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Purpose: Microteaching is a teacher training method based on microclasses (groups of four or five students) and microlessons lasting no more than 5-20 min. Since it was first explored in the late 20th century in experiments at Stanford University, microteaching has evolved at the interdisciplinary level. The purpose of this paper is to examine the networks found via an analytical bibliometric study of the scientific output related with microteaching in teacher training, through a study and examination of the Web of Science database. Design/methodology/approach: This research was conducted with the VOSviewer tool for content analysis through data mining and scientific network structure mapping by means of the normalisation technique. This technique is based on the association strength indicator, which is interpreted as a measurement of the similarity of the units of analysis. Findings: Two hundred and nine articles were thus obtained from the Web of Science database. The networks generated and the connections among the various items, co-authorship and co-citation are presented in the results, which clearly indicates that there are significant authors and institutions in the field of microteaching. The largest cluster is made up of institutions such as Australian Catholic University. The most often-cited document is by Rich and Hannafin. Allen (1968), who defines microteaching as a technique based on microclasses and microlessons, is the author most often cited and has the largest number of connections. Research limitations/implications: This research's limitations concern either aspects that lie beyond the study's possibilities or goals that have proved unattainable. The second perspective, which focuses on skill transfer, contains a lower percentage of documents and therefore has a weaker central documentary structure. Lastly, the authors have also had to bear in mind the fact that the scientific output hinges upon a highly specific realm, the appearance and/or liberalisation of digital technologies and access to those technologies in the late 20th century. Originality/value: This research shows that microteaching is a promising area of research that opens up vast possibilities in higher education teacher training for application in the realm of technologies. This paper could lead to several lines of future research, such as access to and the universal design of learning from the standpoint of different communication and pedagogical models based on microteaching.

The aim of this study is to identify the most prolific countries in the field of special education and to discuss the widespread impact of their papers by taking into account the country's h-index. Through a bibliometric analysis, the data were collected in the Web of Science Core Collection category "Education, Special" in the Social Science Citation Index during 2011-2020. The 25 most prolific countries in the field of special education were determined in terms of paper productivity, and it was seen that the leading country was undisputedly the USA (54.42%). Meanwhile, a strong positive correlation was found between the h-index and the number of papers published by the countries (r=0.864). On the other hand, when the ranking in terms of the number of papers was reconfigured by the h-index, it was relatively changed. The possible reasons for this change for the countries with the most changing rankings were discussed by considering some definitive criteria such as the journal quartiles, the percentage of international and domestic, and the percentage of open access papers. This study reports a positive correlation between the quality and quantity in the field of special education for the publications of countries. It has been shown that where the positive correlation deviates, then especially, the journal quartiles, the percentage of international collaboration and the percentage of open access papers have a significant effect. The bibliometric findings may be useful to enrich the discussion about the widespread impact of papers and debate whether the use of h-index is acceptable for cross-national comparisons.

Drawing on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 15 Chinese queer international students from New Zealand's tertiary institutions, this paper explores their motivations to pursue higher education transnationally and unpacks the interconnected power structures underpinning their experiences. We find that despite the imagination and initial perception of New Zealand as one of the most queer-friendly higher education destinations, Chinese queer international students are confronted by the 'ethnic closet'--a heteronormative power structure simultaneously disciplining racial/ethnic and sexual identities. The interplay between these two key aspects of students' identity has meant that Chinese queer international students, as migrants who occupy disadvantaged positions in local racial power relations, frequently experience heteronormative microaggressions on campus. These students' ethnic identity, which lies in the heart of their social support system, has also become a hindrance in their queer identity development. Our findings challenge the perceived dichotomy between China as homophobic and 'the West' as queer-friendly, and reveal the need for a more nuanced understanding of queer international students' experiences, in order to better support them in a higher education setting.

This paper highlights the complex relations between public and private spaces with regard to young children's bilingual learning, and the importance of developing a pedagogy that allows for the interaction of learning across the two spaces. It uses findings from a qualitative study to illustrate nuanced (mis)alignments between dominant language discourses in New Zealand early childhood education and Chinese immigrant families' aspirations regarding the languages they want their children to learn and use. The study involved analysing a range of institutional documents to identify early childhood education discourses promoted in New Zealand. Alongside this, individual interviews were conducted with a group of Chinese immigrant parents to investigate their involvement in children's early childhood education. Families' aspirations, experiences and practices regarding children's bilingual learning were frequently mentioned during the interviews, and these are valuable knowledge for teachers. This paper presents findings related to these dual language learning expectations. It uses theoretical constructs of social spaces to interpret the findings and their implications for a responsive pedagogy that embraces bi/multilingualism.

The purpose of this study is to compare Turkish novice teacher induction system with China, New Zealand, and Germany in terms of assignment to teaching, duration of induction, and opportunities provided in programs. Those countries selected are known to have the best practices for induction training. Despite their differing policies regarding novice teacher training, they provide novice teachers with many exemplary aspects of support. The comparison shows that collaboration activities are formalized in three countries, except Türkiye. While novice teachers in Türkiye have the same workload as experienced teachers, novices in the other three countries have a reduced workload and have more free time for education. A mentoring program is being conducted in all countries, including Türkiye. Türkiye has weekly seminars on liberal education topics, while the other three countries have mostly branch-specific seminars. The paper concludes with a discussion of the educational implications of the induction programs.

While ChatGPT has recently become very popular, AI has a long history and philosophy. This paper intends to explore the promises and pitfalls of the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) AI and potentially future technologies by adopting a speculative methodology. Speculative future narratives with a specific focus on educational contexts are provided in an attempt to identify emerging themes and discuss their implications for education in the 21st century. Affordances of (using) AI in Education (AIEd) and possible adverse effects are identified and discussed which emerge from the narratives. It is argued that now is the best of times to define human vs AI contribution to education because AI can accomplish more and more educational activities that used to be the prerogative of human educators. Therefore, it is imperative to rethink the respective roles of technology and human educators in education with a future-oriented mindset.

This paper proposes a distance-based doctoral supervisory model to support students in the process of navigating self, agency, and emotions over their doctoral journey. The model emerged through our examination of the lived experiences of three Chinese female doctoral students who, though enrolled as internal students in our New Zealand university, were prevented by the pandemic from returning from their Spring Festival sojourn to China, and continued their study by distance. We employed narrative analysis to deeply engage with their stories shared in diaries and one-on-one interviews, alongside social media interactions. These revealed a strong commitment to study emanating from answerability toward their research projects, already underway, and agentive actions to maintain peer-to-peer academic and emotional support, enabling resilience and reflexivity about personal values and needs. Learning from this experience, we emphasize in our model the need to nurture important bonds between students, their peers and their supervisors in online environments.

The demands arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have amplified the importance of resilience not only for students, but also for academics. This narrative review examines a phenomenon which has received little research attention, despite its significance during the pandemic, namely the resilience of academics in higher education. We refer to this as 'academic resilience'. The review investigates how academic resilience in higher education has been addressed in scholarship, with particular attention to the five major pandemics from 2001 to 2020. A review of fourteen relevant papers shows a lack of attention to the resilience of university teaching staff. Uncovering how academics overcome and withstand adversity on the one hand, and how higher education institutions have managed and supported the resilience of their staff on the other, this paper offers a conceptualisation of academic resilience that goes beyond the individual/environmental binary in scholarship.

The paper provides an overview of the global research on graduate education. The study applied a combination of a bibliometric and social network analysis methods to bibliographic data from Thompson Reuters' Web of Science. More specifically, a keyword search approach was used to retrieve 2,454 articles on graduate education from 1996 until 2020. The set was processed with the VantagePoint software. The paper reports the findings in the form of lists of top scholars, research centres, and countries contributing to research on graduate education. The findings include similar lists of the key funding agencies, contributing disciplines and publication venues, as well as maps representing collaborative activity in the field between institutions, and countries. Finally, the frequency of utilisation of groups of author-supplied keywords is analysed to determine the basic thematic structure of the research on the topic. The originality of the paper consists in the fact that it represents the first attempt to map the landscape of research on graduate education using bibliographic data. It can be used to supplement the results of literature reviews on the topic, which apply a more in-depth content analysis-based approaches to a limited number of papers to determine the thematic structure of the field.

Educational transitions are widely recognised as being key points that can influence a student's later success. Transitions are not limited to the beginning of a period of study; they can occur at any stage. The adjustments that come with transitioning can be unsettling and isolating. These feelings can be compounded by the nature of the studies and the distance from the place of study. This paper reflects on the importance of recognising that the transition from being a student within a cohort to being an independent thesis student can be quite isolating for many students, especially those who are studying at a distance. In an attempt to provide extra support and to minimise the effect of isolation, team supervision was trialled for two groups of distance supervised Doctor of Business Administration students based in China. The model incorporated peer groups and research communities for students with similar research topics. Overall, the pilot was successful in supporting the students' transition, but identified the need for flexibility to manage students who progress at different rates.

Seamless learning has a significance that has been increasing in recent years, and an increasing number of studies on the subject in the literature draws attention. This study aimed to examine the research on seamless learning between 1996 and 2020 with the bibliometric analysis method. The Scopus database was used in the collection of the data. After various screening processes, a total of 389 publications were included in the analysis. Descriptive analysis and bibliometric analysis were used in the analysis of the data. The distribution of publications by years, types of publications, sources, and languages were analyzed in the research. Additionally, visual maps were created with analyses of co-author, cocitation, and co-word. At the end of the study, it was seen that there has been an increase in the number of publications from the past to the present, articles and papers were predominant, and that most of the studies were carried out in English. As a result of bibliometric analysis, it was concluded that the most efficient countries in seamless learning were the United Kingdom, the United States, and Singapore. Also, it has been determined that the National Institute of Education, Center for International Education and Exchange, and Kyushu University institutions are dominant. The most frequently mentioned authors cited in studies in many different fields are M. Sharples, L.-H. Wong, and H. Ogata. According to the co-word analysis, the keywords seamless learning, mobile learning, ubiquitous learning, and mobile-assisted language learning stand out in the field of seamless learning.

This paper presents a compilation of personal reflections from 66 contributors on the impact of, and responses to, COVID-19 in accounting education in 45 different countries around the world. It reveals a commonality of issues, and a variability in responses, many positive outcomes, including the creation of opportunities to realign learning and teaching strategies away from the comfort of traditional formats, but many more that are negative, primarily relating to the impact on faculty and student health and well-being, and the accompanying stress. It identifies issues that need to be addressed in the recovery and redesign stages of the management of this crisis, and it sets a new research agenda for studies in accounting education.

Since 2015 many postgraduate dance students from the Beijing Dance Academy China, have completed a one-year Masters in Community Dance at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. This paper reflects on eight student's experience of their year of international study. Data gathered through semi structured interviews were examined through the threshold concept theory and we found that these students were challenged by teacher/learner relationships, academic research in dance studies, and classroom communications. The article makes recommendations to both the Beijing Dance Academy and the University of Auckland as this academic partnership matures. While this study is specific only to the two institutions involved in the research, it may provide insights that are common across other tertiary dance programmes for international dance students.

This paper explains various good practices and perspectives of Early Childhood Education across the nation. A good number of reviews across the globe has collected from various sources, research projects, PhD thesis and so on which put categorized as knowledge base, developmentally appropriate practice, observation and assessment, positive behavior guidance, inclusive practices, personal professional development. The research mainly focused on the pedagogical process, language development, social and cultural perspectives of preschools. Theses good practices also implemented and recommended at national level of those nations to their preschool/ Early Childhood Education Curriculum policies.

Nine papers are presented that focus on the Raven Progressive Matrices tests. An overview of research on the Progressive Matrices; a review of international norming studies; recent data from China, Hong Kong, Brazil, New Zealand, and Australia; and a comparison of data for retarded and nonretarded children are presented. (SLD)

Due to global attention on student employability, employers are expected to be involved in institutional governance in higher education and quality assurance (QA). Due to the difficulties in recruiting motivated employers to participate in external QA governance and process, this has become a challenging issue in many Asian nations. The paper aims to explore employer legitimacy in Asian national higher education regulations and EQA system according to a four-dimensional diagram of institutional governance model. There are two major findings. First, Asian governments developed QA policies with a focus on employer engagement but the emerging practice is still ineffective. Second, approaches of employer engagement in QA governance vary context to context, such as HK and Malaysia in the excellence mode; Taiwan, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand belong to advanced type; and China, Thailand, and Vietnam fall in the intermediate category.

An increasing number of Chinese students pursue their higher education degree in an overseas university. This research paper sets out to raise a discussion about some of the major challenges that such Chinese postgraduates might experience when studying at universities in English speaking countries drawing from ethnographic and sociological perspectives. The paper seeks to enhance understanding of a growing phenomenon amongst student communities in Higher Education institutions in English speaking countries. The challenges faced by Chinese students can be disorientating and stressful but overcoming them can lead to opening up of a range of opportunities from which the students can benefit particularly after they have graduated from their study. As many HE institutions come to depend upon the growing number of Chinese students enrolling with them the paper touches upon an issue of cross national concern. Both authors have experience of students seeking to study in English-speaking countries. They are currently pursuing research at the Institute of Education, University College London. The present paper is drawn from a wider programme of research into student exchanges and flows.

Substantial amount of research regarding L2 learners' beliefs has been conducted in recent years. However, not enough attention has been paid to investigating the nature of learners' beliefs; hence our understanding of the construct is contradictory in the sense that early research studies report stability in beliefs, while more recent studies provide evidence of change in learners' beliefs. This paper reports on a case study aiming at contributing to a deeper understanding of the nature of language learners' beliefs. Data were gathered longitudinally over an 18-week period using a number of tools. The findings reveal the complexity of learners' beliefs. The beliefs that the learners held were not always in harmony and some of them can be self-contradictory. Furthermore, while some beliefs may evolve and change over time and across situation, others may remain relatively stable, suggesting the complex and dual nature of learners' beliefs. Drawing on these findings, the paper concludes that learner beliefs can best be perceived as an inter-related construct that has dual features and sometimes can be paradoxical.

Information and communications technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for innovation in educational practice. Among all the educational technological tools, online discussion forums represent one of the most extensively adopted educational media in higher education. Yet a review of the literature indicates a lack of empirical studies investigating how learners utilize this tool to afford their language learning. This study aims to address this gap in the literature. Using thematic analysis, postings of 20 second language (L2) learners in a peer-moderated online discussion forum were analysed. Qualitative thematic analysis of the data revealed that the online discussion forum facilitated the co-construction of subject matter knowledge and enhanced learners' critical understanding. The postings also showed that during the interactive, collaborative inquiry, students encouraged and helped each other emotionally and academically which helped foster group affiliation and learner autonomy. These findings suggest that the online discussion forum has many affordances which are conducive to effective learning. The paper concludes with pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research.

This paper discusses the noticeable nervousness of many US-based financial statement issuers in adopting IFRS. For contextual purposes, the paper provides an overview of the FASB/IFRS convergence so far and its probable future. A detailed review of convergence in accounting standards is explained through the respective standards for "Pensions and Other Post-Employment Benefits". The paper concludes by suggesting that, while one set of global steps is a noble goal, it might not achieve the desired goal of comparability.

"Viva voce" or oral examinations are an intrinsic part of the examination of many doctoral theses. There is some ambiguity about their purpose; however, they are generally perceived to be an opportunity for the candidate to respond to the examiners' comments and questions. They also allow examiners to assure themselves of the candidate's grasp of the topic and research process. In most cases, the examinations are conducted in the institution's language of instruction. However, it is possible for an examination to be held in another language, for example in bicultural countries with more than one official language or to make use of the expertise of an examiner who does not speak or read the language that the student has been supervised in. If the examination is conducted a language that is not common to all the participants -- candidate, examiners and examination convenor -- then there needs to be a clear process for accurate translation to ensure the examination is valid. This paper contributes to an acceptance of the importance of validating a student's ability to be assessed in their own language.

The teaching of writing in English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) has been a challenging task for many teachers due to its multifaceted nature. This paper is a reflection on ESL/EFL writing teaching in three countries, namely China, Singapore, and New Zealand, with particular reference to professionalizing ESL/ EFL writing and ESL/EFL writing-teacher education. It first addresses issues facing EFL writing and writing-teacher education that relate to the offering of English at various levels in China. It then moves on to elaborate on how western pedagogical practices have been implemented in Singapore, especially that of a genre-based pedagogy. Nestled in the context of globalization, I focus on New Zealand, positing that globalization has exacerbated the challenge in teaching ESL writing because of large numbers of students who are seeking higher education in western countries in English as the medium of instruction, and yet their first language is not English. I conclude the paper with recommendations that professionalizing L2 writing (even in school settings) is a mission for all those who are in this enterprise. Proper teacher preparation programs for training L2 writing teachers should be in place in order for this to happen. China needs to critically appraise, and learn from, successful experiences such as Singapore and many institutions in the USA and Canada. New Zealand is yet to formalize ESOL writing teacher preparation programs, where English-as-an-L2 writing-teacher education for primary and secondary schools is still not a priority in most teacher-education institutions.

The growing demand for an increasingly skilled competitive workforce and the associated demand for change and responsiveness in the provision of technical vocational education and training (TVET) has led to the development of stronger links between New Zealand and the People's Republic of China. A collaborative model programme project aims to improve TVET provision in the two countries through curriculum re-design, joint programme development, and the delivery of quality New Zealand qualifications in China. Because there is there is often a gap or disconnect between policy intent and classroom reality, a critical activity of the model programme project aims to identify and measure when, how, and where this disconnect occurs. This paper identifies the performance indicators that are used to measure learner and institutional success, highlights the strategies used to evaluate the learning environments created, and reports on the development and validation of a user-driven, flexible, internet-based, learning environment instrument for use in multi-national TVET settings. It argues that this instrument provides model programme stakeholders with sufficient data to understand, economically and efficiently, the actual effect of change at the point of delivery.

This paper explores the identity of teachers in international schools who are embarking on postgraduate studies in education. Based on semi-structured interviews with 20 teachers starting an international qualification, it establishes key aspects of their identity and notes that they feel distinct from teaching professionals in their passport countries. From this discussion, a tool-box of concepts for understanding the identity of international school teachers is suggested, together with a typology of international school teachers echoing Hayden & Thompson's (2013) typology of international schools. It is suggested that these concepts require further exploration and empirical substantiation in order both to understand their implications for addressing teacher shortages and to understand the knowledge, skills and attitudes that teachers with non-conventional qualifications and backgrounds may offer to schools.

This paper presents a bibliometric analysis of highly cited articles published in the Web of Science category "Education and Educational Research" in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). A total of 2091 journal articles published in this category and cited more than 100 times up to the end of the year 2016 were retrieved as highly cited articles. Distributions of highly cited articles per publication year, journals, institutions and countries were analysed, as well as the citation life cycle of the top-cited articles. The USA, its institutions and researchers are the absolute leaders in the category of Education and Educational Research according to the results of the conducted analysis.

The purpose of this article is to explore the development of the knowledge base on middle leadership in schools. Since the seminal reviews conducted by Bennett a contemporary scan only of the scholarly literature on middle leaders/leadership in schools has not been undertaken. Consequently, this article looks at outputs relating to this topic by examining research papers indexed in the Web of Science and in SCOPUS between 2003 and 2017. The prime purpose of this review is to offer some reflections on the development of the empirical base on middle leadership in schools since 2003 and to highlight some of the implications for future research. The article concludes that middle leadership in schools remains an ongoing focus of research inquiry in a growing number of countries but suggests that the knowledge base would benefit from more sophisticated empirical studies and greater theoretical analysis.

The paper offers a neo-Marxist framework of interculturalisation to accommodate the increasing cultural diversity in the internationalisation of higher education with specific reference to Chinese students in New Zealand. At present, there are few official strategies in place to provide for the needs of international students in New Zealand universities. Tolerance is often promoted to cope with differences in general, but this notion is not sufficient to embrace and encourage cultural diversity in higher education. The paper reviews neoliberal and neo-Marxist perspectives of interculturalism/interculturalisation. In order to move beyond mere tolerance of cultural diversity, which is seen as a problem to be overcome, the paper concludes that a national and institutional policy for internationalisation in higher education should be underpinned by neo-Marxist principles of interculturalism.

This research study sought to identify prominent features of the nature of science (NOS) embedded in authentic scientific inquiry. Fourteen well-established scientists from different parts of the world, working in experimental or theoretical research, in both traditional fields such as astrophysics and rapidly growing research fields such as molecular biology, participated as the informants of the study. The descriptions of their practices revealed eight prominent categories of NOS features. In an earlier paper of ours, we have reported four categories under the two themes: (1) the methods of scientific investigation and (2) the role and status of scientific knowledge. In this paper, we focus on the remaining four categories under the theme: social dimensions of science. Scientists' descriptions of their practices have "put some flesh on the bones" of the assertion that science is socially and culturally embedded. These descriptions also have considerable potential for development into interesting case studies as teaching resources to enhance and enrich students' understanding of NOS. (Contains 1 table and 7 notes.)

This paper takes up Bakhtin's dialogic perspective to explore the becoming of one Chinese international doctoral student's voices. We investigate how a single participant (from a wider study) assimilates the most transformative but "alien" voice of critical thinking in her supervision space by participating in dialogues with key speaking persons. When she assimilates this alien voice, the student also renovates her culturally enrooted and contradictory voice of respectful dependence. In this way, the student's voices develop and transform through a process of conflicts, struggles and reconciliations. This rich case study illustrates how a doctoral journey may be transformative cognitively and socio-culturally for the student as a speaking person--for her subjectivity. It also shows how this transformation is enabled not only by the supervisors' personal qualities but also through role modelling from peers: both kinds of relationships facilitate the student's assimilation of the most transformative voice in intercultural supervision.

This article synthesises findings from two systematic reviews that examined evidence of the link between large-scale assessments (LSAs) and education policy in economically developing countries and in countries of the Asia-Pacific. Analyses summarise evidence of assessment characteristics and policy goals of LSAs that influence education policy, when LSAs are used in the policy-making cycle and types of education policies impacted, and factors that influence the use of LSAs in policy-making. Results show national assessments conducted at both primary and secondary school levels to have an impact on education policy. LSAs are used more often for monitoring education quality and equity purposes followed by accountability purposes. International assessments are more often used to leverage policy priorities than other assessment types. LSAs feature mainly at the monitoring and evaluation stage of the policy cycle. The education policies impacted by LSAs relate considerably more to curricular reforms and performance standards as well as assessment bodies and activities and far less to resource allocation and teaching and learning policies. Finally, whereas the quality of assessment programmes facilitate impact, financial constraints and uncertainty as well as weak assessment bodies hinder the impact of LSAs on education policy.

As new technologies become less expensive, provide greater access to various forms of multimedia, and are integrated into all aspects of everyday life, online learning environments are becoming more prevalent. Online education, as experienced through course management systems, is being heralded as meeting the needs of students' lifestyles by managing time conflicts and access from remote locations, and helping people to juggle personal commitments (Harrison & Bergen, 2000). However, research indicates that improvements are needed to prevent high drop-out rates and to improve learning results (Byun, et al., 2000; Carr, 2000; Moshinskie, 2001). Online distance education courses need to be designed in such a way that learners with different backgrounds and preferred learning approaches will feel motivated and gain the best possible learning results from such courses. It is a challenge for instructional designers of online education courses to determine learners' preferred learning approaches and related social and cultural issues, and to design learning environments to meet these needs. Designers of such programs should consider cultural differences in their design as students of different cultural backgrounds may have different perspectives and interpretations of learning content (Driscoll, 2000; Gayeski, et al., 2002; Moshinskie, 2001). The case used for this study was a graduate seminar delivered fully online using asynchronous computer-mediated conferencing communication (CMC) for class participants to discuss topics and issues raised from the reading materials assigned by the instructor. Based on a review of literature on asynchronous CMC, the author lists the benefits of this medium as flexibility, participation quantity and quality, communication openness/access, and post-participation review/access for references. Morse also lists various challenges such as technology frustration, coordination, timing/delay frustration, and skills deficits. The author points out that even though culture is a primary factor in "determining individual behavior patterns, and provides the paradigm by which experience is interpreted, assimilated, and adapted"(p. 40), a systematic consideration of the role culture plays in CMC is missing in the literature. This paper discusses different definitions of culture, such as "shared patterns of behavior", "systems of shared meaning and understanding", "...those learned roles of behavior which bound accepted acceptable practice in a group environment", a result of fundamental societal assumption, and the concept of national culture, and argues that the indicator of cultural background should be ethnicity rather than nationality. The author goes on to introduce a continuum between low context and high context cultures, and uses a table to illustrate the difference between low context education perceptions/expectations and high context education perceptions/expectations.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore academics' perspectives on the quality of appraisal evidence at a Chinese university. Design/methodology/approach: An online survey with both closed items and open-ended questions was distributed among all academics at the university (n = 1,538). A total of 512 responded to the questionnaire. The closed items were initially analysed using EXCEL and SPSS; the open-ended questions were thematically analysed. Findings: The academics believed that the quality of student survey and peer observation of teaching were affected by subjectivity and the lack of understanding of appraisal. Academics also suggested that appraisals should be contextualised and the approach standardised. The study suggests the need for training that informs and engages relevant stakeholders to ensure the rigour of appraisal. Originality/value: The study raises the issue of quality assurance regarding appraisal data from the perspective of academics. It is based on the collaborative effort of academics in Australia, China and New Zealand, with the support of the management staff at the case study university. The study informs both appraisers and academics of quality assurance issues in appraisal. It also contributes to the literature, in that it initiates dialogues between communities of practices through collective questioning on the quality and mechanisms of appraisal in tertiary education.

Over the last 40 years, teacher education in England has been the focus of a stream of "reforms" with the ultimate aim of placing provision into schools, the justification for such a radical policy being that higher education is alleged to be failing to provide good quality teachers thereby compromising the social and economic development of the country. The process whereby these reforms have been introduced is described and then used as a way of comparing and contrasting the way in which similar reforms can be identified in the international teacher education communities represented in this special issue of the "Journal of Education for Teaching" (JET). The paper closes by identifying lessons that can be learned from international comparators.

In a recent keynote speech Paul Standish noted "there is agreement in judgments. But how the response to those judgments is realised is always cultural" (paper presented to PESA Conference, Taiwan, 2012, p. 2). Making judgments about what constitutes "crisis" for children is not necessarily agreed universally, though clearly there are some commonalities across many countries, as evident in United Nations on the Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) agreements. This article examines the local rhetoric and reality of "crisis" for children in countries across the world. What constitutes a crisis for children, and how this plays out in the contexts of nine countries is explored by the authors based on the insights of each countries' (OMEP) (www.omep.org.gu.se) Chapter representatives. Policies will be juxtaposed with provision based on the experiences of OMEP members reporting from their various contexts. Taken together they provide a contextualised perspective on "crisis" and its relationship to a non-absolutist foundation to children's rights. The article concludes that what constitutes crisis from a global perspective warrants consideration in the context of local reality--in this locale the concept of every child as having access to "rights" is far from realisation.