Reciprocity between infants and cargivers during the first year of life

Infants interact reciprocally with their caregivers from the moment of birth. The actions of one affect the other in a manner that resembles an intricate dance. The article proposes a sociocultural model of reciprocity that focuses on the interdependent relationship between infants and their caregivers. Relevant variables include the age, sex, developmental history, and behavioral style of the infant and the caregiver's knowledge of infants' development, level of experience and education, disciplinary style, and temperament. Further, the influence of families and cultural expectations on caregiving practices are discussed within the framework of the model. After a review of the literature, selected activities are suggested to promote infants' interaction with their social world.     

Technology education and science education: Engineering as a case study of relationships

Technology education and science education are seen to be related in a particular fashion by many science educators, a relationship exemplified by the common pairing of the two areas in labels such as “Science-Technology-Society” and “Science and Technology Curriculum”. At the heart of this common science education perspective is a view of technology education as dependent on and subservient to science education. In this paper engineering, often seen by scientists as a form of applied science dependent on and subservient to science, is considered. An analysis of the arguments that engineering, far from being an applied science, is a unique way of knowing (that engineering has a unique epistemology) is used to consider the technology education view of the relationships between science education and technology education. It is suggested that science educators need to rethink their perceptions of this relationship if they are to understand the arguments of technology educators. Specializations: science education, teacher education.     

The evaluation of faculty development programs

This article reviews literature pertinent to the evaluation of faculty development programs and presents data from several studies conducted at two institutions. These data were consistent with those previously reported in that faculty participants consistently expressed satisfaction with development services. In addition, one study found that most faculty members voluntarily took some action to improve their instructional effectiveness, though only a minority pursued these efforts in depth. Volunteers who worked intensively with a faculty development consultant improved more on objective measures of effectiveness than did those who were only superficially involved in improvement efforts; those who received no consultative assistance failed to improve significantly. Evidence from a final study provided a control for faculty motivation and led to the conclusion that improvement was contingent both on faculty desire to improve and on the availability of professional assistance.     

The effects on teaching of changes in relative rewards for research and teaching

To the degree that faculty members take into account the relative financial rewards for teaching and research in deciding on the allocation of available time between these two areas, a modification of the reward structure may be expected to produce changes in the amount of time devoted to each. The purpose of this article is to examine with the help of some basic graphic tools of economics the possible results on the quantity of teaching and the quantity of research that may follow from a modification of the reward structure. The possible results are analyzed in terms of displacement, salary, and work effects of the modification.     

Education for literacy

This paper begins by tracing the development of critical scholarship in the sociology of education, focusing on its attempts to explain academic failure for low-income youth. Next, it examines contemporary theoretical work in “critical” literacy—work that appears to have benefited from this sociological scholarship. Third, a brief account is offered of three historical instances of when critical literacy was practiced. Finally, the author concludes by arguing that the needs of culturally diverse and low-income students will be met to the extent that educators and students actively challenge the societal power structure within which they live.     

Science and technology management: Designing an undergraduate course

This research focusses on the role of science educators in preparing technically educated graduates for their careers. A comparison was made between the skills and abilities in science and technology students desired by industrial employers and whether New Zealand graduates exhibit these qualities. To address some of the management-based issues identified by the research, the design of a new Science and Technology Management course is outlined. Specializations: science and technology education, co-operative education, development of professional skills. Specializations: co-operative education programmes.     

Are British Universities in a Position to Consider Implementing Total Quality Management?

Accompanying the removal of the binary divide between polytechnics and universities, the Department of Education and Science (DES) also specified the requirement that the British higher education sector should give more emphasis to the effective management of quality. Some writers have suggested that this can be achieved by institutions introducing the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM). A vital aspect of TQM is the integration of multiple functions across the organization with the objective of establishing a quality conscious workforce. A recommended practice is to use the concept of internal marketing as a mechanism to persuade departments to work together in the creation of internal customer chains. To determine the current status of internal customer management practices in British Universities, a survey of academics was undertaken using a modified version of the Parasuraman SERVQUAL model. The majority of respondents indicated the existence of Type 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Gaps in the internal customer management process within their institution. Major influencers of these service gaps include minimal effort to gain further understanding of internal customer requirements and a lack of formal quality standards for managing internal customer relations. Respondents consider their faculties are unable to enhance internal quality if the issue was given higher priority by senior management. Identified obstacles to greater emphasis on an internal customer philosophy include insufficient trust between departments and low confidence levels of ability to manage the process. Under these circumstances, it does not appear that for the foreseeable future, British universities are in a position to adopt TQM philosophy. Hence it seems more advisable that these institutions should restrict their quality management activities to the simpler assessment-based approach recommended by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) Academic Audit Unit.     

Mathematics attainment at inner-city schools: Establishing the need for systematic formative evaluation practices

Recently there has been a great amount of research and professional educator interest in at-risk, poor academically attaining students, especially low socioeconomic status students at U.S. inner-city schools. A major factor that has been hypothesized in the research literature as being associated with poor academic attainment is the lack of critical and timely instructional feedback or formative evaluation. Using a sample of 130 inner-city senior high school students, the perceived quality and quantity of formative evaluation received by these students at their elementary and secondary school levels were assessed. in addition, each student was given a mathematics (pre-algebra) assessment using both a one and two-dimensional format (recognition plus confidence) to determine present levels of mathematics attainment. Finally data were collected from the cumulative grade-level folders of a subset of these students, especially norm-referenced data (NRT) in mathematics, to examine their relationship to scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test-Quantitiative portion. The study finds that in addition to extremely poor mathematics attainment and poor formative evaluation practices there is little association between SAT (quantitative) scores and the grade-level (mathematics) NRT scores. These findings suggest that parents cannot depend on traditional norm-referenced measures to indicate actual mathematics attainment as these students are progressing through the schools. These findings also challenge urban school administrative personnel to reassess the use of NRT measures to monitor student progress and to develop more comprehensive and systematic formative evaluation procedures and practices for individual students as they progress through each grade level.     

The determinants of progress to the doctoral degree

The time doctoral students expect to take to complete their degree is investigated in a model which stresses the effects of economic factors. The model also accounts for the interdependency among such variables as employment hours, study hours, household income, and part-time study. We find that field of study, amount of borrowing, household income, and study hours have direct effects on expected time to degree. Indirect effects also occur from employment hours and the amount of fellowship, scholarship, or grant aid. When the sample is separated into foreign and U.S. students, we find that U.S. students underestimate their time to degree. Also, household incomes are higher for U.S. students and increase the time to degree, while the opposite is true for foreign students. Teaching assistantships increase the time to degree for foreign students while research assistantships reduce it.