Domain knowledge and individual interest: The effects of academic level and specialization in statistics and psychology

Numerous research studies have highlighted the significant impact of domain knowledge and individual interest on learning. However, much of this prior research has neglected several important issues regarding the dynamic interplay of domain knowledge and individual interest both within and between domains as well as across developmental stages of learners. Situated within the Model of Domain Learning, this investigation seeks to respond to those issues. We studied the scores of 267 undergraduate and graduate students representing a variety of majors and programs. Results indicate that domain knowledge and individual interest are related differently for the domains of statistics and psychology. Further, findings indicate that when examining multiple domains of learning (e.g., statistics and psychology), the relationship between domain knowledge and interest changes as an artifact of both students’ academic level of preparation in undergraduate and graduate programs and their academic specialization. Based on these results, we offer implications for future research.     

The privatization and marketization of US schooling

This paper describes the trend towards the privatization and marketization of US schooling across three domains. We begin by describing the trend in recent pro-market policy reforms — proposed or enacted — to US schooling. This reform trend can be explained in terms of the growing importance of economic theory and economic evidence in social and political discourse. Briefly, we review mainstream economic theory and evidence to see what general lessons can be drawn, with a focus on productive efficiency. In the main section of the paper, we look at the direct evidence for US schooling not only in terms of the productive efficiency of schools, but also equity in schools, freedom of choice for parents and students, and the social cohesion produced by schools. Our review reaches a number of conclusions which suggest that the trend toward privatization and marketization may generate greater productive efficiency. Although the economic analysis is deficient in several ways and may have limited pertinence for social goods such as education, it highlights the need for strong and effective systems of accountability. Regardless of whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, however, it may be difficult to prevent further steps toward marketization.     

Time to embrace the complexity when analysing GPS data? A systematic review of contextual factors on match running in rugby league

ABSTRACT

This systematic review aimed to identify and summarise associations between currently identified contextual factors and match running in senior male professional rugby league. Eligible articles included at least one contextual factor and used GPS to measure at least one displacement variable within competitive senior, male, professional rugby league matches. Of the 15 included studies, the identified contextual factors were grouped into factors related to individual characteristics (n = 3), match result (n = 4), team strength (n = 2), opposition strength (n = 3), match conditions (n = 6), technical and tactical demands (n = 6), spatial and temporal characteristics (n = 7), and nutrition (n = 1). Speed was the most commonly reported measure of match running (100%), followed by distance (47%), and acceleration (20%). Inconsistencies were found between studies for most contextual factors on match running. Higher speeds were generally associated with higher fitness, encountered earlier in the match and whilst defending. All 15 studies utilised a univariate approach to quantify associations of a contextual factor. The inconsistencies found in the associations of given contextual factors highlight the complex and multi-faceted nature of match running. Therefore, practitioners should consider contextual factors when analysing and interpreting GPS data.     

Attitudes to wetland restoration in Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire,UK

Contemporary attitudes to wetlands were examined in two sites in Britain, to assess perceptions and thus educational failings as a barrier to wetland restoration. Results showed that adults' attitudes were more positive than previous literature suggests: 56% were aware of the importance of wetlands for biodiversity, and 73% were supportive of their restoration. Social groups had significantly different attitudes to wetlands (p < 0.002), which may result largely from a difference between farmers and the public (p < 0.001). Additionally a near-significant difference (p < 0.08) was detected between genders, with woman possibly more positive. Motivation for wetland conservation tended to be ethical, with 74% willing to pay, and 71% willing to vote, for wetland conservation. Whilst larger surveys are required to assess the generality of these results, there is reason for optimism that some form of education is improving public perception, despite concerns about negative conditioning amongst children (Anderson and Moss 1993).     

Higher education: core skills in a learning society

This paper is based on the initial findings of the ESRC study on the acquisition and development of core skills in higher education and employment. The context for the study is provided by contested notions of a learning society apparent in the mismatch between the skills and knowledge that universities currently provide and what employers state that they want. The paper takes the form of a series of propositions and questions relating to the perspectives of those in higher education. It discusses the multiple interpretations, and lack of clarity, of the vocabulary of skills, and the difficulties for higher education in meeting the demands of a learning society. It is suggested that changes must be grounded in a more developed approach to the conceptualization of student provision and an enhanced understanding of how students learn.     

Improving search via personalized query expansion using social media

Social tagging systems have gained increasing popularity as a method of annotating and categorizing a wide range of different web resources. Web search that utilizes social tagging data suffers from an extreme example of the vocabulary mismatch problem encountered in traditional information retrieval (IR). This is due to the personalized, unrestricted vocabulary that users choose to describe and tag each resource. Previous research has proposed the utilization of query expansion to deal with search in this rather complicated space. However, non-personalized approaches based on relevance feedback and personalized approaches based on co-occurrence statistics only showed limited improvements. This paper proposes a novel query expansion framework based on individual user profiles mined from the annotations and resources the user has marked. The underlying theory is to regularize the smoothness of word associations over a connected graph using a regularizer function on terms extracted from top-ranked documents. The intuition behind the model is the prior assumption of term consistency: the most appropriate expansion terms for a query are likely to be associated with, and influenced by terms extracted from the documents ranked highly for the initial query. The framework also simultaneously incorporates annotations and web documents through a Tag-Topic model in a latent graph. The experimental results suggest that the proposed personalized query expansion method can produce better results than both the classical non-personalized search approach and other personalized query expansion methods. Hence, the proposed approach significantly benefits personalized web search by leveraging users’ social media data.     

Staff Training for Small Businesses — Approaches to Training Needs Analysis and Information Access

Abstract

This paper is designed to encourage discussion on two particular approaches to solving two problems concerning the training of staff in small businesses. It describes ‘The Business Analyst’, a ‘do‐it‐yourself training needs analysis tool intended to be used by managers of small businesses. It has also proved to be a powerful negotiating tool between training providers and managers, and a management aid for training institutions. Secondly, the paper describes the present state of development of a hi‐tech approach to the provision of information about training opportunities.     

Leading the Multiethnic School: Research Evidence on Successful Practice

This article reports findings from a study of principals in five multiethnic schools in England. Findings are presented in terms of the major priorities or values held by the principals, the strategies they instituted to bring their priorities to life, and some of the challenges they continue to face in this endeavor. The principals involved believed that they could make a difference in their schools and were proactive, but at the same time, realistic about what could be achieved. They distinguished themselves by aggressively tackling disadvantages related to ethnicity, racism, culture, and poverty.