Mass Communications

“Popular Culture in America” edited by David Manning White with help from Ray Browne, Marshall Fishwick, and Russel B. Nye

Marshall Fishwick, is author of his latest, a collection of his own essays entitled Parameters of Popular Culture (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1974—cost not known, but available in cloth and paper)

J. Meredith Neil to assemble Popular Architecture (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green Popular Press, n.d., but , 1974—price not given, paper)

James Philip Danky's UndergroundS; A Union List of Alternative Periodicals in Libraries of the United States and Canada (Madison: State Historical Society of'Wisconsin, 1974—$12.95, paper)

George D. Brightbill and Wayne C. Maxon's Citation Manual for United States Government Publications (Philadelphia: Temple University's Center for the Study of Federalism, 1974—75¢, paper)     

General Works on Mass Communications

Russel B. Nye's The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (Dial Press, $12.50)

Otto Friedrich's Decline and Fall (Harpor & Row, $10.00)

“The Sociology of Mass Media Communicators,” The Sociological Review Monograph No. 13 (University of Keele, Staffordshire, England, January 1969, $4.60 including air mail costs)

Audio Visual Marketplace: A Multimedia Guide (Bowker, $12.25)

Jerry Della Femina's From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor (Simon and Schuster, $6.50)     

Working on What Works: working with teachers to improve classroom behaviour and relationships

The Working on What Works (WOWW) approach, which is based upon Solution-focused Brief Therapy, was implemented in a mainstream primary classroom over a 10-week period. The focus was on improving behaviour and relationships in class. Results demonstrated an improvement in teacher ratings for targets set by the class teacher compared with baseline. Pupils also set, and rated themselves on class targets. Observation of pupils, and their class-ratings, demonstrated a positive impact for these targets. Longer term follow-up suggested that this positive impact was maintained. It is concluded that WOWW had a positive impact on behaviour and relationships within this classroom.     

Semantic effects on word naming in children with developmental dyslexia

Repetition priming was used to examine whether children with dyslexia bias a lexical–semantic pathway when reading words aloud. For the dyslexic group (n = 18, age 9.4–11.8 years), but not for age‐matched controls (n = 18, age 9.2–12.4 years), reaction times when naming pictures were faster after naming the corresponding word. A reading age‐matched control group (n = 24, age 6.8–8.9 years) showed similar priming effects to the children with dyslexia. The magnitude of repetition priming was greater for children with dyslexia with poor nonword reading and slower picture naming. Assuming repetition priming of picture naming is contingent on accessing lexical phonology via semantics, the results suggest less‐skilled normal and disordered readers show a stronger bias towards a lexical– semantic pathway during word reading than skilled readers, and the severity of the phonological representations deficit modulates the strength of that bias in children with dyslexia.     

Role of Cognitively Stimulating Home Environment in Children's Academic Intrinsic Motivation: A Longitudinal Study

The short- and long-term, and direct and indirect, relations between cognitively stimulating home environment and academic intrinsic motivation were investigated in a longitudinal study from childhood through early adolescence. Structural equations modeling was used to test the hypothesis that home environment positively predicts academic intrinsic motivation over this period. It was also hypothesized that home environmental processes would positively predict motivation controlling for socioeconomic status (SES). When children were age 8, home environment (comprising both direct observations and parent report) and SES were measured. Academic intrinsic motivation was assessed at ages 9, 10, and 13. Results supported the hypotheses. Home environment had statistically positive and significant, direct and indirect paths to academic intrinsic motivation from childhood through early adolescence, indicating both short- and long-term effects across these ages. Moreover, home environment was significant above and beyond SES. The findings revealed that children whose homes had a greater emphasis on learning opportunities and activities were more academically intrinsically motivated.     

Student note-taking related to university examination performance

Student note-taking is an almost universal activity among university students, yet few naturalistic studies have examined relationships between note-taking practices and subsequent examination performance. Complete sets of notes on an introductory psychology course, involving 75 lectures presented by ten instructors, were obtained from nineteen male and nineteen female students. Notes on ten selected lectures (one per instructor) were analysed, and information derived about class attendance and the quantity, organization, and presentation of the notes. Variables based on this information were then correlated with performance on two three-hour final examination papers (one multiple-choice, one essay). High correlations were found between the quantity of notes and examination performance. Surprisingly, these correlations increased in subsamples consisting of those students who attended class most diligently. The correlations involving the multiple-choice examination tended to be higher than those involving the essay examination, most probably because of wider sampling of lecture content and a more factual orientation in the multiple-choice examination. The results appear to conflict with the advice given in student study guides, many of which suggest that students should be very selective and concise in their note-taking.     

Posthumanist ethical practice: agential cuts in the pedagogic assemblage

With researchers funnelled into lucrative research practices that value fast scholarship, we explore ethical practice as an ethico-onto-epistemological project. Through collective biography, diffractive choreography, and poetry, we map systems of entrapment that manifest power relations in the academy. We argue the posthumanist ethical practice is an intra-active project in higher education – involving rich material, social, political and intellectual entanglements. Posthumanist ethical practice rejects dualisms of body/mind, nature/culture and human/non-human. It evokes creativity to generate new vocabularies for challenging anthropocentric ‘exceptionalism’. Mapping relations in posthuman assemblages can involve agential cuts that evoke ethical practice as affective encounters. Agential cuts give permission for pedagogic storying where there is ontological connectedness. As academics, we are immersed in assemblages where posthumanist education research and practice is a rich, embodied, and connected process. Particular consideration is given in this article to affectivity and the value of pedagogic performance in education research.     

Establishing the Role and Impact of Academic Librarians in Supporting Open Research: A Case Study at Leeds Beckett University,UK

ABSTRACT

This practical article presents findings of a small scale study undertaken at a large U.K. University. The purpose of the study was to encourage academic engagement with Open Access (OA) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) mandate with the measurable impact being increased engagement with the Repository and dissemination of research while circulating information to the wider community. In order to promote research, a series of “Focus on” webpages were created aligned to a particular theme and were then disseminated via social media. It was anticipated that by potentially increasing access to research outputs, academic staff would be motivated to make their work available following OA models and use the institutional repository (IR) as a means to achieve this. The main drivers for the study were the Finch Report, the HEFCE Policy for open access in the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework and the institutional strategy for research. Data was collected through a statistical analysis of both the “Focus on” pages and journal article downloads via the IR, with results indicating increased engagement with the IR making research openly accessible.