The International Consortium for Educational Development in Higher Education

The affective dimensions of intimacy and emotional labour in academic development are explored utilising two methodological resources: autoethnography and narrative practice. An excerpt from the author’s reflective professional journal infused with affect and emotion is analysed utilising theories of intimacy in modernity, emotion work, and professional intimacy. The journal excerpt is ‘restoried’ to produce narrative lines that provide insight into the journal entry. The article concludes by proposing a ‘pedagogy of intimacy’ as an analytical space that values both skill and care.     

Images of the future for education? Videoconferencing: a literature review

In the past two decades, as new capabilities for video communication have emerged, their use in educational contexts has steadily increased. Initially located in higher education, the use of videoconferencing for a broad range of learning purposes is now established in many schools. Although a considerable body of literature exists that describes the experience of videoconferencing using traditional pedagogies, much less has been published on the contextual factors that lead to effective learning outcomes and innovative uses of videoconferencing. The purpose of this review is to establish a baseline for researchers interested in the area. In focusing on educational uses in both higher education and mainstream schooling, the review examines the affordances and barriers to effective teaching and learning, with what are increasingly robust and easy‐to‐use technologies. The paper concludes with a call for further research into the more innovative possibilities of videoconferencing.     

Development of the Biology Card Sorting Task to Measure Conceptual Expertise in Biology

There are widespread aspirations to focus undergraduate biology education on teaching students to think conceptually like biologists; however, there is a dearth of assessment tools designed to measure progress from novice to expert biological conceptual thinking. We present the development of a novel assessment tool, the Biology Card Sorting Task, designed to probe how individuals organize their conceptual knowledge of biology. While modeled on tasks from cognitive psychology, this task is unique in its design to test two hypothesized conceptual frameworks for the organization of biological knowledge: 1) a surface feature organization focused on organism type and 2) a deep feature organization focused on fundamental biological concepts. In this initial investigation of the Biology Card Sorting Task, each of six analytical measures showed statistically significant differences when used to compare the card sorting results of putative biological experts (biology faculty) and novices (non–biology major undergraduates). Consistently, biology faculty appeared to sort based on hypothesized deep features, while non–biology majors appeared to sort based on either surface features or nonhypothesized organizational frameworks. Results suggest that this novel task is robust in distinguishing populations of biology experts and biology novices and may be an adaptable tool for tracking emerging biology conceptual expertise.     

Production Guides

VIDEO COMMUNICATION: STRUCTURING CONTENT FOR MAXIMUM PROGRAM EFFECTIVENESS by David L. Smith (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1991—price not given, paper, ISBN 0-534-13146-8, 412 pp.)

RADIO PRODUCTION: ART AND SCIENCE by Michael C. Keith (Stoneham, MA: Focal Press, 1990—price not given, paper, ISBN 0-240-80017-6, 255 pp.)

TELEVISION AND RADIO ANNOUNCING by Stuart W. Hyde (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991—price not given, ISBN 0-395-54446-7, 576 pp.)

BROADCAST VOICE HANDBOOK: HOW TO POLISH YOUR ON-AIR DELIVERY by Ann S. Utterback (Chicago: Bonus Books, 1990—$26.95, ISBN 0-929387-16-3, 264 pp.)

HOW TO READ COPY: PROFESSIONAL'S GUIDE TO DELIVERING VOICE-OVERS AND BROADCAST COMMERCIALS by Adrian Cronauer (Chicago: Basic Books, 1990—$29.95, ISBN 0-929387-14-7, 208 pp.)

INSTITUTIONAL VIDEO: PLANNING, BUDGETING, PRODUCTION AND EVALUATION by Carl Hausman (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1991—price not given, ISBN 0-534-12786-X, 295 pp.)

ELECTRONIC MOVIEMAKING by Lynne S. Gross and Larry W. Ward (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1991—no price given, paper, ISBN 0-534-13620-6, 313 pp.)

WRITING FOR TELEVISION AND RADIO by Robert L. Hilliard (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1991—no price given, paper, ISBN 0-534-14262-1, 485 pp.)

THE ESSENTIAL FEATURE: WRITING FOR MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS by Vicky Hay (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990—$45.00/20.00, ISBN 0-231-06886-7 hard, 0-231-06887-5 paper, 289 pp.)

MUSIC IN FILM AND VIDEO PRODUCTIONS by Dan Carlin, Sr. (Stoneham, MA: Focal Press, 1991—$21.95, paper, ISBN 0-240-80009-5, 173 pp.)

SPECIAL MAKE-UP EFFECTS by Vincent J-R Kehoe (Stoneham, MA: Focal Press, 1991—$19.95, paper, ISBN 0-240-80099-0, 134 pp.)

BROADCAST NEWS: WRITING AND REPORTING by Peter E. Mayeux (Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown, 1991—price and ISBN not given, paper, 414 pp.)     

Using technology for enhancing teaching and learning in Bangladesh: challenges and consequences

The increasing use of media and technologies for enhancing teaching and learning is an important current trend to overcome the challenges of schooling and teacher training in the changing world. Many countries in the Global South are trying to adopt technologies in their school and teacher training systems to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals. Though some recent research shows impacts of using technologies for enhancing teaching and learning in technology-poor contexts, no research actually addresses the challenges and difficulties associated with using the technologies in those specific contexts. This article presents interview data derived from secondary schools teachers in Bangladesh, in a context beset with many difficulties associated with technology use. In a pilot project, Apple iPods were introduced in 2009 to explore the challenges and consequences of using technology in schools. The data reveal the implications for the teachers’ professional development when they used the iPod as a multimedia player to access educational resources made available to support teaching and learning. This article has also thrown some light on current debates about using technologies for enhancing teaching and learning in technology-poor contexts.     

Unmasking the unasked: correcting the record about assessor masking as an explanation for effect size differences

Ainsworth et al.’s paper “Sources of Bias in Outcome Assessment in Randomised Controlled Trials: A Case Study” examines alternative accounts for a large difference in effect size between 2 outcomes in the same intervention evaluation. It argues that the probable explanation relates to masking: Only one outcome measure was administered by those aware of participants’ treatment assignment. This paper shows this conclusion is not substantiated by the evidence: The original paper fails to exclude alternative explanations, and what it takes as positive evidence for the preferred explanation is actually negative. While accepting the importance of masking in randomised controlled trials, this paper concludes that the original question was based on a misconception about effect sizes: Seen correctly as a measure of whole study design, the question of effect size difference between different outcome measures does not need asking.     

Three concepts or one? Students’ understanding of basic limit concepts

In many mathematics curricula, the notion of limit is introduced three times: the limit of a sequence, the limit of a function at a point and the limit of a function at infinity. Despite the use of very similar symbols, few connections between these notions are made explicitly and few papers in the large literature on student understanding of limit connect them. This paper examines the nature of connections made by students exposed to this fragmented curriculum. The study adopted a phenomenographic approach and used card sorting and comparison tasks to expose students to symbols representing these different types of limit. The findings suggest that, while some students treat limit cases as separate, some can draw connections, but often do so in ways which are at odds with the formal mathematics. In particular, while there are occasional, implicit uses of neighbourhood notions, no student in the study appeared to possess a unifying organisational framework for all three basic uses of limit.     

The effect of time constraints and running phases on combined event pistol shooting performance

The combined event is a crucial aspect of the modern pentathlon competition, but little is known about how shooting performance changes through the event. This study aimed to identify (i) how performance-related variables changed within each shooting series and (ii) how performance-related variables changed between each shooting series. Seventeen modern pentathletes completed combined event trials. An optoelectronic shooting system recorded score and pistol movement, and force platforms recorded centre of pressure movement 1 s prior to every shot. Heart rate and blood lactate values were recorded throughout the event. Whilst heart rate and blood lactate significantly increased between series (P < 0.05), there were no accompanying changes in the time period that participants spent aiming at the target, shot score, pistol movement or centre of pressure movement (P > 0.05). Thus, combined event shooting performance following each running phase appears similar to shooting performance following only 20 m of running. This finding has potential implications for the way in which modern pentathletes train for combined event shooting, and highlights the need for modern pentathletes to establish new methods with which to enhance shooting accuracy.     

The misdirection of public policy: comparing and combining standardised effect sizes

Increased attention on ‘what works’ in education has led to an emphasis on developing policy from evidence based on comparing and combining a particular statistical summary of intervention studies: the standardised effect size. It is assumed that this statistical summary provides an estimate of the educational impact of interventions and combining these through meta-analyses and meta-meta-analyses results in more precise estimates of this impact which can then be ranked. From these, it is claimed, educational policy decisions can be driven. This paper will demonstrate that these assumptions are false: standardised effect size is open to researcher manipulations which violate the assumptions required for legitimately comparing and combining studies in all but the most restricted circumstances. League tables of types of intervention, which governments point to as an evidence base for effective practice may, instead, be hierarchies of openness to research design manipulations. The paper concludes that public policy and resources are in danger of being misdirected.