Research Support in an Academic Medical Center

In 2003, the Prior Health Sciences Library (Prior Library) at The Ohio State University (OSU) explored the possibility of providing specialized support to biomedical, nursing, and allied health researchers by adding a research librarian position. The decision came about after the Medical Library Association (MLA) investigated how libraries could provide enhanced support to medical researchers. This article describes how the research librarian position was developed and how it continues to evolve.     

Books of the Month

William H. Read's America's Mass Media Merchants (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977---$10.95)

Wilbur Schramm and Daniel Lerner (eds.) Communication and Change: The Last Ten Years—and the Next (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1976---$16.00)     

Temperament in the school context: a historical review

The majority of studies on temperament in the educational context originate from the Anglo-Saxon culture, where there has been an increase in research in this field over the last four decades. The objective of this paper is to contribute towards systematizing of relevant findings that have been carried out in the educational context from the field of temperament over the last decades. This is a theoretical paper, where we present relevant findings obtained in the relationship between temperament and school performance, in both academic (academic skills and performance) and social areas (social–educational adjustment in the classroom). The contribution of temperament to the school performance is important, although differences can be seen in relation to the age of the children and the contents of the curriculum. In general terms, the dimensions of temperament that have more direct relationships with the academic outcomes are adaptability and attention persistence. Also worth noting is the role of negative emotionality which has a negative relationship with children’s performance. Its incidence is much greater, however, when accompanied by low abilities of self-regulation, given the important direct effect that effortful control has on both academic achievement and school social adjustment, even when this is evaluated by different informants. We must highlight the increasing evidence of the relationships that exist between the different components of self-regulation (attentional control, inhibitory control, activation control) and negative emotionality (fear, anger) when explaining behavioural problems in the classroom.     

Development and Validation of a Scale to Assess Students’ Attitude towards Animal Welfare

This work presents the development of a scale of attitudes of secondary-school and university students towards animal welfare. A questionnaire was drawn up following a Likert-type scale attitude assessment model. Four components or factors, which globally measure animal welfare, are proposed to define the object of the attitude. The components are animal abuse for pleasure or due to ignorance (C1), leisure with animals (C2), farm animals (C3) and animal abandonment (C4). The final version of the questionnaire contains 29 items that are evenly distributed among the four components indicated, guaranteeing that each component is one-dimensional. A sample of 329 students was used to validate the scale. These students were aged between 11 and 25, and were from secondary schools in Aragon and the University in Zaragoza (Aragon's main and largest city, located in NE Spain). The scale shows good internal reliability, with a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.74. The questionnaire was later given to 1,007 students of similar levels and ages to the sample used in the validation, the results of which are presented in this study. The most relevant results show significant differences in gender and level of education in some of the components of the scale, observing that women and university students rate animal welfare more highly.     

Early School-leaving in Spain: evolution,intensity and determinants

Spain has one of the highest levels of early school leaving and educational failure of the European Union. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the anatomy of early school leaving in Spain and its characteristics. In order to do so, in the first part we discuss the measurement problems related with this concept and the evolution of drop-out rates in Spain. We argue that the published figures of early school leaving slightly underestimate the phenomenon, and discuss the impact of the increase in immigration rates on the level of educational failure and its very unequal distribution in terms of gender. In a second part, using data from the Labour Force Surveys of 2000 and 2007, we explore the factors behind educational failure by means of a logistic regression. The results of this model confirm the explanatory power of social reproduction hypotheses, but also show that there are important aspects of the patterns and recent evolution of early school leaving which cannot be explained by a single theoretical approach.     

Ageism at university: A comparative analysis of young and older adult students

ABSTRACT

This study undertakes a comparative analysis of the negative stereotypes of older persons described by young and older adult university students at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. This study is innovative in that it compares three analytical perspectives: the perception of young students (18–27 years); the perception of older adult students (50 years and above) regarding older persons (hetero-stereotypes); and, finally, the perception of older adult students with regard to themselves as part of the group of older adult students (self-stereotypes).

The sample is made up of 460 young students and 148 older adult students who completed the Questionnaire on Negative Ageing Stereotypes (QNAS), comprising three dimensions: health; character and personality; and social relationships and motivation. A statistical analysis was subsequently carried out using the independent samples t-test in the IBM Statistics 19.0 program.

Of note among the principal results is the low level of negative stereotypes reported among the groups studied, as well as the existence of significant differences in their means, which indicate that the negative stereotypes of the groups differed. The most stereotyped of the dimensions analyzed was character and personality. In contrast, the least-stereotyped dimension was that of social relationships and motivation. Finally, the dimension of health occupied an intermediate position. With regard to the three perspectives studied, the older adult group (hetero-stereotypes) was the most stereotyped, followed by the young students and, finally, the older adult students with reference to self-stereotypes.     

Social Support,Psychological Well-being,and Health Among the Elderly

This article is based on the influence that participation in the Third Age University Program has on the health and well-being of the elderly and with the mediation of social support. The data were obtained from a longitudinal study of 147 elderly students of the Third Age University of Seville (Spain). The hypothesis was that the elders who belong to the program would have, as a consequence of their participation in it, better health, well-being, and social support. The results revealed the influence that social support exercises on well-being and, as a result, upon health.     

Dimensions of educational transactions in a videoconferencing learning environment

Abstract

Moore's Theory of Transactional Distance suggests that dialogue, structure, and learner autonomy are the key elements delineating the educational transaction in distance learning environments. However, the conceptualizations of these concepts in a telecommunication era have not been systematically addressed. By investigating 121 learners’ experiences with videoconferencing, this study identified the dimensions (factors) constituting dialogue, structure, and learner autonomy in such a learning environment. Exploratory factor analysis using a principal axis factor method was carried out. It was concluded that each of these three concepts represented multi‐faceted ideas. Dialogue consisted of three dimensions: in‐class discussion, out‐of‐class electronic communication, and out‐of‐class face‐to‐face interaction. Structure contained the dimensions of course organization and course delivery. Learner autonomy was comprised of independence and interdependence. The results of this study can inform videoconferencing researchers and practitioners of the factors of the educational transaction that should be considered in videoconferencing courses.     

History by quota?

This article is part of the center's study of leadership and social change in the United States.