Teenagers' Use of MSN Features,Discussion Topics,and Online Friendship Development: The Impact of Media Richness and Communication Control

With a sample of 248 Hong Kong adolescents, this study probed the impact of media richness and communication control on teenagers' use of MSN® for online friendship development. Both media richness and communication control contributed to MSN's overall functionality and teenagers' self-presentation and friendship development. Media richness positively influenced both social and task communications and shortened the time needed to turn a stranger to friend, whereas communication control showed a positive relationship to social friendship communication. Rich features, such as webcam and MSN Spaces, facilitated the increase of acquaintances, new friends, opposite-sex friends, and total number of friends, whereas messaging helped build close friendships. Overall, media richness and communication control appeared to be valid constructs in explaining teenagers' MSN feature use and online friendship development.     

Latino expectations of communicative competence: A focus group interview study

Drawing on Martin, Hammer, and Bradford's (1994) work on intercultural communicative competence, this investigation explored Latino expectations of communicative competence using focus group interviews. Like the Martin et al. (1994) study, communicative competence was examined in four contexts — intracultural‐social, intracultural‐task, intercultural‐social, and intercultural‐task. Results indicated overall support for seven of Martin et al.’s (1994) eight behavioral categories. Data from focus group interviews in this study suggested an additional competence category specific to task contexts as well as some emic behaviors not identified in the Martin et al. (1994) investigation.     

Separated at birth: the shared lineage of research on conceptual change and persuasion

Among the aims of education is the endeavor to bring students closer to an understanding of the world-at-large. Although pedagogical methods vary, educators would certainly agree that changing students’ knowledge and beliefs is among the end-goals of successful education (Murphy, 1998, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of Maryland, College of Education, College Park, MD). In the educational research literature, this “coming to know” has been referred to as conceptual change, and more recently there has been a resurgence of interest in “coming to believe” most often referred to as persuasion. Given that many researchers have defined belief as a form of knowledge, the delineating features of these two constructs are somewhat opaque. This present work closely examines these two constructs by identifying theoretical forbears of conceptual change and persuasion theory in the domains of philosophy and psychology with the intent of tracing their influence on educational research and practice.     

Relative Endurance of High- and Low-Strength Women

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the relative endurance ability of women in terms of muscle mass, static muscle strength, and critical occluding tension levels (COTL). Women physical education majors volunteered as subjects for this study (N = 56). The percentages of grip strength used for the relative endurance tests were 30%, 45%, 60%, and 75% with local circulation to the forearm muscles intact and artificially occluded by a pressure cuff. Analysis of the data revealed that there was no significant difference in the endurance times of high- and low-strength women. The relationship between grip strength and relative endurance time for each tension level was insignificant (r = ?.23 to ?.34). These findings were discussed in light of the relatively small differences in muscle mass and similarity in COTL of high- and low-strength women.     

What's Coming Off the Shelves? A Reference Use Study Analyzing Print Reference Sources Used in a University Library

To what extent is the print reference collection being used? Use of the print collection at a small private university was tracked for a four-month period. The results suggest that the reference collection is too big and underused.     

Civic Knowledge,Engagement, and Participation Narratives of Youth of Color in Urban Schools

The issues associated with students’ civic knowledge, engagement, and participation have been heightened in intellectual debates and public discussions. However, these discussions have not focused heavily on urban youths’ civic identities or the locations of these identities within the youths’ personal narratives of ethnicity, race, class, and gender. This article presents the narratives of four urban high school youths of color, selected from a larger study about youths’ experiences in school and society and the ways in which classroom learning encouraged their inquiry, assessment of their social worlds and personal goals, and emerging personal and civic identities. Our purpose was to gain insights regarding the youths’ sociopolitical perspectives on local educational and social issues affecting them and to understand their multiple literacies in the context of their civic engagement, increasing youth advocacy, and larger political tensions. The theoretical framing of this investigation is grounded in democratic education and sociopolitical consciousness and draws upon research that focuses on civic participation and democratic society. Four dominant themes emerged from the analysis: educational inequality, social media, schooling, and race and mass incarceration. This article contributes to an expansive framing for civic education by examining the civic knowledge of urban youths of color and offers implications for research, practice, and policy.     

Content-driven Faculty Development in Community College Early Childhood Education Programs

Community colleges are key providers of early childhood teacher and paraprofessional education, and their programs include content knowledge that helps future educators work effectively with young children with and without disabilities in inclusive environments. In this article, we describe the Advancing Community College Efforts in Paraprofessional Training (ACCEPT) Project, a multi-year collaboration to infuse special education content into four North Carolina early childhood workforce education associate degree programs. The goals of the project included creating a climate that fostered and encouraged ongoing community college and university faculty collaboration around the planning, delivery, and assessment of special education content infused within multiple early childhood program courses. Project objectives are presented within the framework employed by Murray (1995, 1998, 1999, 2000) that includes climate, structure, connections with rewards, faculty ownership, colleague support, and perceived value by administrators. Implications for practice include the importance of content, project standards, and faculty ownership.     

Outdoor play in early childhood education settings: Is it safe and healthy for children?

Outdoor play is an important and integral part of a high-quality early childhood education curriculum. Outdoor play environments should have equipment that is safe and developmentally appropriate for the children served. The appropriate adult-child ratio should be maintained to prevent unnecessary accidents as well as provide the interaction needed to assist children in developing outdoor physical, social, and language skills. Each facility should have teachers with up-to-date CPR and first-aid training to take care of emergency situations.