Engagement Project: elements for a reformulation of the Tutorial Action Plan of the Teacher Training degrees at the University of Barcelona / Proyecto Engagement: elementos para una reformulación del Plan de Acción Tutorial de los grados de maestro en la Universidad de Barcelona

As a teaching method, tutorials are fundamental to university education, and are underpinned by the following goals: to accompany students; to help them establish a clear training pathway; and to promote their academic achievement. Our proposal aims to introduce psychological aspects into the Tutorial Action Plan (TAP) which, while often left unattended, are closely related to academic achievement. Our objective is to identify the relation between the academic commitment of pre-service teachers (preschool education, primary education and double degree students) at the UB and stress and coping skills, academic motivation, achievement and self-efficacy, as well as the opinions of students and tutors on the resources used during TAP and potential improvements to it. This is a transversal prospective exploratory study, applying the following questionnaires: Academic commitment (UWESS-9); Perceived Stress Scale (PSS); Self-efficacy (NGSE); Motivation (MSLQ); and two ad hoc online questionnaires. In conclusion, we hope that the results of this study will help us reformulate the TAP of said degree programmes, improving personalized attention and the quality of the student tutorial system, which is one of the standards used to assess universities.     

Which firms want PhDs? An analysis of the determinants of the demand

PhD graduates hold the highest education degree, are trained to conduct research and can be considered a key element in the creation, commercialization and diffusion of innovations. The impact of PhDs on innovation and economic development takes place through several channels such as the accumulation of scientific capital stock, the enhancement of technology transfers and the promotion of cooperation relationships in innovation processes. Although the placement of PhDs in industry provides a very important mechanism for transmitting knowledge from universities to firms, information about the characteristics of the firms that employ PhDs is very scarce. The goal of this paper is to improve understanding of the determinants of the demand for PhDs in the private sector. Three main potential determinants of the demand for PhDs are considered: cooperation between firms and universities, R&D activities of firms and several characteristics of firms, size, sector, productivity and age. The results from the econometric analysis show that cooperation between firms and universities encourages firms to recruit PhDs and point to the existence of accumulative effects in the hiring of PhD graduates.     

Are teachers’ approaches to teaching responsive to individual student variation? A two-level structural equation modeling

In the framework of teacher’s approaches to teaching, this study investigates the relationship between student-related variables (i.e., study time, class absence, domain knowledge, and homework completion), students’ approaches to learning, and teachers’ approaches to teaching using structural equation modeling (SEM) with two independent data samples. The participants were 61 biology teachers and their corresponding 1,518 high school students (12th grade). The first sample was used to fit the model, and the second sample was used to analyze the consistency of the data derived from the first sample. Using a two-level SEM analysis, we established whether the effects found at the individual level varied significantly at class level. The students’ approaches to learning were related to the teachers’ approaches to teaching as a function of the hypotheses established in the model, although the effect size was smaller than expected. However, approximately 48 % of the variance of the surface approach and 46 % of the deep approach sat at class level. At the individual level, the results of this study suggest that students’ approaches to learning significantly explain their teachers’ approaches to teaching and, thus, constitute important contextual variables. At the class level, the way students learn appears to be closely associated with class-related variables. Our data stresses the importance of promoting educational opportunities (e.g., school-based courses) for teachers to reflect upon the teaching methodologies used in class.     

Newspapers' Struggles with Civic Engagement: The U.S. Press and the Rejection of Public Journalism as Propagandistic

This article examines how two factors—journalism's professionalized vigilance against co-option and its difficulty differentiating social action communications from propaganda—led to many in the press attacking public journalism as propagandistic. Sociologist Alfred McClung Lee's mid-20th century writings provide fresh explanations for how press critics conflated public journalism with propaganda. Finally, this article maintains that newspapers can improve their pertinence in a new media age by better linking citizen voices into news stories.     

The community model of content management: A case study of the music industry

Abstract

In 450 years of existence, the written press has never faced a change with the intensity and consequences as those of the Internet. The decision of going online represents a whole set of opportunities and threats that publishers must carefully weigh. Once they have made the step, newspapers find themselves in a completely different competitive environment. They deal with different competitors, business models, customers and patterns of consumption. The present study explores such patterns of consumption by using data from 15 Spanish newspapers, covering time periods from 2 to 20 months. Characteristics of the printed newspapers and general patterns of the Internet are also analyzed in order to isolate the factors that enable an Internet newspaper to achieve a high level of readership. The findings indicate that reading patterns on the Internet strongly differ from those in the physical world, particularly when we consider weekday versus weekend circulation. The use of the newspaper is different too: reading of Internet newspapers is usually more functional and goal oriented, as indicated by the small number of pages read per visit. These and other results can provide publishers with valuable insights to understand this new frontier in the history of journalism.     

Communication apprehension and the type‐a personality

Do Type‐A individuals experience communication apprehension? Consistent with theoretical expectations, the data at hand suggest the answer is a qualified “no.” Individuals evidencing a Type‐A personality reported significantly less CA than their Type‐B counterparts. This pattern of findings was strongest for apprehension about communicating in “collective” contexts (e.g., public, group, meeting) but diminished for CA in more “intimate” circumstances (e.g., interpersonal).     

Cronbach's Alpha Versus Components of Variance Approach (COVA): Dispelling Three Myths about Alpha and Suggesting an Alternative Reliability Statistic for Communication Trait Research

This study examined the effects of sociocultural factors and perceptions of mental illness on preferences for indirect disclosure. We surveyed 354 college students from China and the U.S. The results indicated that (a) males and members of the collectivistic culture reported more stigmatized attitudes; (b) stigma endorsement was positively associated with preferences for indirectness; and (c) males, members of the collectivistic culture, and individuals without previous interpersonal contact with someone with a mental illness were more likely to recommend an indirect disclosure strategy. The findings demonstrate the importance of considering how sociocultural factors can affect individuals’ preferences for disclosing stigmatized identities.     

Teaching and learning about human nutrition: a constructivist approach

The results of a constructivism‐based teaching programme on human nutrition for students in the second year of secondary education (13‐ and 14‐year‐olds) are analysed in light of the ideas held by the students before and after implementation of the programme. The results show how most of the students who participated in this programme reorganized their ideas concerning the nutritional process and achieved a fuller understanding of how nutrition comprises a series of related and integrated processes. Other students, who followed a more conventional method based on the teacher explanation and textbooks, tended to have erroneous or incomplete ideas concerning the nutritional process.     

Correlation between variables subject to an order restriction,with application to scientometric indices

Variables subject to an order restriction, for instance Y ≤ X, have a bivariate distribution over a non-rectangular joint domain that entails a non-null and potentially large structural relation even if the variables show no association (in the sense that particular ranges of values of X do not co-occur with particular ranges of values of Y). Order restrictions affect a number of scientometric indices (including the h index and its variants) that are routinely subjected to correlational analyses to assess whether they provide redundant information, but these correlations are contaminated by the structural relation. This paper proposes an alternative definition of association between variables subject to an order restriction that eliminates their structural relation and reverts to the conventional definition when applied to variables that are not subject to order restrictions. This alternative definition is illustrated in a number of theoretical cases and it is also applied to empirical data involving scientometric indices subject to an order restriction. A test statistic is also derived which allows testing for the significance of an association between variables subject to an order restriction.