Yulia Tyumeneva - Candidate of Sciences, Senior Research Fellow at The International Laboratory for Education Policy Analysis at the HSE Graduate School of Education, HSE. E-mail: jtumeneva@hse.ru

Alena Valdman - intern-researcher at The International Laboratory for Educational Policy Analysis at the HSE Graduate School of Education, HSE. E-mail: alena.valdman@gmail.com

Martin Carnoy - PhD, Professor at School of Education of Stanford University. Address: Stanford University, School of Education, Stanford, California 94305. E-mail: carnoy@stanford.edu

The purpose of this research is to estimate of relationship between the level of subject knowledge formation with skills of transferring to non-academic context. To answer this question we use Russian databases of international studies TIMSS and PISA. The sample included 4241 Russian students. They participated in both studies TIMSS-2011 and PISA-2012. Based on the previous literature and content comparison of TIMSS-PISA math items we argue that TIMSS items can represent formal subject knowledge, while PISA items represent real-life context problems. We divided TIMSS participants into 6 groups from the top performers to poor performers (based on class average PVs in math) and picked up 10 (and 20) hardest PISA items using One-Parameter Rasch Model. Then we checked the proportion of correctly done PISA items among the 10 (and 20) hardest ones in each TIMSS group of students. This indicator is measure of the ability to transfer subject knowledge in a new context and apply them to solve real-life problems. Positive relationship between the level of subject knowledge development and the ability to transfer and apply it to a every-day problems was found. The better student knows math, the more likely he will be able to apply this knowledge to solve problems in a non-academic context. This relationship is not linear. Students from the most successful TIMSS group had substantive benefit in handling PISA hardest items, but all other levels of TIMSS performance differentiated weakly success in contextual PISA problems.

Anna Levinzon - Senior Teacher, The Fundamental and Applied Linguistics Division of the Faculty of Psychology, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Address: 2/8, Khitrovsky lane, Moscow, 109028, Russian Federation. E-mail: anna.j.levinzon@gmail.com

Galina Volodina - Associate Professor at Department of Strategic Management, Faculty of Management, HSE Campus in Perm. E-mail: gvolodina@hse.ru

Alla Obolonskaya - Associate Professor at Department of Financial Management, Faculty of Management, HSE Campus in Perm. E-mail: aobolonskaya@hse.ru

Tatyana Ratt - Candidate of Science, Head of University District Development Department, HSE Campus in Perm. E-mail: tratt@hse.ru

The paper describes relevancy, aim, scope and technologies of experimental activity conducted by HSE—Perm to set up a university and school cluster as an innovative form of enhancing Perm region teachers’ professional competencies. The authors describe organizational structure of the cluster, determine unique features of applied forms and techniques of cooperation among participants (high school and university teachers), and analyze the results of university and school cluster activities at the first stage of its development. Cluster is an organizational form of efforts combined to achieve competitive advantages in general education system. The key benefit of building clusters is that the educational market is entered by communities of concerned members, instead of individuals. University takes on a leadership role in innovating general education through: training and re-training human resources of general education; updating the syllabus; monitoring training materials and taking direct participation in their development; pursuing research (sociological, economical, psychological, legal, managerial) in education; monitoring quality of education process. The long-term innovative educational project “University and School Cluster” was launched in 2009. The paper compares quantitative measures of teachers’ subject-matter competencies at three stages of university and school cluster development (2009–2011).The authors consider the innovational aspects of cluster-based cooperation to be: advanced information and engineering support of subject departments; development and implementation of a special technology to monitor the level of teachers’ subject-matter competencies through the whole project; individual tutorial support for the process of enhancing teachers’ subject competencies; development of the university and school cluster website, an integrated interactive space for project participants, and filling it with appropriate methodological materials.

Natalya Rodina - Candidate of Sciences, Senior Research Fellow at Laboratory for Analysis and Modeling of Institutional Dynamics. E-mail: nrodina@hse.ru

An overview of literary sources is used to determine factors that account for differences in the role pay raises play for teachers in different regions. These factors include: regional economic structure; stage of economic development (growth or decline); share of public sector industries in regional economics; specific territorial characteristics resulting in discrepancy between average monthly wages and the real standards of living in regions. The paper has revealed a change to teachers’ pay at different educational levels in regions of Russia between 2011 and the first half of 2013. The level of teachers’ pay shows a trend towards reducing inequalities and polarization in distribution of regions
by personal income. At the same time, purchasing power of teachers’ wage is growing more and more heterogeneous across the federal subjects of the Russian Federation. As compared to 2011–2012, when purchasing power of teachers’ wage was at the same level in more than 50% of regions, the first months of 2013 witnessed an increase in the number of levels, as well as in that of regions at different levels. Teachers’ wage varies significantly by its purchasing power across federal subjects that have achieved or almost achieved their teachers’ pay goals. The author proves the need for specific research to discover the role (including psychological one) teachers’ pay raise plays broken down by  the subjects of the Russian Federation.

Mark Agranovich - Candidate of Sciences, Head of Center for Monitoring and Statistics of Federal Institute of Development of Education. E-mail: magran@firo.ru

The article discusses the possibilities of different tests results comparisons. The issue of correct compare of different tests results raises in relation of analysis of tests results for different years and in a number of other cases. These results could not be compared directly, without some adjustments. The article presents the approach to make tests results with different parameters of distribution comparable. The suggested approach based on the assumption that the level of students’ knowledge in different subjects are more or less equal and differences in parameters of tests results distributions arise due to instruments and differences in testing scaling. Suggested scheme of using statistical methods allow to eliminate these differences in testing instruments and make results of different tests comparable. Applications of the suggested method is shown on an example of comparison of results of Unified State Exam (upper secondary graduation tests) in different subjects and for different years, and also comparison of Unified State Exam and State Final Attestation (low  secondary graduation tests) results. The sphere of application for the suggested method is limited by the following conditions: the number of objects should be sufficient to use mathematical statistics tools applied to evaluate the closeness of relationship; the paper compares the sets of values obtained in different tests for the same objects.

Anastasia Sizykh - 1st year Master Program student at Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, Intern Research Fellow at Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge, HSE. E-mail: anastasia.sizykh@gmail.com

In order to find out the causes of universities’ waning popularity as a place of work, the researcher sets the following tasks: to analyze specific features of an academic career to determine at which stage it starts to lose its appeal; to reveal influences in choice of postgraduate courses as an alternative to introduction to the labour market, as well as to reveal influences in choice of a university as a place of work; to evaluate advantages and disadvantages of taking postgraduate courses and working at a university. The researcher conducted 27 semi-structured inter views with the facult y and postgraduates in th ree Russian higher education institutions and one Canadian one: the National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics, Siberian Federal University (Krasnoyarsk) and University of Winnipeg (Winnipeg, Canada). On the basis of the findings maps of career lines are produced as patterns of changes in terms of positions (job positions or geographical ones) during a person’s job cycle; the research also revealed types of careers followers of which are of potential interest for Russian universities in terms of professional personnel reinforcement. The researcher found that motivation to take postgraduate courses is not limited by an interest to scientific work but is mostly connected to alternative objectives (like achieving a certain status, draft evasion) or to absence of any definite goal (reluctance to leave the university because of an attachment to it, a sense of discomfort because of the necessity to search for a job outside it). It is shown in the article that on the whole the academic career structure in Canada is similar to that in Russia, but perception of advantages and disadvantages of a work in an academic setting is different for each country.

Dmitri Rubashkin - Canditdate of Sciences, Director at Innovation Center “Modern Education Technologies”. Address: Birzhevaya Liniya, 16, St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation. E-mail: dmitry@mart.spb.ru

The conventional course-based teacher training method doesn’t meet the requirements of time, and neither does the reproductive teaching style. The paper offers a new alternative to that system, which is project-based and result-oriented advanced training designed to stimulate creative thinking in teachers and to enhance the role of self-analysis and self-assessment. The main idea of this teacher training method lies in collaboration of teachers within a school to create new learning practices based on electronic learning materials and program tools. The paper describes terms and results of the international education project “ICT Learning Environment. Create and Use  Together”, which was realized in 2010–2012 and involved Russian and Finnish teachers and experts. Five school teams from Russia (represented by Saint Petersburg) and five from Finland had a mission of learning new technologies, developing new electronic learning materials and implementing them in their own teaching practices. The school teams collaborated for two years during live and online seminars, exchanged emails and talked on Skype, developing the selected projects together. The author investigates into the two factors of assessing team project efficiency: a) participants’ self-assessment of progress in their professional development and b) quality of created learning materials as finished products to be copied and distributed across the educational system. The paper provides benefits of the cluster-based model of project cooperation among teachers, which consists in grouping bunches of schools into clusters by geography or common teaching approaches.

Vladimir Satsyk - Candidate of Sciences, research fellow at The Institute of Higher Education, Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman. Address: 54/1, Pobedy av., Kyiv, 03680, Ukraine. E-mail: vsatsik@gmail.com

The author considers key factors of universities’ global competitiveness that internationally determine their advantages in terms of conducting scientific research, provision of educational services and accomplishing important social tasks. A strategic role of the state in developing competitive higher education shows itself in design and implementation of comprehensive national strategies of establishing world-class universities that would ensure prominent research results, in reformation of university sector management systems and in provision of an efficient competitive academic setting. In the article there is an analysis of statistic data from 50 countries of the world concerning expenses for higher education, higher school quality indicators and the presence of national universities in global university rankings. The analysis revealed a close positive interrelation between the level and dynamics of overall expenses for higher education per student, between national higher education relative quality and including universities of one or another country into the Shanghai ranking. The author reasons parameters of public and private expenses per student that are optimal in terms of formation of an efficient higher education model and provision of its global competitiveness. On the basis of evaluation of the current state and development trends for higher education in Ukraine basic barriers on the way of establishing national world-class universities are determined: shortage of higher education institutions’ financial resources and an inefficient university sector management model. The author systematizes political priorities, strategic goals and directions of Ukraine’s public policy in the field of scientific research and education, aimed at creating competitive universities.

The paper was prepared by the leading researcher of the Levada Center N. V. Bondarenko.
Address: Levada Center, Gorbunova str., 2, Moscow, 121956, Russian Federation

This paper continues the article on the relationship between higher school and business in Russia published in Journal of Educational Studies magazine last year (2013, no 1, pp. 174–182). Annual national surveys among CEOs conducted under the NRU HSE MEMO Project (Monitoring Education Markets and Organizations) allow to compare statistical data on cooperation between business and higher education institutions obtained in 2013 and in 2011. The surveys involve small, medium and large business CEOs in six key economic sectors: industry, communications (excluding postal services), construction, trade, transport, business services. The surveyors analyze the nature of interaction between businessmen and recent graduates from higher education institutions (how demanded young specialists are and how satisfied businessmen are with their professional qualifications) and collaboration of business with higher professional education institutions (actual levels and forms of collaboration, prospective levels and areas of collaboration for the nearest future). It has been found out that graduates are employed more and more often after the 2008–2009 recession. Graduates keep being most demanded in industry, communications and business services, while demand for them in trade is the lowest one. Company CEOs are mostly satisfied with professional qualifications of recent graduates; however, they complain graduates lack decision-making capacity, proactivity, planning and time-management skills, i. e. autonomy in work. Company CEOs also believe graduates lack communication skills (working in a team, establishing contact with customers). The paper provides results of a cross-country study comparing employer satisfaction with young specialists and company requirements for their professional qualifications in terms of higher education systems of Russia and Great Britain.

* в прикрепленном файле упоминается Levada Analytical Center (Левада-Центр), включённый Минюстом РФ в реестр некоммерческих организаций, выполняющих функции иностранного агента.

Tatiana Khavenson - Research Fellow at The International Laboratory for Education Policy Analysis at the HSE Graduate School of Education. E-mail: tkhavenson@hse.ru

Anna Solovyova - Intern Research Fellow at The International Laboratory for Education Policy Analysis at the HSE Graduate School of Education. E-mail: soloveva.anna@gmail.com

This paper analyzes the possibility of predicting efficiency of learning in a higher education institution based on results of the Unified State Exam (USE). In particular, the authors test the hypothesis that USE results in different subjects are equally efficient predictors of further student performance. Methods of regression analysis have been used to assess how preliminary examinations (both total USE points and points in specific subjects) affect academic performance in higher education. The research involved about 19,000 students enrolled at five Russian higher education institutions between 2009 and 2011. As long as the sample included institutions of different profiles, individual regressions were calculated for each faculty. A meta-analysis of regression coefficients was performed later to bring the data together. Average firstyear grade was used as the key university performance factor. It was found out that USE points were only related to performance in the second and the subsequent years through performance in the first year, i. e. indirectly. The research results allow to conclude that predictive capacity of total USE points is high enough to accept this examination as a valid student selection tool. The explained variation in university performance varies from 15 to 35% in different faculties. Predictive capacity of particular subjects making the USE total points is relatively the same, but USE points in mathematics and Russian are often the best predictors of performance. The paper also analyzes the relation between USE points and another student selection tool — results of academic competitions in specific subjects.

Aleksandra Yuzhaninova - Research Fellow at Institute of Education, HSE. E-mail: sashasneg3@gmail.com

The paper analyzes the expectations Russian 9th graders have about their first employment: when they are going to start working, whether they believe that work should first of all be highly paid or find self-realization in work more important, etc. The empirical basis is the first phase of the longitudinal studies initiated by NRU HSE in 2010 as part of the project ‘Monitoring educational and employment trajectories of school and higher education institution graduates’. The survey involved 9th grade students who took the TIMSS-2011 international test in 2010–2011 (3,797 students from 41 regions of Russia) and their parents. Logistic regression is used to build models where the dependable variable is school children’s expectations about their future employment and the independent variable is groups of factors accounting for family background, cultural capital and personality traits of respondents. Family characteristics turned out to determine students’ expectations much less than personality traits, especially the self-assessment level. Besides, parental preferences about their children’s future employment have no impact on students’ opinion. The author suggests that the following phase of the study should be used to evaluate realization of schoolchildren’s predictions about when they were going to start working and whether they were going to continue their school education, as well as to assess the changes in the value systems held by students and their parents in forming their expectations.

Diana Yanbarisova - Research Fellow at Institute of Education, HSE. E-mail: diyanbarisova@gmail.com

Nowadays, combining work and study is typical for both low-income students and those who are well off. Such students have an array of reasons to start working, from the ambition to get integrated into the job market and build a career to the desire to fill their spare time. The paper investigates how different combinations of work and study affect academic performance of students in their final years in Tatarstan higher education institutions. The author analyzes results of the first phase of ‘Monitoring educational and employment trajectories of school and higher education institution graduates’, the longitudinal studies initiated by NRU HSE in 2009. Two factors — employment schedule and the extent to which employment corresponds with what is studied — have helped single out five types of combining work and study. Different combinations reveal different levels of academic performance, different plans for the future, and somewhat different motivation to enter higher education institutions. A regression analysis has shown that only one type of combining work and studies, non-professional full-time employment, has a negative effect on academic performance. The rest of the student employment strategies haven’t shown any statistically important effect on performance. All other conditions being equal, professionally employed students perform better than non-professionally employed ones, and sometimes even better than those who don’t work at all. The perfect choice for students is professional part-time employment, when work becomes an additional source of knowledge and motivation to learn.

Viktor Bolotov - Professor, Academician of Russian Academy of Education, Academic Supervisor at the Russian Training Center, Institute of Management of Russian Academy of Education. E-mail: vikbolotov@yandex.ru

Natela Kvelidze-Kuznetsova - Director of the Library at Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. Address: Naberezhnaya Reki Moyki, 48, St.Petersburg, 191186. E-mail: natela@herzen.spb.ru

Vladimir Laptev - Professor, Academician of Russian Academy of Education, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. Address: Naberezhnaya Reki Moyki, 48, St.Petersburg, 191186. E-mail: laptev@herzen.spb.ru

Svetlana Morozova - Deputy Director of the Library at Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. Address: Naberezhnaya Reki Moyki, 48, St.Petersburg, 191186. E-mail: morozova@herzen.spb.ru

The recent years have witnessed using numerical measurements of research work, apart from the indicator of financial and administrative support and that of educational activities, as a rating and monitoring criterion in assessing performance of higher education institutions and scientific organizations. Assessment of research performance through calculations is unfamiliar to the Russian academic community and is often misunderstood or even rejected. The authors analyze the h-index, an index of published work productivity, considering it to be the most appropriate scientometric indicator that allows to smooth over many drawbacks of assessing research achievements by mere calculation of the number of published works or citations. The authors also discuss using Web of Science and Scopus scientometric platforms to assess research productivity of Russian scientists. There are two reasons why using them sometimes provides information that is imprecise or incomplete: a) only works published in English are taken into account, and b) mostly natural science journals are selected. The paper demonstrates how the h-index is currently calculated in the Russian Science Citation Index and how the indices can be optimized after processing the existing RSCI data files and adding new data. Based on the experiment of calculating the h-index for three authors on the RSCI platform, the authors of the paper have come to the conclusion that quantitative research assessment techniques will most often be non-objective and may only be applied together with expert opinions.

Aleksey Lyubzhin - Candidate of Sciences, Research Fellow at the Department of rare books and manuscripts of the Scientific library of Moscow State University. Address: Scientific Library of Moscow State University, Mokhovaya, 9, Moscow, 103073, Russian Federation. E-mail: vulture@mail.ru

By analyzing the research devoted to secondary educational institutions in the Urals, the author speculates on the preferred structure of historical books intended for mass consumption. He believes that this oeuvre provides clear examples of literacy tests for teachers, their financial situation, their relationship with the government, as well as activities of teachers’ corporations, children’s living conditions, their life in and out of school, life of school employees, and other aspects of school education in the Urals a century ago. The conclusion that comes from the historical evidence provided is quite unambiguous: teaching activities of the time were characterized by attention towards students’ individual needs and qualities, by care about their physical and emotional health, and by a savor of good nature and patriarchal cordiality engrained in the whole gymnasium system. Regional specifics of Ural secondary educational system is studied through experts’ evaluations, as there are almost no relevant historical materials left. In terms of social differentiation, the student body in the Urals was largely homogeneous, which was quite in line with the overall historical trend of speedy secondary school democratization across the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century. The author argues that the picture revealed by this study is unbiased and in accord with the real state of things, and that it will help the reader learn more about life in the Russian Empire viewed by most people through Soviet-inherited prejudice instead of direct knowledge.

Viktor Guruzhapov - Doctor of Psychology, Head of Department at Moscow City University of Psychology and Pedagogy. Address: Sretenka str, 29, Moscow, 107045. Email: otdelm@yandex.ru

This is an analysis of general psychological education for future teachers in the context of the need to implement the second generation Federal State Learning Standard of General Education. The author believes that delivering the theory of general psychology plays little role in building psychological competence of teachers; he suggests developing a modern general psychology of education. Cultural and historical psychology serves a precursor for this in Russian science. The author draws most of the attention to “Lectures on General Psychology” by V. Davydov, whose approach is unique in that he analyzes inherently human behavior based first of all on historical experience of reative learning and transformation of reality by people. V. Davydov gives a precise definition of learning through the original activity approach. Learning is not confined to acquiring knowledge and skills; it s also a labor, a collective activity that includes an object and instruments, apart from the subject. That’s why general psychology of education should not only analyze forms of interaction between subjects of learning, but also describe psychological nature of a) tools of learning as a collective labor, and b) the process of building content of education. The new general psychology of education is regarded by the author as a phenomenology of developing a human view of the world in conditions of consistent teaching and education. To illustrate his point, the author analyzes the nature of school students’ need for theoretical knowledge by integrating the ideas of developmental teaching and Maslow’s “ideal college”. The paper promotes the idea of preserving the “inertia of students’ thoughts and feelings about theoretical objects” as a strategic mission of a developmental teacher.