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Patronizing young and elderly adults: Response strategies in a community setting

Within the context of an elaborated model of the communication predicament of aging, the effects of particular response strategies to patronizing, intergenerational talk were investigated with written vignettes depicting a community situation. Young adults (N = 222) evaluated a patronizing speaker more negatively than a non‐patronizing speaker, and they also judged both conversational partners to be more satisfied when patronizing speech was absent. As compared to cooperative responses, assertive responses from the patronizee led to evaluations that she was higher status, more controlling, less nurturing, and less satisfied. Patronizing individuals receiving an assertive response were evaluated as less in control and satisfied than when they received a cooperative response.     

Public Libraries as Rhetorical Devices: Reimagining Print,Dewey, and Memory as Invention in the Digital Age

This article frames the public library and its system of organization as rhetorical tools. By providing an historic overview of libraries and their formation, the author recognizes the severed connection between library systems and the field of rhetoric, specifically the rhetorical canon of memoria. He seeks to reconnect memoria to the public library by recognizing the place-based nature of both classical memoria and library classification systems. The implications, he contends, run deep in libraries as seemingly neutral entities shape collective memory and education. Finally, the author provides a section that focuses on how digital-age libraries could be shaped, maintained, and managed in a way that recognizes memory as a rhetorical tool that aids in knowledge formation.     

Skunks in the Library: A Path to Production for Scholarly R&D

ABSTRACT

Library-based digital humanities “skunkworks” are semi-independent research-and-development labs staffed with librarians who act as scholar-practitioners. Their creation is an uncommon, yet uncommonly potent, organizational response to opportunities opened up by digital scholarship. This article describes the Scholars’ Lab at the University of Virginia Library and asserts a critical role for library-embedded digital centers in forging new paths for knowledge work in the humanities.     

Collaboration Between the University of Michigan Taubman Health Sciences Library and the University of Michigan Medical School Office of Research

Librarians have traditionally facilitated research development resulting in grants through performing biomedical literature searches for researchers. The librarians at the Taubman Health Sciences Library of the University of Michigan have taken additional steps forward by instituting a proactive approach to assisting investigators. To accomplish this, the librarians have taken part in a collaborative effort with the University of Michigan Medical School Office of Research. Through this partnership, both units have created and adopted various techniques intended to facilitate the submission of grants, thus allowing researchers more time to conduct their primary activities.     

The contributions of parental management language to executive function in preschool children

This study investigated relations between preschoolers’ emergent executive function skills and their interactions with parents, with particular focus on the verbal utterances parents use to guide children's behavior (i.e., management language). Parent–child dyads (n = 127) were videotaped during a structured play task and the frequency of two types of management language, Direction (high control) and Suggestion (low control), was observed. Children's executive function was assessed using the Head–Toes–Knees–Shoulders (HTKS) task. Latent growth modeling was used to investigate relations between management language and the development of children's executive function. Direction language (i.e., commands) was negatively associated with children's age three executive function but not significantly related to the rate of executive function development over time. Conversely, Suggestion language (i.e., questions and statements that offer children some degree of choice) was positively related to executive function at age three but negatively related to growth. The potential importance of management language as a parenting behavior that contributes to various aspects of children's self-regulation during preschool and kindergarten is discussed.     

Understanding MOOCs as an Emerging Online Learning Tool: Perspectives From the Students

This study examined participants’ learning experiences in the context of a six-week massive open online course (MOOC) in journalism with five thousand students from 137 countries. Three research questions were asked: (1) Who are the students and why are they enrolled in this MOOC?, (2) How much time have the students spent in taking this MOOC and have they completed all the assignments?, and, (3) What have they learned and what aspects of this MOOC do the students find most helpful? Four hundred and nine students responded to a survey and forty-four responded to interview questions. The main findings showed 84% of the participants were working professionals and only 28.9% were from a journalism background. Of those who did not complete the course, lack of time was the top reason. Most participants reported a positive learning experience, but lack of feedback and/or poor quality were reported as negative experiences. The discussion forum was the least liked aspect of the course.     

Development and Large-Scale Validation of an Instrument to Assess Arabic-Speaking Students' Attitudes Toward Science

This study is part of a large-scale project focused on ‘Qatari students' Interest in, and Attitudes toward, Science’ (QIAS). QIAS aimed to gauge Qatari student attitudes toward science in grades 3–12, examine factors that impact these attitudes, and assess the relationship between student attitudes and prevailing modes of science teaching in Qatari schools. This report details the development and validation of the ‘Arabic-Speaking Students' Attitudes toward Science Survey’ (ASSASS), which was specifically developed for the purposes of the QIAS project. The theories of reasoned action and planned behavior (TRAPB) [Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (2005). The influence of attitudes on behavior. In D. Albarracín, B. T. Johnson, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), The handbook of attitudes (pp. 173–221). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum] guided the instrument development. Development and validation of the ASSASS proceeded in 3 phases. First, a 10-member expert panel examined an initial pool of 74 items, which were revised and consolidated into a 60-item version of the instrument. This version was piloted with 369 Qatari students from the target schools and grade levels. Analyses of pilot data resulted in a refined version of the ASSASS, which was administered to a national probability sample of 3027 participants representing all students enrolled in grades 3–12 in the various types of schools in Qatar. Of the latter, 1978 students completed the Arabic version of the instrument. Analyses supported a robust, 5-factor model for the instrument, which is consistent with the TRAPB framework. The factors were: Attitudes toward science and school science, unfavorable outlook on science, control beliefs about ability in science, behavioral beliefs about the consequences of engaging with science, and intentions to pursue science.     

The Multi-Sensory-Motor Method of Teaching Reading

Despite repeated warnings against its usage, researchers and textbook authors continue to employ the phrase “level of confidence” as a synonym for the phrase “level of significance.” Three possible sources of this incorrect usage are noted: (a) imitation; (b) the related but different concepts of fiducial inference and confidence interval estimation; and (c) the myriad of terms associated with confidence. It is recommended that the magnitude of level of confidence be restricted to that of the complement of the level of significance and also that the term level of confidence should be used only in connection with interval estimation.     

New books in review

BULWER AND MACREADY: A CHRONICLE OF THE EARLY VICTORIAN THEATRE. Edited by Charles H. Shattuck. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958; pp vii+278. $5.75.

THE KABUKI THEATRE. By Earle Ernst. New York: Grove Press, 1959; pp. xxiii+296. With 58 half‐tone illustrations. Paper $2.45.

JAPANESE THEATRE. By Faubion Bowers. New York: Hill and Wang, 1959; pp. xxi+294. Paper $2.25.

DIRECTING THE PLAY: FROM SELECTION TO OPENING NIGHT. John Wray Young. New York: Harper, 1958; pp. xiv+171. $3.50.

THE ANATOMY OF AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE, 1840–1861. By Carl Bode. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959; pp. xxii+292. $6.00.

ERNESTINE ROSE AND THE BATTLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS. By Yuri Suhl. New York: Reynal, 1959; pp. x+310. $5.75.

“SUNSET”; COX: IRREPRESSIBLE DEMOCRAT. By David Lindsey. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1959; pp. xx+323. $5.00.

ROAD OF PROPAGANDA: THE SEMANTICS OF BIASED COMMUNICATION. By Karin Dovring. Introduction by Harold D. Lass‐well. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959; pp. 158. $4.75.

PERSONALITY AND PERSUASIBILITY. By Irving L. Janis, Carl I. Hovlund, and others. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959; xiv+333. $5.00.

FALLACY: THE COUNTERFEIT OF ARGUMENT. By W. Ward Fearnside and William B. Holther. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice‐Hall, 1959; pp. vi+218. Paper $1.95.

TEACHING: A PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS. By C. M. Fleming. New York: John Wiley, 1958; pp. xiii+291. $5.00.

THEORY AND TECHNIQUE OF INTERPRETATION. By Martin Cobin. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice‐Hall, 1959; pp. xii+256. $4.50.

CREATIVE DISCUSSION. By Rupert L. Cort‐right and George L. Hinds. New York: Macmillan, 1959; pp. xii+303. $4.50.

REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN SPEECHES: 1958–1959. The Reference Shelf, Vol. 31, No. 3. Edited by A. Craig Baird. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1959; pp. 195. $2.50.