Au-delà de Bologne, la question du « comment » financer l'enseignement supérieur européen persiste
The implementation of the Bologna reform, synonymous with degrees and programs harmonization, is now well advanced in most EU countries. However, beyond Bologna, numerous problems continue to haunt higher education. How to share the cost of higher education is one of them. In most European countries, public financing is dominant and is still perceived by many observers as the most legitimate model despite the fact that access remains largely inequitable, and in spite of the model’s growing inability to provide the financial resources needed to preserve quality and maintain Europe’s position in the world league. In this paper, we review the arguments traditionally set forth by economic theory to justify public funding. We try to assess their relevance given the early 21st century context characterizing French-Speaking Belgium and the EU.
The impact of a PBL curriculum on students' motivation and self-regulation
Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is more and more widespread in Higher Education. Among other advantages, PBL is assumed to foster students’ motivation and self-regulation. But empirical evidence supporting this claim is scarce, especially at a curriculum level. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of a PBL curriculum on the motivation and the cognitive engagement of undergraduate students. The study was conducted in an engineering faculty where a new two-year PBL curriculum has been implemented. The last cohort of students who attended the old curriculum was compared with the first cohort of students who attended the new PBL curriculum. Those students completed a questionnaire on perception of instructional practices, goal orientations, self-efficacy, self-regulation strategies, and learning strategies at the end of their curriculum (data collected in 2001 and 2002). Multivariate analyses show some positive effects in favour of students from the PBL curriculum, but they also point to some problems linked to the implementation of this new curriculum (work-overload, incoherent assessment). Perceptions of instructional practices partially mediate the PBL curriculum effects. Implications for attempts to improve students’ engagement in Higher Education are discussed.
A new method of near field analysis
The problem of the accurate determination of the total electromagnetic field produced by a current distribution on a circular disc type aperture is examined. For comparison of the near and Fresnel region solutions, an exact Maxwellian integral is used as the starting point. Aperture and space coordinates are separated by the use of Bessel function addition theorems, allowing the field to be expressed as a sum of terms containing radial and angular integrals. The radial integrals involve only the disc (aperture) distribution and coordinates while the angular integrals involve only the elevation angle. The distance from origin appears implicitly in the series coefficients. These integrals are suitable for high speed computations and have been evaluated for a number of cases. The results are compared with the small angle and general Fresnel formula values for various observation angles, distances from the aperture, and aperture distributions.