Gender Games

This textual analysis focuses on the portrayal of female journalists in House of Cards. The uneven depictions of six female journalists could have a socializing effect on the audience. The researchers argue that the character Zoe Barnes is depicted as childlike, unprofessional, and unethical, while the character Ayla Sayyad is portrayed as a dedicated watchdog journalist. The researchers then explore the ethical implications of these portrayals through the lens of social responsibility theory.     

“Why Aren’t You a Sassy Little Thing”: The Effects of Robot-Enacted Guilt Trips on Credibility and Consensus in a Negotiation

Robots are becoming increasingly popular in social applications and have demonstrated effectiveness in a variety of contexts such as education, health, task management, and other complex cooperative roles. The purpose of this study was to examine human–robot interaction in a nonassistive environment: a negotiation scenario. Specifically, the authors examined what effect message appeals (guilt trip, no guilt trip) and robot agency (principal, agent) had on the negotiation outcomes and perceptions of credibility. Results indicated a significant main effect of agency and an interaction effect between agency and guilt messaging on perceptions of robot credibility such that participants rated a robot agent employing no guilt trips as more credible than one negotiating as principal or one utilizing guilt trips. Neither guilt nor agency had a significant effect on the overall concession of the negotiation task.     

STATE SUPPORT FOR INTERINSTITUTIONAL TRANSFER AND ARTICULATION: THE IMPACT OF DATABASES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Research since the mid-1960s has demonstrated the relative paucity of state support for the transfer function of postsecondary institutions, particularly community colleges, while emphasizing the importance of support for student access to the full range of higher education opportunities. Ewell and Jones (1991) and Russell (1999) however, have documented that the state policy and planning environment for student transfer changed in the 1990s. At least 43 states, plus Puerto Rico, have ongoing student information systems that include data elements pertaining to transfer students and, thus, have the capacity to affect the transfer environment through data-based analysis of transfer student educational outcomes. This article presents the results of a national study of the purpose, structure, and impact of databases and information systems maintained on transfer students by state higher education agencies. The study concluded that, although most states have an increasing ability to collect, manipulate, and use such data to inform the policy process, state higher education agencies generally do not monitor or assess the effectiveness of their databases and information systems to help improve outcomes for transfer students. A major challenge for state higher education agencies and state policy makers is to develop measures and strategies for determining the effect of state and institutional policies on transfer students.     

EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIORAL PROFILE ASSESSMENT USING THE BASC‐2 WITH KOREAN MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS

Korean middle school students are experiencing high rates of behavioral and emotional problems, suggesting a need for comprehensive screening instruments with strong psychometric properties in school settings. The present study investigated the utility of the Behavior Assessment System for Children‐2 Self‐Report of Personality, Adolescent Form (BASC‐2 SRP‐A) to assess clinical problems and adaptive strengths among Korean middle school students. For this revalidation study of the BASC‐2, we first translated the BASC‐2 SRP‐A into Korean (K‐BASC‐2 SRP‐A). Then, using a total of 458 Korean middle school students aged 12 to 15 years, we examined the factor structure and reliability of the clinical, adaptive, and composite scale scores of the K‐BASC‐2 SRP‐A. We also used a separate sample of 45 middle school students to examine the convergent validity of a subset of the K‐BASC‐2 SRP‐A scales targeting the common problem areas of anxiety, depression, and inattention. Based on the current results, we found strong psychometric properties of the K‐BASC‐2 SRP‐A for use among adolescents in Korea, including a well‐fitting factor structure consistent with the originally proposed model, adequate reliability estimates, and validity coefficients falling in the acceptable range. The K‐BASC‐2 SRP‐A can offer the Korean school mental health field a useful and much‐needed multidimensional screening measure for middle school youths.     

Self-Direction, Values and Truth: Towards an Unpostmodern Re-examination

Despite its exalted status in post-war analytical educational philosophy as probably the main aim of liberal education, the basic philosophical psychology of autonomy or self-determination is prey to certain not widely acknowledged conceptual difficulties. In relation to this problem, the present paper explores different conceptions of evaluation and competing liberal and communitarian conceptions of rational choice and decision, to the ultimate end of defending a crucial connection—discerned by many ancient and modern philosophers—between rational self-direction and the possibility of objective knowledge and truth.     

Formative assessment in mathematics for engineering students

In this paper, we present a range of formative assessment types for engineering mathematics, including in-class exercises, homework, mock examination questions, table quizzes, presentations, critical analyses of statistical papers, peer-to-peer teaching, online assessments and electronic voting systems. We provide practical tips for the implementation of such assessments, with a particular focus on time or resource constraints and large class sizes, as well as effective methods of feedback. In addition, we consider the benefits of such formative assessments for students and staff.     

An Aspect of the Infinite: New Zealand Talks

Fresh encounters with Māori treasures first seen by the author at the Metropolitan Museum in 1984 revealed the concentrated power of these objects and the importance of their presence among the beliefs and continuities of their makers’ culture. A masterwork viewed in a museum may evoke a strong and sometimes inarticulate response. We might say the inability to articulate reflects a larger dimension—an aspect of the infinite—residing in the object. Museum objects return us to the human culture and knowledge we carry with us; they stimulate reflective impulses essential to the shared threads of democracy. They allow us to locate ourselves and each other, and our shared horizons.