Value of Technology in Education: Exploring Factors Associated with Value Beliefs of Fundamental School Teachers in Luxembourg through a Survey Study

in Proceedings of EdMedia + Innovate Learning (2023)

Information and Communication Technologies have impacted every business in the last decades. Education, as part of the knowledge business, has acknowledged the digital revolution and educational policy ... [more ▼]

Information and Communication Technologies have impacted every business in the last decades. Education, as part of the knowledge business, has acknowledged the digital revolution and educational policy makers have tried to harness the powers of these new tools and to address the associated challenges, with more or less success. In Luxembourg, we have seen several attempts to help schools to strategically integrate ICT into everyday pedagogical activities. However, teacher beliefs associated with value of using technology (value beliefs) are rather understudied. The aim of this study was to document and understand technology acceptance of teachers to ensure successful technology integration. Quantitative data was collected through a survey of 127 teachers and analyzed through a mixed-method approach. Findings revealed both the dependence of value beliefs on perceived ease of use, subjective norms and a pedagogical approach and their independence from gender, age, experience, and school subject. [less ▲]

Value orientations and solidarity in intergenerational family relations

in Invited talk at the Colloquia Psychologica, Sminatio internazionale. Athenaeum Center for Family Studies and Research – Catholic University of Milan, Milan, Italy. (2008)

Value Stream Management in high variability production systems

in SSRG International Journal of Industrial Engineering (2015), 2(1), 4

Increasing customer requirements and high pressure from global competition are forcing companies to a holistic optimization of their business and production processes. To ensure the competiveness of ... [more ▼]

Increasing customer requirements and high pressure from global competition are forcing companies to a holistic optimization of their business and production processes. To ensure the competiveness of enterprises in future, it is necessary to introduce a process-oriented view instead of a departmental thinking. This paper describes the application of Value Stream Management by the University of Luxembourg in collaboration with the industrial partner Rotarex S.A., a provider of gas control solutions headquartered in Luxembourg. With the help of Value Stream Analysis and Design, relevant material and information flows are captured, analyzed and finally optimized. [less ▲]

Value Stream Management in the "Lean Manufacturing Laboratory"

Presentation (2015, July 08)

Value Stream Management zur Synchronisation im Unternehmensverbund

Scientific Conference (2016, October)

Das Thema „Wertstrom Management“ wird in Luxemburg bereits in der Bachelor Ausbildung vermittelt und für die Master vertieft. In der Forschung erweist dieses Werkzeug großes Potential zur Synchronisation ... [more ▼]

Das Thema „Wertstrom Management“ wird in Luxemburg bereits in der Bachelor Ausbildung vermittelt und für die Master vertieft. In der Forschung erweist dieses Werkzeug großes Potential zur Synchronisation und Optimierung der Wertschöpfung im Unternehmensverbund, das wir hier vorstellen möchten: Mit der Methode VSM lässt sich Verschwendung erkennen und Wertschöpfungspotentiale heben. Die Verschwendung wird damit nicht nur in den produktiven Unternehmensbereichen, sondern auch in indirekten Bereichen und ebenso in Verwaltungsfunktionen und administrativen Abteilungen visualisiert. Man erkennt Möglichkeiten, die Verschwendung abzubauen und die Wertschöpfung zu erhöhen. Bei der praktischen Anwendung dieses leistungsfähigen Werkzeugs erwiesen sich die Schnittstellen zwischen den Unternehmen als immerwährende Quellen von Verschwendung und Ineffizienzen. Hier sind die unterschiedlichen Ausprägungen der Methode VSM hinderlich für eine durchgängige Anwendung dieser Methode. Aus dieser Erkenntnis heraus schlagen wir eine Vereinheitlichung der „Best Practices“ als Industrie Standard bzw. als internationale Norm vor. Im Rahmen der aktuell laufender Forschungsprojekte an der Universität Luxemburg werden Methoden entwickelt, um das Wertstrom Management international zu standardisieren und allgemein zu vereinheitlichen. [less ▲]

Value Transmission and Zeitgeist revisited

in Schönpflug, Uta (Ed.) Cultural Transmission. Psychological, Developmental, Social and Methodological Aspects (2009)

Value-added (VA) modelling: An Integrative Review of 674 Publications and VA Application in the Luxembourg School Monitoring Programme

Scientific Conference (2018, September)

Value-Added Modelling in Primary and Secondary School: An Integrative Review of 674 Publications

Scientific Conference (2017, December)

Value-added (VA) modelling aims to quantify the effect of pedagogical actions on students’ achievement, independent of students’ backgrounds (e.g., [1]); in other words, VA strives to model the added ... [more ▼]

Value-added (VA) modelling aims to quantify the effect of pedagogical actions on students’ achievement, independent of students’ backgrounds (e.g., [1]); in other words, VA strives to model the added value of teaching. VA is typically used for teacher and/or school accountability (e.g., [2]). Although, VA models have gained popularity in recent years—a substantial increase of publications is to be observed over the last decade—, there is no consensus on how to calculate VA, nor is there a consensus whether and which covariates should be included in the statistical models (e.g., [3]). The aim of the present study is to conduct a to date non-existent integrative review on VA modelling in primary and secondary education. Starting with an exhaustive literature research in the ERIC, Scopus, PsycINFO, and Psyndex databases, we reviewed and thoroughly classified 674 VA publications from 32 different countries. Half of the studies investigated VA models at teacher level; the remaining looked at school or principal level. 370 studies used empirical data to calculate VA models. Most of these studies explained their covariates, but approximately 15% did not specify the model. Most studies used prior achievement as a covariate, but cognitive and/or motivational student data were almost never taken into consideration. Moreover, most of the studies did not adjust for methodological issues such as missing data or measurement error. To conclude, given the high relevance of VA—it is primarily used for high-stakes decisions— more transparency, rigor and consensus are needed, especially concerning methodological details. References [1] Braun, H. I. (2005). Using student progress to evaluate teachers: A primer on value-added models. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. [2] Sanders, W. L. (2000). Value-added assessment from student achievement data: Opportunities and hurdles. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 14(4), 329–339. [3] Newton, X., Darling-Hammond, L., Haertel, E., & Thomas, E. (2010). Value-added modeling of teacher effectiveness: An exploration of stability across models and contexts. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 18(23). [less ▲]

Value-Added Scores Show Limited Stability over Time in Primary School

in PLoS ONE (2022), 17(12), 0279255

Value-added (VA) models are used for accountability purposes and quantify the value a teacher or a school adds to their students’ achievement. If VA scores lack stability over time and vary across outcome ... [more ▼]

Value-added (VA) models are used for accountability purposes and quantify the value a teacher or a school adds to their students’ achievement. If VA scores lack stability over time and vary across outcome domains (e.g., mathematics and language learning), their use for high-stakes decision making is in question and could have detrimental real-life implications: teachers could lose their jobs, or a school might receive less funding. However, school-level stability over time and variation across domains have rarely been studied together. In the present study, we examined the stability of VA scores over time for mathematics and lan- guage learning, drawing on representative, large-scale, and longitudinal data from two cohorts of standardized achievement tests in Luxembourg (N = 7,016 students in 151 schools). We found that only 34–38% of the schools showed stable VA scores over time with moderate rank correlations of VA scores from 2017 to 2019 of r = .34 for mathematics and r = .37 for language learning. Although they showed insufficient stability over time for high-stakes decision making, school VA scores could be employed to identify teaching or school practices that are genuinely effective—especially in heterogeneous student populations. [less ▲]

Value-based practical reasoning: Modal Logic + Argumentation

in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications (2022), 353

Autonomous agents are supposed to be able to finish tasks or achieve goals that are assigned by their users through performing a sequence of actions. Since there might exist multiple plans that an agent ... [more ▼]

Autonomous agents are supposed to be able to finish tasks or achieve goals that are assigned by their users through performing a sequence of actions. Since there might exist multiple plans that an agent can follow and each plan might promote or demote different values along each action, the agent should be able to resolve the conflicts between them and evaluate which plan he should follow. In this paper, we develop a logic-based framework that combines modal logic and argumentation for value-based practical reasoning with plans. Modal logic is used as a technique to represent and verify whether a plan with its local properties of value promotion or demotion can be followed to achieve an agent's goal. We then propose an argumentation-based approach that allows an agent to reason about his plans in the form of supporting or objecting to a plan using the verification results. [less ▲]