Communicative Functions of the Museum Lobby

In a time with a heightened focus on how museum architecture and exhibition design shapes the museum visit, the entrance space of museums, the museum lobby, is remarkably absent from the museum literature and research. Still, the museum lobby is the first encounter visitors have with the museum and the last impression that they take home and share with others. This article analyzes museum lobbies as communication spaces in order to identify the different functions afforded by such spaces. In an explorative study of five Danish museum lobbies, we offer a preliminary categorization of these functions that can be compared at a general level. Concrete examples will be used to discuss general issues such as the adaptive borders of lobby spaces and the counteracting effects of design. We suggest that the preliminary categorization provided here can form a foundation for further studies resulting in practical suggestions for design improvements.     

Ranking economists on the basis of many indicators: An alternative approach using RePEc data

In economics the Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) network has become an essential source for the gathering and the spread of both existing and new economic research. Furthermore, it is currently the largest bibliometric database in economic sciences containing 33 different indicators for more than 30,000 economists. Based on this bibliographic information RePEc calculates well-known rankings for authors and academic institutions. We provide some cautionary remarks concerning the interpretation of some provided bibliometric measures in RePEc. Moreover, we show how individual and aggregated rankings can be biased due to the employed ranking methodology. In order to select key indicators describing and assessing research performance of scientist, we propose to apply principal component analysis in this data-rich environment. This approach allows us to assign weights to each indicator prior to aggregation. We illustrate the approach by providing a new overall ranking of economists based on RePEc data.     

Autonomism: A defence of structural privilege?

Christian Bay will respond to the interchanges by Jan Narveson and Larry Haworth (see pp. 60–75 of this issue) in a forthcoming issue ofInterchange.     

Immediations and rhythms of speculative design: Implications for value in design-based research

This paper presents data from the first six-months of an ongoing speculative design project in which youth and researchers co-created a videogame club, and later an eSports team, in an urban youth centre in Montréal, Québec. It describes how process philosophy informed researchers’ approach to speculative design, allowing youth and researchers to co-compose a sense of value for the club and the potentials for what they could do together through the club. This speculative process is contrasted with structuralist approaches to design-based research in education, which can overly or pre-determine value and mechanisms of social change, with or without the collaboration of youth and communities.     

Does having vulnerable friends help vulnerable youth? The co-evolution of friendships,victimization, and depressive symptoms in Chinese adolescents' social networks

This study examined whether having vulnerable friends helps or hurts victimized and depressed (i.e., vulnerable) adolescents and whether this depends on classroom supportive norms. Students (n = 1461, 46.7% girls, 93.4% Han nationality) were surveyed four times from seventh and eighth grade (M_age = 13 years) in 2015 and 2016 in Central China. Longitudinal social network analyses indicated that having vulnerable friends can both hurt and help vulnerable adolescents. Depressed adolescents with depressed friends increased in victimization over time. Victimized adolescents with victimized friends increased in victimization but decreased in depressive symptoms. These processes were most likely in classrooms with high supportive norms. Having friends and a supportive classroom may hurt vulnerable adolescents' social position but help victims' emotional development.     

Was Kennzeichnet hermeneutische Forschung?

Zun?chst wird über die INterpretation eines antiken Reliefs, der so genannten „sinnenden Athena“, ein Zugang zur Bildungskonfiguration in der klassischen griechischen Antike gesucht. An diesem Beispiel einer historischen Rekonstruktion werden dann fünf Merkmale herausgearbeitet, die hermeneutische Forschung in der P?dagogik kennzeichnen: 1. szientistische Verfahren, 2. Kulturanalysen, 3. ein Methodenverst7;andnis des Anteilnehmens am Forschungsgegenstand, 4. Vertrautsein mit dem Forschungsfeld und 5. Ideologiekrritik.     

Die FHStG-Novelle BGBl I 2007/89 – Fachhochschul-Recht aus trüber Quelle?

Die Novelle BGBl I 2007/89 des FHStG führte zu einigen wesentlichen ?nderungen im Fachhochschul-Studienrecht. Sie brachte einerseits die Etablierung einer Studierendenvertretung im Fachhochschul-Bereich sowie andererseits Vorgaben für die (arbeitsrechtliche) Stellung von Lehrbeauftragten. Im folgenden Beitrag werden diese beiden Neuerungen dargestellt und einer kritischen Betrachtung unterzogen, wobei sich – dies sei vorweggenommen – einige Punkte als durchaus problematisch und daher verbesserungswürdig erweisen.     

“Good” organisational reasons for “ineffectual” research: Evaluating summative evaluation of museums and galleries

New displays, galleries and exhibitions in museums and galleries are increasingly subject to summative evaluations, wide-ranging investigations that examine how visitors respond to and engage with particular initiatives. These evaluations provide insights into the behaviour and attitudes of visitors and the ways in which particular exhibitions, exhibits and information resources facilitate engagement, participation and learning. Unfortunately, however, summative evaluation has relatively little impact either on the particular initiative or more generally in contributing to our knowledge of visitor behaviour and understanding of best practice. In this paper, we suggest that the relative lack of impact of summative evaluation is not primarily due to any methodological shortcomings or the idiosyncrasies of some of the approaches that are used. Rather, the organisational and institutional context in which summative evaluation is commissioned, undertaken and received can impose contradictory demands and undermine the opportunity of learning from and applying the findings of evaluation.     

Deaf and hard-of-hearing adolescents’ experiences of inclusion and exclusion in mainstream and special schools in Sweden

This study examines the question of which school environment – special or mainstream school – is more favourable for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Sweden, when it comes to their well-being, and their social and academic inclusion. The aim is threefold: first to compare the well-being of adolescents who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and have additional disabilities, and who have no disabilities; second to compare the adolescents from the two deaf and hard-of-hearing groups and their experiences of inclusion and exclusion in school; and third to ascertain if any gender differences exist between the two groups of deaf and hard-of-hearing students concerning their experiences of inclusion and exclusion. A total of 7865 adolescents (13–18 years of age) answered a total survey about the life and health of young people in a county in Sweden. The results show that both boys and girls in the hard-of-hearing groups rated their well-being lower and were less satisfied with their lives than pupils without disabilities. They also show that the hard-of-hearing boys and girls attending special school were more satisfied with their lives and to a greater extent felt included both socially and academically than students in mainstream school.     

The effect of individualised sprint training in elite female team sport athletes: A pilot study

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to evaluate whether an individualised sprint-training program was more effective in improving sprint performance in elite team-sport players compared to a generalised sprint-training program. Seventeen elite female handball players (23 ± 3 y, 177 ± 7 cm, 73 ± 6 kg) performed two weekly sprint training sessions over eight weeks in addition to their regular handball practice. An individualised training group (ITG, n = 9) performed a targeted sprint-training program based on their horizontal force-velocity profile from the pre-training test. Within ITG, players displaying the lowest, highest and mid-level force-velocity slope values relative to body mass were assigned to a resisted, an assisted or a mixed sprint-training program (resisted sprinting in the first half and assisted sprinting in the second half of the intervention period), respectively. A control group (CG, n = 8) performed a generalised sprint-training program. Both groups improved 30-m sprint performance by ~1% (small effect) and maximal velocity sprinting by ~2% (moderate effect). Trivial or small effect magnitudes were observed for mechanical outputs related to horizontal force- or power production. All between-group differences were trivial. In conclusion, individualised sprint-training was no more effective in improving sprint performance than a generalised sprint-training program.