‘I’m busy (and competitive)!’ Antecedents of knowledge sharing under pressure

This study considers the dilemma faced by employees every time a colleague requests knowledge: should they share their knowledge? We use adaptive cost theory and self-efficacy theory to examine how individual characteristics (i.e., self-efficacy and trait competitiveness) and situational perceptions (i.e., ‘busyness’ and perceived competition) affect knowledge sharing behaviours. A study was conducted with 403 students who completed a problem-solving exercise and who were permitted (but not required) to respond to requests for knowledge from people who were doing the same activity. Our results suggest that people who perceive significant time pressure are less likely to share knowledge. Trait competitiveness predicted perceived competition. This and low task self-efficacy created a sense of time pressure, which in turn led to people feeling ‘too busy’ to share their knowledge when it was requested. Perceived competition was not directly related to knowledge sharing. Implications for research and practitioners are discussed.     

Building literacy in alphabetic, abjad and morphosyllabic systems

Preschoolers?? metalinguistic and visual capabilities may be associated with the writing system of their culture. We examined patterns of performance in phonological awareness, naming of letters, morphological awareness, and visual-spatial relations, in 5-year-old native speakers of Spanish (n?=?43), Hebrew (n?=?40), and Cantonese (n?=?63) and the relations of these literacy related skills to concurrent word writing and word reading. The writing systems in these languages represent three major categories, i.e., alphabetic (Spanish), abjad (Hebrew), and morphosyllabic (Chinese). Phonological awareness, letter naming, and perception of visual-spatial relations differed across groups, whereas morphological awareness showed a similar level of attainment in all three languages. Stepwise regression analyses explaining writing and reading for each language separately revealed both commonalities and differences between languages. Phonological awareness assessed by initial syllable deletion contributed to writing and to reading in Cantonese and in Spanish. Phonological awareness assessed by final phoneme isolation explained reading in Hebrew, whereas final and initial phoneme isolation explained writing in Hebrew. Letter naming predicted both writing and reading in Spanish and in Hebrew, while perception of visual-spatial relations did so in Cantonese. At age 5, children??s metalinguistic knowledge and visual discrimination abilities are already attuned to the particular features of the writing system to which they are exposed.     

Investigating the effectiveness of computer simulations for chemistry learning

Are well‐designed computer simulations an effective tool to support student understanding of complex concepts in chemistry when integrated into high school science classrooms? We investigated scaling up the use of a sequence of simulations of kinetic molecular theory and associated topics of diffusion, gas laws, and phase change, which we designed and experimentally tested. In the two effectiveness studies reported, one in a rural and the other in an urban context, chemistry teachers implemented two alternate versions of a curricular unit—an experimental version, incorporating simulations, and a control version, using text‐based materials covering the same content. Participants were 718 high school students (357 rural and 361 urban), in a total of 25 classrooms. The implementation of the simulations was explored using criteria associated with fidelity of implementation (FOI). Each context provided insights into the role of FOI in affecting the effectiveness of the interventions when working with groups of teachers. Results supported the effectiveness of this sequence of simulations as a teaching tool in a classroom context, and confirmed the importance of FOI factors such as adherence and exposure in determining the specific environments in which these materials were most effective. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 394–419, 2012     

Association for Counselor Education and Supervision Guidelines for Research Mentorship: Development and Implementation

The authors describe guidelines endorsed by the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision for research mentorship, including characteristics of mentors and mentees. Suggestions for implementing the guidelines at the individual, program, institution, and professional levels are focused on enhancing mentoring relationships as well as mentees’ research quality and productivity. Research on research mentoring, based on the guidelines, is encouraged.     

Teacher Access and Mentoring Abilities: Predicting the Outcome Value of Extra Class Communication

Reasoning from Sunnafrank's theory of predicted outcome value (POV), this investigation examined how students' assessments of their teachers' accessibility and mentoring abilities influenced their perceptions of the predicted value of engaging in extra class communication (ECC). Student perceptions of teacher physical and social accessibility, along with teacher mentoring abilities (including career, course, and psychosocial), were all substantially and positively related to students' ratings of the POV of ECC. However, only social accessibility, course mentoring, and career mentoring emerged as significant predictors of POV in the regression model. These findings validate POV theory by confirming that students readily assess what they have to gain (or lose) from potential ECC encounters based on what their teachers can offer them. These findings are discussed with regard to understanding how students may be motivated to realize the benefits of ECC.     

Creating partnerships for generative learning and systemic change: Redefining academic roles and relationships in support of learning

The adoption of information and communications technologies (ICT) is a catalyst for innovation and evaluation of teaching, and are driving many tertiary institutions towards a reconsideration of the nature of quality learning. While the technology of online delivery receives most attention, it is arguably the management of teaching and learning that requires new approaches. Universities which have been engaged in traditional forms of distance education are considering how best to integrate communications technologies that offer alternative forms of course delivery, communication, flexible pedagogies and new roles for teachers and learners. Institutional change issues are also linked to ICT adoption: developing students' generic skills, fostering lifelong learning and catering for greater flexibility in delivery of educational services is now core business in tertiary institutions across Australia. This paper argues that such changes require tertiary teaching staff to adopt a different mindset, that of facilitating and supporting learning while assuming new roles as managers, motivators, mentors and mediators of learning. The rationale for each of these roles within Web-based learning environments is presented within a constructivist framework, which affirms and extends good teaching practice. In addition to highlighting aspects of teaching and learning that are supported and transformed by constructivist, Web-based delivery, this paper proposes that professional development is essentially about establishing partnerships for renewal of teaching values, and that staff developers need to learn the craft of supporting change at various levels: at the individual level, at the course and unit level and at the institutional level through systemic contextualized affirmation of constructivist values. Professional development for adoption of Web-based teaching requires multi-dimensional thinking. Rather than acting as a driver of top-down change, effective staff development is participatory and supportive, seeking action research partnerships where more profound changes in teacher conceptions of learning must take place before online pedagogies become part of tertiary teaching culture.     

The deviant university student: historical discourses about student failure and ‘wastage’ in the antipodes

The emergence of academic development in Anglophone higher education was linked to post Second World War massification and concerns about student failure. These concerns were driven by increasing statistical investigations into student attrition and degree times to completion, particularly in Australia and Aotearoa, New Zealand. There was a dominant discourse about student ‘wastage’ (the deviant student). However, if we fast-forward to the late 2000s, we can see that these discourses have been replaced by discourses about university responsibility and teaching quality. Drawing on Foucauldian discourse analysis, this paper aims to trace the historical roots of contemporary teaching and learning dilemmas and to show how the responsibility for student failure was gradually shifted from perceptions of deviant students to perceptions of teacher ‘deviance’, which academic development units were designed to ameliorate.     

Will that be one mentor or two? A cross‐sectional study of women's mentoring during college

Three teacher educators formed a new teacher support group for three novices whom we had prepared, in order to help them deal with challenges and uncertainties of the first year of teaching. Using narrative inquiry, we collected the novice teachers' stories by composing field texts, using audiotaped interview data, classroom observations, bi-monthly journal entries, and participant personal narratives as data sources. Common patterns across the data stories included induction into the isolation of teaching, interest in NOT abandoning university teacher preparation, and the need to learn from mentoring. The implications provide discussion of the educative role of teacher support groups in learning to teach, and university involvement in learning to teach during the induction years.