Assessment of situated orality: the role of reflection and revision in appropriation and transformation of research ethos

In this study, we aim to investigate how students on a cross-disciplinary postgraduate course in research communication describe the formative peer feedback they have received on their oral presentations and what impact they report it has had on their performance. The study is based on a qualitative analysis of 36 transcribed video recordings from the course. Our findings show that the students, through their reflections and revisions, clearly demonstrate to have appropriated and, in some cases, also transformed the course content: they were able to select parts of the feedback relevant to their development and redefine some of the concepts to suit rhetorical situations. Surprisingly, feedback on deficits in student presentations resulted both in reflection and revision, while affirmatory feedback resulted, if at all, in reflection only. These results may help develop effective educational tools for assessment of oral performances in higher education.     

The play's the thing: Theater professionals make sense of Shakespeare

This study examines how theater professionals (actors, directors and others) make sense of the works of a culturally iconic author (William Shakespeare). The research aims to address critique of the information studies/science field's excessive focus on active information seeking and searching by developing an alternative approach, and to understand sense-making as more than the problem-solving behavior of individuals: to see it as an embodied, social process, involving emotion as well as rationality. In doing so it draws on theoretical approaches from a range of different disciplines and traditions, including Dervin's sense-making, Foucault's discourse analysis and Derrida's deconstructionism.     

A critical review of education support practices in Spain

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study is to analyse different models of educational support that are used in schools with public funding from the perspective of support teachers, counsellors and members of management teams. Participants were 79 professionals from the three areas mentioned above. The methodological approach was a phenomenological qualitative one using focus groups and subsequent qualitative analysis of the data. The systems of categories and subcategories underwent a progressive process of triangulation. The results show that professionals identify support practices that can be divided into two differentiated models: a traditional model linked to a medical perspective of providing personal support to the most vulnerable students and a support model consistent with inclusive education. There are also discrepancies among professionals, especially about the need for support to be provided within the reference classroom. The discussion focuses on identifying essential aspects, to more effectively support students and teachers in an ordinary school context. In addition, professionals question the regulations for their disconnection from the reality they experience in schools. All this requires a rethinking of the functions of support teachers supported by careful initial and ongoing training.     

Interdisciplinary Synergy: A Partnership Between Business and Library Faculty and Its Effects on Students’ Information Literacy

In today's information-rich environment, business faculty are challenged to teach students how to conduct effective business research and evaluate information critically. We describe collaboration between business professors and reference librarians in an introductory business course. Students were surveyed before and after completion of a Business Discovery Project requiring use of print and electronic sources in writing a research paper on a publicly traded company. Student perceptions indicated increased abilities in communication skills, research skills, use of business information sources, and composition skills; paired t tests showed these increases to be significant.     

把家变成游乐场

沙发是一个可以让飞船停靠的新星球,转椅是一只等待被驯服的长颈鹿,收纳可以变成一场藏宝游戏——准备好一切．让家变成游乐场．让孩子尽情又安心地玩耍吧!     

Implementing and managing legal deposit in South Africa: Challenges and recommendations

This article discusses an investigation which was undertaken on behalf of the Legal Deposit Committee into the state of legal deposit in South Africa. Legal deposit cannot be successfully implemented in a country without the positive and committed participation of publishers and legal deposit institutions. The main aim of the study was therefore to investigate how the attitudes, opinions and behaviours of these core role players affect the depositing of material subject to legal deposit. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with selected groups or individuals representing the publisher populations. Similar interviews were conducted with representatives of the five legal deposit libraries. As no studies have been done in South Africa to determine the state of compliance with legal deposit requirements in the country, a smaller investigation in the form of a feasibility study was undertaken with the aim of obtaining figures that reflect the levels of compliance over a specific time period. Based on the results obtained from these investigations, suggestions and recommendations for improved procedures and methods for monitoring and managing legal deposit in the future were provided. Although this study is specific to the South African situation at the present time, the methods employed and suggestions provided may have a wider scope for implementation than in this country only. Other countries on the African continent, for example, could use the methods and suggestions of this study, or adaptations thereof, for their own purposes.