 have defied all logic and rationality, leaving Nigerians with deep concerns for the unity of their country in the present era. Why has religion, albeit a formidable unifying element, become an instrument of various kinds of menace, destruction of lives and properties？ it appears to have even caused many to wonder about the quality of education and expertise of the Nigerian polity and governance. It must also be noted that most of these problems with Boko Haram have their roots in the northern part of the country which is predominantly Islamic in religion. Religion has been awfully misrepresented and used as an excuse for all kinds of evil. This paper examines the place of religion in education from the perspective of the contemporary Nigerian society. It also explores how religion can still be used as a paradigm for restoring the sanctity and dignity of education, promote its morality and actualize its objectives in the society. The paper furthermore summons religious leaders to devise significant ways, such as interfaith dialogues and activities to enhance a sustained education in the country.

Spiritual Enlightenment ＆ Education： A Reading of Lao Zi （老子） for Educational Philosophers Today

Educational philosophy and enlightenment have been closely connected through the human pursuit to search for truth and improvement in history. In today＇s world, commercialism and technology have gained and accumulated enormous power in its impact on human society and consciousness, and have posed serious challenges to the traditional pursuit of enlightenment and philosophical studies. This paper takes a retrospective look of Lao Zi＇s Dao De Jing （Tao Te Jing, 道德经）.1 The discussion provides Lao Zi＇s definition of enlightenment in comparison to the western philosophical tradition and examines his focal concepts of Dao （the Way,道） and Virtue （德）, their relationship as well as the connection with enlightenment and education. In addition, the paper analyzes the insights and meaning Lao Zi＇s thought has for the contemporary philosophers and practices and raises questions regarding the implementation of his philosophy in the classrooms today.

The Internet in EFL Teacher Education： Investigating the Possibilities and Challenges in a Pre-service Education Programme

The paper reported on a small-scale qualitative study on EFL （English as a Foreign Language） teacher education with a two-fold objective, investigating the possibility of integrating the Internet for academic purposes in the context of a pre-service English teacher education programme in Egypt, and suggesting some guidelines based on the specific context of Assiut University College of Education. Semi-structured interviews were conducted online with some student teachers （n = 10） and teacher educators （n = 10） at the university to identify their personal viewpoints, experiences and concerns regarding integrating the Internet into this teacher education context. For triangulation purposes, content analysis was conducted on 12 online documents. Results reveal some difficulties, challenges and concerns related to the process and some new forms of literacy needed for this context. Based on this, some guidelines are suggested for integrating the Internet into pre-service EFL teacher education programmes with special reference to the Egyptian context.

Perceived Competence and Skill Development in Physical Education： The Effect of Teacher Feedback

This study examined the effects of feedback on perceived competence and student performance in physical education. The sample （N = 113） consisted of fifth-grade physical education students, recruited from two elementary schools and randomly assigned into small groups. Participants within each group were randomly assigned to receive positive general, corrective informational, or no feedback and completed pre- and post-task questionnaires. Groups were given a lacrosse shot task presentation and then completed a lacrosse shot pre-test, practice session, and post-test, including a pre- and post-test. During the lacrosse task, teachers administered feedback treatments to participants at the rate of every other attempt for a total of six feedback statements, excluding the control group. Lacrosse experience was found to be 2.45 on a 9-point Likert-type scale, demonstrating that the sample was unfamiliar with the lacrosse skill. Three separate split plot 2× 3 analysis of variance （ANOVA） tests with repeated measures were conducted to determine whether feedback treatment type influenced participants＇ perceived competence, product performance skill, and process performance skill when considering pre- and post-task measures. The findings demonstrated that feedback appears to have a limited effect on perceived competence and performance during unfamiliar tasks in elementary school physical education.

The Origin of Chinese Modem Engineering Education： Fuzhou Shipping School＇s Engineering Education at Late Qing Dynasty

Engineering education is an important issue in engineering practice, and engineering practice and characteristics can be seen through examining the history of early Chinese engineering education. During the period ranging from the 1860s to the middle of the 1890s, the westernization group set up a series of modern industrial and mining enterprises for military and civil use, making the implementation of modern engineering education become possible and necessary. Thanks to their efforts, many schools and old-style private schools for teaching knowledge about western science and technology and training senior engineering managements and talents were gradually founded in China. These modern education organizations are the source and beginning of Chinese engineering education, which is also the origin of modernization of Chinese engineering education. This article takes Fuzhou Shipping School for case studies, using a cultural anthropology approach to examine the overall status, basic characteristics, and impact evaluation of engineering education during the Westernization Movement in China. It reiterates the idea of that ＂engineering education should be returned to engineering practice,＂ and tries to explain the framework of the development of engineering education in China. Through conducting research, we find that the development of engineering education in modem China generally has the basic resources for realization of internationalization through ＂westernization＂ and localization through traditional culture and education and the general characteristics of diversification of social influence. During the development process, it has accumulated valuable experience for timely reform and gradual improvement of modernization： attaching importance to culture and cultivating qualified technical personnel; strictly requiring and building high-level schools and specialties; learning the advanced knowledge and bravely utilizing foreign educational resources; setting pragmatic and highly pertinent disciplines and specialties. It also left the society with thought-provoking lessons, namely, the lagging industrial production and social instability made the development severely restricted and obstructed; the unreasonable development layout resulted in the intensified imbalanced development in different regions; the bureaucracy nature imposed serious impact on efficiency and effectiveness of education; the negligence of innovation made the great-leap-forward development failed, etc.

Analyzing the Factors Affecting the Users＇ Success in Web Based Education： A Data Mining Approach

Corporations focus on web based education to train their employees ever more than before. Unlike traditional learning environments, web based education applications store large amount of data. This growing availability of data stimulated the emergence of a new field called educational data mining. In this study, the classification method is implemented on a data that is obtained from a company which uses web based education to train their employees. The authors＇ aim is to find out the most critical factors that influence the users＇ success. For the classification of the data, two decision tree algorithms, Classification and Regression Tree （CART） and Quick, Unbiased and Efficient Statistical Tree （QUEST） are applied. According to the results, assurance of a certificate at the end of the training is found to be the most critical factor that influences the users＇ success. Position, number of work years and the education level of the user, are also found as important factors.

Sustainability Accounting Education： Scale, Scope and a Global Need

Sustainability practice and reporting is gaining momentum due to the concerns and pressures arising from the Global Climate Change （GCC）, limitation of resources, changed stakeholder preferences and expectations. Accounting degrees convey traditional, technical and narrowly defined knowledge with limited scope for non conventional approaches. Sustainability accounting education has the potential to allow departure from the conventional thinking and practice in accounting education. Sustainability educated graduates are being increasingly expected by business and industry as sustainability education allows the fostering of ＂soft skills＂ that conventional accounting courses do not address. In spite of these potentials and needs for sustainability accounting education, less than a quarter of Australian and United States accounting faculties are offering a stand alone sustainability accounting course. There is a degree of uniformity in relation to course content with majority of focus on internal and external sustainability reporting. Other areas such as sustainability history in the context of accounting are not included in the courses. Sustainability is a complex area that needs more serious attention in accounting schools in order to match graduate attributes with the increasing industry demands.

Applied Rainwater Harvesting Education： An Australian Case Study

Rainwater tanks have been an integral part of the Australian landscape given the vital role these tanks have played over the years in rural Australia. In the past Local government and Water Authorities actively discouraged the use of rainwater tanks and informing citizens that they were illegal and dangerous. Kogarah Council within the Sydney metropolitan area is a proactive Council, and became the first council in Sydney to adopt Total Water Cycle Management （TWCM） principles into its Sustainability Management Plan, integrating these principles into on-ground projects at a catchment level in a planned and strategic approach. Among it priority projects was the Rainwater Tanks in Schools. This paper outlines how this project assisted all 22 schools in the Kogarah LGA （The Local Government Association） to increase the efficiency of water use and install rainwater tanks to reduce potable water use in toilet flushing and irrigating school gardens. The rainwater harvesting reduced the amount of drinking water used for toilet flushing and/or irrigation. The rainwater tanks also act as a visual reminder to conserve water for the students. The project has equipped the next generation with the necessary tools to make informed decisions and undertake actions that will move towards achieving sustainability.

Islam and Girls＇ Education： Obligatory or Forbidden

＂Acquisition of knowledge is binding on all Muslims＂ （al-Sunan 1：81 ~224）. This Hadith, sayings or actions of the prophet Muhammad （MPBUH）l, indicates that there is no preference based on sex in getting access to education in Islam; however, there is a growing misconception among the people of other religions that Islam constrains Muslim girls from getting education. This paper reviews literature and two authentic sources of Islamic scriptures, which are the Holy Qura＇an and the Ahadith to position the girls＇ education in purview of Islam. It further examines the possible reasons for conflicting interpretations of Islamic teachings. It concludes that Islam does not restrict girls from getting education. It recommends further systematic studies for exploring the reasons for the projection of distorted images of Islam.

Multicultural Citizenship Education： A Study on Experiences and Opinions of Taiwan＇s Indigenous Elementary School Teachers

The author reports findings of multicultural citizenship education from a two-year in-depth study of indigenous principals and teachers in local elementary schools. Data were gathered and analyzed using a conceptual framework that consisted of a multicultural citizenship based on the liberal theoretical perspective. The results indicate that indigenous educators face dilemmas in being cultural elites while considered national education policy implementer. Findings illustrate that indigenous elementary school educators are expected to possess differentiated-group privileges in teaching practices; however, they are confronted with both internal restrictions and external protections during establishing of ethnic cultural identity while playing their roles in the national educational apparatus. The paper also gives conclusions and suggestions for future researches.

Application of ICT in Art Education： A Case Study of HIFA

This paper intends to expound the application of information and communication technology （ICT） in art education, making a case of study of Hubei Institute of Fine Arts （HIFA）. Despite financial pressure, HIFA has invested heavily in the infi＇aslructure. The classrooms at HIFA can be roughly divided into three kinds： studios, multimedia classrooms and computer labs with reference to ICT. There are three general approaches to the instructional use of the technology at HIFA, namely： learning about computers and the Intemet; learning with computers and the Intemet and learning through computers and the Internet. The utilization oflCT has shaped the art education model of HIFA considerably and has brought about a lot of changes and benefits to the faculty and students. However, its disadvantage may overweigh the advantage unless it is properly harnessed.

Chinese College Students＇ Ideological and Political Education： Ways and Strategies in the New Period

Humanism is the soul of the ideological and political education. In the process of ideological and political education, adherence to humanities education is the objective requirement of modem education. This paper analyzes Chinese college students＇ ideological and political education ways and strategies in the new period. The author believes that optimized campus cultural environment can help build stages for students＇ growth, establish the principal position of students, promote students＇ individuality development, improve the psychological service system, improve students＇ psychological development, increasing students＇ emotional education and pay attention to students＇ emotion demands, etc.

The Application of Agreement in English Education： A Generative Perspective

In generative grammar, through agreement, unvalued features can be valued and uninterpretable features can be deleted,observing the Principle of Full Interpretation. Through the analysis of agreement in expletive clauses, we can provide a reasonable explanation to the misuse of expletives, thus proving that the theories of generative grammar, though, seemingly abstract, can best reflect the essence of language and can be applied in English education.

The Curriculum and Education System of American Higher Tourism Education： Taking the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University as an Example

The curriculum setting is the core for higher tourism education. In this field, American has instructive experiences that are worthy of learning. In this paper, the researcher carries out an investigation to, on the one hand, analyze the university＇ s advanced achievements in majors settings, course structure, and mode of instruction from the aspects of bachelor, master, doctor, and on the other hand to make a prospect of the future development of the curriculum for higher tourism education in China, by using the method of the literature analysis and interview with the College of Hotel Administration at Cornell University as an example case.