Educating women about HIV/AIDS: some international comparisons

This paper describes current trends in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It looks at issues and strategies involved in educating women about HIV/AIDS in the context of the global pandemic, focusing particularly on Canada and Vietnam. These strategies are essential steps in preventing the spread of HIV and in caring for those who have already developed AIDS. The strategies identified include the formulation of public policy within Canada, Vietnam, and the UK which would strive to eliminate inequality and discrimination, while at the same time positioning HIV/AIDS education within a gender‐sensitive perspective. Other educational strategies include teaching women how to practise negotiated safety while understanding the power dynamics within which safer sex must occur, being sensitive to local cultures and moving away from individualistic programmes towards programmes that focus on structural inequalities.     

Cultural Studies Meets Rights Criticism

I would like to use this occasion to ask how thinking about law and human rights would affect the way we do cultural studies, and vice versa. The truth is that the consideration of the effectivity of many different kinds of political mobilizations around issues of rights, from transnational NGOs’ strategies of anti-imperial politics to UN's education to rethink critical legal methods and practices, have not been seriously charted or assessed in cultural studies. I use this occasion to offer a rough outline of a long-term project that tries to look at the intersections of cultural studies, law, and questions of modernity.     

Cheating in e-exams and paper exams: the perceptions of engineering students and teachers in Norway

Abstract

A concern that has been raised with the transition from pen and paper examinations to electronic examinations is whether this will make cheating easier. This article investigates how teachers and students perceive the differences in ease of cheating during three types of written examination: paper exams, bring your own device e-exams and e-exams using university-owned devices. It also investigates perceptions about the effectiveness of some typical countermeasures towards cheating across these examination types. A mixed-method approach was used, combining questionnaires and interviews with students and teachers in the authors’ own university. A total of 212 students and 162 teachers participated in the questionnaire survey, and then, a more limited number were interviewed to get a deeper understanding of the results. Six-different cheating practices were considered – impersonation, forbidden aids, peeking, peer collaboration, outside assistance and student–staff collusion and seven different countermeasures were considered – proctors, biometry, mingling, shuffling, random drawing, sequencing and broadcasting. Both students and teachers perceived cheating as easier with e-exams, and especially with bring your own device. They also thought some countermeasures would be easier to implement with e-exams.     

An experiment in learning algebra with an intelligent learning environment

This paper presents a new prototype of an intelligent learning environment and the results of an experiment in learning by problem solving. Forty-six French secondary school students solved problems of polynomial factorization by interacting with the learning environment during four forty-five-minute sessions. The intelligent learning environment is a new version of the APLUSIX system, called APLUSIX/M0-V2, that has been implemented on a Macintosh computer. This system checks the validity of the actions a student wants to perform, tells the student why a query is invalid, does the calculations for the student, and gives advice if asked for help. The objective of the learning experiment was to enable students to acquire (i) knowledge in matching formal rules of transformation with a given expression; and (ii) heuristics of choice between possible transformations. The results confirmed the existence of several different levels of matching knowledge as well as several different student learning paths in the acquisition of matching knowledge. Heuristics appeared to be fairly easily learned with the APLUSIX learning environment.     

Evaluating the Benefits and Values of Textbooks: Perceptions of Vietnamese Business Students

This study aims to examine students’ perceived benefits and values of textbooks, with a specific focus on emerging markets. A paper-based survey was used to collect data from 459 Vietnamese students in three business disciplines including accounting, international business and marketing. The findings reveal that Vietnamese business students view textbooks as having greater short-term benefits than long-term ones. They also believe that textbooks have relatively low economic value. Interestingly, marketing students perceive that textbooks provide primarily benefits of improving class performance, while accounting students tend to view textbooks to have benefits of clearer understanding of relevant concepts. Implications for key stakeholders in the higher education book publishing industry are discussed and future research directions presented.     

Interpreting Reading Comprehension Test Results: Quantile Regression Shows that Explanatory Factors Can Vary with Performance Level

One of the most important findings to emerge from recent reading comprehension research is that there are large differences between tests in what they assess—specifically, the extent to which performance depends on word recognition versus listening comprehension skills. Because this research used ordinary least squares regression, it is not clear that the findings apply similarly to poor and good readers. The current study uses quantile regression to assess whether there might be differences within tests in the relative contributions of component skills as a function of performance level. There were 834 individuals (ages 8–18) who took 5 reading comprehension tests. Quantile regression showed that, for 3 of 5 tests, the contributions of word recognition and listening comprehension vary as a function of reading comprehension skill. These quantile differences hold across both younger and older readers. Our findings show that what skills a test assesses vary not only with the specific test used but also with how well the person performs.     

Adult learners’ social connectedness and online participation: the importance of online interaction quality

ABSTRACT

Online interaction has been associated with positive outcomes, academically and psychologically. Regarding the latter, social connectedness has been recognised as an important outcome on the basis of its link to subjective well-being and course satisfaction. In adult educational settings, how online interaction can foster social connectedness has not been widely examined. The study investigates how (1) adult learners’ online participation operationalised as discussion contribution, collaborative facilitation, and social interaction, and (2) their perceived online interaction quality are related to their feeling of social connectedness. The role of online interaction quality related to the three types of online participation and social connectedness is also examined. A questionnaire was developed to collect data from adult learner participants in Belgium (N?=?170). Multiple regressions and mediation analysis were conducted. The result shows that collaborative facilitation and online interaction quality significantly contribute to adult learners’ perceptions of social connectedness. Furthermore, the finding reveals that online interaction quality fully mediates the relationship between discussion contribution, social interaction, and social connectedness. Thus, the implications for research and instructional design are discussed.     

Information literacy instruction in four Vietnamese university libraries

This case study explored the perceptions of academic stakeholders about the development and delivery of information literacy (IL) programs in four universities, and identified elements necessary to establishing IL credit courses in Vietnamese higher education. The following research questions framed this study: 1) How do library administrators, instruction librarians, and faculty perceive the current implementation of information literacy instruction (ILI) programs for undergraduates studies in universities libraries in Vietnam? 2) What are the challenges to including IL as a credit course in the curriculum as perceived by library administrators, instruction librarians, and faculty? Respondents were purposefully recruited from four universities, including library administrators, instruction librarians, and faculty. Three online surveys were distributed to 537 individuals through Survey Monkey with 149 replies and a final receipt of 133 completed surveys. Interview and focus group data collection included 23 face-to-face interviews and nine focus groups. Findings showed IL is considered the domain of librarians and has not influenced Vietnamese campus culture. IL activities at four university libraries take the form of lectures, workshops, and basic IL skills modules. Few ILI activities are subject discipline-related. Respondents reported challenges to an ILI credit course revolve around the lasting impact of teacher-centered instruction and rote learning, misperceptions about the effect of IL on student learning outcomes, degree of support of IL by academic stakeholders, degree of faculty–librarian collaboration, and scarcity of resources. Recommendations are given for academic librarians in Vietnam implementing ILI programs and considering developing IL credit courses.     

In‐house peer supported literature search training: a public health perspective

Public Health England plays a vital role in ensuring the health of the nation. The Knowledge and Library Service (KLS) is a key part of the organisation's evidence supply chain. KLS staff handle over 200 requests for literature searches per annum, and this number is increasing exponentially year on year. Searches are often complex and require specialist public health knowledge to complete effectively. Library staff who are new to the area of public health require support and training. In this article, Anh Tran, Knowledge and Evidence Specialist for Public Health England, discusses a peer supported literature search training course that has been developed in‐house for the benefit of new library staff, and to increase the Knowledge and Library Service's literature searching capacity at Public Health England. H. S.