In a World of Global Turmoil, Which Hills Shall We Run For and Which Tribes Should We Join?

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The following article is a thank-you to all followers and visitors of my Blog. Approaching 90,000 views, this entry is a reflection on how global and local policy making is intrinsically linked to social psychology issues of social empowerment and cooperative problem-solving.

The Awareness of Crisis

Our world has entered a stage where we fight for ecological survival and depend on deep societal change on a global scale to make this happen. Rising inequality and the decline of middle classes in developed nations pose the question who, if not educated middle classes, should lead progress. The additional obstacles set out by populist movements, from Brexit to the dysfunctional governance of Donald Trump, have cast shadows over the ability of the Western civilisation to solve the pressing problems of our time. Unlike the US, Europe is geographically exposed to the turmoils created in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa. If for example, climate change continues at its current rate, hundreds of millions of climate refugees might knock on Fortress Europe instead of the currently few million trying to escape the terror of war in Syria.

Many European politicians have understood that solving this conundrum is only possible by developing our primary and secondary neighbours. This translates into fostering political and economic stability and setting the prospect of moderate wealth for the populations of Africa and the Middle-East. The age of nationalistic ‘Me first’ politics is counterproductive in a world where wealth has become an interdependent factor. In a world where everybody is looking for the best deal, everybody loses. Access to education and decent public health care are key prerequisites in the process of distributed and sustainable wealth-creation.

For starters, education and health care never work on a neoliberal market-based scheme of demand and supply. If a person has cancer, cancer cannot be exchanged for a cheaper illness. We can neither return a pre-existing condition because we don’t like its potential ramifications nor can we make our grandparents younger. If we need to provide higher education to our children, they cannot be adopted by a wealthier family to pay for costly tuition fees. Young people cannot pay for education with money that their parents don’t have. The easy way out of student loans translates into debilitating debts where each new opportunity is tied to an added obstacle to future growth. In order to ensure fair public access, the future of health care and education emerges therefore not by market forces but from supranational government-initiated networks. Intellectual elites, for the sake of not undermining their own legitimacy, share the responsibility to contribute to democratic global development.

The recent G20 summit in Hamburg served as an example of maximum investment in bringing world leaders together while yielding minimum outcomes. A community of economic self- interest representation stalls global development and does not facilitate significant cooperative projects that do not only benefit particular investors but global societal development. The lack of democratic legitimization of the world economy has never been more visible. But instead of learning from the lessons of emerging populism, world leaders continue to propagate neoliberal policies.

The Forces Within the Crisis

We see the transformation of capitalism represented by two dominating attitudes. The first is a progressive stand, represented by civil rights groups, NGOs, WHO- and UN-initiatives, attempt to transform and empower communities by bridging systemic ecological, social and biographic divides. The second, diametric aspect is resistance to change. By defending traditional cultural practices, privilege, shareholder interests and protecting monopolies, powerful groups maintain their dominance and influence. Caught in a cycle of self-preservation, they disconnect from social immersion and stall innovation by drafting policies that maintain corporate deregulation. Needless to mention that unilateral stakeholder defensiveness works diametral to an already volatile social contract.

The effects of populism, as I have experienced first hand in Thailand, are toxic not only to the extent of polarising populations during their reign, but to leave populations divided for generations after. Rifts about the ideology of political leadership run deep within the workplace, families and even personal relationships. The long-term effect of populism is the emergence of salient and socially exclusive group identities that undermine social contracts which are already threatened by the particularity of stakeholder interests that puts money before people.

Image: Sponsors of the American Diabetes Association. Screenshot from the documentary ‘What the Health’ (Anderson & Kuhn, 2017).

The perhaps biggest paradigm shift over the past decades is represented by the fact that the current Economy 3.0 model, which is based on democratic consensus among competing stakeholders, turns into a self-defeating system once the finite resources for maintaining exclusive stakeholderships become apparent. There is a widespread scientific consensus, backed by collective experiences of environmental disasters, that the ecological and social costs of doing business cannot be outsourced at the expense of society and our ecosphere indefinitely. The latter development is a negative feedback loop which is disruptive to businesses and communities alike. Popular examples are the emission scandals of Volkswagen and other carmakers, the pollution of oceans by microplastic and the harmful side-effects of a highly industrialised agriculture, in particular promoting monocultures, intensive livestock breeding and its associated high meat consumption. The alliance of food industries (to make people ill) and big pharma (to keep them this way as a stable source of income) is no coincidence. As shady property developers in Germany that prey on refinancing run-down housing estates occupied by social welfare recipients demonstrate, the crisis and misery of many have become a lucrative business for a few. Hiding in offshore accounts or in the darknet, authorities stall preventing criminals from targeting vulnerable populations and eroding their fragile social networks. In other cases, multinational corporations promote harmful products and services. Forces at work are certainly not in favour of progressive initiatives that face powerful adversaries.

Challenges to Transition

By contrast, the Economy 4.0 model promotes cooperation between the Civil Society, Government and Economy. Although the sustainable approach of Economy 4.0 is backed by more transparent collaborative accounts, the question arises how a transition from Economy 3.0 to 4.0 can be facilitated. The frictions created by populist policies and the limitations of stakeholder consensus have already been sketched out, which is how conflicts within the concurrent global transformation emerge. Political agendas that served nations well in the past are increasingly unable to inform new conceptual directions needed within a global environment. Borders to future growth are not only based on the limitation of available resources but also to the degree that social resources can be instrumentalized and exploited. It is not only that resources have a quantitative limit to availability, but that people rightfully expect a decent quality of life.

Supported by media discourse, international exchange and educational initiatives, awareness has emerged that people’s lives are compromised by the same protective stakeholder attitudes which decades ago still served as a guarantor of wealth. The defiant stance of workers in traditional industries, such as the coal- and steel industries, is a symptomatic expression of the dilemma that people are driven into when corporate decision makers fail to provide future prospects for their employees who have thoroughly internalised the limited perspective of their employer’s libertarian ideology. Replacing old ideologies by revolutionary new ones renders likewise futile since the question of the accountability of social change leadership persists. In our particular historical situation, we share the ownership of globalised problems, if we agree or not, which is a significant shift from a single stakeholder perspective that only follows individual business interests.

Image: Solar panels in India. Picture credit UK Department for International Development

Lastly, the dynamics and cascading nature of global problems force all participants to a fast and efficient prototyping of solutions. To avoid prolonged ill-design of policies, problem-solving and social re-design cycles require distributed multi-perspective assessment systems. The philosophy of reflecting cooperation is a huge shift from political parties designing and sugar-coating their particular group-agendas (assuming the mandate of active decision-makers) and presenting it to their voters (assuming the mandate of passive decision-takers). A more proactive, collaborative democratic approach represents, to this extent, not only a framework to substantiate social fairness but it serves as a framework for sustainable social problem-solving and design. Many NGOs and civil initiatives will likewise have to transform themselves to multi-stakeholder initiatives if they seek to initiate sustainable social change.

Running for the Hills: The Emergence of Social Design Initiatives versus Populism

Escaping from impending doom, we run for the nearest hills. Remarkably, it is the local contexts that provide the matrix and ground upon which cooperative social change emerges. The predominance of neoliberal market mechanisms over localised human concerns has already paralysed large parts of society. In the transition from Economy 3.0 to Economy 4.0, we ask questions such as:

Where can people with a medium income still find decent housing in big cities? How can children from lower socio-economic background participate in higher education? How can working parents find qualified care facilities for their children? How can people move socially upward by their honest effort and merit rather than by inheriting wealth? How can the segment of lower-skilled jobs be re-humanized? How can the entire population become enrolled in lifelong learning? How can people find meaning in their jobs and how can they find support in social networks and culture beyond their jobs? How can shared values evolve that benefit all members of society, not only a privileged few? How can local and regional economies switch to sustainable modes of production? How can inequality be diminished? How can countries reduce their national debt? How can cooperative change on a wide societal level be initiated? How can the poorest countries be woven into the vertical creation of wealth and turn into stable democratic societies?

To develop pragmatic solutions to such questions, Economy 4.0 requires grassroots social design initiatives that can respond more efficiently to local challenges as compared to traditional party politics. Much of the frustration and anger against ‘elites’ and traditional political parties stems from the inefficacy of public policy-making in addressing local concerns and issues, a weakness that populists keep exploiting. Populism obscures shared responsibilities by polarising the public view. Populism sanctions any actions by ‘us’ (the people) against ‘them’(the blamed elites) when in fact civil action ubiquitously requires adaptive political and legal frameworks in order for norms to take effect. In this light, populism evades the responsibility that people inherently share for each other.

In regressing to polarising group-mindsets that preceded the level of stakeholdership consensus, populists support the tragedy of the commons: if I can fully blame an external party for my group’s misery, I also abandon the shared ownership of the problem at hand by disconnecting systemic cause and effect. Finding scapegoats is always easier than managing integrative processes between people. The externalising and internalising psychology of populists resembles juvenile psychology which correlates with a diminished set of problem-solving skills.

Capital in the 21st Century and the Definition of Progress

Given the need for local social transformation, the future of complex societies lies not only in more socially-aware programs of political parties, but the grassroots empowerment of local communities to democratise the organisation of local administrations and businesses from within. An additional layer of social design initiatives is needed as a glue between the public sphere and traditional political parties. To demonstrate the efficacy of such integrating and transforming (multi-stakeholder) initiatives is one of our generation’s most pressing challenges.

Progress and prosperity do not come like a bolt of lightning from the top but depend on our personal initiative and ability to develop local contexts. Political frameworks will take on the new role to facilitate such initiatives, rather than fostering top-down social hierarchies guided by single-minded propositions. As many business models depend on taking advantage of disempowered groups, the question emerges how powerful exclusive groups can be motivated to change their modus operandi. This problem is even exacerbated when we consider spillover effects which are hard to quantify. While affluent nations consume most of the planetary resources and contribute to most of the per capita pollution, poorer nations pay the price by being subjected to foreign capital related corruption, floods, droughts and environmental degradation.

Image: Trash collectors in Cambodia. Picture credit Getty Images

Another limit to cooperative small-group social design initiatives lies in addressing large accumulations of capital as described in Piketty’s ‘Capital in the 21st Century’ which require being dealt with by political means. The philosophical and economic question is how super-wealthy elites monopolise resources at the expense of everybody else. As Piketty writes in his opus magnum “It is important to understand that a tax is always more than just a tax: it is also a way of defining norms and categories and imposing a legal framework on economic activity.” (Piketty 2014, p. 520). A normative understanding of socio-economic action that is based on people’s more tangible options for developing autonomy, supportive networks and competencies could replace the current model of Economy 3.0.

For the sake of maintaining the social contract, economic activity should serve the long-term ecological and socio-economic benefit of all, which defines the social-utilitarian aspect of Economy 4.0. The individual effort of activity needs to be rewarded and moderated in terms to how it proves to be of service to others, which describes the libertarian-meritocratic (client- and service-based) aspect of economic activity. As an example, recent discussions in Germany, where typical executive pay exceeds more than 50 times the salaries of ordinary workers, begs the question how excessive pay and bonuses are justified within a client-based context where elites should serve as a role model for the public good. How can people represent their group when they have disconnected themselves economically and socially from it in a significant manner and when they have widely abandoned sharing collective risks, liabilities and consequences? The international bailing out of failing banks by taxpayer’s money is a prominent example. Albert Bandura’s latest work on moral disengagement (Bandura, 2016), which investigates mechanisms of moral disassociation from systemic responsibilities, deserves to become a standard litmus test for monitoring corporate responsibility and accountability.

On the other hand, the oversimplified schemata of ‘capitalism versus socialism’ cannot regulate instances where the complexity of systems include multiple and competing types of nested social motivations. After all, consensus, by cooperation or by negotiation, implies legitimisation by internal audit (to serve ingroup fairness) as well as external responsibilities (to facilitate intergroup agreements). As we define the world differently with such an extended set of criteria to adjust to changed environmental conditions so changes our interpretation of progress. If we cannot make significant global progress happen within the next decades, nobody will.

Image below: G20 protesters in Hamburg, Germany

References

Anderson, K., & Kuhn, K. (2017).‘What the Health’ [documentary], A.U.M. Films & Media

Bandura, A. (2016). Moral disengagement: How people do harm and live with themselves. New York, NY: Worth Publishers

Piketty, T., & Goldhammer, A. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. Cambridge, Mass: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Women in IT: Where are the disconnects?

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While we discuss the emerging knowledge- and service industries of the 21st-century almost on a daily basis, the minuscule percentage of women embarking on careers in IT is deeply troubling. Industry struggles to find enough applicants to fill open positions as women are losing out on a personal and societal level by no embarking on beneficial career paths and excluding themselves from Economy 4.0.

Problem Definition

Across Western cultures, very few women choose careers in IT. According to a recent study conducted by COMPTIA (2017), girl’s consideration of IT jobs wanes with age. While in Middle School 27% of girls still consider a career in IT, this number dwindles to a meagre 18% in High School. Only 7% of girls consider a career as a programmer (versus 25% of boys) and only 3% imagine a career as a software developer (versus 23% of boys). In Germany, only 17,4% of new job applications in IT are women according to a recent study ‘Recruiting Trends 2017’. Among the top 1000 IT companies in Germany, this number comes down to 13,2% of female applicants, constituting IT as a highly male-dominated industry.

The cited reasons for the low uptake are manifold. Early childhood socialisation favours boys to be associated with technology as compared to girls. As a result of this stereotypical expectation which is supported by many parents, boys are more encouraged to explore technology and science as compared to girls. Many women also feel uncomfortable to work as a minority in an already male-dominated field. In the social sphere, there are too few female role models available to guide and mentor younger girls. Many schools offer only rudimentary IT classes that do not inform and prepare students adequately for a future career. At the workplace, issues of unequal pay, unequal career development options and widespread gender bias within IT companies keep many women from joining. On top, very little useful information is provided to young women about careers in IT in general. We cannot dream about things that we don’t know about. Although the general ‘acupuncture points‘ to why women do not take up jobs in IT are well identified by international studies, the numerous obstacles have not yet been specified by empirical research and have not been informed by experience gained from practical interventions. What specifically keeps girls and women from embarking on careers in IT?

To dig deeper and go beyond generalised statements, we need to have a look at some of the leading theoretical frameworks in educational sociology and psychology.

Educational Sociology Approaches

Raymond Boudon’s approach follows, as an external methodology, a rational choice approach based on an individual and situated cost-benefit calculus. In our case, young girls and their parents evaluate the costs, payoffs and likeliness of succeeding in careers in IT. The question is if and how young women from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds make different educational decisions after finishing school or college as compared to women from academic- and well-off families. The data gained from studies on the more fragile joints of education systems can inform interventions and communication strategies based on the attitudes and ways of life within a specific social milieu or class. In psychology, rational choice theories such as by Ajzen and Fishbein’s Theory of Planned Behavior include attitudes towards planned behaviour, normative beliefs and perceived behavioural control, analogous to Boudon’s framework. These theories are good at examining the joints of educational trajectories such as transitions from secondary to tertiary and from tertiary to university- or polytechnic education.

Pierre Bourdieu’s Cultural Deprivation Theory, by comparison, looks at the ‘habitus’ which are internalised patterns of socialisation, dispositions, daily routines and the in situ constitution of life-planning. His complimentary concept of ‘doxa’ refers to the attempt of social members to bring subjective cognitive convictions into congruence with given (objective) social settings. In psychology, Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger, 1957) deals with similar scenarios where issues such as forced compliance behaviour, decision-making and effort are investigated. In our case, we are interested to find out how habitus and doxa affect the motivation of young women to become engaged in IT.

Psychological Aspects

Regarding observational learning and learning from social role models, Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory can inform our problem. What are the characteristics of role models in IT that inform and motivate young women? Which are the central predictors provided by role models for a behavioural engagement in IT?

As a motivational theory, Self-Determination Theory (SDT) offers a useful framework to differentiate the concepts of personal autonomy, competencies and social relations in IT careers. These concepts can be related to the profiles of potential applicants. Relating to Bourdieu’s notion of internalised life practice, it would also be illuminating to examine to which extent goals in life-planning (based on social milieu) are constructed by a more intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. There is a fascinating conflict here: given that IT careers are based on the prerequisite of lifelong learning skills, an extrinsic motivation orientation (e.g., a focus on above average salaries) that may prompt some women into taking up IT careers might not be the same motivation that is needed to sustain long-term growth within the field.

Graphic: Top Barriers identified by ISACA Study (2016)

The Acupuncture Points

There are at least five acupuncture points to examine the disconnects between young women and careers in IT. The first point relates to (1) early childhood socialisation towards IT and science by the parents and the social environment. The second point relates to the (2) social scaffolding and inspiration by role models and the third to (3) adequate introductory classes at school to build initializing competencies. The fourth is the (4) opportunities and obstacles signalled to women at the workplace as well as (5) the prospect to sustain employment and grow within an IT career path.

Conclusion

Empirical research on the above-mentioned acupuncture points can inform the rapid building of social prototypes (see my U.Lab review) while, in return, practice gained from interventions can inform additional quantitative data collection. From a Theory U perspective, disconnects can be environmental (How can IT connect us with our environment?), social (How can IT re-unite us with others?) and spiritual (How can IT connect our present Self with our future Self and work?). As Economy 4.0 embraces collaboration and cooperation, it opens the female notion of caring, which appeared as a strong motif in all of the studies. From a caring female perspective, IT can be seen as empowering and re-establishing our connections to nature, to others and our highest future potential. In this light, the flavour of new job descriptions is entirely based on the extent to which new types of work can bridge the disconnects of our time. At the end, the mentioned disconnects go beyond gender. It is not so much that women have an issue with IT, but that IT has been widely cultivated as a predominantly male domain. Mental images and stereotype clichées of the lonely nerd or socially deprived hacker are not helpful to any gender. It is time to create cooperative spaces within IT where gender domination does not obscure the love for creating technology that is beneficial to all.

Operationalizing Qualitative Data as Mathematical Objects: Ideas for the Next Generation of Educational Assessment

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Organising Qualitative Data

Qualitative learning processes work on a number of fundamentally different assumptions as compared to data interpretation and processing that we find in empirical research. Still, there are good reasons to operationalise qualitative events for the purpose of providing structured and formative feedback to students or to track students’ learning progress in a more organised manner.

Traditional grading works on the assumption of a number of correct answers that are provided by students based on a finite sample space of predefined outcomes, as we find them e.g., in standardised tests and exams. The higher the probability of correct answers, the higher the final grade. This closed approach, which can be defined in mathematical Set Theory, does not take the qualitative ‘grounded’ dimensions of learning into consideration, such as how students solve problems, interpret context, make sense of different approaches and learning outcomes, derive personal meaning from their learning experience or reflectively evaluate their strengths and weaknesses during the learning process.

The Physical Grounding of Learning

In a truly learner-centered pedagogy, assessment should be driven primarily by qualitative outcomes since we are dealing with young people based on their prior physical grounding. This includes their age and developmental level, cultural setting, socio-economic background, language competencies, social support networks and so on and so forth. Once we agree that learning processes should take into account prior conditions, we need to establish individual baseline profiles (inclusive of motivational profiles) prior to graded assignments in order to normalise measurement. There is little point in assessing learning progress without measuring normalised before- and after states. Still, I do not know of any school who would bother about measuring prior learning conditions beyond the institutional levels (such as in aptitude tests, if at all), but on the level of individual courses and classes.

One option to measure students’ prior abilities can be achieved by non-graded finger exercises or brief initial test runs in the form of a pre-instructional assessment. Such approach also allows for students to become self-aware of their progress when they benchmark their personal before- and after outcomes at a later stage. Contrary to working with a ‘correct answer’ schemata, learning processes are by nature multidimensional and open constructs. Let’s assume we want to operationalize a highly complex scenario where we want to assess the social-, languages-, cognitive- and metacognitive competencies among students with a further differentiation into analytical, creative and pragmatic competencies. For simplicity, let’s assume a ladder of 1 to 10 (the ‘ladder of power’ function, here y = x) ranging linear from minimal (1) to very high competency (10).

Mathematical Operationalisation

As an example of how to operationalise social behaviour, we may use the PBL model. Among the typical questions asked of team members at the end of a tutorial class are ‘(a) How have I been doing as a team member, (b) How have I been doing as a researcher and (c) How have I been doing as a problem solver?’. The objective is to obtain feedback of the social roles that students have taken on during their project. Once students derive at an informed self-assessment, the mathematical structure could look like a matrix storing these three dimensions as in the table below

Student_names as a team member as a researcher as a problem-solver
Sean 2 10 3
Lin 9 3 7
Jenny 7 4 8
Wu 7 8 8

The advantages of a more differentiated account are obvious. Not only can be determined in which areas students need support, but also pattern emerge that give lecturers valuable feedback. In the example above, Lin and Jenny are enthusiastic working in a team and consolidating data as problem-solvers, but both show weaknesses in research.  Sean is the opposite. He is a brilliant researcher but appears to have issues blending in with the rest of the group.

But what makes a good team member in the first place? We can set out criteria that make sense in the specific context, such as, e.g., (a) the ability to relate to someone else’s arguments and to formulate ideas, (b) to participate actively in discussions or (c) to work as an effective tutor for the team.

Such a structure could be expressed, for example, as a vector containing these elements as

Vector_social >- c(a = 8, b = 7, c = 9)

To store multidimensional objects, vectors can be assembled into matrices while matrices can be compiled into arrays. A huge advantage of such a mathematical approach is that at any time the qualitative data measurement is preserved. An external assessor could e.g., ask, “Which feedback has been provided to this particular student since her lack of competencies as a tutor in earlier rounds obviously propagated to a lack of competencies as a problem-solver towards the the end of the semester?” Storing measurements in more complex mathematical objects allows asking smarter and more helpful questions to support students’ learning. Obviously, this only makes sense if comprehensive criterion-based assessment tools such as e.g., scoring rubrics are set in place as translating frameworks between classroom observation and mathematical expression.

Jonson and Svingby (2007) concluded regarding rubrics that “Student understanding of criteria, feedback, possibilities of self- and peer assessment are other positive experiences reported (…) it has been concluded that rubrics seem to have the potential of promoting learning and/or improve instruction. The main reason for this potential lies in the fact that rubrics make expectations and criteria explicit, which also facilitates feedback and self-assessment.”

Professional Ethics

One of the main advantages to starting formulating assessments as mathematical objects are that matrices and arrays can be mapped via rubrics to student feedback. In addition, long-term study progress of individual students can be monitored accordingly. Most importantly, such procedure would also allow for the optimisation of student feedback since the efficacy of feedback formats to students would be revealed in collected data sets. Obviously, such a step requires the digitisation of assessment/ feedback processes and also requires more time from teachers to attend to their students’ learning as compared to traditional grading. However, the required effort to capture the measure of multiple dimensions is nothing that goes beyond an Excel spreadsheet.

Besides, there is the ethical question that we should empower learners. We should never discourage students via miserable grades, in particular, those students who require the most support and understanding. What is stopping us design new systems where the measure of abilities equals the assisting of students’ learning?  One of the main points of learning, after all, is to get better at it.

(1) Assessing multiple dimensions of learning

example2

(2) Relating dimensions of learning

Example

The illustration above (1): How do we assess students in the future? In this mockup that I created, four virtual students are measured on the variables of social skills marked in orange, research skills marked in blue and metacognitive (= cognitive regulation) competencies marked in green. Each assessment (data point) is associated with a constructive feedback. In the simulation above, Jenny and Sean (1st and 3rd from the top) progress steadily, Liu (2nd from the top) advances, but rather unsteady and may require additional exercise to firm up skills. Wu (bottom) progresses at a high level but declines sharply in the mid of the course. Illustration (2): We see the social behaviour development in tandem with research project assessments.The first measure is a non-graded pre-instructional measure to establish students’ baseline. The narratives of students’ learning journeys evolve. What happened to Wu between April and July? How come Liu performs lower in 3 out of 5 measures as compared to the preinstructional baseline exercise?

 

References:

Jonson, A. & Svingby, G. (2007). The use of scoring rubrics: Reliability, validity and educational consequences. Educational Research Review 2 (2007) 130–144

 

 

 

 

How Unregulated For-Profits Degrade Higher Education: The Case of Raffles Education Corporation

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The picture above: The Raffles Campus in Bangna, Bangkok. Nice to look at, but where are the students? After losing the TEQSA accreditation, the student population dropped from about 340 at the Silom Campus to about 70 after moving to the Bangna Campus.

Short Introduction to the Long Read: The Commercial and Academic Failure of Unregulated For-profit Education

The following is a summary of my experiences that I made in over a decade with Raffles Education Corporation. The presented argument states that for-profit providers who turn education into a mere money-making business are unable to educate young people to a satisfactory standard. Education requires knowledge, skills and mindsets that commercial entities are not able to provide. The value proposition of Raffles Education Corporation is derived from its current affiliated partners, such as the University of Northumbria who does provide quality education. In the US, similar enterprises can be found operating on the same business model (such as e.g., Apollo Education, EDMC, DeVry, CEC, Corinthian Colleges Inc., Kaplan or Bridgepoint, to name a few) which is why the following analysis is framed as a systemic case study. Due to their rather rogue modes of operation, unregulated for-profits pose an international problem.

For example, to the knowledge of the author, Raffles Bangkok failed to set up proper academic committees as required by the Thai Ministry of Education to advance their final college license. Master programs are already planned without a university license while none of the current staff is qualified at a doctoral level. International students cannot be provided with Thai visas and so the list goes on.

In terms of total student numbers, this is not a large company. Officially, Raffles cites on its website a total of 15,000 students across 25 international campuses, making it on the average 600 students per campus on paper. Knowing how Raffles tends to inflate numbers, I would not be surprised if there are no more than half of those students still studying with the company, perhaps far less. Even if one believes the official count, the entire student population across the Raffles network would be equivalent to an average polytechnic or university but spread out over 23 countries. This is not much by a large margin. Calling itself the ‘prime’ private education provider in SE-Asia gives the wrong impression that this is a large enterprise. Measured in overall market size, Raffles is not a significant market player in Asia’s educational landscape. Laureate Education as another private education provider, by comparison, claims about at least 80,000 students for the Asia Pacific region with a mix of for-profit and non-profit institutions such as Stamford University in Bangkok. On an international level, Laureate has received mixed reviews for putting marketing hype ahead of quality education, similar to Raffles.

Run top-down in an autocratic manner by its CEO, Raffles has never been a progressive and innovative company from its beginnings. Demanding high tuition fees while cutting down on anything that remotely incurs costs to improve the quality of education has led to a continuous deterioration of the stock-listed company which continues generating net losses. Many students and their parents have started to see beyond the blown-up advertising slogans promoted in glossy brochures.

The concluding message is that a neoliberal approach to education has failed as a pedagogical concept as well as an economic model. For now, the following account serves the purpose of learning from the mistakes that Raffles Education Corporation has cultivated over the past two decades. The company’s narrative elucidates the discrepancy between a naïve commercialism of making quick money from students by putting together a rudimentary infrastructure versus the demanding task to provide evidence-based quality education.

A PDF of this entry can be found here Raffles Case Study 2017

The official court verdict of the Federal Court of Australia that decided Raffles losing their accreditation is available here federal-court2015fca0734

The Australian Universities Quality Agency 2009 audit that highlights the systemic issues of Raffles can be downloaded here Report of an Audit of Raffles College of Design and Commerce

Prologue

How the cookie crumbled

I joined Raffles Education Corporation in 2005 after a productive decade serving at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore. The first year I worked as Senior Lecturer in the Visual Communication department at the Raffles Shanghai branch (Dong Hua University/ Raffles-LaSalle) before being promoted to Program Director for Multimedia Design (and later also Visual Communication) at the Silom Road Campus in Bangkok.

Five years later, rumours surfaced that Raffles had not obtained a proper legal license to operate in Thailand, an accusation that proved to be true. In the local newspapers, Raffles was quoted as a rogue education provider offering international programs that it had no adequate permit to deliver. As the threat of foreclosure became imminent in 2010, Raffles committed to building a campus in Bangna to appease the government and to indicate that the company would play by the rules from now on.

In June 2015, another scandal hit Raffles. The entire network, via the Raffles College of Design and Commerce in Australia (RDCD), lost its accreditation granted by the Australian government for undergraduate programs for not delivering education of satisfactory standard. More than 1000 students across Asia ended up stranded and were forced to either complete their studies at branches in other countries or to cut losses by discontinuing their education with Raffles. Closures of branches across Asia started to become more frequent. At the time, I was still completing my Masters in Applied Psychology with the University of Liverpool. After I graduated in December 2016, I left Raffles in February 2017 in mutually amicable agreement as I dissented with the company’s business ethics and educational standards or lack thereof. This is the story of an unregulated and deeply dysfunctional education provider.

This following document is written in gratitude to all of my students who put up with the inadequacies of the company during their studies. Despite the institutional shortcomings we all faced, I deeply value our learning journeys. This summary is also written in appreciation of my ex-colleagues who have been through their share of professional frustrations. In order to gain a more objective perspective, policies and regulations at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore are compared to corresponding frameworks at Raffles, setting the stage for directly comparing unregulated private education with regulated government education.

Joana Stella Kompa, June 2017

 

Chapter 1

Who teaches the teachers?

“Were all instructors to realise that the quality of mental process, not the production of correct answers, is the measure of educative growth something hardly less than a revolution in teaching would be worked.”

John Dewey, Democracy and Education

A good starting point to assess the quality of an institution of Higher Learning is to probe the qualification of its teachers. How can schools, polytechnics, colleges or universities function without competent staff; not only competent in their field but also competent as educators and mentors of young people?

Temasek set up a dual strategy for teacher training. The first strategy was to offer a general two-year pedagogical certification program for academic staff conducted by SEDA, the Staff and Educational Development Association in the UK. At the end of the two-year program, staff obtained an international ‘Teacher in Higher Education’ accreditation. In essence, academic staff had to compile an evidence-based teaching portfolio ranging from applying pedagogical objectives in classroom settings to creating new programs that align with SEDA’s core values. These values entailed understanding how students learn, demonstrating concern for students’ development, commitment to scholarship, cooperation with colleagues, practising equal opportunities and ongoing reflection on professional practice.

The second pillar at Temasek was the further specialisation in active learning, student-centred pedagogy. In the case of Temasek, Problem-based Learning (PBL) was implemented across all faculties as a student-oriented pedagogy about 15 years ago. My task as Associate Consultant for PBL to Temasek Design School was the training of staff and students while managing the implementation of PBL for Temasek Design School.

At Raffles, by comparison, staff pedagogical training and development is non-existent. There are no qualification programs available of any kind to develop and improve even basic teaching skills. Typically, the staff is recruited from the industry with a Bachelor or Master’s degree which is regarded as sufficient for employment. Raffles leaves the issue of teacher qualification unregulated, most likely since pedagogical training poses a significant cost factor. This neglect does not stay without consequences.

The deregulation of pedagogical standards encourages academic staff to replicate their personal teaching styles which lead to a predominantly instruction-based program delivery based on rote learning. Teachers tend to replicate same learning conditions under which they have learnt themselves. In such settings less capable staff, especially a large number of untrained part-time teachers fails across categories. Many teachers are incapable of basic classroom management. Some teach the wrong subjects or modules, tell students the answers to multiple-choice exam questions in advance, copy materials from the Internet or fill classroom time with nauseating PowerPoint presentations or YouTube videos.  These counterproductive practices are amplified by Raffles demanding four-hour teaching blocks, tempting teachers to fill time with superfluous activities. There is no regular student that I know who could pay attention for a continued four hours. Pedagogically absurd concepts such as the four-hour teaching blocks are however religiously enforced to accumulate, on paper, stipulated subject hours.

Once Raffles’ untrained teachers enter the classroom they occupy their private kingdom. An evidence-based, peer-reviewed process of measuring the progress of students’ learning is not implemented. Teachers are asked pro forma to provide formative feedback to students but then again, no staff has ever been trained on how to structure and conduct efficient formative feedback. How can students possibly improve when all they receive is feedback of a teacher’s personal commentary? On a corporate scale, why would a franchise network consisting of 26 colleges with fluctuating staff turnover be interested investing in long-term pedagogical staff development?

Another example for teacher-centeredness is regularly conducted teacher course evaluations (so-called ‘TEVALs’) which are handed to students each term to assess the performance of their lecturers. Out of 20 questions to students, 12 relate directly and exclusively to lecturer evaluation. Only six questions relate to assessing the subject and not a single question refers to the different roles of students as learners.

In theory, as in practice, Raffles is a teacher-centred institution. It cares very little about students’ development, be it on an individual or social level. Pedagogy is treated as an unnecessary cost factor while teachers blindly assume that their natural gift for teaching is sufficient to prepare students for the knowledge- and service society of the 21st century. The real problem is that it is irrelevant what a teacher teaches, but it is critical what a student has learnt. But how can teachers track students’ ongoing progress in the absence of structured and mandatory assessment procedures?

Chapter 2

The Raffles Curriculum: Jack-Of-All-Trades, Master of None

‘Franchised Arrangements: Where an offshore entity delivers a regulated course on behalf of a provider under license. (…) This model is likely to be higher risk as the provider does not contribute to the delivery of the course and has less control over the quality.’

Australian Government/ TEQSA Report on RCDC, October 2014

Besides a qualified staff, curricula are of the essence. The quality of offered programs is the very backbone of any institution of Higher Learning.

Curricula at Temasek were, as in most progressive government institutions, subject to critical review and improvement based on the feedback from students, academic staff, senior lecturers, program directors and PBL consultants. It is only by a comprehensive cooperative review that curricula can be successfully updated and improved. Changes affect particularly learning outcomes. New developments in technology and socio-economic contexts require a continuous updating of subject outcomes in order to remain valid and relevant. Secondly, curricula should not only offer solid foundation studies but beyond basics they should allow students to achieve mastery, achieving a professional standard in their field.

The origins of the Raffles Advanced Diploma curricula go back to the 1990s when Raffles started business operations in partnership with the Canadian LaSalle College of the Arts and Design. Some parts of the curricula were designed ad hoc by available academic staff and their peers. Since then, Raffles University System (RUS) is the sole guardian of the curricula as it centrally disseminates the programs to all of Raffles’ branches as a franchise. Unlike Temasek, no feedback or data is gathered from students, staff or Program Directors to improve the 25-year-old curricula. Instead, a small expert group at RUS takes care of updating the programs. Such contained routine has multiple ramifications.

On a subject level, even the most prolific experts cannot be specialists at everything leaving the content of many subjects outdated and obsolete. For example, Raffles multimedia students still learn Adobe Flash although Flash stopped being used on the web for many years due to its massive vulnerabilities. New critical skills such as developing mobile applications have never entered the Raffles curriculum. More demanding skills such as advanced scripting and coding have never become part of multimedia programs, arguably because students with lesser aptitude would be overwhelmed. The culture of compiling ‘softball subjects’ affects lecturers as well. For motivated lecturers, the teaching of Raffles’ curricula can turn into a rather dull affair since they are not allowed to make sensible improvements that would change standardised learning outcomes, assessment, and assessment criteria. Instead, all that is required by lecturers is to deliver uniform packages, a practice that can be demotivating for staff whose professional qualifications supersede those of the curricula-guardians at RUS. No data and information are collected to find out how stipulated learning outcomes fare in the current context of industry and academia. The underlying blind assumption is that the recommendations of the RUS expert group are reliable, scalable and suffice as a benchmark.

Outdated content is not the only problem. The delivery of standard packages within the franchise system renders a lecturer’s qualification largely irrelevant: A young and inexperienced lecturer with barely a Bachelor under her arm qualifies equally well to teach diploma subjects as compared to a senior and highly experienced professional on a graduate level. From the perspective of delivering standardised syllabi, high staff qualification is of secondary interest. The less specialised the syllabus, the easier employees can be substituted.

In order to understand the reasons behind the limited specialisation of study paths on program level one has to keep in mind that Raffles is a commercial entity. The profit formula of the company dictates that a maximum number of students are taught by a minimum number of lecturers resulting in a limited number of subjects on offer. This also results in lecturers teaching 6-7 subjects (courses) per term, so between 24-28 teaching hours. The upper limit in most regular, non-research based universities is about four courses.

The multimedia curriculum at Raffles, for example, contains mixed sets for video production (3 subjects), animation (2 subjects), web-technologies (3 subjects) and interactive media (3 subjects) offering basic introductions to various aspects of multimedia, but not advancing into any area in depth. Let’s assume a student intends to study filmmaking. At Raffles, this student would cover the subjects ‘Storyboarding’, ‘Video and Audio Editing’ as well as ‘Experimental Video’, which are three subjects in total.  A student on diploma level at Temasek, by comparison, finishes 21 core subjects in video production (plus 9 electives). A student of ‘3D Interactive Media’ at Temasek enjoys 23 specialised core subjects (plus 5 electives) while a student at Raffles covers in the same field a mere six subjects relating to 3D animation and interactive environments.

The lack of specialising subjects is easily explained. Although Raffles operates a wide network of campuses across Asia, student numbers for each campus are typically small which renders the employment of large numbers of staff uneconomic. This is also one of the reasons why highly specialised for-profit education providers such as, e.g., Full Sail University in the U.S. rely on a centralised campus with a large student population. Only with a larger pool of academic staff, it is possible to offer a wider array of specialised subjects. The paucity of subject specialisation at Raffles, particularly in the second year of studies, stands in stark contrast to its marketing promise of achieving career excellence.

Where in public institutions of Higher Learning well-staffed faculties create vivid communities of scholar-practitioners, lecturers at Raffles carve out an uninspiring solitary existence. Alone or with very few colleagues there is little incentive for them to create new exciting programs since syllabi are cast in stone. To this extent, the Raffles franchise model kills innovation in education.

The tale of an unsustainable business model

Company development on the stock market: After the crash of the global stock market in 2008, net profits declined correspondingly with a diminishing student population across the Raffles network. Most money was made during the short and rapid expansion based on the opening of new branches between 2006-2008.

Detailed view: Continuing losses after 2011

Chapter 3

The Achilles Heel of Government Licensing

‘(21) In the event that TEQSA made a recommendation under section 9AA for RCDC’s registration to be renewed, the Secretary would need to have no reason to believe that RCDC (…) does not have the clearly demonstrated capacity to provide education of a satisfactory standard; or (…) is unlikely to be able to provide education of a satisfactory standard.’

‘(32) It is implicit in that observation that I reject the submission that the defaults identified by TEQSA were only record-keeping matters. In my opinion that understates the significance of many of them, particularly the ones concerned with the ability of the students to speak English at an adequate level.’

From Court Verdict Raffles College Pty Ltd v Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency [2015] FCA 734 of 20th July 2015

Taking it Easy with Licensing and Working Around It

The Achilles heel for all private education providers is official accreditation and licensing. In December 2016, Raffles obtained government approval to set up a Private Higher Education Institution, pending government conditions, after operating without a valid permit since 2003 when the company started as ‘Raffles Design Institute’ on Silom Road. Apparently, Raffles was only licensed as a tutorial centre. It had neither obtained a vocational nor a college license to legally operate in Thailand. Raffles Design Institute was licensed to provide one-year short courses while the official RUS Advanced Diploma program was set out as a two-year program. Raffles’ solution to enrol students was simple: student visas for foreign students would be renewed annually. On paper, a student would e.g., study Graphic Design in the first year and Interior Design in the second etc., a convenient workaround to official regulations to run the full RUS diploma program.

Providing Misleading Information to the Press: Smokescreen Tactics

In 2010, the Ministry of Education found out about Raffles flying under the radar of the law and threatened to close down operations. A deal was struck and Raffles committed to building a proper campus in Bangna on the outskirts of Bangkok as a prerequisite to qualifying as a Higher Education Provider. Forbes magazine mentioned the pending shutdown in one of his articles but the CEO of Raffles, Mr Chew Hua Seng, demanded from Forbes magazine to publish a correction. In his letter to Forbes on 2nd of August 2010, Mr. Chew Hua Seng claimed that “Raffles Education Corp is working closely with Thailand’s Higher Education Commission to comply with its requirement for RBK to acquire a university permit in addition to the vocational education license it had obtained in 2003 when it started operations in Bangkok.” Factually, Raffles had never obtained a vocational license. It was only in April 2016, six years later, that Raffles attempted to secure a proper vocational license by negotiating with the Ministry of Education – an idea Raffles later abandoned in favour of aiming at a Higher Education license. Needless to say, Raffles never acquired a university permit either and was at no stage qualified to apply for one.

Smokescreen Tactics in Other Countries: The Example of Raffles Colombo

In December 2016, the Thai Ministry of Education granted Raffles the license to set up a college, pending conforming requirements. Although it seems like good news that Raffles Bangkok appears finally on its way towards becoming a legitimate education provider, similar reports of starting operations under the radar of the law surfaced in other countries. In October 2015, Raffles in Colombo, Sri Lanka was accused in ‘The Sunday Leader’ of June 16, 2013, in the article ‘Raffles Colombo Misleading Students’ of deceiving students by pretending that it had obtained government licensing for its diploma programs when in fact licensing had not substantialized yet. Raffles went ahead advertising its programs while government approval was still pending.

In their rebuttal to the article, Raffles made some misleading statements. It claimed that the company was ‘granted in-principle approval’ from the government which is not identical to obtaining final approval. The original Sunday Leader article, written by Nirmala Kannangara, was attacked by Raffles accusing her of ‘malicious intent (…) calculated to ridicule and injure the reputation of Raffles Education Corporation Ltd.’ Based on the aggressive response, one cannot evade the impression that the author may have hit a nerve.

The rebuttal further stated, “The truth is Raffles is not banned in Thailand and in fact, we are in the process of being upgraded to university college status by the Thai authorities.” It is true that Raffles was never banned in Thailand, but one may add the light fact that it ran 13 years illegally without a valid permit. The fine print in the Raffles rebuttal used the term ‘in the process’, a standard smokescreen description employed by Raffles to buy time, evade factual scrutiny and formulate pre-emptive strikes: How dare you to accuse us when we are in the process of becoming legitimate? The term ‘university college’ used in the rebuttal was misleading as the pending Thai license is de facto only a college license. Besides, in the UK, the title ‘university college’ is protected by law and requires authorization by an act of parliament which is why Raffles should perhaps avoid the term altogether, in particular when cooperating with UK universities. The fact that Raffles started advertising Masters programs from Coventry University without a university license suggests that it blatantly continues to violate the law.

Chapter 4

How the Raffles Franchise Model Affects Students

“Any student with a credit card and a wallet can enrol at Raffles.” Former College Director

The Loss of Accreditation affecting all Raffles Branches

The Raffles franchise model affects students on a socio-economic, educational and psychological level. Since Raffles is a for-profit corporation, it reserves its right to open and close branches as the economic situation dictates, with little regard for students and parents.

In its short history, Raffles has closed branches in Chandigarh, Kolkata, Dhaka, Bangalore, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Manila, leaving students stranded or forcing them to relocate and continue their studies at other branches of Raffles. In June 2015, Raffles College of Design and Commerce (RCDC) in Australia lost its accreditation with TEQSA (Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency), an independent statutory authority within the Australian Government, for not complying with requirements of the Higher Education Standards Framework. During legal proceedings, Raffles appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to have its name suppressed, a request that was denied by the court. In its verdict, the Federal Court in Australia attested RCDC that is ‘does not have the clearly demonstrated capacity to provide education of a satisfactory standard’. The Honorary Judge Perram particularly criticised the lack of students’ English language proficiency. Subsequently, more than a 1000 students from campuses at Bangalore, Bangkok, Colombo, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Kula Lumpur, Mumbai, New Delhi, Shanghai, Singapore, and Ulanbataar were affected. Agreements were made to ‘teach out’ TEQSA’s undergraduate programs at selected campuses in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Colombo in order to provide an exit for stranded students who only had few subjects to complete.

For those students who were not able to take this exit, choosing Raffles translated into wasted time and financial resources for students and their parents. Most government agencies in SE-Asia lack legal frameworks for ensuring consumer protection to hold private education providers such as Raffles accountable for disastrous mismanagement. Due to the loss of accreditation, the student population in Bangkok diminished from approximately 340 to about 70 shortly after the college moved to its new campus in Bangna. Subsequently, classes shrank to only a few students per class. Since subject delivery works in four-hour blocks, in a worst-case scenario a single student would be taught by a lecturer for a full four hours. Needless to say, that this is neither an enjoyable experience for the student nor a sensible pedagogical proposition. By replacing the lost accreditation of TEQSA by a new partnership with the University of Northumbria, Raffles hopes to restore its student population.

Educational Consequences

The psychological and pedagogical consequences for students at Raffles are manifold and start with enrollment policies. As a former College Director at Raffles eloquently put it, “Everyone with a wallet and a credit card can enrol at Raffles”. To enrol, prospective students neither face aptitude tests nor qualification interviews or portfolio reviews. Due to limited numbers of new applicants, everybody qualifies. Language standards are likewise lax. On the Raffles Bangkok website (as per 23/4/2017) it was stated that an IELTS level of 5.0 is regarded as sufficient. Band 5 in IELTS officially signifies ‘modest’ language proficiency, meaning that the student can communicate in most situations but may struggle in an academic environment. An IELTS score of 5.0 is therefore in no way adequate when aiming for an undergraduate degree (standard is IELTS 6.0 or 6.5) with an affiliated partner university. Little seems learned from previous failures.

The unregulated intake of students also translates into unbalanced student distributions, resembling an inverted Bell curve. Highly qualified students share the same classroom with students of low aptitude, compromised cognitive abilities and low motivation making it difficult for teaching staff to cater to both groups. Motivated students tend to feel that they underperform in class while challenged students still struggle with regular assignments or skip classes. Failing by attendance numbers are unusually high. Since a common ground for over- and underperforming students is difficult to establish in absence of any pedagogical strategy, students’ overall learning remains suboptimal. Occasionally, I was lucky to coach a small group of talented and motivated students, which allowed establishing a more motivating and successful level of studies. Such instances, unfortunately, were the exemption of the rule.

Lastly, for many private students, commercial education is synonymous with the entitlement to a degree. As paying customers, students feel entitled to pass even when putting minimal effort into their studies. They feel entitled to receive extra services such as favourable treatment when it comes to non-attendance of classes, the extension of deadlines, turning a blind eye on plagiarism or better grades from their lecturers. Pleasing few paying customers (that maintain the business) puts academics and management in a compromising situation. The same is true for admissions: Turning down students with low aptitude translates directly into losing paying customers. The conflict of interest between keeping students and upholding standards is obvious.

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TEQSA Report 2014: One of the last external audits reveals a lack of implemented quality assurance policies (“But much work is necessary to further develop and implement the [quality assurance] system across RCDC and its transnational delivery sites”). If Raffles was a young start-up still catching up to fulfil official regulations this would be a different story, but the company has been in the business for the past 25 years.

Chapter 5

From Distinguished Academics to a Service-providing Precariat: The Degradation of Academics in Commercial Education

‘At RCDC there is little evidence of systems to support the academic committees. (…) AQUA (…) advises the College to increase its efforts to ensure the implementation and regular monitoring of quality assurance policies and their practical application at all levels of the College.’

Australian Government/ TEQSA Report on RCDC, October 2014

From the perspective of academic staff, Temasek and Raffles represent two entirely different worlds. Temasek invested heavily in staff professional development, encouraged motivated staff to take on extended responsibilities while the institution rewarded efforts via salary increments and bonuses. For example, I was supported to speak at international conferences and was provided overseas training to develop educational competencies. As my employer, Temasek also paid into a retirement fund, the CPF (Central Provident Fund) contributing to my social security.

Regarding the importance of professional development, a former superior of mine at Temasek made perhaps the most important comment: “As a lecturer and working in education for many years, you will lose your market value gradually. You are no more in competition with your peers in the industry. This is why it is our responsibility to upgrade your skill level to a point where you are on par, at least approximately, with industry should you ever decide to return. We owe you that much.”

At Raffles, it is the absence of benefits and professional staff development that defines general working conditions. Since most staff is recruited from non-academic backgrounds, benefits such as academic research activities or participating at international conferences are not supported. Staff members that need to upgrade to a Masters or postgraduate level will have to do so at their own expense, creating hidden costs of employment for academics. Offering a poor two weeks of annual leave, Raffles clearly follows standards of the corporate but not the academic world. In the absence of accredited professional training, there is no official categorization system in place to distinguish junior from senior staff and subsequently no corresponding progressive salary structure.

Looking at staff benefits and rewards, the outlook is equally bleak. Raffles offers no performance bonuses or a year-end bonus. When I joined the company, I was assured that bonuses would be paid in lieu by staff stock options since Raffles is a publicly listed company on the Singapore Exchange. However, since Raffles stock steadily declined after the global financial crisis in 2008 to less than a tenth of its peak value, stock options have become redundant.

Unlike academic careers in the government sector, careers at Raffles are limited based on the following grounds:

  1. The lack of professional development to build competencies and a decent portfolio
  2. The lack of bonuses and incentives for good performance
  3. The restriction of employment to fixed contracts that can be terminated at any time
  4. The narrow task of delivering pre-packaged curricula without active participation in their design, which creates a rather passive working environment based on mere compliance
  5. The absence of academic activities and scholarship such as support for research, publications or attending international conferences
  6. The limitation to only two weeks of earned annual leave based on standards for commercial organisations but not academia

Lecturers are told that they need to compile their own teaching materials on an individual account. No workgroups or processes are in place to formally review and update those materials.

Subsequently, academics in the commercial sector degrade to a lowly qualified precariat. The trajectories of academic careers are tied closely to the commercial success of the company to which no long-term guarantees can be given. For this reason, distinguished academics from reputable colleges and universities will find little appeal in joining companies such as Raffles.

In the marketing speak of Raffles, the lack of pedagogical requirements for staff is advertised as ‘Our educators are more than teachers. They are creative practitioners and experts in their own professions. ‘ (studyatraffles.com, 2017). There is no such thing as ‘more than’ teachers. It rather appears that Raffles never bothered to take up the intellectual challenge to look at internationally established professional standards of teacher qualifications and applying them to their business.

Chapter 6

The Learning Environment

‘The independent expert report provided under paragraph b of this condition expressed concern about the functionality and adequacy of resourcing of the libraries in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. While TEQSA considered further information provided by RCDC, TEQSA remained of the view that RCDC is at risk of not complying with the PCAS in respect of:

  • PCAS 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4 relating to the adequacy of course resourcing and of access to library and information services, and to the adequacy of IT resources; and
  • PCAS 1.9 in respect of the courses ensuring equivalent student learning outcomes regardless of a student’s place or mode of study’

Australian Government/ Report on imposing conditions on the accreditation of two higher education courses offered by Raffles College Pty Ltd (t/a Raffles College of Design and Commerce (“RCDC”), 9 June 2016.

In more than a decade of service, beyond minimalist coverage, I have not yet seen any substantial equipment purchase required for students’ studies. Although on paper Raffles does have a recommended equipment list, our multimedia students were never provided video editing suites, audio equipment, broadcast-level digital cameras or related software that would qualify as a sufficiently well-equipped learning environment. Due to the lack of equipment, students eventually had to bring their own cameras, had to improvise with inferior equipment such as Sony Handycams or record audio using their mobile phones instead of professional audio recorders. As a result, student work always lacked the polish as compared to productions from other institutions that use industry-grade equipment. Essentially, the new campus at Bangna has been an empty shell since its opening.

All that students could hope for was to produce passable, but improvised low-resolution pieces that have little in common with the ‘sparkling diamonds’ promised in the Raffles marketing brochures. Nevertheless, why would a company invest in costly equipment when it is used in only a few subjects and for a limited number of students? Some of my alumni who felt pity for the poor choice of equipment available to our multimedia students offered their high-end professional equipment to come to the rescue. As a Program Director and their former lecturer, I felt both thankful and embarrassed. The dire lack of equipment and studios was no different when I worked at Raffles in Shanghai or when looking across departments. Until today, the product design department in Bangkok e.g., has no 3D-printers. The visual design department still lacks basics such as professional font libraries, binding equipment, laser cutting machines or silkscreen printing facilities. For academic work, students do not have access to digital libraries (and no up-to-date analogue library either) while the few functioning classroom computers still ran on Windows XP, as per March 2017, unable to run the latest versions of required Adobe software. The commanding of high tuition fees stands in no relation to the deplorable state of the learning environment. It appears, contrary to its public image as a prestigious education provider, that the Raffles network might be simply running low on funds. Many issues relating to the learning environment go beyond facilities.

From 2006 to 2017, Raffles Bangkok employed a total of seven College Directors (the position of Academic Directors was abandoned for all colleges below 500 students in 2014), each with a different personal agenda on student support, such as promoting or abandoning English language programs, which effectively prohibited a consistent educational policy. The high rate of part-time teachers likewise does not allow for a consistent and controlled delivery of subjects.

Are all private education providers bad apples?

Raffles is an extreme case of an unregulated for-profit education provider that has managed for many years to fly under the radar of government regulations and public scrutiny.

For-profit providers do not categorically provide an inferior education. Numerous private education providers open their institutions to regular independent quality audits, such as e.g. Stamford University in Bangkok, and have established a sensible academic culture.

In Germany, as another example, all private schools have to conduct standardised government exams and adhere to federal policies – the reason why many private schools and colleges are government funded and charge little or no tuition. This is a very different approach as compared to entirely corporate providers. The objective in Germany is to offer parents different pedagogical approaches such as, e.g., Montessori, ‘Club of Rome’ or ‘Jenaplan’ schools that advocate global responsibility, social context immersion, social inclusion and democracy, higher goals that are not even on the radar of Raffles Education Corporation.

Many private providers charge tuition fees that still remain within an affordable range for middle-class income families. In stark contrast, the latest tuition fees for a Raffles-Northumbria undergraduate degree (two years’ diploma with Raffles plus the final year with Northumbria) have increased to about two million Thai Baht (approx. 57,000 USD or 54,000 Euro). The justification of such high fees in a local context deserves a separate discussion.   On their website, Raffles Bangkok recommends to potential students to contact local banks for loans. Raffles’ corporate culture to live on borrowed credit seems to have been passed on to its customers and the institution obviously has no scruples to talk students into loans in excess of 50,000 USD. A tiny argument here is that Thai banks don’t approve student loans.

Then there is the choice of programs. From a business perspective, campus size matters. An institution with a large staff and student numbers such as Full Sail University in the US (15,700 students as per 2016) can offer an infinitely more efficient learning environment and more differentiated curricula as compared to smaller colleges.

Quality is next. A relevant syllabus requires continuous updating and improvement – not by self-declared expert groups but by contributions from all participants of the learning process. Keywords are qualitative course feedback, dedicated academic quality workgroups, and a cooperative curriculum design. Ideally, curricula should include interdisciplinary studies and additional electives. Again, such setups require a reasonable staff size to achieve functional complexity. At Raffles Bangkok, a faculty typically never exceeded more than two staff members inclusive of the Program Director. Lastly, there has not been a single senior management member at Raffles who has ever worked on a doctoral or postdoctoral level at a reputable university, so how can one possibly expect an understanding of academic culture at a managerial level?

Conclusion: How Private Education Providers Require Regulation

Let us not lose sight of the supervening issue as there is a huge difference in accountability. Government institutions have a national mandate to provide quality education to the public while private education providers such as Raffles can hide behind marketing campaigns, glossy brochures and high-flying promises to a privileged clientele. Unless for-profit education is regulated and subjected to external governmental auditing and binding obligations to consumer protection policies, such companies will continue to degrade the status of academia, hinder educational innovation and feed educational inequality. For-profits with high tuition fees inevitably promote a social system where financial status translates directly into degree entitlements to secure advanced life positions for the affluent. At the same time, governments in SE-Asia are taken to rigorous task to improve their public education systems and benchmark them against international standards as well. The burden of proof of quality is independent of the type of education provider.

Ultimately, Raffles has to be held accountable for its claims. This is when Raffles claims to provide quality education when in fact its franchise model compromises quality at the very core. It is when Raffles claims to support creativity and innovation but in fact, avoids investing in student-centred pedagogy, equipment and up-to-date curricula. It is when the Raffles group claims to operate at a university level but barely functions on a college level.

In order to protect the interests of students, parents and academic staff, government- and consumer protection agencies need to press for policies in the following areas:

  • Private education providers require regular quality audits by state agencies on a national level and, as they offer international programs, a separate audit by independent auditors on a transnational level to allow for international benchmarking.
  • In the case of potentially closing colleges unannounced or on short notice, for-profit providers with a history of financial mismanagement need to provide security bonds (or safety agreements) with local governments to protect parents’ investment in their children.
  • The academic staff deserves not only protection under local labour laws. Legally binding guidelines need to be set in place to ensure adequate working conditions for academics, such as relevant staff training, a salary structure based on competencies and holiday entitlements equivalent to academics in the public sector.
  • Parents and students need to be provided with transparent, detailed mandatory information about the college, such as staff qualifications (both professionally and pedagogically), facilities such as studios and up-to-date libraries, relevant external audits, faculty size, student numbers per faculty and typical class size, quality assurance policies, institutionalized student participation, alumni contacts and enrolment criteria.

In conclusion, postsecondary for-profit education cannot continue hiding under the smokescreen of unregulated education since it is publicly answerable to acceptable educational standards, quality assurance and accreditation on a national and international level.  Private institutions of Higher Learning cannot disguise themselves as reputable education providers while serving as conduits for wealthy elites to obtain prestigious degrees with little or no effort. Instead, they are, just like their public counterparts, taken to task to contribute more rigorously and creatively to the knowledge and service economy of the 21 century. Since universities serve as the apex of academic systems anywhere, evidence-backed study competencies (such as language proficiency, research-, critical thinking and social skills) are mandatory for students aiming to enter universities from a wide diversity of postsecondary institutions. To this extent, assessment for testing student competencies on postsecondary trajectories requires a formal and auditable format.

Raffles presents an excellent case study to demonstrate the effects of unregulated commercialization in education. In this light, Altbach, Reisberg and de Wit (2017) note in their study ‘RESPONDING TO MASSIFICATION – Differentiation in Postsecondary Education Worldwide’ fittingly that, “The burgeoning and often problematical private postsecondary sector needs to be categorized and regulations put into place to ensure that the private sector can serve the broader public interest.”

Future-oriented Social Change: Making Sense of MIT’s Theory U

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Why do national and international policies fail to solve global problems? How can we transform larger systems and empower sustainable social change? Picture Credit: Paul Souders/ National Geographic

The best way to familiarise oneself with Theory U (Scharmer & Senge, 2009) is to read the executive summary compiled by its inventor, Prof. Otto Scharmer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which can he found online here.

As a most general definition, Theory U is a field theory for evoking and maintaining sustainable social change. What distinguishes Theory U from most cognitive theories and research is its emphasis is on the inner cultivation of mindfulness as well as reflected attention and intention that change leaders bring to the situation. With government agencies, NGOs, multinational corporations and local communities embracing Theory U all over the world (such as e.g., Oxfam, UNICEF, the World Wildlife Fund, the Scottish Government, Unilever, Nissan, Hewlett-Packard, Daimler, Pricewaterhouse Coopers or Alibaba, to name a few), Theory U has already established itself as a powerful leader in social change initiation and management.

In the following, I like to compare Theory U with Problem-based Learning (PBL) as another well-established methodology to solve problems and to design new solutions. The comparison serves mainly to position Theory U under the aspect of social solutions development rather than to conclude a judgment. Secondly, I like to investigate the psychological foundations of Theory U. I will argue in favour of Theory U that the call for an open mind, open heart and open will has a profound grounding in contemporary social psychology.

Where research and policies currently fail

To start with, as an educator and scientist, I find it frustrating how the incredible amount of empirical research conducted on education in Germany, as an example, stands in no relation to the meagre progress achieved in public education systems. In contemporary educational research, students are measured as objects within learning processes. They perform tests, get videotaped, analysed and asked to fill out all sorts of questionnaires, but they are rarely invited as active participants in redesigning education, nor do researchers intend to.

In most empirical research, the human mind is regarded as a machine that isolates, stores and retrieves knowledge, not as a medium to interconnect wholes and one that involves spontaneity, compassion or working on wholes larger than the self, to quote Berkeley psychologist Prof. Eleanor Rosch. Scharmer calls this dilemma the ‘analysis paralysis’. Contemporary research deals predominantly with a data-driven description of phenomena, but to a lesser extent with prediction and most rarely with application and intervention. However, when dealing with people it is mind-states, awareness of cognitive habits, emotions and motivation that matter – not as a source of data collection to build hypothesised models but to serve as a shared information network to evoke collaborative social development.

The disconnect between qualitative and quantitative research

Empirical research in social sciences and applied psychology has the advantage to examine large datasets, especially when it comes to data on the international, national and regional level as well as across large institutions and networks.  As an action-based, face-to-face (and to this point re-humanising) methodology, the questions remains how prototyping via Theory U should or could be informed by findings from empirical studies. There appears to exist a great disconnect between qualitative and quantitative research and not much progress has been made to mediate both methodologies.

From the perspective of Theory U, the question arises how findings of wider social contexts (e.g., federal budget allocation trends, demographic changes or emerging technologies) affect small groups and individuals in their implementation of finalized prototypes, while from the perspective of empirical research the question occurs how collected data can be framed for stakeholders more meaningfully and collaboratively. For example, one could use findings of the international PISA studies to benchmark local schools, but on the other hand, it can be argued that the PISA datasets are still based on the paradigm of teacher-centered education and therefore are not applicable to inform educational reform. In the cited example, the admission of learner-centeredness as a central paradigm of contemporary pedagogy would entail a major overhaul of the PISA study.

Obviously, Theory U does not intend to compromise its human-centeredness. The question emerges how nested sub-processes could be established to mutually inform qualitative and quantitative research and development. A communal grassroots infrastructure for such an endeavour could widen the social scope of decision-making while rendering data collection more meaningful. Instead of traditional focus groups, solutions developed via Theory U could very well inform the direction of quantitative research. In return, quantitative research would be able to explore opportunities for a wider social implementation of successful prototypes, to connect deep data with big data.

A comparison between Theory U and PBL

PBL is a methodology to develop solutions on a primarily factual level. With its origins in medical education and applications in law, business, engineering and design PBL is focused on objects, systems and their usability. However, when it comes to design education (such as e.g., collaborative human-centred design) where mutual adjustment and collective-emergent solutions development play a central role, the borders between Theory U and Design Thinking become permeable. In terms of process stages, PBL and Theory U follow both the general cognitive paradigm of procedural information collection, information processing and solutions development.

In PBL, the learning process starts with the presentation of a client-based problem. In Theory U, learning is initiated in person by a case giver during case clinics. Both methodologies employ coaches (or facilitators) and both are working in the format of a structured group following a set of logical procedural steps. PBL, as well as Theory U, defer judgment since PBL works on the principle of open (cognitive and metacognitive) inquiry while Theory U is based on empathic listening. Both approaches work on the principle of creating new insights and new knowledge, which stands against the habitual application of prior knowledge and the tendency to suggest quick fixes based on prior experience. Solution development is subsequently driven by the question ‘What do I need to learn?’ rather than ‘What do I already know to solve the issue at hand?’. This is where most similarities between PBL and Theory U end.

As Theory U has been developed from the ground up as a cooperative, people-centred approach, theoretical analysis and research give way to an empathising and action-based methodology that aims for rapid co-created prototyping in the style of collaborative workshops. Secondly, the inner mind-states of participants and coaches cannot be separated or distanced from the process as objectified knowledge or content. Participants retain personal ownership of knowledge creation during the stages of downloading, presencing and performing. Due to the unearthing of ‘deep’ intersubjective data, far more psychological processes are involved in Theory U as compared to PBL which operates for the most part on cognitive and metacognitive processes.

‘Sensing’ entails anticipating the highest point of future possibilities while ‘presencing’ serves to connect to one’s inner source of inspiration in a tranquil and contemplative state. As psychologists, we could also describe ‘presencing’ as a truly autonomous state that is not compromised by fears, anxieties or pressured by external expectations (Ryan et al., 2012). Autonomy ís structured twofold in this understanding. Firstly, as authentic self-governance and secondly, as a means to keep autonomy open towards future possibilities while avoiding identity foreclosure by externalities.

Theory_U

Above: The process stages of Theory U. In essence, the theory relates social patterns of the past with the highest level of possibilities of the future. In the stage of ‘presencing’, social change leaders become self-aware of their intrinsic motivations and true motives. Credit: Presencing Institute

To me, this is one of the profound differences not only to PBL but to most empirical approaches where knowledge is created for client-oriented contexts. In Theory U, the client is us. To this extent, there are no right or wrong theories, it is just that we have to decide if we (a) intend to create new knowledge to serve external clients or if we (b) want to create knowledge in order to collaboratively transform institutions, communities and ecosystems. The choice of employed theory and methodology depends on the nature of desired outcomes.

Theory U and its link to psychological theories

But how is Theory U connected to psychology? Arguably, Scharmer’s call for an open mind, open heart and open will sounds both enticing as much as it appears, on face value, not grounded in any specific scientific approach. Theory U is a pragmatic action-based approach that follows an agentic psychology (Bandura, 2006) where participants create desired futures rather than limit themselves to become passive onlookers on their own behaviour. The philosophy questions the strength of behavioural and reductionist research approaches: How relevant and valid is empirical research if it cannot inform in situ real-world changes? The root of science, to argue with Aristotle, is to demonstrate causality. Obviously, Theory U works well as a pragmatic approach to facilitate real-world progress. But is there any science behind it?

For sceptics, I suggest connecting the following tried-and-tested ideas.

  1. The outer layer of Theory U follows, as mentioned, the universal information processing paradigm of information collection, processing and decision-making that we find in behavioral-cognitive psychology (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979).
  2. The move from a field structure of the me-world (where facts serve to confirm and complement pre-existing patterns) to a field structure of the it-world (where facts prompt a revision of the current belief model) is well described in the concept of Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger, 1957, 1964).
  3. The move from an external, factual worldview to an intersubjective perspective that includes empathising for and learning with others is well researched in person-centered therapy (Ellis, 1962; Mearns & Thorne, 1988; Rogers, 1959, 1975; see also Feltham & Horton, 2012) as well as Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977).
  4. The move to an operating field that evaluates reflectively the highest future possibility is part of human agency (Bandura, 2006), in particular, individual metacognition (Efklides, 2012, 2014; Flavell, 1979; Schraw & Dennison, 1994; Schraw & Moshman, 1995) and social metacognition (Briñol& DeMarree, 2012; Kim et al., 2013).
  5. Lastly, in differentiating micro-, meso-, macro- and mundo (global) spheres of social influence, Theory U follows in the footsteps of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

To this extent, Theory U is deeply connected to well-researched psychological theories and represents a highly integrated approach to transforming lifeworld systems with other stakeholders. The subheader of Scharmer’s executive summary reads programmatically ‘Addressing the blind spot of our time’. The blind spot, so we learn, is mindful, self-aware and future-oriented leadership that connects to our most inner place from which we operate.

For Sharmer, the great quagmires of our time, which are the ecological-, social- and spiritual divide are just the symptoms of a deeper disconnect, which is the disconnect between self and nature (ecological divide), between self and others (social divide) and between present and future self (spiritual divide).

As a PBL practitioner, I see soft skills (the skills of a tutor, facilitator or coach) benefiting Theory U. Scharmer calls this ‘holding the space’ for others. For now, Theory U is certainly the most ambitious attempt to bring mind, heart and will together. From a psychological perspective, the oneness of personal identity with social development can be best described in thriving (Benson & Scales, 2009, McAdams, 2001, Ryan & Deci, 2000) which stands out as a bright prospect in an otherwise troubled world.

References

Bandura, A. (2006). Toward a Psychology of Human Agency. Perspectives on Psychological Science, (2). 164.

Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Benson, P. L., & Scales, P. C. (2009). The definition and preliminary measurement of thriving in adolescence. Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(1), 85–104.

Briñol, P., & DeMarree, K. G. (2012). Social metacognition. New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979).The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Efklides, A. (2011). Interactions of Metacognition With Motivation and Affect in Self-Regulated Learning: The MASRL Model. Educational Psychologist, 46(1), 6-25. doi:10.1080/00461520.2011.538645

Efklides, A. (2014). How Does Metacognition Contribute to the Regulation of Learning? An Integrative Approach. PsihologijskeTeme/ Psychological Topics, 23(1), 1-30.

Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. New York: Stuart.

Feltham, C., & Horton, I. (2012). The SAGE handbook of counselling and psychotherapy. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Festinger, L. (Ed.). (1964). Conflict, decision, and dissonance (Vol. 3). Stanford University Press.

Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive–developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34(10), 906-911. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.34.10.906

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Emmitsburg, MD: National Emergency Training Center.

Kim, Y. R., Park, M. S., Moore, T. J., & Varma, S. (2013). Multiple levels of metacognition and their elicitation through complex problem-solving tasks. The Journal Of Mathematical Behavior, 32(3), 377-396. doi:10.1016/j.jmathb.2013.04.002

McAdams, D. P. (2001). The psychology of life stories. Review of General Psychology, 5(2), 100–1222.

Mearns, P., & Thorne, B. (1988). Person-Centred Counselling in Action (Counselling in Action series). London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Rogers, C. (1959). A Theory of Therapy, Personality and Interpersonal Relationships as Developed in the Client-centered Framework. In (ed.) S. Koch, Psychology: A Study of a Science. Vol. 3: Formulations of the Person and the Social Context. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Rogers, C. (1975). Empathic: An unappreciated way of being. The counseling psychologist, 5(2), 2-10.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68–78.

Ryan, R. M., Legate, N., Niemiec, C. P., & Deci, E. L. (2012). Beyond illusions and defense: Exploring the possibilities and limits of human autonomy and responsibility through self-determination theory. In P. R. Shaver & M. Mikulincer (Eds.), Meaning, mortality, and choice: The social psychology of existential concerns (pp. 215-233). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi: 10.1037/13748-012

Scharmer, C. O., & Senge, P. M. (2009). Theory U: Leading from the future as it emerges: the social technology of presencing. San Francisco, Calif: Berrett-Koehler.

Schraw, G; & Dennison, R. (1994). Assessing metacognitive awareness. Contemporary Educational Psychology.19(4)(pp460-475)

Schraw, G., & Moshman, D. (1995). Metacognitive Theories. Educational Psychology Review, (4). 351.

Constructivism Today: How Should Students Learn?

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nürnberger-trichterOur schools: Same old, same old

The most commonly voiced out critique against traditional rote learning is that it doesn’t deliver what it promises, this is that acquired knowledge fades fast and students start to forget mental content shortly after their exams. In this model, learning serves to achieve a good grade by internalising syllabus material as fast as possible, forgetting it as fast as possible and to move on to the next short-term goal. But even if students would fully remember the knowledge that they were presented in class, they could do very little with it – perhaps with the exception of impressing their peers in TV game shows and quizzes that test for the recall of isolated facts. Knowledge acquired by rote learning is internalised passively. It is neither actively acquired by the learner, which would entail intrinsic motivation, nor applied within a real-world (and not merely academic-hypothetical) context.

Above: Traditional German illustration of the ‘Nürnberger Trichter’ (‘The Funnel of Nürnberg’). The writing says ‘First dumb and stupid, now clever as Goethe, all of which has been achieved by the funnel’s power’.

How about intelligence?

According to Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (Sternberg, 1985), the mere recall and modulation of fixed content circumvents various forms of intelligence, which are analytic intelligence (the ability to apply new knowledge to solve real-world problems), creative intelligence (the ability to create innovative and novel ways to solve problems and to design systems) and practical intelligence (the ability to make internal changes to adapt to new environmental conditions). As a result, students in traditional schools learn hard but remain incompetent. What is measured in most schools and colleges are not aspects of intelligence, but the individual ability to endure stress and anxiety, the level of supportive upbringing provided by parents and the ability to regurgitate and parrot the mental content set out by the school’s curricula. Within such settings, students are assessed as solitary actors in a rather mechanical manner, illustrated fittingly by the ‘Nürnberger Trichter’.

new jobs

Above: Courses advertised at Udacity. The digital economy requires proactive, self-directed and intrinsically motivated learners. From the perspective of emerging technologies, Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence celebrates a comeback.

It is not about how long we remember what we have learned

The primary goals of knowledge acquisition, however, are neither the long-term recall of mental content nor to become a tough solitary learner. Actual cognitive and metacognitive performance is demonstrated by students being able to create concepts and tools to solve problems, to design systems that help people improve their lives, to develop positive social relations with others and to strengthen their autonomy. These educational outcomes are rarely assessed in most institutions of Higher Learning but they are more commonly found in elite education. Elite learners know how to contextualise newly created concepts (such as e.g., in information technology, social sciences or engineering) and they are aware of underlying historical and cultural conditions that scaffold local social development.

helvetas

Above: Managing comprehensive project administration and supervision based on modern research and sustainable local development (picture: biodiversity project in Haiti by Helvetas, 2017)

As for most movements, constructivism has been developed by many contributors, notably by their founders Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Piaget’s approach can be described as socio-interactional constructivism with emphasis on the individual learner, whereby Vygotsky’s approach can be described as a cultural-historical and activity-based constructivism with emphasis on the social scaffolding of learning via a ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (Vianna & Stetsenko, 2006). Both approaches share the assumption that knowledge and the meaning of knowledge are actively constructed in the learner’s mind, that learning evolves contextually and is facilitated by social interaction. The mind is not perceived as a passive container to accommodate fixed sets information and limited cognitive processing within the boundaries of these sets. Piaget was grounded in the biological imperative, set out by Darwin, of a child’s adaptation to the environment. Vygotsky, following Marxist philosophy, focussed on the collaborative and transformative nature of learning. His approach remains highly relevant in today’s digital economy and media society which is characterised by the omnipresence of collaborating teams, complex multi-layered project development, intelligent knowledge management and highly integrated network groups. Curiously enough, it is these cooperative competencies of 21st-century working environments that are barely taught, if at all, at schools.

As for most movements, constructivism has been developed by many contributors, notably by their founders Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Piaget’s approach can be described as socio-interactional constructivism with emphasis on the individual learner, whereby Vygotsky’s approach can be described as a cultural-historical and activity-based constructivism with emphasis on the social scaffolding of learning via a ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (Vianna & Stetsenko, 2006). Both approaches share the assumption that knowledge and the meaning of knowledge are actively constructed in the learner’s mind, that learning evolves contextually and is facilitated by social interaction. The mind is not perceived as a passive container to accommodate fixed sets information and limited cognitive processing within the boundaries of these sets. Piaget was grounded in the biological imperative, set out by Darwin, of a child’s adaptation to the environment. Vygotsky, following Marxist philosophy, focussed on the collaborative and transformative nature of learning. His approach remains highly relevant in today’s digital economy and media society which is characterised by the omnipresence of collaborating teams, complex multi-layered project development, intelligent knowledge management and highly integrated network groups. Curiously enough, it is these cooperative competencies of 21st-century working environments that are barely taught, if at all, at schools.

How Design Thinking extends Constructivism

Although it is correct that context, learners’ self-regulation and social scaffolding play a central role in active learning, the success of achieving learning outcomes depends largely on achieving mastery in the construction, application and evaluation of cultural tools. In design education, tools are commonly known in association with software- and hardware tools (from silk-screens to 3D printers and visualisation software), but also as concept maps and design theories, such as ergonomics, human-centered design and social design.

Broadly defined, cultural tools are instruments of mind that encompass concepts, strategies, information collection and processing methodologies, culturally-mediated reflective and communicative practices as well as methods to relate inductive-empirical and deductive-theoretical inferences. Cultural tools are the means by which our lifeworld is designed and mediated. Cultural tools empower students to connect ideas with facts, to minimise the margin of error of empirical tools and to maximise the validity and relevance of theoretical concepts. Without the mastery of effective tools, teamwork and context awareness do not yield productive outcomes by themselves.

Design thinking is closely related to Problem-based Learning (PBL) as it consists of a series of logical steps to design products and services. These shared steps are (1) group setting, setting up a team, (2) problem definition and cooperative reframing of the problem if necessary, (3) the review of prior knowledge and hypothesis generation (for explaining phenomena) or setting goals and expectations (for creating designs and implementing interventions), (4) the identification of learning issues and gaps of knowledge (5) going through reiterative cycles of research and research review (inclusive of experimentation and creative exploration), (6) concluding solutions development, (7) final outcome presentation and (8) post-project assessment by the entire team. PBL, as well as Design Thinking, are grounded in procedural inquiry and follow best practices of empirical research. Solutions are developed in logical stages by a team and they are not arbitrarily assumed by a solipsistic learner following an elusive ‘model answer’ or ‘model solution’.

Tesla

Above: Modern production facilities like here at Tesla are a good example for the need of skilled and competent workers that can solve complex problems, such as to program and manage robots or track and diagnose anomalies within automated production processes.

On the point of mastering cultural tools, Howard Barrows noted that PBL has one root in the apprenticeship method whose roots go back to the dawn of history (Wee Keng Neo & Kek Yin Chyn, 2002) where learning by doing emerged within an intergenerational culture of mastery. Today, mastery is rooted in science, also referred to as learning science (Bransford, 2000) shifting the educational focus on the mastery of scientific methods in support of new and innovative ideas.

Another argument for a procedural approach to future education is that without explicit awareness of the in situ implementation of knowledge, corresponding responsibilities cannot be assigned in a meaningful manner. As we live in a highly complex and interconnected world where responsibilities dilute across chains of institutions and businesses, a central theme in Badura’s recent work on moral disengagement (Bandura, 2016), the need to design systems of responsibility and accountability reinforces the call for fundamental educational reforms. If students are not taught on how to build a better world at an early age, how can anyone expect sensible societal progress?

References

Bandura, A. (2016). Moral disengagement: How people do harm and live with themselves. New York: Worth Publishers, Macmillan Learning.

Bransford, J. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press.

Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Beyond IQ: A Triarchic Theory of Intelligence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vivanna, E. & Stetsenko, A. (2006). Embracing History through Transforming It: Contrasting Pigetean versus Vygotskian (Activity) Theories of Learning and Development to Expand Constructivism within a Dialectical View of History. Theory of Psychology, Sage Publications.

Wee Keng Neo, L. & Kek Yin Chyn, M. (2002). Authentic problem-based learning: Rewriting business education. Singapore: Pearson Malaysia.

The Ethics of Grading (About Grades, Part 2)

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multiple-choice graphic

Grading is a method to measure students’ performance while the type of grading system employed is a representation of its underlying educational ethics. The more simple the grading system, the more simple the assertions of graders about the graded. The more multi-faceted the grading system, the more factors an assessment entails. In the latter case, justifications for stipulating assessment criteria need to be provided. Typically, no or little justifications are given in the case of simple grading methods, such as multiple-choice, true-false, matching, or simply accumulating errors and points that are commonly used in primary and secondary education.

But what are the ethics behind grading systems? Do some grading systems violate ethics and if they do, how should students be assessed instead? Let us have a closer look at the relation of ethics and academic assessment.

Low-level Grading and its Underpinnings in Social Darwinism, Liberalism and Behaviourism

Simple low-level grading is underpinned by a set of assumptions. These are that students should be graded individually regardless of social context and prior conditions, that given grades are a truthful account of a student’s performance and aptitude and that final grades are fair. One could argue that such grading is rooted in both liberalism and social Darwinism since only the fittest survive (at least from the perspective of teachers) and that teachers bear no responsibility whatsoever for their students’ learning – analogously to the view that governments should not interfere in markets. In such a more Darwinian outlook, some students are simply more gifted than others. It is nature above nurture, genetics above pedagogy. According to the philosophy of natural selection, traditional grading simply ‘separates the wheat from the chaff’.

As a tool of behavioural control, grades are commonly set out as rewards (‘An A, well done!) while bad grades serve as punishment. In principle, there is little difference between pupils getting grades and a rat inside a Skinner Box receiving either food or electric shocks as positive or negative reinforcements. The main task for students inside the learning box is store content temporarily in short-term memory in order to pass exams and to forget the acquired knowledge shortly after; a cycle that the German philosopher Richard David Precht described as ‘bulimic learning’ (Bulimie–Lernen). As a side effect of bulimic learning, students learn that knowledge is dispensable and not meant to be part of an all-encompassing lifelong learning process. As grades are applied universally all over the world and across institutions, the systemic conditioning towards the belief in grades is strengthened along learners’ educational trajectories.

Mid-level Grading and its Meritocratic-liberal Stance

More complex grading based on criteria requires a justification of these criteria and is, subsequently, open to debate. Some institutions of Higher Learning assess higher-order learning outcomes such as, e.g., the use of specified evidence, the quality of the evidence cited, the ability to understand and differentiate concepts, to relate facts to ideas, to frame a general problem within a local context, the ability to argue cases and integrate multiple perspectives, to choose adequate methods of analysis, to be able to employ critical thinking as well as to demonstrate overall consistency. Such comprehensive, mid-level assessment takes time and requires educators to design adequate scoring rubrics.

The advantage of mid-level assessment is that students do not only know why they have received a specific grade (which could still be equivalent to providing or not providing a ‘model answer’) but indicates which areas to put more effort in. Scoring rubrics have the advantage that they can serve as a formative feedback to learners. A disadvantage is that they are typically limited to assess only cognitive skills.

From an ethical perspective, we could label mid-level scoring as a meritocratic approach: Although assessed on an individual account, all students are provided with a fair chance to improve their identified weaknesses and to build on their strengths in order to gain merit via continuous improvement. This concept is also liberal in a sense that individuals are provided with an opportunity (or right) for improvement, at least at face value, while it ignores an individual’s ability (or inability) to capitalise on a given opportunity. Meritocratic-liberal assessment is still based on the assumption that learning happens primarily individually and independent of social context, contrary to evidence provided by psychological research.

The different social starting points of learners and their contextual limitations (e.g., some students might have highly supportive parents while others have not, some have the financial means to pay for tutors or to participate in international exchange programs while others have not) are not subject to potential interventions. To this extent, mid-level grading is not directly engaged in providing equal opportunity since no support is offered to weaker students for improving their performance, even if it is pointed out to them which areas of studies they should focus more. It is like telling a thirsty person in the middle of a desert not to worry about water since the next oasis is only a couple of hundred miles away. This is why meritocratic-liberal assessment is more suitable to homogeneous classes where students are approximately on the same level rather than heterogeneous, socially diverse student populations. But how about exceptionally gifted students?

High-end Social-discursive Evaluation Beyond Grades

Jane Robbins wrote about elite students in InsideHigherEd that ‘They want the more complex, nuanced, individual (or small group), creative work. And while they can do a great deal in interaction with each other, they need and want, the guidance of experts with depth and breadth in the field at hand. They want and need feedback because they don’t yet have experience in solving those kinds of problems. Neither are they satisfied just to get their A- for many top students, A’s are easy, but the A in and of itself does nothing to motivate them, or do other than present a false sense of complete mastery; you can get an A and still need to advance to the next level of thinking. So for elite students, the teacher is mentor, coach, prodder, supervisor who provides his or her guidance through feedback.’

On the highest level of learning, students are evaluated for a plethora of abilities. Among them are the ability to empathise, social cooperation and teamwork skills, to take on different social roles and responsibilities within a team, to conduct research in meaningful projects on authentic problems (or phenomena) and to foster originality and creativity. Elite learning is (a) socially scaffolded and discursive. It embraces (b) critical discussions and the development of mastery in learning, while (c) underlying motivation is entirely intrinsic and not extrinsic.

Why a Hierarchy of Evaluation Systems is Counterproductive

In many elite universities, grading has already become redundant. Equal opportunity is mediated by including all students in research projects. The adequate description by Robbins begs the question why only elite students should be worthy of mentors and coaches. Isn’t achieving mastery in learning even more relevant for weaker students, especially at an early age?

It seems awkward and illogical that few lucky students are rewarded by high-level social-discursive evaluation systems (once they have made it through the maze of socio-Darwinist and meritocratic-liberal systems), but such privilege is kept away from ordinary students in the beginning of their development when they need such scaffolding the most.

By looking at learning environments that foster highly successful students, our journey into grading systems turns full cycle. Simple methods of evaluation are subject to social bias and confirmation bias can only yield distorted and inadequate conclusions about the true complexity of students’ learning and potential. Especially at a younger age, pupils deserve to develop the full range of social, emotional and cognitive capabilities to support more differentiated cognitive and metacognitive schemata some years later. Tell me your assessment system and I tell you how qualified as a teacher you are.