U.S. students prefer India as key study destination

U.S. students prefer India as key study destination

siliconindia news bureau

Bangalore: just like U.S. is the top study destination for Indian students, India too is a preferred destination for U.S. students. A new survey has found out that India is one of the five nations preferred by the U.S. students as a key educational destination. China, Japan, South Africa and Argentina are among the other preferable educational destinations for U.S. students.

According to the Open Doors 2009 survey conducted by the Institute of International Education, the number of Americans studying abroad increased by 8.5 percent to 262,416 in the 2007-08 academic year. The survey shows that the number of students to nearly all of the top 25 destinations increased, notably to destinations less traditional for study abroad: China, Ireland, Austria and India (up about 20 percent each), as well as Costa Rica, Japan, Argentina and South Africa (up nearly 15 percent each).

At the same time, the number of international students at colleges and universities in the U.S. increased by eight percent to an all-time high of 671,616 in the 2008-09 academic year while the number of 'new' international students - those enrolled for the first time at a U.S. college or university in fall 2008 - increased by 16 percent.

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OGoBiblios 74

In Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location, Code (2006) frames her philosophy of “ecological thinking” in reverent analysis of Rachel Carson’s methods in works like Silent Spring. She calls Carson a “practitioner of a practical ecology reliant on ‘empirical generalizations’,” yet also dependent on “narrow and precise local hypotheses.” She characterizes this method as “living the tension… working back and forth between an instituted, rhetorically monitored scientific orthodoxy and an attentive respect for particularity that is subversive of many of the fundamental assumptions of scientific orthodoxy.” She then builds an argument around such negotiations of empiricism. Code seeks to articulate an epistemology and accompanying methods/methodologies “capable of generating and adjudicating knowledge both about the factuality of the physical/material world and about a social order whose epistemic assumptions are complicit in sustaining its own positive and negative enactments” (p.97). Finally, she proposes an epistemology that assumes “statements of fact indeed acquire or fail to achieve factual status situationally according to the patterns of authority and expertise constitutive of the institution(s) of knowledge production in whose discursive spaces they circulate and within whose praxes they are constituted and embedded” (p. 99).

OGoBiblios 73

Mouly, V.S. & Sankaran, J. K. (1995). Organizational Ethnography: An illustrative application in the study of Indian R&D settings. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Mouly & Sankaran (1995) provide an organizational ethnography of two research and development (R&D) environments in India: public sector and private sector. Though the stated goal of the research is comparison of the R&D settings towards their end of proving the hypothesis that public sector R&D is inefficent, they focus much more attention on the qualitative method than the findings. For example, they title their book, Organizational Ethnography: An illustrative application in the study of R&D settings and give disproportionate attention to generic discussion of ethnography and ethnographic methods. They use ethnographic paradigms from cultural anthropology to set up their data analysis, discussing Gregory’s (1983) three dimensions of contrast in cultural paradigms for organizational studies: holistic-particulate, explanatory-interpretive, and native view-external view. They do not ever specifically state where they intend their approach to fall in these dimensions proposed by Gregory. They do set up a list of domains for inquiry in their data analysis, focusing on themes emerging from the data. Their findings confirm their hypothesis that public sector R&D is inefficient and they provide a model of the ineffectiveness of public sector R&D teams.

Mouly and Sankaran’s (1995) study provides a useful look at the application of the qualitative paradigm to organizational research in both exemplary and cautionary ways. First, it will be an important part of my research and the formation of theoretical frameworks and plans for data analysis to take an interdisciplinary approach, pulling from literature in organizational development and several other business-related fields. Secondly, Mouly and Sankaran’s (1995) disproportionate attention to the ethnographic methodology may reflect a defensive stance because of a history of placing more value on quantitative methods in this field. This same historical bias towards quantitative methods exists in instructional design. Finally, I felt frustrated as a reader when Mouly and Sankaran did not clearly connect the dots between their research design and a theoretical framework; this oversight highlighted for me the importance of clearly laying out my approach.

OGoBiblios 72

Edmundson, A. (2007). The Cultural Adaptation Process (CAP) Model: Designing e-learning for another culture. In A. Edmundson (Ed.) Globalizing e-learning cultural challenges(pp. 2-17). Hershey, PA: Information Science

Edmundson (2007) offers a case study to test her proposed cultural adaptation process (CAP) model to evaluate e-learning courses and to include cultural profiles in learner analysis. She relies on an eclectic theoretical framework, pulling from instructional design and industrial anthropology. The “foundational framework” of course evaluation in Edmundson’s (2007) CAP model is based on Marinetti & Dunn’s (2002) guidelines for adapting courses for different cultures. Edmundson also modifies Henderson’s (1996) multiple cultural model for instructional design from fourteen dimensions represented in a continuum to nine and calls her modification the simplified multiple cultural model (SMCM): pedagagogical paradigm (instructivist/objectivist—constructivist/cognitive); experiential value (abstract—concrete); teacher role (didactic—facilitative); value of errors (errorless learning—learning from experience); motivation (extrinsic—intrinsic); accommodation of individual differences (non-existent—multifaceted); learner control (non-existent-unrestricted); user activity (mathemagenic—generative) and cooperative learning (unsupported—integral). To include learner analysis based on cultural characteristics in the CAP model framework, she pulls from three industrial anthropology models of oppositional cultural dimensions: Hofstede’s (1984, 1997) five cultural dimensions (power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation); Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s (1998) seven cultural dimensions (universalism v particularism, individualism v communitarianism, specific v diffuse cultures, affective v neutral cultures, achievement v ascription, sequential v synchronic cultures and internal v external control); and Hall’s (1981) concept of monochronic v polychronic cultures. She then applies this model in a cross-border context between the US and India and uses case study research design to evaluate a course developed by a US corporate training company for Indian learners. Edmundson’s data analysis is limited to description and evaluation of the process for course development and learner analysis, revealing that the current CAP model may not provide optimal guidance for the “flow of analytical activities.”

Edmundson’s study reflects one of the challenges in conducting research with a cultural focus in instructional design: finding a theoretical framework for analysis of results that does not rely on structured, oppositional continuums. The neatness of these continuums makes them highly attractive and easy to apply. For example, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions have been applied ad nauseam and rarely reveal more in the findings than the presence of these differences in a learning environment or the predictable implications of how they function (Paulus et al., 2005; Dunn & Marinetti, 2007). Another challenge reflected in Edmundson’s study is that culture focused research is still emergent in instructional design (Richey, 2009), so proposed models are often either untested or tested only by their creators and tend to be prescriptive rather than descriptive.

Indian IT firms to be Harvard case study

Indian IT firms to be Harvard case study
SiliconIndia

David A Garvin, the C Roland Christensen Professor of business administration at the B-school, is at present on a India mission, building up case studies along with his research associates, on these two midsize companies. They are conducting extensive interviews with top 25 senior executives of Indian firms to understand the distinctive qualities of the Indian business environment, organizations and leadership.

The case study he is focusing on will include work place practices like innovations in terms of knowledge management at MindTree and innovative human resource practices and vision community at Zensar. "The distinctive aspect of these companies is their management practices. MindTree has a distinctive culture, because they have a very strong value system, like sharing and they believe in collaborations," said Garvin who first visited India in 1969. "Zensar has got a vision community, where a cross section of the organization is empowered to develop proposals on major policies and issues of the company. You don't see this form of empowerment very often."

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Indian civil servants at U.S. to get global perspective

Indian civil servants at U.S. to get global perspective
SiliconIndia

A group of 18 civil servants from India have joined a U.S. school to get a broader, international perspective on public policy matters by learning how these issues are addressed in America.

The seven week intensive programme at Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University on "Issues in Public Policy: an International Perspective" forms part of their Post Graduate Programme in Public Management (PGPPM).

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OGoBiblios 71

Edmonds, G. S., Branch, R. C. & Mukherjee, P. (1994). A Conceptual Framework for Comparing Instructional Design Models. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(4), 55-72.

Edmonds, Branch & Mukherjee propose a conceptual framework for comparing instructional design models that consists of the following categories and subcategories: orientation- prescriptive, descriptive and elements of both; knowledge structure- procedural, declarative and elements of both; expertise level- expert, intermediate, novice and suitable for all; structure- system, soft-system, intuitive and aspects of each; context- K-12, higher education, business and government; and level- unit, module, lesson, course, institutional and mass.

OGoBiblios 70

Wild, M. & Henderson, L. (1997). Contextualising learning in the World Wide Web: accounting for the impact of culture. Education and Information Technologies 2, 179-192.

Wild & Henderson (1997) propose a model for “investigating and developing culturally appropriate instructional materials” (p.181) and consider it a framework for conducting research in this area. Pulling from Henderson’s (1996) work, they argue that culture is significant in instructional design because “distinctive and significant symbolic meanings and values develop around information, its use and structuring in any cultural group… when the act of instructional design translates this information into products or artifacts of learning that artifact embodies cultural influences, such as the instructional designer’s world view, the designer’s values, ideologies, culture, class and gender, and, the designer’s commitment to a particular design paradigm” (p.184).

OGoBiblios 69

Branch, R.M. & Deissler, C.H. (2008). In Januszewski, A., & Molenda, M. (Eds.), Educational technology: A definition with commentary. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Branch & Deissler (2008) provide a discussion on technological processes in the context of educational technology, “extend[ing] the work of Seels and Richey (1994)” (p. 195). They define technological processes as “a series of meaningful activities constructed upon organizing themes” (p.196) They emphasize a systematic view of processes as part of their theoretical framework and the application of principles or theories as the practical framework. ADDIE is emphasized as a development process and ASSURE is featured as a media utilization model. In conclusion, they emphasize: “Useful processes need to be capable of responding to the emerging trends in instructional technology” (p.210).

OGoBiblios 68

Gustafson, K.L. & Branch, R.M. (1997). Revisioning models of instructional development. Educational Technology Research & Development, 45(3), 73-89.


Gustafson & Branch review the history of instructional development models, starting with Silvern’s (1965) application of systems theory to instructional design. They focus their review of models on those that include the steps of analysis, design, production, evaluation and revision, and acknowledge that some authors would include implementation. They find that these models have been researched, applied and modified in different contexts for different audiences: college courses, large-scale curriculum planning, military training, individual classrooms with teachers as designers, and self-based lessons/commercial products. They also suggest that models serve the role of conceptual and communication tools. Positing a taxonomy of instructional design models, they categorize models for purpose into classroom, products and systems models and then offer a set of characteristics by which to compare them: typical output, resources committed to development, team or individual effort, instructional design skill or experience, emphasis on development or selection, amount of front-end analysis/needs assessment, technological complexity of delivery media, amount of tryout and revision and amount of distribution/dissemination. Finally, they acknowledge recent developments in instructional development models such as rapid prototyping and use of expert systems, but conclude that these models do not depart from earlier models if one views the process as iterative and recursive rather than linear and progressive: “While we have no quarrel with those who are exploring alternative ways of developing learning environments, we believe many claims for uniqueness are overstated” (p.86).