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Character building (CB) is a crucial aspect for basic psychologists who need to carry out their consultation tasks effectively. At Tilburg University, lecturers have the freedom to interpret the five CB dimensions and implement them in courses, including intellectual independence, critical mindset, social responsibility, scientific responsibility, and entrepreneurship. This study aims to investigate how the five CB dimensions are interpreted and implemented in the three-year Bachelor Psychology program at Tilburg University. As part of the regular quality assurance of assessment, we made a full program assessment plan in 2021-2022 and collected extra data on course practices of CB. At the program level, the five CB dimensions were related to the 13 program learning outcomes by reviewing the self-reflection report. At the course level, a template thematic analysis was used to code the course learning goals, instructional activities, and assessment. Two-thirds of the courses formulated CB-related learning goals, mostly delivered through interactive lecture forms. The instructional activities were categorized into six themes: academic standards, application, evaluative judgment, self-regulation, societal relevance, and taking initiatives. The five CB dimensions were mostly assessed by coursework method, but there was a lack of assessment of CB elements such as reflection. The five CB dimensions were implemented in most educational processes at the course and program level, despite the absence of a standardized implementation plan. We advise to focus on the assessment design for character education, particularly through the use of more authentic and performance-based assessment methods. [Note: The page range (17-33) shown on the PDF is incorrect. The correct page range is 19-33.]

Although the thesis is an integral part of the study programme, the way the guidance for this work is supervised can highly differ between supervisors. Writing the thesis is a complicated process requiring tailored guidance, that is often not feasible due to increasing numbers of students and need for efficiency. One possible solution is working with thesis circles: small collaborative groups in which students, together with one or more supervisors, conduct research on the same subject or theme. Thesis circles offer opportunities for self-regulated learning, (peer) feedback and prevention of feelings of loneliness. In this study we construct a typology for thesis circles aimed at supervisors following an Educational Design Research (EDR) approach. Based on a literature review and interviews, we formulate the boundaries of a thesis circle and identify 23 design characteristics that determine an instantiation of a thesis circle. This is developed into a typology, that is evaluated in a focus group. Avenues for future research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of training tutors in content knowledge of a particular domain versus training them in tutoring skills of pedagogical knowledge when tutoring on a complex tutee task. Forty-seven tutor--tutee pairs of fourth-year secondary school students were created and assigned to one of the two treatments. Twenty-two tutors received training in content knowledge and the other twenty-five tutors in tutoring skills. Tutors formulated written feedback immediately after the training. Tutees first interpreted the tutor feedback and then used it to revise their research questions. The results showed that tutors trained in tutoring skills formulated more effective feedback than tutors trained in content knowledge. In addition, tutees helped by tutoring-skills tutors found the feedback more motivating than those helped by content-knowledge tutors. However, no differences were found in tutee performance on revision. The findings are discussed in terms of the set-up of this study and implications for improving the effectiveness of peer tutoring.

Twitter is becoming increasingly popular as a medium for language learning. This study explores self-directed learning via social interactions that use Twitter as an interactive learning environment. The participants in this study were thirty university students of Chinese as a foreign language at levels 1 and 2 of the "Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi" (HSK). Prior to the Twitter activity they self-assessed their confidence on content topics and made plans to self-direct their learning for seven weeks. In addition, they all took part in a training session in which they were given written instructions on how to tweet in a group message-board setting. The data that were collected included students' responses to a motivation questionnaire before and after the Twitter activity (pre and post motivation), their tweets, their evaluation of the Twitter activity, and their learning achievement based on their scores in the final exam. The analysis of their tweets is related to the curriculum content and their Twitter (activity) plan. The results showed that the students created an interactive learning environment to practice their Chinese with their peers in active sentence constructions. Students' Twitter behavior and motivation for using Twitter to practice Chinese correlated significantly with their learning achievement. In addition, students became familiar with a range of choices to practice Chinese. However, half of them failed to follow the Twitter plan they had drawn up and only one-fifth of their tweets involved social interactions. Finally, barriers to and suggestions for future research on microblogging in the learning of Chinese are discussed.

This article explores levels of proficiency in Chinese with reference to the new HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) Chinese Proficiency Test and the "Common European Framework of Reference for Languages" (CEFR). Special attention is given to learning and teaching the writing of Chinese characters and the use of Pinyin, a phonetic Romanization of the Chinese language. First, the feasibility of both language scales is considered as a means of capturing proficiency in Chinese; then descriptions of Chinese courses offered by university language centres are analysed; and finally, semi-structured interviews with teachers of such courses and their learners are reported. This results in a number of suggestions for specifying instructional designs for teaching Chinese writing skills.

The main purpose of this article is to demonstrate how halo effects may be detected and quantified using two independent ratings of the same person. A practical illustration is given to show how halo effects can be avoided. (Contains 2 tables, 7 figures, and 2 notes.)