Wikis have been used increasingly as a tool for collaborative authoring and knowledge management (KM) in recent years. One possible application is the collective documentation of technical knowledge and experience within a corporation or its departments. However, just like with other new technologies, the success of wikis depends on the intended users’ acceptance, which cannot always be presupposed.

Therefore, the present work focused on the acceptance of introducing wiki technology in an existing corporate knowledge management (KM) system at an international automotive supplier enterprise.

Drawing on theories of technology acceptance (e.g. Venkatesh & Davis, 2000), KM research on virtual communities of practice, and motivation theory, a theoretical framework model was developed. It distinguishes individual and organizational factors and wiki features as potential influences on successful use of wikis in corporations.

The model was used as framework for two studies investigating users’ acceptance of a newly introduced wiki on corporate level as well as wikis on departmental level. A third study analyzed the wiki’s contribution to overall corporate KM activities. The wiki had been used to build a corporate lexicon, available for more than 120,000 employees worldwide. Methodologically, the studies incorporated surveys among wiki users and log file analyses.

The main findings emphasize former research results about motivation and perceived ease of use as key influences on acceptance of new technology. However, further evidence identified users’ expectancies as an additional important factor. Concerning the wiki’s contribution to KM, hopes of using it as a tool to foster generation of new knowledge were dampened, as it was used mainly for the representation of existing knowledge. Overall, the study was able to identify a number of factors for the successful introduction of wikis as collaborative authoring tools in a corporate setting.

Ausgehend von neueren entwicklungspsychologischen Forschungsergebnissen zu Basisfähigkeiten im wissenschaftlichen Denken bereits im Grundschulalter wurde ein Kompetenzmodell mit den Komponenten Wissenschaftsverständnis (Verständnis wissenschaftlicher Konzepte und der Ziele von Wissenschaften, Theorieverständnis) und Methodenkompetenz (Experimentierstrategien, Dateninterpretation) aufgestellt sowie ein gruppentestfähiges Testinstrument im schriftlichen Antwortformat entwickelt. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit war die Modellierung der latenten Struktur der Kompetenz wissenschaftliches Denken, die Beschreibung von Entwicklungsveränderungen im Grundschulalter sowie die Untersuchung von Zusammenhängen zwischen wissenschaftlichem Denken und kognitiven Fähigkeiten und motivationalen Orientierungen. In der Studie wurde an 285 Grundschulkindern (72 Zweitklässler, 58 Drittklässler und 155 Viertklässler) wissenschaftliches Denken, Leseverständnis, Intelligenz, Problemlösen, Inhibition, räumliches Denken, formal-operatorische Fähigkeiten, Einstellungen zu Naturwissenschaften, naturwissenschaftsbezogenes Fähigkeitsselbstkonzept sowie Interesse an forschenden Aktivitäten erfasst. Der Vergleich von ein- und mehrdimensionalen Rasch-Modellen ergab eine eindimensionale Struktur der Kompetenz wissenschaftliches Denken mit einer zufrieden stellenden Reliabilität. Zwischen den Teilkompetenzen des wissenschaftlichen Denkens wurden hohe latente Interkorrelationen und bidirektionale Beziehungen ermittelt. Es zeigten sich signifikante Leistungsverbesserungen von der zweiten zur vierten Klassenstufe. In der zweiten Klasse bestanden mehrheitlich Fehlvorstellungen, während in der vierten Klasse schon wissenschaftlich adäquate Vorstellungen vorherrschten. In der dritten Jahrgangsstufe traten markante Entwicklungsveränderungen auf. Innerhalb der Teilkompetenzen des wissenschaftlichen Denkens wurde ein sequenzieller Entwicklungsverlauf von einem Verständnis der Ziele von Wissenschaften über ein Verständnis von Experimentierstrategien und Dateninterpretation hin zu einem Theorieverständnis festgestellt. Darüber hinaus bestanden substantielle Zusammenhänge zu den kognitiven Fähigkeiten, jedoch konnte die Kompetenz wissenschaftliches Denken jeweils als separates Konstrukt abgegrenzt werden. In latenten hierarchischen Regressionsanalysen hatten Leseverständnis und Intelligenz einen signifikanten Einfluss auf die Kompetenz im wissenschaftlichen Denken. Daneben waren Problemlösefähigkeiten von herausragender prädiktiver Bedeutung, in geringerem Ausmaß auch räumliche Fähigkeiten und das naturwissenschaftsbezogene Fähigkeitsselbstkonzept. Besonders im frühen Grundschulalter zeigten sich positive Zusammenhänge zwischen der Kompetenz im wissenschaftlichen Denken und den motivationalen Variablen.

A lot of attention is lately drawn to the measurement of implicit and explicit achievement motives as two distinct but intercorrelated systems. The general line of research indicates that correlations between the Picture Story Exercise (PSE) and self-report questionnaires which assess implicit and explicit achievement constructs respectively are normally very low and nonsignificant. The new approach to the measurement of the explicit motives violates this assumption and consists in the construction of the cue- and response-matched questionnaire version of the PSE (PSE-Q) which might correlate significantly with the PSE.

The first goal of the current study was to explore this new line of thinking by constructing a PSE-Q for the measurement of the explicit achievement motive based on the original scoring key by McClelland et al. (1953) and validating it with a traditional measure of the explicit achievement motive, LMI-K (Schuler & Prochaska, 2001), as well as with academic success criterion, such as grade point average (GPA). The second goal of the current study was to increase the number of picture cues available for eliciting implicit achievement motive imagery, thus, four new picture cues were introduced in the PSE.

Three personality measures—PSE, LMI-K, and PSE-Q, were completed in one testing session by the group of 134 participants online. Results indicated that all new picture cues were suitable for the measurement of the implicit achievement motive. No significant correlations were obtained between the PSE and LMI-K. Correlations between the PSE and the PSE–Q were found to be significant, whereas, LMI-K showed significant variance overlap with the PSE-Q. In line with the established research, academic success (GPA) was significanlty predicted by the explicit achievement motive measured with LMI-K. These findings suggest that implicit and explicit achievement motives are distinct but related constructs.

The for-profit sector is an active, viable and financially successful piece of the landscape of education and assumed to continue growing (Breneman, 2005). “Edupreneurs” or private, for-profit education companies provide desirable and affordable educational products and services for students, or better, customers.

At the tertiary level, for-profit higher education is defined “private institution[s] in which the individual(s) or agency in control receives compensation other than wages, rent, or other expenses for the assumption of risk” (NCES, 2003). In other words, public higher education and private not-for-profit colleges and universities on the one hand are not entitled to benefit private interests and net earnings cannot be distributed to owners or shareholders (IRS, 2003; Quoted after Kinser, K. & Levy, D.C., 2005, p.6). On the other hand, for-profit institutions set their goal to make a profit for their owners or shareholders (Kinser, 2005). According to John Sperling (1997), For-profit universities offer several advantages over non-profit institutions, among which are the for-profit’s accountability for educational effectiveness, operational efficiency, cost benefits, and the time it takes them to respond to changes in the education needs. Fueled by the trends of internationalization, globalization, commercialization, and privatization in the education sector, for-profit education expands worldwide.

This research intends to feature the Chinese echoes to the trend of For-profit education. The purpose of the study is three-fold. To begin with, the author aims to portray the scope and size of Chinese for-profit education sector, and make a tentative classification for “Edupreneurs” operating in Chinese education and training market. Next, the author aims to show the panorama of Chinese for-profit education, looking into the yesterday (causes of the emergence), today (strengths and weaknesses of the operation), and tomorrow (conceptualization of the optimal “Edupreneur”) of Chinese “Edupreneurs”. Last but not least, the researcher proposes to promote educational cooperation between Germany and China. Germany is blessed with excellent educational resources and services, and among one of the most popular destinations for international student mobility. Nevertheless, Germany has been avoiding the private surge, and thus a for-profit surge so far, even when faced with severe budget cuts and funding problems. Is this a voluntary or reluctant rejection, under the current educational system lacking self-management and autonomy? A quest for combining educational provision and consumption between Germany and China will then be incorporated in this study.

Qualitative research methods are used to collect data. The primary source of data comes from semi-structured interviews with middle or senior administrators of selected for-profit educational companies. Other sources include direct observation made by the researcher during the periods of visiting the interviewees and companies; official documents (archival records, legislation, ministerial publications); internal documents; company fact book; company website; journalism (newspapers, periodicals), and others.

In der Evaluation der klinischen Versorgung gewinnt die Patientenzufriedenheit als subjektives Kriterium zunehmend an Interesse. Eine Vielzahl methodischer Probleme limitiert jedoch die Aussagekraft gefundener Zufriedenheitsergeb-nisse. Da bisher kein eingeführtes, standardisiertes Instrument existiert, das die Sicht von Patienten zur Qualität der stationären psychotherapeutischen/psychoso-matischen Behandlung differenziert erfasst, wurde ein neuer Fragebogen zur Patientenbewertung entwickelt und validiert.