Altruism in death: Attitudes to body and organ donation in Australian students

Health education, research, and training rely on the altruistic act of body donation for the supply of cadavers. Organ transplantation and research rely on donated organs. Supply of both is limited, with further restrictions in Australia due to requirements for a next-of-kin agreement to donation, irrespective of the deceased's pre-death consent. Research suggests health workers are less likely to support the donation of their own bodies and/or organs, despite recognizing the public good of donation, and that exposure to gross anatomy teaching may negatively affect support for donation. Attitudes to body and organ donation were examined in Australian students studying anatomy. Support for self-body donation (26.5%) was much lower than support for self-organ donation (82.5%). Ten percent of participants would not support the election of a family member or member of the public to donate their body, and just over 4% would not support the election of a family member to donate their organs, with one-to-two percent not supporting this election by a member of the public. Exposure to gross anatomy teaching was associated with an increased likelihood of consideration of issues about body and organ donation, whether for self, family, or the public, and registration as an organ donor. Exposure decreased participants' willingness to donate their own body, with those who practiced a religion least likely to support body donation. Gross anatomy courses provide an opportunity to inform future healthcare workers about altruistic donation, albeit with a recognition that religious or cultural beliefs may affect willingness to donate.     

The Effects of One versus Two Years of Intensive Reading Intervention Implemented with Late Elementary Struggling Readers

We examined the effectiveness of a researcher‐provided reading intervention with 484 fourth graders with significant reading difficulties. Students were randomly assigned to one year of intervention, two years of intervention, or a business‐as‐usual comparison condition (BAU). Students assigned to two years of intervention demonstrated significantly greater gains in reading fluency compared to students who received one year of intervention and the BAU group. Students in both the one‐ and two‐year groups demonstrated similar and significantly larger gains in word reading in comparison to the BAU group. There were no statistically significant differences between the three groups on standardized measures of reading comprehension. We discuss these results in the context of research with late elementary and secondary students targeting reading comprehension.     

Book Reviews

A Century of Science Publishing: A Collection of Essays Edited by E.H. Fredriksson Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2001. US$49/€44/€31 A User's Guide to Copyright, 6th edn Michael Flint, Nick Fitzpatrick and Clive Thorne Tottell Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1845920686, 639 pp., paperback, £78 Publishing Law, 3rd edn Hugh Jones and Christopher Benson Taylor and Francis, 2006 ISBN 0 415 38427 3 Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers , 7th edn Style Manual Committee, Council of Science Editors Council of Science Editors in cooperation with The Rockefeller University Press, 2006, xvi + 659 pp. Hardback. ISBN 0‐9779665‐0‐X The Trouble with Medical Journals Richard Smith Royal Society of Medicine, 2006, ISBN 1 85315 673 6, 292pp., £19.95     

Book Reviews

Growth, creativity and collaboration: great visions on a Great Lake – proceedings of the North American Serials Interest Group, Inc. 19th annual conference, June 17–20, 2004, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 2005 Ed. P. S. French and M. Mering The Haworth Information Press, Binghamton, NY, ISBN 0‐7890‐2976‐6 US $34.95 Communicating in style by Yateendra Joshi The Energy and Resources Institute, India, 2003, 81 7993 016 5, £7.50 Bookmaking: Editing, Design, Production by Marshall Lee W. W. Norton & Co. Ltd., 2004, hardback, ISBN 0393730182 The Institutional Repository By Richard Jones, Theo Andrew and John MacColl Chandos Publishing, 2005, ISBN 1 84334 138 7, 237pp.     

Emotion dialogues between mothers and children at 4.5 and 7.5 years: relations with children's attachment at 1 year

It was examined whether secure infant-mother attachment contributes to emotionally congruent and organized mother-child dialogues about emotions in later years. The attachment of 99 children was assessed using the Strange Situation at the age of 1 year and their emotion dialogues with their mothers were assessed at the ages of 4.5 and 7.5 years. Dialogues were about past emotional events and separation of a child from parents, and were classified into an emotionally matched group or 1 of 3 non-emotionally matched groups. Security in infancy was associated with emotionally matched dialogues at the age of 4.5; there was moderate stability in dialogues between 4.5 and 7.5 years; and infant attachment predicted dialogues at 7.5 beyond the prediction offered by age 4.5 dialogues.     

Narrative inquiry in physical education research: the story so far and its future promise

At a recent international education conference, current life history and narrative research within Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) was criticised for its seeming inability to ‘produce anything new’ and for lacking ‘rigour’. This paper aims to respond to the criticism and to reassert the strengths of narrative inquiry in the current moment. It maps out narrative and life history research (published in English) carried out in PETE, illuminating a spectrum of narrative approaches and a richness of theoretical perspectives. It underscores the need for PETE scholars to acknowledge the broad range of philosophical assumptions about knowledge and how we come to know as this underpins all research, whether carried out within a qualitative or quantitative research tradition, and to develop a climate of mutual respect for these various positions if we are to avoid stagnation, hegemony or blind spots in our research agendas.     

Why is online bibliographic information so unimportant?

There is a fundamental difference between the world of real-time financial, and of bibliographic information online. The former is highly profitable, the latter rarely breaks even. The paper examines the major characteristics of the two types of online service in terms of customer base, pricing policy, growth rates, etc., and draws conclusions as to why bibliographic information online is so unimportant, and so unprofitable, compared to financial information services. The paper concludes with some thoughts on whether the bibliographic online business can ever become viable.