Exploring factors that influence adoption of e‐learning within higher education

E‐learning is increasingly adopted in the workplace for supporting professional development and continuing education; however, in higher education, the use of e‐learning is predominantly used as a tool support teaching. As a relatively new priority for universities, this paper explores what influences its adoption. Challenges identified in the literature include organisational features of universities like faculty autonomy and dispersed academic perspectives. This study, carried out at the University of Warwick, adopted a phenomenological approach and explored participants' perceptions through a series of faculty‐based focus groups and individual interviews. Factors identified as influential to adoption of e‐learning included the institutional infrastructure, staff attitudes and skills, and perceived student expectations. Participants suggested the importance of an institutional strategy targeted at providing sufficient resources and guidance for effective implementation. This strategy needs to be supported by a varied programme of staff development and opportunities for sharing practice among colleagues. In further developing understanding in this area, it would be beneficial to replicate the study with other stakeholder groups (including the leadership team and students) to develop an institutional strategy responsive at all levels of implementation. It would also be valuable to investigate the extent to which these findings are replicated within other workplaces looking to adopt innovation.     

Educational placements and National Curriculum Key Stage 2 test outcomes of children with a history of specific language impairment

As part of their longitudinal investigations of a large cohort with a history of specific language impairment (SLI), Professor Gina Conti-Ramsden and her research team based at the School of Education, University of Manchester, Dr Emma Knox, Dr Nicola Botting and Dr Zoë Simkin report on the changing educational placements and National Curriculum assessment outcomes of 200 children at 11 years. Teacher questionnaires reporting on the Year 6 primary education placements of the sample reveal details about the long-term educational needs of children with SLI.
Furthermore, in exploring the experiences of the sample in the National Curriculum Key Stage 2 tests the present study found that children with SLI perform poorly relative to national expectations of levels of achievement across all tests. At present there are no guidelines for supporting children with SLI in relation to National Curriculum tests and the present data suggests there is an obvious need for these to be developed.     

Helping the One You Hurt: Toddlers’ Rudimentary Guilt,Shame, and Prosocial Behavior After Harming Another

This study explored the role of guilt and shame in early prosocial behavior by extending previous findings that guilt‐ and shame‐like responses can be distinguished in toddlers and, for the first time, examining their associations with helping. Toddlers (n = 32; M_age = 28.9 months) were led to believe they broke an adult's toy, after which they exhibited either a guilt‐like response that included frequently confessing their behavior and trying to repair the toy; or a shame‐like response that included frequently avoiding the adult and seldom confessing or attempting to repair the toy. In subsequent prosocial tasks, children showing a guilt‐like response helped an adult in emotional distress significantly faster and more frequently than did children showing a shame‐like response.     

Feedback on feedback practice: perceptions of students and academics

While feedback is widely considered central to student learning, students across the higher education sector commonly report dissatisfaction with the feedback they receive. In contrast, academics often feel they provide quality and informative feedback. This article explores and compares the perceptions of students and academics with regard to feedback practice. The paper presents the results of questionnaire surveys conducted with academics and students at the School of the Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University. It highlights the perceptions of academics and students with regard to preferences for different types of feedback, timeliness of feedback, students’ engagement and interest in feedback, quality feedback and satisfaction with current practice. The findings indicate a significant discord between staff and students in relation to certain aspects of feedback practice, namely opinions on students’ engagement and interest in feedback, satisfaction with current practice and feedback preference. Similarities in viewpoints were also found in relation to quality feedback.     

英国医疗服务创新模式分析——以NHS西北创新中心TrusTECH为例

英国医疗服务创新成果显著,值得借鉴.首先简要介绍了英国国家医疗服务体系(NHS)及其创新系统的主要情况,接着以NHS的西北创新中心TrusTECH为例,介绍了它的两种创新模式--商业化创新和服务创新计划,然后通过三个案例(生理学追踪和触发系统、信息管理工作手册和戒烟服务)深入分析了TrusTECH的服务创新流程和特点.最后总结了英国医疗服务创新模式的理论启示,以及对我国医疗服务创新的实践启示,包括培养医护人员创新意识和能力,建立系统化的创新平台,实现平台上的知识共享,以及重视非商业化创新等.     

Do the effects of early severe deprivation on cognition persist into early adolescence? Findings from the English and Romanian adoptees study

Cognitive outcomes at age 11 of 131 Romanian adoptees from institutions were compared with 50 U.K. adopted children. Key findings were of both continuity and change: (1) marked adverse effects persisted at age 11 for many of the children who were over 6 months on arrival; (2) there was some catch-up between ages 6 and 11 for the bottom 15%; (3) there was a decrease of 15 points for those over 6 months on arrival, but no differentiation within the 6-42-month range; (4) there was marked heterogeneity of outcome but this was not associated with the educational background of the adoptive families. The findings draw attention to the psychological as well as physical risks of institutional deprivation.     

‘Radically different learning’: implementing sustainability pedagogy in a university peer mentor program

Framed in Michele Foucault's theories of discipline and technologies of the self, this paper explores the possibilities for teaching and researching across disciplinary boundaries within the academy. In Foucault's studies of systems of thought, he conceptualized practices – like sexuality – to be instances of what is possible to be, think, and do within a historical moment. In the ethnographic study reported on in this paper, we examined perceptions and practices of discipline-based academics seeking to work across traditional scholarly boundaries as instances of what was possible to be, think, and do in transdisciplinary teaching and research in higher education. Connecting transdisciplinary knowledge production with possibilities for critically engaging with sustainability as a social movement and imperative, we identify questions about and the promise of higher education as a place where this work can be done.