Private Learning Research Articles

Courses in Japanese at Night Schools and Private Learning Courses in Korea under Japanese Occupation, 1910－1945

Courses in Japanese at Night Schools and Private Learning Courses in Korea under Japanese Occupation, 1910－1945

Building a Civilly Engaged Private Campus: The Challenges and Prospects of Civic Education in Private Higher Learning Institutions in Ethiopia

Since the early 1990s there has been a global trend towards a greater understanding on the relevance of civic education for the creation of responsible and competent citizens that nurture and support a democratic order. Currently Ethiopia finds itself at important cross roads in terms of fully entrenching democratic order. It is imperative that both public and private institutions have a shared commitment to such an important task. Civic education programs have become an integral part of Ethiopia’s school curriculum both at the level of primary and secondary schools. Even though such a nation-wide endeavor still faces serious challenges, the program has achieved a measured success. The provision of civic and ethical education has now been introduced to both private and public higher learning institutions.

Feed-in-Tariffs for Electricity from Renewable Energy Resources to Move down the Learning Curve?

We develop a model with two types of electricity producers, fossil fuel utilities generating emissions, and suppliers of electricity from of renewable energy sources (RES-E). We account for the vertical structure of the renewable energy sector by considering upstream RES-E equipment producers engaged in learning-by-doing and selling their equipment to downstream operators. We show that under pure private learning a first-best allocation can be induced by charging emission taxes on the Pigouvian level only, while in the case of learning spillovers additional subsidies on both output and market entry are necessary. In case that (optimal) emission taxes are ruled out, then in case of purely private learning, second-best optimal feed-in-tariffs should only account for the marginal environmental damage and the marginal cost of production of the conventional utilities. In the case of learning spillovers, feed-in-tariffs can also be used to spur learning.

Feed-in-Tariffs for Electricity from Renewable Energy Resources to Move down the Learning Curve?

We develop a model with two types of electricity producers, fossil fuel utilities generating emissions, and suppliers of electricity from of renewable energy sources (RES-E). We account for the vertical structure of the renewable energy sector by considering upstream RES-E equipment producers engaged in learning-by-doing and selling their equipment to downstream operators. We show that under pure private learning a first-best allocation can be induced by charging emission taxes on the Pigouvian level only, while in the case of learning spillovers additional subsidies on both output and market entry are necessary. In case that (optimal) emission taxes are ruled out, then in case of purely private learning, second-best optimal feed-in-tariffs should only account for the marginal environmental damage and the marginal cost of production of the conventional utilities. In the case of learning spillovers, feed-in-tariffs can also be used to spur learning.

Public and Private Learning from Prices, Strategic Substitutability and Complementarity, and Equilibrium Multiplicity

We study a general static noisy rational expectations model, where investors have private information about asset payoffs, with common and private components, and about their own exposure to an aggregate risk factor, and derive conditions for existence and uniqueness (or multiplicity) of equilibria. We find that a main driver of the characterization of equilibria is whether the actions of investors are strategic substitutes or complements. This latter property in turn is driven by the strength of a private learning channel from prices, arising from the multidimensional sources of asymmetric information, in relation to the usual public learning channel. When the private learning channel is strong (weak) in relation to the public we have strong (weak) strategic complementarity in actions and potentially multiple (unique) equilibria. The results enable a precise characterization of whether information acquisition decisions are strategic substitutes or complements. We find that the strategic substitutability in information acquisition result obtained in Grossman and Stiglitz (1980) is robust.

Public and Private Learning from Prices, Strategic Substitutability and Complementarity, and Equilibrium Multiplicity

We study a general static noisy rational expectations model, where investors have private information about asset payoffs, with common and private components, and about their own exposure to an aggregate risk factor, and derive conditions for existence and uniqueness (or multiplicity) of equilibria. We find that a main driver of the characterization of equilibria is whether the actions of investors are strategic substitutes or complements. This latter property in turn is driven by the strength of a private learning channel from prices, arising from the multidimensional sources of asymmetric information, in relation to the usual public learning channel. When the private learning channel is strong (weak) in relation to the public we have strong (weak) strategic complementarity in actions and potentially multiple (unique) equilibria. The results enable a precise characterization of whether information acquisition decisions are strategic substitutes or complements. We find that the strategic substitutability in information acquisition result obtained in Grossman and Stiglitz (1980) is robust.

Post WISC-R and TOVA Improvement with QEEG Guided Neurofeedback Training in Mentally Retarded: A Clinical Case Series of Behavioral Problems

According to the DSM-IV, Mental Retardation is significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning accompanied by significant limitations in adaptive functioning in at least two of the following skill areas: communication, self-care, home living, social/interpersonal skills, use of community resources, self-direction, functional academic skills, work, leisure, health and safety. In pilot work, we have seen positive clinical effects of Neurofeedback (NF) applied to children with Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) and other forms of mental retardation. Given that many clinicians use NF in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Generalized Learning Disability cases, we studied the outcomes of a clinical case series using Quantitative EEG (QEEG) guided NF in the treatment of mental retardation. All 23 subjects received NF training. The QEEG data for most subjects had increased theta, alpha, and coherence abnormalities. A few showed increased delta over the cortex. Some of the subjects were very poor in reading and some had illegible handwriting, and most subjects had academic failures, impulsive behavior, and very poor attention, concentration, memory problems, and social skills. This case series shows the impact of QEEG-guided NF training on these clients' clinical outcomes. Fourteen out of 23 subjects formerly took medications without any improvement. Twenty-three subjects ranging from 7-16 years old attending private learning centers were previously diagnosed with mental retardation (severity of degree: from moderate to mild) at various university hospitals. Evaluation measures included QEEG analysis, WISC-R (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised) IQ test, TOVA (Test of Variables of Attention) test, and DPC-P (Developmental Behaviour Checklist) were filled out by the parents. NF trainings were performed by Lexicor Biolex software. NX-Link was the commercial software reference database used to target the treatment protocols, along with the clinical judgment of the first author. QEEG signals were sampled at 128 samples per second per channel and electrodes were placed according to the International 10-20 system. Between 80 and 160 NF training sessions were completed, depending on the case. None of the subjects received any special education during NF treatment. Two subjects with the etiology of epilepsy were taking medication, and the other 21 subjects were medication-free at the baseline. Twenty-two out of 23 patients who received NF training showed clinical improvement according to the DPC-P with QEEG reports. Nineteen out of 23 patients showed significant improvement on the WISC-R, and the TOVA. For the WISC-R test, 2 showed decline on total IQ due to the decline on some of the subtests, 2 showed no improvement on total IQ although improvement was seen on some of the subtests, however even these cases showed improvement on QEEG and DPC-P. This study provides the first evidence for positive effects of NF treatment in mental retardation. The results of this study encourage further research.

The relative contributions of private information sharing and public information releases to information aggregation

We calculate learning rates when agents are informed through public and private observation of other agents' actions. We characterize the evolution of the distribution of posterior beliefs. If the private learning channel is present, convergence of the distribution of beliefs to the perfect-information limit is exponential at a rate equal to the sum of the mean arrival rate of public information and the mean rate at which individual agents are randomly matched with other agents. If, however, there is no private information sharing, then convergence is exponential at a rate strictly lower than the mean arrival rate of public information.

Bundling and Firm Reputation

By bundling experience goods, a manufacturer can more easily maintain a reputation for high quality over time. Formally, we extend Klein and Lefler's (1981) repeated moral hazard model of product quality to consider multi-product firms and imperfect private learning by consumers. When consumers are small, receive imperfect private signals of product quality, and have heterogeneous preferences over available products, then purchasing multiple products from the same firm makes consumers more effective monitors of the firm's behavior. These consumers observe more signals of firm behavior and detect shirking with a higher probability, which creates stronger incentives for the firm to produce high quality products. By constraining all of the firm's consumers to use more effective monitoring and punishment strategies, bundling creates an even stronger incentive for a multi-product firm to produce high quality products. The impact of bundling on incentives is even greater when consumers cannot identify which of the goods is responsible for poor overall product performance.

The Relative Contributions of Private Information Sharing and Public Information Releases to Information Aggregation

We calculate learning rates when agents are informed through both public and private observation of other agents' actions. We provide an explicit solution for the evolution of the distribution of posterior beliefs. When the private learning channel is present, we show that convergence of the distribution of beliefs to the perfect-information limit is exponential at a rate equal to the sum of the mean arrival rate of public information and the mean rate at which individual agents are randomly matched with other agents. If, however, there is no private information sharing, then convergence is exponential at a rate strictly lower than the mean arrival rate of public information.

Patient information and education with modern media: the Spine Society of Europe Patient Line

The role of the patient as an active partner in health care, and not just a passive object of diagnostic testing and medical treatment, is widely accepted. Providing information to patients is considered a crucial issue and the central focus in patient educational activities. It is necessary to educate patients on the nature of the outcomes and the benefits and risks of the procedures to involve them in the decision-making process and enable them to achieve fully informed consent. Information materials must contain scientifically reliable information and be presented in a form that is acceptable and useful to patients. Given the mismatch between public beliefs and current evidence, strategies for changing the public perceptions are required. Traditional patient education programmes have to face the potential barriers of storage, access problems and the need to keep content materials up to date. A computer-based resource provides many advantages, including "just-in-time" availability and a private learning environment. The use of the Internet for patient information needs will continue to expand as Internet access becomes readily available. However, the problem is no longer in finding information, but in assessing the credibility and validity of it. Health Web sites should provide health information that is secure and trustworthy. The large majority of the Web sites providing information related to spinal disorders are of limited and poor quality. Patient Line (PL), a patient information section in the Web site of Eurospine, was born in 2005 to offer patients and the general population the accumulated expertise represented by the members of the society and provide up-to-date information related to spinal disorders. In areas where evidence is scarce, Patient Line provides a real-time opinion of the EuroSpine membership. The published data reflect the pragmatic and the common sense range of treatments offered by the Eurospine membership. The first chapters have been dedicated to sciatica, scoliosis, cervical pain syndromes, low back pain and motion preservation surgery. Since 2008, the information has been available in English, German, French and Spanish. The goal is for Patient Line to become THE European patient information Web site on spinal disorders, providing reliable and updated best practice and evidence-based information where the evidence exists.

Reputation and exogenous private learning

Short-run competitors in the chain store game receive noisy signals of the long-run incumbent firm's type. The history of signals, which in the limit is fully revealing, is observable to the competitors but possibly not to the incumbent. As long as there is sufficient noise in the signals, then in any equilibrium a patient weak incumbent obtains a payoff strictly higher than her minmax payoff.

A Model of Asymmetric Employer Learning with Testable Implications

This paper helps close the gap between theory and empirical evidence in the literature on asymmetric employer learning. If an employer's private learning is reflected in a worker's wage and one employer's private information is transmitted to the next when the worker makes a job-to-job transition, then asymmetric employer learning will appear in wage regressions as learning over an employment spell. Extending previous work that assumes all learning takes place publicly, this paper develops wage regressions that test for both asymmetric employer learning and public learning. The empirical results, including tests of alternative explanations, are consistent with asymmetric employer learning's having at least as much of an effect on wages during an employment spell as does public learning. The model developed in this paper illustrates how the story suggested by the empirical work might unfold. It shows that outside firms can profitably compete with a better-informed employer through bidding wars, even when the worker is equally productive in all firms. Furthermore, this competition results in different wages for workers with the same publicly observable characteristics, a result that previous models of asymmetric learning have not produced. Copyright , Wiley-Blackwell.

Social and Private Learning with Endogenous Decision Timing

Firms often face choices about when to upgrade and what to upgrade to. We discuss this in the context of upgrading to a new technology (for example, a new computer system), but it applies equally to the upgrading of processes (for example, a new organizational structure) or to individual choices (for example, buying a new car). This paper uses an experimental approach to determine how people address such problems, with a particular focus on the impact of information flows. Specifically, subjects face a multi-round decision, choosing when (if ever) to upgrade from the status quo to either a safe or a risky new technology. The safe technology yields more than the status quo, and the risky technology may yield either less than the status quo or more than the safe technology. Every round, subjects who have not yet upgraded receive noisy information about the true quality of the risky technology. Our focus on the timing of endogenous choice is novel and differentiates the results from previous experimental papers on herding and cascades. We find that, in the single-person decision problem, subjects tend to wait too long before choosing (relative to optimal behavior). In the second treatment, they observe payoff-irrelevant choices of other subjects. This turns out to induce slightly faster decisions, so the irrationality of fads actually improves profits in our framework. In the third and final treatment, subjects observe payoff-relevant choices of other subjects (that is, others who have the same value for the risky technology but independent private signals). Behavior here is very similar to the second treatment, so having real information does not seem to have a strong marginal effect. Overall we find that social learning, whether or not the behavior of others is truly informative, plays a large role in upgrade decisions and hence in technology diffusion.

Common learning and opportunistic behaviour in learning alliances

AbstractIn this paper, we propose a system dynamics model that gives deeper insight into the dynamics involved in opportunistic behaviour in learning alliances. Although current research widely recognizes opportunistic behaviour of alliance partners as a reason for alliance failure, most research in this field focuses on opportunism in the area of private learning and of outlearning the partner. Opportunism is mostly ignored in situations of common learning. In the following, we study opportunism in alliances where there is no intention of learning privately. Moreover, in current studies, feedback perspectives are often neglected. A feedback perspective can be helpful to explain the reasons for certain unanticipated long‐term effects. We transfer findings from recent learning alliance literature and from a case study to a system dynamics simulation model. After describing the model structure, different scenarios offer insights into the dynamics of learning, particularly when the partners have different intentions with regard to common learning. We discuss the model runs and subsequently deduce propositions for future research. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Learning the Type of the Opponent in Imperfectly Discriminating Contests with Asymmetric Information

In a competitive environment players often face uncertainty about the relative strength of their opponents. This paper considers a winner-take-all rent-seeking contest between two players with different costs of effort. Costs of effort are private knowledge, however, players have an opportunity to learn the opponent's type by engaging in either private (the opponent does not know about the information acquisition) or public (the opponent knows about the information acquisition) learning. We show that a situation, when one player learns the type of the opponent privately while the opponent abstains from learning cannot be an equilibrium. Yet, there exists an equilibrium, when one player engages in public learning and the other refrains from learning.

Networked Libraries Promoting Lifelong Learning

Lifelong Learning may be provided by schools, institutions, professional bodies, private learning companies, community projects or training departments within businesses. Not only will learners be able to match the availability of courses with their requirements, but record their achievements, perhaps building an online portfolio of their experience. To achieve this, many different organisations with varying methods of storing learner details will have to interact with one another. After a period of time, intelligent services may seek out the most appropriate courses based on the learner’s profile, requirements and information available from the multitude of learning providers and brokers. Our research uses the description of the content using metadata and presents a framework supporting the delivery of learning content to distribute and categorize academic content and to provide content catalogues and specific educational content to the target groups.Library services to support adult and lifelong learning have developed in response to changes in the higher education system (distance learning, part-time study, franchising of courses), with developments in adult and further education and open learning, and in response to demands from independent learners.The basic operation of an e-educational organization is to provide e-lectures, e-labs, supporting contents and e–libraries (acquisition, cataloguing, circulation and serials control). In the case of e-libraries the vast information sources, are not only the items held by or owned by the library, but also include remote information sources. Providing access to remote sources is a challenge for modern educational systems. The suggested environment helps the learners to focus on the knowledge and skills necessary for the fulfillment of work-based objectives and involves a more in-depth assessment of particular areas of professional knowledge. The environment under discussion can be used for library automation activities, thus libraries can increase buying power and access to sources, through qualitative resource sharing.Some institutions have developed sophisticated levels of services facilitated by the development of new technologies, including electronic information networks. The new role of Libraries is how to provide not only information but also real knowledge. It is interesting to see how Libraries and Open Academic Institutions can be real e-educators by making alterations to their structure, service systems and functions. Libraries need extra support to respond to the challenges that are broadly associated with information technology, which affects the nature of information resources. Cooperation among libraries is essential. New alliances also have to be forged with other kinds of cultural institutions and repositories.Interdependency of academic libraries cannot mean self-reliance. Modern demands formulate the sharing of not only resources but also the functions and roles inside a well-organized framework, respecting the particularities of each. National Libraries will have to change their roles from ´gatekeepers´ to ´gateways´ of knowledge and in this way they should perform such tasks as information mapping, information audits, training in information literacy, and information of best practices and help their users to navigate the world of information more meaningfully.As a result, statistics can be gathered and attention should be given to the following parameters: (1) Understanding Customer’s Needs, (2) .Community Profiling and as a consequence designing should be geared to (1) Market Segmentation (2) Marketing Plan (3) Marketing Audit and (4) Objectives.A number of programmes such as PROLIX, CAEL, CLEO have been developed which have allowed universities to link education to the workplace, and thus give students the chance to acquire skills which could be useful in their working lives.The paper suggests the concept of learning through networks as a challenging concept for addressing user-driven technologies that support creative learning processes. Adult and lifelong learning represent an increasingly essential part of the portfolio of traditional educational institutions.

Robust Monetary Policy with Imperfect Knowledge

We examine the performance and robustness properties of monetary policy rules in an estimated macroeconomic model in which the economy undergoes structural change and where private agents and the central bank possess imperfect knowledge about the true structure of the economy. Private agents rely on an adaptive learning technology to form expectations and update their beliefs based on incoming data. Policymakers follow an interest rate rule aiming to maintain price stability and to minimize ∞uctuations of unemployment around its natural rate but are uncertain about the economy’s natural rates of interest and unemployment. We show that in this environment the scope for economic stabilization is signiflcantly reduced relative to an economy under rational expectations with perfect knowledge. Furthermore, policies that would be optimal under perfect knowledge can perform very poorly when knowledge is imperfect. E‐cient policies that take account of private learning and misperceptions of natural rates call for more aggressive responses to in∞ation that would be optimal under perfect knowledge. We show that such policies not only improve performance in our baseline model, but are also quite robust to potential misspeciflcation of private sector learning and the magnitude of variation in natural rates.

Robust monetary policy with imperfect knowledge

We examine the performance and robustness properties of monetary policy rules in an estimated macroeconomic model in which the economy undergoes structural change and where private agents and the central bank possess imperfect knowledge about the true structure of the economy. Policymakers follow an interest rate rule aiming to maintain price stability and to minimize fluctuations of unemployment around its natural rate but are uncertain about the economy's natural rates of interest and unemployment and how private agents form expectations. In particular, we consider two models of expectations formation: rational expectations (RE) and learning. We show that in this environment the ability to stabilize the real side of the economy is significantly reduced relative to an economy under RE with perfect knowledge. Furthermore, policies that would be optimal under perfect knowledge can perform very poorly if knowledge is imperfect. Efficient policies that take account of private learning and misperceptions of natural rates call for greater policy inertia, a more aggressive response to inflation, and a smaller response to the perceived unemployment gap than would be optimal if everyone had perfect knowledge of the economy. We show that such policies are quite robust to potential misspecification of private sector learning and the magnitude of variation in natural rates.

What do we learn in Smethwick Village? Computer games, media learning and discursive confusion

This article presents findings from research exploring the intervention made by the introduction of computer games as an object of study in Media Studies at AS level in England. The outcome is a range of discursive data in the form of teachers and students from two English colleges talking about their experiences of this curriculum encounter. This article is informed by the existing body of research exploring computer games as transgressive texts, with particular emphasis on the extent to which they transgress traditional text–reader relations, offering players the opportunity to both read and write the story. This existing field spans gaming and literacy, ludology and narratology, psychoanalytical readings of identity‐play and explicit work on computer games in (and for) education. This research shifts the focus to the ‘languaged’ relationships between Media Studies teacher, student and game; and play, curriculum and assessment, respectively. The article explores the complexities at stake in teachers' and students' ideas about these discursive framings as articulated in statements made about games—between public and private learning contexts, play and assessment. The findings of the enquiry reveal a ‘disconnect’ between the transgressive aspirations of Media teachers embracing games as objects for study and the profoundly traditional assessment context which frames the encounter.