Developing strategies for the information society

Abstract

Much has been written about the coming Information Society and the possible benefits and problems that could accompany its evolution. However, there is no grand design for the Information Society. Its general shape, speed, and direction are being shaped by a wide variety of forces, only some of which are technological. However, an argument can be made that the lack of a coherent strategy for the evolution of the Information Society may prove dysfunctional in the long run, because it results in ambiguity, confusion, waste, and lost opportunity in both the public and private sectors. In fact, there are many strategic choices that could be taken today which would help shape the future Information Society so as to improve the prospects for overall societal benefits. Five strategic choices in the public sector and five in the private sector are offered as examples of the kinds of actions that would appear to be appropriate today to lay the groundwork for the successful evolution of the Information Society.     

Spacing and induction: Application to exemplars presented as auditory and visual text

It is an established finding that spacing repetitions generally facilitates memory for the repeated events. However, the effect of spacing of exemplars on inductive learning is not really known. Two experiments using textual material were conducted to investigate the effect of spacing on induction. Experiment 1 and 2 extended the generality of recently observed spacing benefits to texts, regardless of whether they were visually or aurally presented. Interestingly, participants in both experiments judged massing to be more effective than spacing though their performance showed the opposite. Possible explanations for the superiority of the spaced condition over the massed condition in inductive learning, practical implications of the present study and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Reading and spelling in adults: are there lexical and sub‐lexical subtypes?

The dual‐route model of reading proposes distinct lexical and sub‐lexical procedures for word reading and spelling. Lexically reliant and sub‐lexically reliant reader subgroups were selected from 78 university students on the basis of their performance on lexical (orthographic) and sub‐lexical (phonological) choice tests, and on irregular and nonword naming. In spelling of irregular words and nonwords to dictation, the group comparisons failed to support the dissociative predictions for lexical and sub‐lexical reliance that were derived from the dual‐route model: lexical readers were not superior to sub‐lexical readers on spelling irregular words as well as inferior to sub‐lexical readers on spelling regular letter strings (nonwords). In line with a single‐route view, print exposure and phonological coding (nonword naming accuracy) appear to be key factors in the effective learning of both regular and irregular words.     

The Christian Family as Mediator

The publication in 2011 of This is Our Faith (TIOF), the Catholic Church in Scotland's syllabus for religious education in Catholic schools, is a significant contribution to wider debates on the appropriate conceptual framework for religious education. Recent teaching of the Holy See has suggested that religious education in Catholic schools should adopt a scholastic shape and serve as a complement to catechesis. In TIOF, pedagogy, assessment issues and the relationship between cognitive and affective approaches to learning are merged in the context of a distinct faith tradition. TIOF's adoption of a catechetical vision of religious education shows how local churches can adapt Catholic teaching to their own circumstances.     

Effect of Strenuous and Mild Pre-Meal Exercise on Postprandial Lipemia

Abstract

An attempt was made to elucidate the mechanism whereby exercise facilitates postprandial lipid clearance. Two separate experiments examined the effects of mild and strenuous pre-meal exercise on postprandial lipemia among human male subjects. In each case, a high fat meal was consumed after a fasting blood sample was taken. Additional samples were drawn 3, 5, and 7 hr. following the meal on both a control and an experimental day. Optical density was employed as a measure of serum turbidity. Data were analyzed through analysis of variance.

Strenuous pre-meal exercise appeared to hasten postprandial lipid clearance without affecting the magnitude of lipemia. Mild pre-meal exercise was seen to reduce the magnitude and duration of postprandial lipemia. These observations tend to negate the concept that exercise influences postprandial lipemia via digestive and/or absorptive mechanisms.

It is hypothesized that gross differences in response to the high fat meal witnessed between the two experimental populations may be due to the variance in the mean ages of the groups.     

Undergraduate Mathematics Experience: Its Significance in Secondary Mathematics Teacher Preparation

This paper reports views of studentteachers on a one year secondary teacherpreparation course about their undergraduateexperiences of learning mathematics. Writtenresponse data were collected from 173 studentteachers (trainees) from several differentinstitutions and their views were collated andthematised. The principal issues that arise arethose of discontinuity of experience fromschool to university, the lack of preparednessfor ``struggle' in the face of challengingmathematics at university and an unresponsivestyle of teaching and assessing. Thesignificance of these views to the students asprospective teachers and the ways in which theycould be used by teacher educators on trainingcourses is discussed.     

Test Reliability at the Individual Level

Reliability has a long history as one of the key psychometric properties of a test. However, a given test might not measure people equally reliably. Test scores from some individuals might have considerably greater error than others. This study proposed two approaches using intraindividual variation to estimate test reliability for each person. A simulation study suggested that the parallel tests approach and the structural equation modeling approach recovered the simulated reliability coefficients. Then in an empirical study, where 45 females were measured daily on the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) for 45 consecutive days, separate estimates of reliability were generated for each person. Results showed that reliability estimates of the PANAS varied substantially from person to person. The methods provided in this article apply to tests measuring changeable attributes and require repeated measures across time on each individual. This article also provides a set of parallel forms of PANAS.     

Guiding the social development of young children

It is likely that every early childhood class will include children who have difficulty making positive social adjustments. Although some children's difficulties seem to be associated with shyness or reluctance to make social contact, other children's behavior may be a problem because they bully peers or refuse to respect the space and property of others.This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Anaheim, CA, November 1988.