What is the purpose of an Editorial? It can allow an Editor to speak on issues of pith and moment to the professional community that the journal serves but, by the time of publication, the Editorial may have become less pithy and less momentous. An Editorial can also attempt to bring some cohesiveness and narrative to a diverse selection of articles, though there is little leeway in the choice of articles to appear in a particular issue. This issue, although rather shorter than usual, is no exception with an eclectic mix of subjects.
What is the purpose of a journal article? A good article will inform readers and aid their development and learning. Many journals eschew the ‘show and tell’ type of article, yet these can still foster learning, particularly if authors discuss what did not work as well as what did. Reflecting on what went wrong can be a powerful learning experience. Sound reflective articles do not come forward very often, but this issue starts with the reflections of a new Welsh Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Claire Taylor, on trying to translate ideas from the school sector into higher education. This is followed by a different perspective on reflection with an article from Jia Wei Lim and colleagues from Malaysia on introducing a reflective critical thinking module. Though implicit rather than expressly voiced, reflection is also part of the third article, by Peter Yang from Taiwan, who looks at applying a storytelling approach to career development for students.
Gabriela González-Ocampo & Montserrat Castelló, from Spain used a narrative approach to eliciting supervisors’ perceptions of their supervision skills and comparing these with their perceptions of the supervision received as students. The authors acknowledge that their study was in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities, and therefore not necessarily transferable to other disciplines but the general points made, about the need for training of supervisors and the congruence of negative or positive aspects of both supervision and being supervised, are worthy of exploration more widely.
An article by Florence Ifeanyieze and colleagues from Nigeria looks at patterns of social networking and studying amongst students of agriculture. In this context they think of socialising only in terms of electronic media. As with the study on coping strategies, this study found differences between male and female students and comes up with the suggestion that social media should take a greater role in pedagogy. However, care needs to be taken to avoid stereotyping when trying to adopt the conclusions of studies that might be impacted by local cultural norms.
Amani Bell and colleagues, from Australia look at both the process and the outcomes of a staff-student partnership in looking at curriculum design and assessment, in the context of Film Studies. The redesign sought to use video as a medium for the students to present their ideas in alignment with the subject that they were studying. This produced some fascinating insights from students, albeit from a rather small sample, though elicited through focus groups and end-of-semester online survey, rather than by the use of video.