Auditors of the managerial university: neo‐liberal business advisers or paternal controllers?

Universities are increasingly being seen as commercial enterprises, and are represented as particular types of business entities in manuals provided to university managers. Critical discourse analysis is employed in this paper to construct an analytical framework for the study of managerial advice, which is then used to examine the manual provided to Australian universities for the conduct of institutional audit by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). Institutions are represented as businesses, but contrary to the rhetoric of universities being colonised by ‘new managerialism’, the manual constructs institutions more as localised and constrained businesses than globally networked entities.     

Supporting ‘Best Research for Best Health’ with best information

Background: This article describes the potential role for National Health Service (NHS) libraries in supporting health research. The content is partly based on the proceedings of the ‘Best Information for Best Research for Best Health’ event at University of Leicester in November 2006. Objectives: With reference to the UK Department of Health's Research and Development (R&D) strategy, Best Research for Best Health and the Cooksey Review of public funding of health research, the article seeks to identify areas where NHS library and information staff can become involved in supporting the research process. Methods: The authors examined the challenges and opportunities that these reports offer and looked at two areas where library and information services (LIS) staff can potentially expand their services‐supporting researchers at every stage of the research process and transferring research into practice. Results: Staff in NHS libraries need to create an environment in which their role in the research process is recognized and valued. LIS staff can develop roles within the research process and thereby improve the robustness and validity of research outputs. Training and development of LIS staff is a key priority and can be taken forward despite the limitations of budgets and staffing levels. Conclusions: A proactive and assertive approach is needed to achieve a cultural shift within NHS library practice from supporting research from the outside, to being fully integrated within the research process.     

Ramadan fasting and the goals of sports nutrition around exercise

Ramadan fasting, involving abstinence from fluid and food from sunrise to sundown, results in prolonged periods without nutrient intake and inflexibility with the timing of eating and drinking over the day. Dietary choices may also change due to special eating rituals. Although nutrition guidelines are specific to the sport, to the periodized training and competition calendar, and to the individual, many promote the consumption of carbohydrate and fluid before and during exercise, and consumption of protein, carbohydrate, and fluids soon after the session is completed. Failing to meet overall nutritional needs, or to provide specific nutritional support to a session of exercise, is likely to impair acute performance and reduce the effectiveness of training or recovery. Muslim athletes who fast during Ramadan should use overnight opportunities to consume foods and drinks that can supply the nutrients needed to promote performance, adaptation, and recovery in their sports. Because of the benefits of being able to consume at least some of these nutrients before, during or after an exercise session, the schedule of exercise should be shifted where possible to the beginning or end of the day, or during the evening when some nutritional support can be provided.     

Informed learning: A pedagogical construct attending simultaneously to information use and learning

The idea of informed learning, applicable in academic, workplace and community settings, has been derived largely from a program of phenomenographic research in the field of information literacy, which has illuminated the experience of using information to learn. Informed learning is about simultaneous attention to information use and learning, where both information and learning are considered to be relational; and is built upon a series of key concepts such as second-order perspective, simultaneity, awareness, and relationality. Informed learning also relies heavily on reflection as a strategy for bringing about learning. As a pedagogical construct, informed learning supports inclusive curriculum design and implementation. Aspects of the informed learning research agenda are currently being explored at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).     

Face Adaptation and Attractiveness Aftereffects in 8-Year-Olds and Adults

A novel method was used to investigate developmental changes in face processing: attractiveness aftereffects. Consistent with the norm-based coding model, viewing consistently distorted faces shifts adults' attractiveness preferences toward the adapting stimuli. Thus, adults' attractiveness judgments are influenced by a continuously updated face prototype. To investigate the development of this process, a novel method was developed for 8-year-olds. After reading a storybook composed of faces with either compressed or expanded features, 8-year-olds' ratings of faces distorted in the direction of the adapting stimuli increased. Nonetheless, they required larger distortions than adults to rate undistorted faces as most attractive preadaptation. Thus, although 8-year-olds' attractiveness preferences are influenced by a continuously updated prototype, their face space is less refined than that of adults.     

Evaluating computer‐based assessment in a risk‐based model

There are three purposes for evaluation: evaluation for action to aid the decision making process, evaluation for understanding to further enhance enlightenment and evaluation for control to ensure compliance to standards. This article argues that the primary function of evaluation in the ‘Catherine Wheel’ computer‐based assessment (CBA) cyclic model is evaluation for action and secondary functions are evaluation for understanding and control. By studying segment and cyclic dependencies, conducting a risk analysis and identifying key stakeholders it is possible to identify where action evaluation has the most effect, what is required to be evaluated, who will perform the action and how it will be controlled. Each segment and cycle in the CBA model must therefore be monitored and the observations made must have meaning for the elimination or reduction of pedagogic, operational, technical non web‐based, web‐based and financial risks. It is important to consider stakeholders because they have differing views on what is most important in the evaluation process and inevitably will be involved in the evaluation process itself. CBA system stakeholders include management, academic, support and administrative staff together with external verifiers and students. The information gained from these stakeholders provides quality enhancement and assurance and forms the basis for change.     

Education students and their teachers: comparing views on participative assessment practices

Beliefs about the validity and merit of self‐, peer‐ and group‐assessment practices are presented from 213 pre‐service primary teachers and 30 staff who teach them. Both groups were surveyed using comparable items. A subset of seven staff participated in semi‐structured interviews. Staff were far more supportive of peer‐ and self‐assessment practices than their students with both groups indicating modest support for group assignments. While pedagogical factors best represent the staff support for engaging students in assessment of their own and their peers’ work, several staff in interviews revealed that their high level of support for peer‐assessment was closely linked to a time‐saving factor. Peer‐assessment was more often used than self‐assessment while both practices were reported to have increased over the past two to three years. These findings are consistent with the reported increase in participative assessment practices in higher education generally. An important implication of this research is that in order to optimise the use of participative assessment, staff need to better prepare their students by modelling and communicating their reasons for adopting such practices.     

Situational interest,cognitive engagement,and achievement in physical education

Students’ learning has been the center of schooling. This study examined the contribution of situational interest motivation and cognitive engagement in workbooks to student achievement in learning health-related fitness knowledge. Situational interest, performance on solving workbook problems, and knowledge gain in cardio-respiratory fitness and benefits were measured in 670 third-grade students from 13 randomly selected urban elementary schools. Structural equation modeling and regression curve estimation analyses revealed that situational interest contributed little to workbook performance and knowledge gain. Performance on solving workbook problems contributed significantly to knowledge gain. The results also show that skipping workbook tasks had stronger negative impact on knowledge gain than performing the tasks incorrectly, suggesting the importance of engaging students in the learning process by attempting the workbook tasks. The findings reinforced the value of using workbooks to facilitate cognitive knowledge learning in physical education, but raised questions about the direct function of situational interest on engaging students in cognitive learning.     

Quality of geometry instruction and its short-term impact on students' understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem

This article presents findings from a German–Swiss video-based classroom study. The research examines how three basic dimensions of instructional quality impact the development of students' understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem. The study sample comprised 19 German and 19 Swiss mathematics classes. A three-lesson introductory unit on the Pythagorean Theorem was videotaped in all classes. Multilevel analyses revealed both classroom management and cognitive activation to have positive effects on mathematics achievement. The results also provide empirical evidence that cognitive activation and a supportive climate moderate the relationship between mathematics-related interest and mathematics achievement.