A Case Study on the Use of Blended Learning to Encourage Computer Science Students to Study

Students tend to procrastinate. In particular, Computer Science students tend to reduce the number of hours devoted to study concepts after class. In this paper, a case study on the use of Blended Learning to encourage Computer Science students to study is described. Furthermore, an experiment in which the reaction of 131 Computer Science university students to the proposal is analyzed. The material for the preparation of an exam was produced both in electronic and paper formats. 64 students were asked to study using a free-text scoring system, and 67 students were asked to study with printed documentation in the same class. The students’ reactions, the results of a pre-post-test and the answers to a voluntary and anonymous satisfaction questionnaire were registered. After that, students were given the option to keep studying with the scoring system or with the printed documentation. 99% of the students chose to study with the computer, and a higher frequency of study was registered during the previous month to the exam.     

Developing Reading Partnerships Between Parents and Children: A Reflection on the Reading Together Program

Early reading exposure is important in setting a foundation for students to acquire the basic literacy skills that set them up for school and life success. More importantly, parent involvement at an early age is a critical component of reading skills development. This report presents an overview of the Reading Together Program that introduced families of young children ages 6–36 months in a community-based setting to the necessary skills, techniques, and resources to enhance their knowledge of how to effectively develop a reading partnership with their children. Additionally, this free reading program that was sponsored by a faculty development grant invited parents to play an active role in their children’s reading journey. Results indicated that parents understood and appreciated the value of early reading habits, and would continue to nurture the reading relationship with their children. This article also presents responses of the initial and final reading perception surveys as well as implications for future research and practice.     

History of education in Brazil: the construction of a knowledge field

This article analyses the general characteristics of the construction of the field of history of education in Brazil. To do so, it highlights the existing historiography and aims to describe the process of institutionalisation of this knowledge field, which, in general terms, has been focused on the area of teacher training. Since the nineteenth century, however, it has also been possible to identify systematic historiographical efforts in Brazil that are not directly related to the school system, but rather to the teaching of and research into the history of education within Brazilian universities. The article addresses the organisation of the field, the ways in which it has been structured and the strategies of academic legitimisation employed to achieve this. These include the regular production of dissertations and doctoral theses, the publication of books and journals, academic events and the creation of research groups and scientific associations, through which research findings have found national and international circulation. This set of indicators creates conditions for an understanding of the expansion and reconfiguration of the field of history of education that began in the 1980s, as well as of the challenges this phenomenon presents to current historiography and teacher training in Brazil.     

Waves of (Dis)Satisfaction: Effects of the Numerus Clausus system in Portugal

Access to higher education in Portugal is governed by a quota system (numerus clausus). The purpose of this article is to answer two questions: First, how does the numerus clausus system shape the demand for medical studies? Second, how do non-enrolled medical candidates influence the global allocation system and generate waves of dissatisfaction? The results show that students who do not succeed in entering medicine register in other programmes, such as pharmacy, veterinary medicine and dental studies, generating a first wave of dissatisfaction. Because students who are not placed in medicine occupy a large share of the places available in those other programmes, the wave of dissatisfaction propagates, with students being pushed to other programmes, especially biology and biochemistry. This process has also been analysed from a spatial perspective. Apparently, when students are competing to obtain a study place in a programme with prestige and good professional career perspectives such as medicine moving to a more peripheral region becomes more frequent.     

Building student trust in online learning environments

As online learning continues to gain widespread attention and thrive as a legitimate alternative to classroom instruction, educational institutions and online instructors face the challenge of building and sustaining student trust in online learning environments. The present study represents an attempt to address the challenge by identifying the social and technical factors that can likely induce or influence students’ perception about the trustworthiness of an online course and integrating the factors into a socio-technical framework that can be empirically validated. The methodology used and the data obtained from a university-wide survey conducted in an American university are reported in this article. Feedback from students with disabilities was further investigated, and the result has important implications for our understanding of disabled students’ acceptance for online learning.     

Annual Review of Work in Newspaper and Periodical History

Dynamics of the Pictured Page: representing the nation in the ‘Illustrated London News’, 1842–1852 Peter W. Sinnema, 1998 Aldershot, UK, Ashgate pp.231

American Photojournalism Comes of Age Michael L. Carlebach, 1998 Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution Press pp.224

Media Technology and Society. A history: from the telegraph to the Internet Brian Winston, 1998 London, Routledge pp. xiv, 374

On Television and Journalism Pierre Bourdieu, 1998 Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, trans. London, Pluto Press pp.97

A Journalism Reader Michael Bromley and Tom O'Malley, eds, 1997 London and New York, Routledge pp. xix, 394

Ulster Loyalism and the British Media Alan F. Parkinson, 1998 Dublin, Four Courts Press pp. 184

William Randolph Hearst: the early years 1863–1910 Ben Proctor, 1998 New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press pp. xiv + 345

Health and British Magazines in the Nineteenth Century E.M. Palmegiano, 1998 Maryland, Scarecrow Press pp. 296

The War Correspondents: the Crimean War Andrew Lambert and Stephen Badsey, 1994 Stroud, UK, Sutton Publishing pp. 335 including index

News from the Front: war correspondents on the Western Front, 1914–18 Martin J. Farrar, 1998 Stroud, UK, Sutton Publishing pp. 238 including index     

Navigating the Maze: Sources for press historians

Television history channels and programming have seen considerable growth in recent years, yet empirical research on television history audiences remains limited. This essay argues that media history scholars need better to understand what happens when audiences consume television history, examining the critical debates concerning the genre's specific modalities of rendering the past on screen before exploring what opportunities and problems it affords viewers. The essay draws on original qualitative, empirical research on audiences of historical reality television through a specific, small-scale case study of BBC Wales' Coal House at War (Indus 2008). It argues for the need to retain a dual focus upon such programming's historical content and its televisuality if we are to appreciate the intricacies of viewers' cultural consumption. The essay concludes by demonstrating that audiences' own oral and written responses to television history reveal something of how people, situated in their specific times and places, understand both their past and their present.     

Librarians and Graphic Design: Preparation,Roles, and Desired Support

Librarians often become de facto graphic designers for their libraries, taking responsibility for designing signage, handouts, brochures, web pages, and many other promotional, instructional, and wayfinding documents. However, the majority of librarians with graphic design responsibilities are not trained as graphic designers. This exploratory research study surveyed librarians to determine their graphic design training and preparation for their assumed design duties as well as the support and training they desire. Results from this study can be used by library administrators when providing support for librarians with graphic design duties.     

Examining the factor structure of the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale—Revised

The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure of the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale—Revised (FCCERS-R) in high-stakes contexts. The results of an exploratory factor analysis revealed three dimensions of quality on the FCCERS-R: (1) Activities/Materials, (2) Language/Interaction, and (3) Organization. This study also explored whether abridged versions of the FCCERS-R could serve as a proxy for the full instrument. In addition to subsets of FCCERS-R items created from the factor structure, purposively and randomly chosen item subsets were created. The purposively chosen subsets included 6-, 9-, and 12-item scales comprised of the items with the highest factor loading across the three factors, whereas the randomly chosen subsets consisted of 12 items. Results of a discriminant analysis showed that the factor subsets were poorer proxies for the total FCCERS-R score than were the other subsets, which demonstrated comparable internal consistencies and discriminant power as the full FCCERS-R when classifying homes into general quality categories. Implications for adopting shorter versions of the FCCERS-R are discussed.