The effects of sensory stimulation in inducing or intensifying the “transport response” in white rats

A series of experiments was carried out to investigate the ability of different types of stimulation to induce or intensify the “transport response” in 15-day-old rat pups when an initial stimulus, a pinch to the nape of the neck, produced either no transport response or only a very weak response. Rat pups given supplemental tactile stimulation, in the form of either an airpuff to the ventrum of a pinch to the tail, showed consistently stronger response intensities than when given only a pinch to the nape of the neck. Visual and auditory stimuli produced no increment in response intensities over those with only a dorsal pinch. Two additional experiments were carried out. The first investigated the ability of a puff of mist from an atomizer to induce a transport response in rats too old to show a strong response. The second investigated the induction of the transport response with supplemental stimulation in 19-day-old pups given haloperidol. Results suggest a nondopaminergic system subserving the response facilitation seen with supplemental tactile stimulation.     

Distributed leadership and organizational change: Reviewing the evidence

This article explores the relationship between distributed leadership and organizational change. It draws upon the existing literature to consider whether distributed forms of leadership influence development and change in schools. The article examines the research base relating to distributed leadership and organizational outcomes. It focuses on how different patterns or configurations of distributed leadership contribute to organizational development. The article concludes by highlighting issues that require further study and more empirical confirmation. This article is based on a literature review commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills as part of a research project currently being undertaken by Leithwood, K., Day, C., Sammons, P., Harris, A., and Hopkins, D. (2006) ‘Leadership and student outcomes’ and Leithwood, K., Day, C., Sammons, P., Harris, A., and Hopkins, D. (2006) ‘Successful school leadership: What it is and how it influences pupil learning’. London, DFES.     

The persistence of preschool effects: Do subsequent classroom experiences matter?

Using rich longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort (ECLS-K), we find that children who attended preschool enter public schools with higher levels of academic skills than their peers who experienced other types of child care (effect size of .14). This study considers the circumstances under which the preschool advantage persists, that is, the types of classrooms in which students who did not attend preschool “catch up” to their counterparts who did. Specifically, we focus on two dimensions of the early school environment—class size and the level of academic instruction provided. The findings suggest that most of the preschool-related gap in academic skills at school entry is quickly eliminated for children placed in small classrooms and classrooms providing high levels of reading instruction. Conversely, the initial disparities persist for children experiencing large classes and lower levels of reading instruction. These results point out that the longer-term effects of early childhood experience partly depend on classroom experiences during at least the first years of school.     

Why Do Students Misbehave? An Initial Examination of Antecedents to Student Misbehavior

The current study utilized constant comparative thematic analysis to uncover antecedents of student misbehavior from the perspective of collegiate instructors. Results indicated nine distinct antecedents of student misbehavior that were classified into three distinct categories: deficiency antecedents, belief antecedents, and external antecedents. These findings extend previous research on antecedents of student misbehavior by forwarding a more nuanced classification structure that centers on attribution theory as an explanatory mechanism. Overall, by understanding the potential reasons that underlie student misbehavior, educators can create more meaningful and enriching experiences for students by thoughtfully addressing these problematic behaviors and the underlying conditions that promote them.     

Learning to Teach Offshore: Pre-Departure training for lecturers in transnational programs

The internationalisation of higher education in Australia over the past two decades has brought about dramatic changes in Australian universities. Growing numbers of international students have enrolled in Australian universities and the number of students studying offshore has also increased dramatically. While considerable material has been published on the ramifications of the increased numbers of onshore international students studying at Australian universities, there is relatively little published research on the specific challenges facing academics participating in offshore programs. The aim of this project was to examine the current pre-departure cross-cultural training taking place in the business faculties of three Australian universities in order to gain a better understanding of the adequacy of the support given to Australian academics teaching offshore. Twenty staff involved in offshore education were interviewed as part of this project, including academics with considerable offshore teaching experience, senior academic managers and cross-cultural trainers. While these institutions engage in little formal preparation for offshore teaching, a great deal of informal mentoring and briefing is taking place. We consider the implications of the new quality assurance framework for Australian universities, which requires that institutions be able to demonstrate the ways in which they ensure the quality of teaching and learning. Under this new system, universities are bound by the Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee's guidelines for the provision of education to international students. It appears that Australian universities will need to establish more formal mechanisms to ensure that offshore staff are adequately prepared for offshore teaching posts.     

A logit model with interactions for predicting major gift donors

We provide a new statistical model developed from the alumni database at North-western University for identifying potential major gift donors. Our logit model with interactions predicts which individuals will give $10,000 or more over three years using CHAID (Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detection) combined with logit analysis. Our work goes beyond our earlier research (Lindahl and Winship, 1992) by providing a more effective means of selecting fund-raising prospects. The critical new component in our model is the inclusion of interactions between past giving and other variables. Specifically, we find that for individuals with different past giving records different variables are important. Our results show that prospects with a low past giving level will rarely give gifts over $10,000.     

How valid are scholars' departmental rating models for assessing the quality of graduate programs?

The validity of the scholars' departmental rating (SDR) model for determining the quality of an institution's graduate program has been the subject of intense controversy for over a half-century. This study, using the aggregated data from each of four classical rankings of graduate programs in United States universities, found that the rankings of institutions in separate studies correlate significantly with each other and that the results from the SDR model correlate significantly with the objective measures of academic honors, basic research, and research and development awards. The author concludes that the SDR model is valid for the purposes intended.     

教育的历史人类学:问题与方法

继以现象学、整体化和哲学为导向的教育人类学之后,在过去几十年里,以教育—历史为导向的人类学也日益兴起。它从对迄今为止的教育人类学研究的批判出发,突出强调其研究的双重历史性,同时也不忘对人类学的批判。属于历史教育人类学的重点研究范围的有:身体与感知、代际与性别、时间与空间。对其发展来说,历史与心态、文化性与跨文化性、跨学科性与跨国性这三个任务和研究领域极为重要。     

Knowledge of the alphabet and explicit awareness of phonemes in pre-readers: The nature of the relationship

This study was carried out to examine the extent to which preschool children are aware of the phonemic structure of the spoken word and to investigate how they acquire that knowledge. The four year old non-readers carried out a battery of takss designed to assess product name reading ability, knowledge of the alphabet, rhyme skills and explicit phonemic awareness ability. There was evidence that they generally acquired knowledge of the alphabet before they showed explicit phonemic awareness ability. Fixed order regression analyses showed that ability to read and write the alphabet generally accounted for unique variance in phoneme awareness and product name reading ability over and above that accounted for by rhyme skills but that rhyme ability accounted for no unique variance beyond that accounted for by alphabet knowledge. Further analyses showed that alphabet knowledge also contributed unique variance to product name reading ability over and above that accounted for by phonemic awareness ability but that the reverse was not the case. It was hypothesised that many preschool non-readers may start to gain an insight into the phonemic structure of the spoken word by becoming aware of the connection between the sounds of letters in environmental print and the sounds of the spoken word.