Secrets and secretive behaviours: Exploring the hidden through harmful gambling

While information science researchers have for some time examined sharing, non-sharing behaviours have received less attention. This study explored the role and impact of secretive information behaviours in the context of gambling activities and social interactions around harmful gambling. The study followed a qualitative approach, involving in-depth interviews with recovering gamblers and gamblers' families and friends in Ireland. Findings revealed that secretive information behaviours, such as self-concealment, were characteristic of gamblers' and their families' experiences of gambling harm. While self-concealing information behaviours facilitated the gambler's secret participation in gambling, the negative financial and social outcomes had a further serious impact on family members and their coping strategies. Understanding how and why people adopt secretive information behaviours can facilitate positive navigation of information in risky and stressful circumstances. Findings offer a more holistic view of information use, sharing, and decision making, by including negative as well as positive information outcomes in modeling of information behaviour.     

Integrating Quantitative Literacy into Technical Writing Instruction

The authors argue that skills in quantitative literacy (QL) and quantitative reasoning (QR) augment students’ communicative effectiveness. This article offers a pedagogical framework and model for how QR can be productively interwoven with the rhetorical know-how of technical writing pedagogy. The authors describe their course redesign, present preliminary assessment data, and conclude by highlighting some implications not only for student learning, but also for the QL movement itself.     

Secret Shopping as User Experience Assessment Tool

Secret shopping is a form of unobtrusive evaluation that can be accomplished with minimal effort, but still produce rich results. With as few as 11 shoppers, the author was able to identify trends in user satisfaction with services provided across two entry-level desks at Illinois Wesleyan University's The Ames Library. The focus of this secret shopping program was on user experiences rather than whether correct answers were given by student employees working at the desks. Overall, users were satisfied or very satisfied with their experiences, though user feedback identified one desk as providing consistently better service.     

CREATING A COLLABORATIVE CAMPUS CULTURE

Organizational culture influences whether or not community colleges maintain local support as well as overall institutional effectiveness. This paper discusses culture and the context of culture at River Parishes Community College (RPCC) a new institution within the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, currently in its fifth academic year. Implemented to provide faculty, staff, and students with an opportunity to share ideas and strategies for improving student success, the Education for Success through Partnership Rallies on Instruction and Teaching (ESPRIT) expressly aspires to shape campus culture and promote collaboration. This paper discusses organizational culture as well as it reflects the goals and cultural implications of the ESPRIT program at RPCC.     

Cognitive foundations of message encoding: An investigation of message production as coalition formation

In this study participants (N=36) generated simple narratives employing a SITUATION ‐ ACTION ‐ BECAUSE structure. On some trials, all three elements of such triads were provided, and in other cases, participants were required to generate ideational links for SITUATION ‐ ACTION pairs. Consistent with the prediction generated from second generation action assembly theory (AAT2), participants were shown to be significantly faster in producing their messages when all three elements of their narratives were provided. The propensity to experience cognitive failures was shown to speed production of messages, particularly when participants were required to generate ideational links. Thus, although propensity to experience cognitive failures is typically seen to involve mental lapses and forgetfulness, this study produced evidence that people high on this trait actually enjoyed a performance advantage. Speed of information processing was not shown to have any impact on the rapidity with which messages were generated. Implications for future research on message production employing the experimental paradigm developed here are discussed     

Sensor-Augmented Virtual Labs: Using Physical Interactions with Science Simulations to Promote Understanding of Gas Behavior

Deep learning of science involves integration of existing knowledge and normative science concepts. Past research demonstrates that combining physical and virtual labs sequentially or side by side can take advantage of the unique affordances each provides for helping students learn science concepts. However, providing simultaneously connected physical and virtual experiences has the potential to promote connections among ideas. This paper explores the effect of augmenting a virtual lab with physical controls on high school chemistry students’ understanding of gas laws. We compared students using the augmented virtual lab to students using a similar sensor-based physical lab with teacher-led discussions. Results demonstrate that students in the augmented virtual lab condition made significant gains from pretest and posttest and outperformed traditional students on some but not all concepts. Results provide insight into incorporating mixed-reality technologies into authentic classroom settings.     

Creating supportive and subversive spaces as professional dyads enact culturally relevant teaching

Abstract

In 2013, several leaders of the Early Childhood Education Assembly (ECEA) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) developed a multi-year project called Professional Dyads and Culturally Relevant Teaching (PDCRT). Funded by NCTE, early childhood teacher/teacher-educator dyads from various locations across the United States work together for two years to investigate, generate, implement and document culturally relevant pedagogies in their respective early childhood contexts. This article outlines some of the work of two PDCRT dyads conducted from 2013 to 2015. The project was developed in response to the long-time need for culturally relevant early childhood education and teacher education reform by focusing on overturning inequitable practices that ignore, misrepresent or marginalize children and families of Color, emerging bi/multilinguals and children from low-income communities. We argue that the PDCRT dyad model is an innovative avenue for addressing inequitable educational realities in the Eurocentric educational system that persists in the US and for moving equity work forward.     

Childhood Maltreatment and the Development of Relational and Physical Aggression: The Importance of a Gender‐Informed Approach

This investigation examined the associations between maltreatment and aggression using a gender‐informed approach. Peer ratings, peer nominations, and counselor reports of aggression were collected on 211 maltreated and 199 nonmaltreated inner‐city youth (M age = 9.9 years) during a summer day camp. Maltreatment was associated with aggressive conduct; however, these effects were qualified by gender, maltreatment subtype, and the form of aggression under investigation. Findings revealed that maltreatment was associated with physical aggression for boys and relational aggression for girls. Physical abuse was associated with physically aggressive behaviors, but sexual abuse predicted relational aggression for girls only. Findings suggest that investigating the interaction between familial risk and gender is important in understanding aggressive behaviors of boys and girls.