Traveling stories: Converging milieus and educative conundrums

Schwab (Schwab, J. J. (1970). The practical: A language for curriculum. Washington, DC: National Education Association, Center for the Study of Instruction) named the teacher, learner, subject matter, and milieu as the desiderata essential for curriculum making. In our research, the teacher commonplace has formed the entry point of inquiry. Increasingly, the milieu commonplace has perplexed us. In this article, we examine what we have termed “traveling stories” through different field texts focusing on what happens when individuals from different milieus are brought together in one school context. We explore how learning may be shut down in a miseducative way or opened up to educative possibilities through understanding the influence of diverse milieus—those we vicariously carry with us and those we currently share with others—and how they converge to shape the meanings individuals create in seemingly shared situations.     

Why Media Matter

Whether media affect learning has been debated for decades. The discussion of media's effectiveness has raised questions about the usefulness of comparison studies, not only in assessing applications of technology but in other areas as well. Arguments that media do not affect learning are re‐examined and issues concerning media effects on expert performance are examined. Studies of mediated expert performance in telemedicine are used to show media affect performance and suggest media contribute to learning. Media present information crucial to performing certain tasks and the use of identical or similar media in learning these tasks should have positive effects on transfer. The usefulness of media comparison studies in telemedicine is discussed and it is argued that such studies are valuable for practical decision making regarding the deployment and application of technology in training and the workplace.     

The Use of Epidemiological Methodology as a Means of Influencing Public Policy

To best influence policymakers, researchers need to provide information and measures of effects that reflect the nature of policy decisions. Specifically, policymakers are often interested in factors associated with changes in the number of cases or rate of disorders in a community. Regression/analysis of variance (ANOVA) models, which focus on the prediction of means, slopes, and variances, do not directly address such questions. In contrast, epidemiological statistics, which focus on differences in proportions of cases, do provide such information. Three epidemiological measures of effect (the risk-ratio, the odds-ratio, and the population attributable fraction) are reviewed; their value as tools for informing public policy is discussed; and examples are provided illustrating their use. Researchers are encouraged to consider adopting an epidemiological perspective as part of their work.     

Immediate and delayed bilateral transfer of throwing accuracy in male and female children

In the present study, an attempt was made to examine the nature and persistence of bilateral transfer of a throwing skill for a large sample of male and female children. One hundred sixty children ages 6, 8, 10, and 12 years were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group with an equal number of boys and girls in each group. The experiment lasted 2 days and consisted of a pretest, a practice phase, an immediate transfer test, and a delayed transfer test. On the pretest, each participant performed 10 trials of a novel one-hand throwing task. Following the pretest, participants in the experimental group practiced the skill with the hand opposite the one used during the pretest until they had successfully reached a designated criterion for their age. Participants in the control group performed a balancing activity. Following the practice phase, all participants performed immediate (10 min later) and delayed (24 hr later) transfer tests under the same conditions as the pretest. The results revealed no group differences on the pretest but significantly higher throwing accuracy for the experimental group than the control group on both transfer tests. In addition, boys' throwing accuracy was significantly superior to the girls. It was concluded that bilateral transfer of throwing accuracy can be both a temporary and relatively persistent phenomenon for children and the superior throwing accuracy for boys is consistent with similar gender differences in throwing distance and throwing velocity (Thomas & French, 1985).     

The Drinkwater-Ross anthropometric fractionation of body mass: comparison with measured body mass and densitometrically estimated fat and fat-free masses

The Drinkwater-Ross anthropometric fractionation of body mass (mass = sigma skeletal, residual, fat and muscle masses), lean body mass (LBM = sigma skeletal, residual and muscle masses) and fat mass (FM) were compared with the measured body mass, together with the densitometrically estimated fat-free mass (FFM) and fat mass (FM), of 205 male (mean +/- S.D.: 74.66 +/- 10.55 kg; 10.1 +/- 3.7% BF by densitometry) and 177 female (mean +/- S.D.: 59.14 +/- 8.85 kg; 18.5 +/- 5.1% BF by densitometry) South Australian State representatives in a variety of sports. Most absolute differences (d) between the measured body masses and those resultant from the sum of the four fractionated masses (male: d = 2.15 kg or 2.9%; female: d = 1.27 kg or 2.2%) were within what one would expect from random day-to-day variation. However, this was not so for the comparisons between the fractionated LBM (male: d = 2.54 kg or 3.8%; female: d = 2.45 kg or 5.2%) and FM scores (male: d = 1.67 kg or 30.0%; female: d = 2.40 kg or 20.0%) and their densitometric counterparts. These differences are probably related to a combination of the densitometric and fractionation assumptions.     

A health/patient education database for family practice

Using pilot project funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation (AAFP/F) developed a program by which health/patient education print materials were reviewed. Favorably reviewed materials were entered into a database accessible through the AAFP/F's Huffington Library. The review service and resulting database were designed to help the busy clinician identify scientifically accurate, reliable materials for use in patient education. The review process developed for the project is described, as is the database and its use by family physicians. Research findings from the pilot project are discussed, some of which assisted in planning the self-supporting second phase of the program.