Should It Stay or Should It Go? Developing an Enhanced SWOT Framework for Teaching Strategy Formulation

Strategy educators have employed SWOT analysis for decades as a means of teaching strategy formulation to students. Despite this well-established practice, many scholars and practitioners have called for discontinuing it as a pedagogical tool for several reasons, including that traditional undergraduate students may lack the practical experience to employ SWOT correctly, the framework presents “messy” strategic problems as overly rational, or it represents as an ambiguous and/or atheoretical classification system. We suggest possible remedies for SWOT analysis problems that may help improve its usefulness and promote its continued use. After briefly reviewing its original formulation, current textbook descriptions, and frequent criticisms, we present a refined and enhanced SWOT framework, anchored in extant strategy research and learning theory. We then demonstrate the efficacy of this enhanced framework with examples and preliminary data. Our fundamental conclusion is that SWOT analysis, when properly employed, remains a useful overarching framework that, among other advantages, helps bridge the “theory versus practice” pedagogical debate on how best to teach strategy formulation.

Przedszkola w debacie polityczno-oświatowej Niemiec. W stronę edukacji, opieki i wychowania

Contemporary pre-school institutions in Germany have ceased to be perceived solely as providers of care. Significant importance has been assigned to education and upbringing as equivalent categories. The change in approach is not only apparent in their organisation and functioning, but also in state policies, which clearly emphasise the importance of early childhood. The aim of the article is to analyse the political-pedagogical debate that has been in progress since 2005, as well as to scrutinise the adopted arguments and their consequences in the form of the ever changing early school education and care in Germany. The analysis of conditions that have contributed to bestowing preschools with such significance, not only in the process of early childhood development, but also in the process of more broadly understood social development, has also been recognised as equally important, as a result of which preschool institutions have gained importance in the area of political investment that is equal to that granted to schools. The analysis of educational reports and formal-legal guidelines on both federal and state levels is meant to illustrate the range of the introduced changes and the specifics of the German reform, which is perceived as an interlinked network and as cooperation for the sake of children and their families.

Learning outcomes between learner centredness and institutionalisation of qualification frameworks

This article investigates what is claimed to be a shift towards national and European education systems based on Learning Outcomes (LO). We propose to delineate LO into three instruments (pedagogical, policy and organisational). When LO are related to a pedagogical debate, they can easily be positioned to constructivist learning theories in which the centredness of the learner is brought to the fore. This perspective is often emphasised by EU institutions and agencies when outlining implications for education and training practices. At the same time, LO are inscribed in a package of policies playing out at a national and cross-national level whose success lies in their political and organisational ramification. Of particular importance is how these policies change rules and procedures of educational institutions, notably curricula and the awarding of qualifications. Within this picture of learner centredness and institutionalisation, LO in the existing literature are analysed as pedagogical and policy instruments. This article proposes to add a third perspective, that of considering LO as an organisational instrument. This implies studying the work organisation of educational institutions, as well as the bodies and agencies (‘quangos’) of importance for bringing about LO. Another aspect which the notion organisational instrument can shed light on is the continuing efforts to improve the performance of education systems by means of quality control and auditing procedures. The article concludes that policy-making for education and training will benefit from studies able to accurately determine the nature of the instruments deployed in the ongoing discourse on LO. Against this background, some implications for future studies and analyses in the field of education and training are drawn.

Geschichte der Pädagogik im Curriculum der Lehrerausbildung für Grund- und Bürgerschulen (tschechisch-deutscher Vergleich: 1918–1939) – eine wissenschaftliche Disziplin im Dienste des Volkes, des Fortschrittes und der Sozialreform)

The article focuses on the analysis of course books concerning the history of pedagogy used in the interwar period at the Czech and German Teachers’ Institutions. Based on the analysis, there is pointed out the role of the subject concerning the history of pedagogy in the given period in the framework of the teachers’ training. The analysis is set into the wider context of the development concerning pedagogical thinking and its reflection in the Czech and German pedagogical debate at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in the Czech lands of the monarchy and the fi rst half of the 20th century in the interwar Czechoslovakia. The analysis not only points to a different grasp of the historical reflection of pedagogical thinking in both national and cultural camps, but also points to common features in the development of the discipline. These are mainly shown in its functional character, when the history of pedagogy was a discipline supporting the national emancipation of both nations, and they were part of a wider debate concerning reform of the society.Keywords: history of education, teachers’ institutes, course books, teachers’ training, Czechoslovakia, Czech Lands and the Habsburg Monarchy.

How Dangerous Are Virtual Worlds Really? A Research Note on the Statecraft Simulation Debate

This brief article weighs in on a pedagogical debate concerning the didactic usefulness of an online international relations computer simulation called Statecraft. In a 2014 article, Gustavo Carvalho, a teaching assistant at the University of Toronto, claimed, based on the results of a survey he administered to an international relations class that used Statecraft, that the simulation had little to offer students as a teaching tool. In a rebuttal, Statecraft creator Jonathan Keller took Carvalho to task for not employing the simulation properly, which biased his results. While Carvalho only presented results for one class, the present analysis reports on survey responses of students over six different classes which used Statecraft from 2013 to 2014. The results call into question Carvalho’s findings and suggest that the context and curriculum matter as much as the simulation itself when judging the pedagogical value of computer-mediated learning tools.

Representations and Meanings of Adult Education Staff Evaluation. A Pedagogical Reflection on Six Case Studies

<p class="IATED-Affiliation">This paper deals with six case studies of evaluation, which were discussed at the Mobility Workshop organized in the context of the EduEval Project (Evaluation for the Professional Development of Adult Education Staff, LLP Grundtvig).This paper depicts the different representations of evaluation explicitly and implicitly present. The aim of the article is twofold. First, it explores the meanings associated with the evaluation practicesdescribed, and it identifies both transversal and specific components. Second, it critically reflects on how evaluation may sustain and/or develop the competences of Adult Education Staff,in the light of the current pedagogical debate on the theme.</p>

Gender equality, pedagogy and citizenship

This article explores the relationship between gender equality, pedagogy and citizenship. It locates the analysis of education within the gender dilemmas associated with liberal democratic citizenship. Of particular concern is the tension between the promotion of equality and difference. Nancy Fraser's distinctions between redistribution and recognition and between affirmative and transformative remedies are used to explore two phases in the pedagogical debate around gender equality and difference in the UK since the 1970s.These phases demonstrate the contradictions associated with gender as a ‘bivalent collectivity’ – a collectivity defined through both economic and cultural/representational forms. The conclusion argues for a ‘critical pedagogy of difference’which promotes pedagogic democratic rights as well as critical gender identities.

Research Outputs in the Creative and Performing Arts: ‘Australianising’ an International Debate

This paper positions current Australian discussions about practice-led research within international, national, historical and policy contexts and relates them to the developing pedagogical debate around performing and creative arts doctorates. Arguing that the creative industries offer benefits across the economy, it suggests that recognition for the research methodology specific to practice-led disciplines and the creative industries is overdue. The discussions in this paper, and in this theme issue of MIA, are all the more critical as a result of their articulation with the imminent introduction of the Research Quality Framework (RQF), which will allow nuanced, rigorous and internationally benchmarked evaluation of the quality and impact of research outputs. The RQF and the proposed research assessment panel for ‘creative arts, design and built environment’ herald the way for wider acceptance of practice-led outputs in the Australian research environment.

Teaching & Learning in Community

As the pedagogical debate swings between the teacher-centered model, with its concern for rigor, and the student-centered model, with its concern for active learning, some of us are torn between the two, says Parker J. Palmer. In this essay, adapted from Chapter Five of his new book, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, he offers a third option: teachers bring students into a community of learning around the subject itself.