Human Resources and Organizationa Behaviour

Due to their structural complexity, and their openness to diversity, universities are prone to conflict, and invest an enormous amount of time and energy to reconcile divergent interests. Thus, conflict is an integral part of academic life, including the classroom, although in this latter case, it is seen as an uncomfortable issue. In fact, as teachers rarely assume that do not have control of their classes, as actually happens often, conflict in the classroom is a matter whose discussion tends to be avoided to not harm the personal and organizational image. As a result, teachers have little or no training to deal with these problems. Although students and teachers may differ on the extent and significance of inappropriate behaviors in the classroom, the extant literature on this issue indicates that there is some consensus on the fact that interpersonal conflicts often result from the interaction between students' "uncivilized" acts and teachers' negative approaches. This presentation is focused on the crucial skills to deal constructively with these problematic situations, through two complementary directions. Firstly, we present the foundations of an intervention model for dealing with conflicts among students and between them and the teachers, in order to minimize the negative impact on relationships, and simultaneously take advantage of the learning potential of well managed conflicts, guiding them towards a solution-finding process. Secondly, we discuss the concept of "problem" as a central tool of a pedagogical strategy to stimulate learning from the resolution of didactically relevant cases, which are based on real situations taken from and similar to those that students will encounter in a professional context. These problems are always presented under the format of cognitive conflicts, and embedded in a specific context. Through a sequential approach, dealing with cognitive conflicts contributes to a meaningful learning, which in turn facilitates the acquisition of knowledge and the discovery of its applicability. A case in the field of management education to illustrate the method is presented and discussed in the framework of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) strategies.

O crescimento e a expansão da internet, bem como a recente valorização da acreditação das escolas de gestão, vieram trazer transformações tecnológicas no ensino superior em Portugal, que passam pela aposta em modelos de educação à distância, tais como o blended learning. Este artigo procurou compreender se diferentes abordagens metodológicas (presencial VS blended learning) refletiram diferentes desempenhos nos resultados escolares de 959 estudantes de uma escola de gestão portuguesa. Os resultados revelaram um melhor desempenho dos alunos no método de ensino blended learning. Deste modo, o investimento tecnológico exigido pelos processos de acreditação, se for bem implementado, pode traduzir-se na melhoria do desempenho dos estudantes, contribuindo para o prestígio das universidades que nele investem.

Electronic learning (e-learning) is a broader approach to learning that brings new opportunities for learning and teaching in many fields of education far from the traditional classroom environment. Over the past decades, research in the field indicates a proliferation of e-learning contents and discrepancies that affect interoperability patterns in education for students and teachers; however, little has been done to assess the usability of e-learning systems. From a different perspective, this study aims to provide information on the numerous findings relating to the cumulative results of e-learning in education. This systematic review uses a full protocol with the aim of standardizing and specifying all the procedures adopted to collect and code 99 academic articles from 2010 to 2018 with keywords: education and e-learning. The text analysis as conducted using the qualitative software Leximancer to extract meaning from the large number of articles retrieved. The results highlight four dominant themes, namely education systems and learning issues that in turn promote student behaviours and the use of online learning tools. This research contributes towards providing research propositions that can be used in a cogent theoretical framework and, based on the analysis, we also propose a new definition of e-learning.