Evaluating faculty performance under the equal pay for equal work doctrine

The issue of sex discrimination in faculty employment has become a prominent legal and political concern, necessitating the development of objective empirical methods to determine the existence of patterns of discriminatory treatment. In this study, regression techniques are employed to apply the equal pay for equal work interpretation of the fair employment doctrine. Specifically, faculty promotion and salary policies at the University of Texas at Austin are analyzed to determine whether male and female faculty members are rewarded equally for equal academic qualifications and performances. This regression analysis tends to support the discrimination hypothesis with respect to both promotion and salary policies.     

The struggle for language: perspectives and practices of urban parents with children who are deaf or hard of hearing

Research is scarce on young children with hearing impairments growing up in urban environments. A qualitative study was used to explore and describe the perspectives and practices of these children's parents. An ethnographic approach enabled documentation of parents' routines, daily activities, thoughts (perceptions), and behaviors (practices). In-depth interviews and observations were the primary data sources. Data collection occurred within a 6-month period. Research questions focused on efforts parents make independently and with others (e.g., educational staff, family members) to facilitate and support their child's efforts to communicate and acquire language. Nine parents, two grandparents, and six staff members disclosed their perspectives and practices. While similarities and differences arose, universal perspectives and practices emerged among the parents that are discussed as prevailing themes. Results suggest that the parents' struggle, systemic barriers, and the urban environment are the greatest challenges facing families. Addressing these challenges will contribute to establishment of truly equitable and effective interventions for urban children, whether deaf or hard of hearing, their parents, and other family members.     

Stray the course: Technology's impact upon the representative‐elector artifact

Rhetorical critics usually understand political communication as messages in terms of speeches, campaign strategies, and voter behavior. By focusing upon messages, critics have failed to understand political communication as structurally formative of communication. A new methodology is proposed which conceives of rhetorical artifacts as enhancements of political communication. American congressional elections are presented as the artifact to be analyzed from the new perspective. Because the proposed methodology treats congressional elections as a structural genre, the contemporary, technological impact of electronic media can be criticized and compared to the artifact originally invented by the founders; the course they set has been strayed. Implications for political communication and its research conclude that we face what Habermas would call a “legitimation crisis.”;     

On the Subjective Representation of Statistical Problems

Montgomery, H. & Allwood, C. M. On the Subjective Representation of Statistical Problems. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 22, 107‐127. Think aloud data from 19 subjects solving three statistical problems are reported. The data indicated that the problem solving process could often be regarded as a successive development of the problem formulation where each formulation tended to be on the same or on a higher qualitative level than the preceding formulation. Good problem solvers were found to differ from the poor solvers inasmuch as they (a) more often made an exhaustive definition of an essential concept mentioned in the problem, or (b) appeared to attend more to what was asked for in the problem. It was tentatively concluded that some of the erroneous problem solutions were due to a pure lack of reflection on how the solution of the problem should be related to the information asked for in the problem. For a problem, which was formulated in a seemingly ambiguous way, subjects’ knowledge of the underlying statistical model was positively related to the correctness of their problem interpretation.