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This paper aims at finding out the type of democracy that Sweden seeks to realize in its education. To answer the above question, the article compared the curriculum between 1940s-1960s and the period after 1990s and employed governmental research papers used as basic data to revise the above curricula. Contending theoretical perspectives are raised here as individual-centered and society-centered democracy. From the two differing view points on democracy, it analyzed the changes in democracy that Sweden have pursued. Using the analysis of ideas, this research dissected the views on democracy, perceptions on social realities and educational recommendations for promoting democracy shown in the governmental research papers. Main conclusions are as follows. Educating the young to inculcate their democratic civic attitudes is one of the highest values of the Swedish education. Yet, this pursuit of value showed difference between the research periods. In the 1940s, only the democracy was touted as a system to ensure the future society enshrined in reason and peace. It was promoted as the only way to eradicate the totalitarianism culpable of the World War I and II. To this end, emphasis was put on the social role of education to teach the young to be independent, critical and cooperative to make contributions to the social reforms. On the other hand, in the 1990s, more focus was placed on the individual capabilities of the young so that they could express their opinions and demand, listening to others’s views. That is, education in the 1940s emphasized the active role for building democratic society, while the decades after 1990s the passive role for transmitting democratic thought and principles. These divergent views on the role of education seems to reflect the Zeitgeist of the periods under research. Moreover, it is widely believed that the 9-year-long universal compulsory education system, suggested in the 1940s and completed 60s, is the heart of the endeavor for educational democracy. School choice introduced in the early 1990s seems to overlook the pursuit of public good in education and lead to seeking private good. In a nutshell, Sweden tried to realize society-centered democracy in the 1940s and individual-centered democracy in the post-1990s in its educational system.

The study classified adult learners based on their responses to the questionnaire on motivational orientations to lifelong learning, and described their characteristics such as demographic backgrounds, learning styles and attitudes, and preferences of instructional methods. A total of 3,000 domestic residents aging from 20 to 69 were surveyed, and hierarchical and k-means cluster analyses were employed to identify different types of the responses. As a result of the research, we could classify adult learners into four subgroups: actively motivated, passively motivated, self-actualizing, and career-oriented. The actively motivated group mainly consisted of 40s, males, white-collars. They showed a positive attitude toward lifelong learning, and scored higher than any other groups in all of the items about the preferences of instructional methods. Contrary to them, the average scores provided by the people belonging to the passively motivated group were lowest among the four groups, and old-aged, low-income and relatively under educated people were the mainstream of the subgroup. The adult learners of the self-actualizing group were mainly 50s, community college level of education, and self-employed persons. They were more self-directed learners, and preferred discussing and collaborating with peers. Averagely, the age of the people in the career-oriented group was lowest. The highest proportion of them were white-collared, and it had more students than other groups did. They preferred listening lectures and reading documents individually, and more teacher-directed instructional methods.

This study was to investigate the college students' perception on learning outcomes and instructional methods, and to explain the conditions of effective instructional methods in a systematic way. The results of ordered multiple response data analysis indicated that the students ranked discipline knowledge as the first one for both important and difficult learning outcome. The participants considered the ability of making good social relationship and self-management as the important ones as well; however, the leadership and foreign language ability were difficult to get. The lecture was recognized as the most effective method for getting desirable learning outcomes. The results of canonical correlation analysis indicated that the competency of delivery and materials were important in lecture; the amount of discuss time and the balance of participation were critical in discussion; the provision of case and other learners attitude should be considered in collaborative learning. This suggested that the learning outcomes in universities were still related to the teaching competencies of instructors as well as the support from each university.

This study was to explore the possibilities of blog and wiki based instruction for facilitating students’ collective intelligence in a higher education context. A qualitative method based action research was conducted to understand students’ experiences and pursue instructiona implications of using blog as a reflective tool and wiki as a collaborative tool. The participant students were required to write reflective journals on their blog spaces and create collaborative reports using wiki software. The data were collected from in-depth interviews with students, content analysis about their writings, artifacts, and reports, and observation on their group activities. The results describe the possibilities of collective intelligence based instruction through integrative utilization of blog and wiki. The possibilities were discussed with six themes: 1) a feeling of pressure from unfamiliar tool and adaptation process, 2) blogging as a personalized reflective learning: independence, diversity, and ownership, 3) creative jointactivities: openness and shared ownership, 4) connection between reflection and collaboration, 5) social learning through reading and observation, 6) emergence of collaborative creativities. Also, some dilemma in implementing blog and wiki based instruction were discussed with three themes: 1) voluntary contribution vs. required task, 2) classified ownership: small contributors vs. large observers, 3) evaluation: final product vs. participatory trajectories. Finally, some reflections and implications for collective intelligence based instruction were discussed from the research results.

Due to various reasons and necessities, including teaching effectiveness improvement, much effort were put to practice learner-centered education in the field of higher education however, its actual implementations are insignificant yet. Therefore, this study purposes to propose the appropriate supporting method by analyzing the concern of university professors about the learner-centered pedagogical method based on Concerns Based Adoption Model(CBAM). For this, the survey was processed by applying Stage of Concerns Questionnair targeting university faculty. As a result, the faculties appeared to be ‘unconcerned non-users’ of the learner-centered pedagogical method. But, they had a high interest in ‘information’ about the learner-centered pedagogical method as similar to the general type of the early innovation. On the other hand, the faculties had low concerns in ‘collaboration’ with colleague related to the learner-centered pedagogical method however, they had high concerns in ‘refocusing’, which means they are skeptical to the learner-centered pedagogical method or concerned about more effective methods. Furthermore, the study showed that the concern about the learner-centered pedagogical method was different according to the faculty’s major, position, and educational experience. Based on such results, the study suggested the supporting methods to increase interest and practice of professors about the learner-centered pedagogical method in the university.