‘I will do it but religion is a very personal thing’: teacher education applicants’ attitudes towards teaching religion in Ireland

There has been extensive research internationally describing teachers’ homogenous socio-demographic backgrounds and critiquing the associated equity and diversity issues, most especially with regard to ethnicity and gender, and to a lesser extent, social class and disability. Yet, teachers’ religious affiliations and/or convictions have rarely been explored. Since 96% of state primary schools in Ireland are denominational, considering religious diversity in teaching is both critically important and a complex undertaking. This paper examines primary initial teacher education (ITE) applicants’ religiosity, and views of teaching religion, in Ireland. Our data suggest low levels of religious practice and religiosity among ITE applicants, many of whom would prefer to teach religion using a non-confessional approach. The paper raises critical questions regarding the experiences, constitutional rights and professional practice of increasingly secular and/or non-practicing Catholic teacher cohorts in a predominantly Catholic primary education system that has survived the trend towards progressive ‘unchurching’ of Europe.     

Parental Perspectives on Transition to Kindergarten Videos to Promote Family Involvement

Video is one way to promote, and help families understand, the transition to kindergarten. The present study explored the experiences of parents with transition-to-kindergarten videos. Four videos, in English and Spanish with accompanying information sheets in English and Spanish, targeted parents for transitioning to kindergarten. There were a total of 141 parents in the six classrooms that could have received the videos and information sheets. Findings indicate that the quality of the videos was rated positively and that parents had positive experiences viewing the videos. Parents reported that the videos provided general information about the transition to kindergarten, provided examples of activities they could do to help their child transition to kindergarten, and promoted parents’ understanding of child development. Findings are discussed in light of implications for researchers advancing technology tools and family involvement.     

The Foodborne Outbreak Challenge—Using Experiential Learning to Foster Interdisciplinary Training Among Students on Foodborne Disease Outbreak Investigations

The Integrated Food Safety Centers of Excellence aim to develop novel learning methods to educate and train the future public health workforce to investigate foodborne outbreaks. The Foodborne Outbreak Challenge (FOC) was a one‐day event hosted by the Colorado Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence at the Colorado School of Public Health. The FOC incorporated experiential, problem‐based, and interdisciplinary pedagogies from case studies, simulation exercises, and public health case competitions, to deliver a novel learning experience that met the training needs of a multidisciplinary foodborne outbreak response team with diverse skills sets. The event received positive feedback, and participants demonstrated knowledge gain. Event materials are available for other institutions to use.     

Funding model and creativity in science: Competitive versus block funding and status contingency effects

In many countries the scientific funding system is shifting from an internal block funding model toward a competitive project funding model. However, there is growing concern that the competitive project funding system favors relatively safe, conventional projects at the expense of risky, novel research. It is important to assess different funding models in order to design better funding systems for science. This paper empirically tests for differences in the novelty of funded outputs between internal block funding and competitive project funding, in the setting of Japan, where both funding models play a significant role. Combining survey data from a large sample of research projects in Japan and bibliometric information about the publications produced from these projects, we find that projects funded by competitive funds on average have higher novelty compared to those funded by internal block funds. However, such positive effects only hold for researchers with high status, such as senior and male researchers. In contrast, compared to internal block funding, competitive project funding has a negative relation to novelty for low status scientists (especially junior and female researchers). The findings suggest that the competitive project selection procedure is less receptive to novel ideas from researchers with low academic status and therefore discourages their novel research. These findings can serve as a warning about potential biases in competitive funding allocation procedures and suggest the importance of secure stable funding for allowing researchers with low status to pursue their novel ideas.     

Function Follows Form: How Mixed‐Used Spaces in Museums Build Community

Abstract This article examines three elements largely overlooked by the museum profession when thinking about community building—space, space mix, and unexpected use of space. It suggests that if museum planners were to pay overt attention to these, they could greatly enhance the community‐building role museums increasingly play. When considering museums and communities, writers in the museum field have focused on broadening audiences, public programs, collections and exhibitions. Physical spaces have been regarded as necessary armature but not as catalysts themselves. There are many subtle, interrelated and essentially unexamined ingredients that allow museums to play an enhanced role in the building of community and our collective civic life. The article describes the characteristics of the Livable Cities Movement and New Urbanism and suggests ways in which museums could encourage these characteristics—and thereby consciously use their interior and exterior spaces to build community.     

Effects of Computerized Instruction on the Use of Punctuation Strategies by Students with LD

An interactive multimedia software program was developed for teaching punctuation strategies and then tested with middle‐school and high‐school students with learning disabilities. Students at each school level were randomly selected into an experimental or control group. Results showed that experimental students at both school levels performed similarly by earning significantly higher scores on a test of punctuation usage than the control students. Additionally, experimental students in both school cohorts inserted significantly fewer incorrect punctuation marks than the controls. Furthermore, the experimental students generalized their use of the strategies to a test where they wrote their own sentences. Thus, this study shows that students with LD can learn punctuation strategies at a high level of mastery and can generalize their skills to sentence editing and sentence construction tasks when taught through interactive multimedia.     

Examining Estimates of Intervention Effectiveness Using Sensitivity Analysis

Making causal inferences from a quasi‐experiment is difficult. Sensitivity analysis approaches to address hidden selection bias thus have gained popularity. This study serves as an introduction to a simple but practical form of sensitivity analysis using Monte Carlo simulation procedures. We examine estimated treatment effects for a school‐based support intervention designed to address student strengths and needs in academic and nonacademic areas by leveraging partnerships with community agencies. Middle school (Grades 6–8) statewide standardized test scores in mathematics and English language arts (ELA) were examined for students in a large urban district who participated in City Connects during elementary school. Results showed that the estimated treatment effects in both subjects were reduced slightly with the inclusion of U, a hypothesized unobserved binary variable. However, simulated effects fell within one‐sided 90% confidence intervals for original treatment effects, suggesting only a mild sensitivity to hidden bias. Moreover, almost identical estimated treatment effects were observed when the magnitude of the mathematical difference between each pair of the conditional probabilities of U given the treatment indicator Z was the same.     

A Fulfilling Career? Factors which influence women's choice of profession

First year university students enrolled on courses which have remained male dominated, including engineering, physics and computer science (n = 294) and two courses, law and medicine, on which females now outnumber males (n = 377), completed a questionnaire concerned with the reasons why they chose their particular course. Analyses were carried out using a stepwise discriminant function analysis. The results of this study indicate that the reasons women favour law and medicine, rather than more technological courses, is that the former courses are seen as leading to work that contributes to playing a useful social role and that allows a higher level of social contact. It is concluded that although women tend to avoid technological courses this is not a negative choice, rather they positively choose courses which lead to careers with higher levels of social involvement.