Students’ perception and satisfaction of services provided by public and private higher education institutes: a case study in Albania

Purpose There have been many research studies on students’ satisfaction of services in universities in developed countries. However, students’ expectation and satisfaction of public and private higher education institutions (HEIs) with regard to service quality in Eastern Europe have been under-researched. Therefore, this study aims to offer an empirical examination of student satisfaction of the service quality of public and private HEIs in Albania by evaluating the gap between students’ expectation and perception and the effect of student satisfaction on retention in HEIs. Design/methodology/approach The survey instrument used in this study was the student satisfaction inventory in the USA. Primary data were collected from a survey of students in two private and four public HEIs in Albania. A total of 554 valid responses were collected from the survey. Findings The findings suggested that there were performance gaps between public and private HEIs. Public universities performed well in terms of concern for the individual, campus support services, student-centeredness and instructional effectiveness. Private HEIs scored well in terms of concern for the individual, academic advising effectiveness, instructional effectiveness and safety and security (parking). There is a significant difference in students’ perception of the overall satisfaction of HEIs. Students’ overall satisfaction positively impacts their retention. Originality/value Overall, this study provides valuable insights to private and public HEIs’ administrators regarding to student satisfaction and retention. The findings will have far-reaching managerial implications for all groups of stakeholders in terms of the service delivery by universities in Albania and Eastern Europe.

Instructional design and instructional effectiveness in virtual classrooms: Research trends and challenges

This literature review aimed to examine the status, trends and tendencies in publications about virtual classrooms, instructional design in the virtual classroom and instructional effectiveness in the virtual classroom, as indexed in the ERIC database. For this review, we examined 2680 publications indexed in ERIC between 1994 and 2018. We collected data with data mining and utilised several Python libraries as resources for developing the analysis plan. The results of the analysis are presented in visual form. For each of the three subject matter areas examined in this study, we present the themes in the publications by years, titles, abstracts and ERIC descriptors. We report in detail the trends and challenges that emerged from the analysis. The results show that the words “learning”, “online”, and “environment” were prominent in each of the three subject matter areas. The primary topics addressed were literacy and curriculum development, and researchers examined the roles of instructors, learners and managers. Implications for practice or policy: This review will be a useful resource for scientists, researchers and policymakers who conduct studies on the virtual classroom. Instruction should be planned according to differences in instructor, learner and manager roles, as revealed by the studies. Practitioners who want to teach in virtual classrooms can also use it as a guide.

The tennis common content knowledge measure validation

The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable common content knowledge (CCK) instrument for pre-service teachers who teach fundamental tennis in secondary schools. The instrument, called the tennis CCK test for pre-service teachers (CCK-Tennis), was administered to 117 undergraduate students who were enrolled in physical education (PE) teacher education programmes at three universities in the United States. Two tennis content experts developed the CCK-Tennis and five in-service teachers reviewed the test to establish content validity. A total of 10 pre-service teachers took the test for pilot testing. The data were analysed using Rasch statistics (Linacre, 2011; Rasch, 1980). The authors judged the unidimensionality of the CCK-Tennis using the unexplained variance in the first contrast (2.59) and the standardized residual contrast one plot (-0.4 to 0.4). These data provided evidence that the test is unidimensional and measures tennis CCK. The results of infit (0.8 to 1.2) and outfit (0.5 to 1.5) mean square residuals showed that the difficulty of the questions matches respondents’ knowledge levels. The item (5.32, Cronbach’s α = 0.97) and person (1.71, Cronbach’s α = 0.72) separation index and the Wright map showed that there are low to high knowledge levels of the respondents who took the test. The results illustrate that the CCK-Tennis is a robust, valid, and reliable tool that people can use in teacher education. Having valid and reliable measures for CCK is an essential step to improve teachers’ instructional effectiveness from the area of content knowledge.

An Untapped Resource

This chapter showcases a teacher preparation program (TPP) targeting early career, in-service teachers who are most vulnerable to early attrition and was created to support district efforts to retain and develop an effective workforce. The chapter focuses and puts a spotlight on the role of the instructional consultant, which is the most innovative aspect of this district-based teacher preparation program. These instructional consultants are embedded in the design and delivery of program coursework. This instructional consultant role was innovated to provide a conduit for teacher leadership in this ongoing partnership. This chapter recounts how this partnership began, how instructional consultants have become a conduit for leveraging and growing teacher leadership for all stakeholders involved in this school-university partnership, and the ongoing impact of this program in terms of teacher retention and improving instructional effectiveness.

A Probabilistic Model for Feedback on Teachers’ Instructional Effectiveness: Its Potential and the Challenge of Combining Multiple Perspectives

This chapter describes research into the validity of a teacher evaluation framework that was applied between 2012 and 2016 to provide feedback to Dutch secondary school teachers concerning their instructional effectiveness. In this research project, the acquisition of instructional effectiveness was conceptualized as unfolding along a continuum ranging from ineffective novice to effective expert instructor. Using advanced statistical models, teachers’ current position on the continuum was estimated. This information was used to tailor feedback for professional development. Two instruments were applied to find teachers’ current position on the continuum, namely the International Comparative Assessment of Learning and Teaching (ICALT) observation instrument and the My Teacher–student questionnaire (MTQ). This chapter highlights background theory and central concepts behind the project and it introduces the logic behind the statistical methods that were used to operationalize the continuum of instructional effectiveness. Specific attention is given to differences between students and observers in how they experience teachers’ instructional effectiveness and the resulting disagreement in how they position teachers on the continuum. It is explained how this disagreement made feedback reports less actionable. The chapter then discusses evidence of two empirical studies that examined the disagreement from two methodological perspectives. Finally, it makes some tentative conclusions concerning the practical implications of the evidence.

UPAYA PENINGKATAN KUALITAS PEMBELAJARAN BIOLOGI MELALUI PEMBELAJARAN BERMAKNA DENGAN MENGGUNAKAN PETA KONSEP

One of the efforts to increase instructional effectiveness is by developing a meaningful learning strategy thought using concept mapping. The instructional objectives at school are not only to increase the academic achievement but also the ability and skill of the students in order to be able to understand the process of improving knowledge, attitude to the subject which is studied, and attitude to the environment, too. The instructional strategy with concept mapping is one of the alternatives that can provide the result of all aspects that are hoped to reach the instructional objectives. The concept mapping learning strategy signifies the students reorganize the new knowledge by inserting the concept into the net hierarchically and describe their connection in a diagram and combine it into a greater knowledge structure. The organizing of conceptual understanding well will aid the meaningfulness of students learning, so, the students are easier to understand the material of the lesson being studied.