Connecting with Community: The Importance of Community Engagement in Rural Public Library Systems

While the topic of community engagement in public libraries has been researched in urban public library systems, little research explores community engagement in rural library systems. The Canadian province of Nova Scotia is largely rural and sparsely populated, with a dwindling and aging rural population. This report examines how community engagement can connect Nova Scotia’s rural public libraries with their communities. Librarians from eight predominantly rural library systems across the province were interviewed regarding the community engagement practices currently being used within their libraries and how their patrons (particularly youth) were reacting and responding to these practices. This article synthesizes the information derived from these interviews and provides a summary of the community engagement efforts being made throughout Nova Scotia. This study ultimately determines that while librarians in rural communities face a number of challenges when attempting to implement community engagement (e.g., small budgets and low staffing numbers), they remain extremely passionate about the topic and dedicated to serving their communities in the most meaningful and relevant way possible.     

Extracting Latent Moral Information from Text Narratives: Relevance,Challenges, and Solutions

ABSTRACT

Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) and the Model of Intuitive Morality and Exemplars (MIME) contend that moral judgments are built on a universal set of basic moral intuitions. A large body of research has supported many of MFT’s and the MIME’s central hypotheses. Yet, an important prerequisite of this research—the ability to extract latent moral content represented in media stimuli with a reliable procedure—has not been systematically studied. In this article, we subject different extraction procedures to rigorous tests, underscore challenges by identifying a range of reliabilities, develop new reliability test and coding procedures employing computational methods, and provide solutions that maximize the reliability and validity of moral intuition extraction. In six content analytical studies, including a large crowd-based study, we demonstrate that: (1) traditional content analytical approaches lead to rather low reliabilities; (2) variation in coding reliabilities can be predicted by both text features and characteristics of the human coders; and (3) reliability is largely unaffected by the detail of coder training. We show that a coding task with simplified training and a coding technique that treats moral foundations as fast, spontaneous intuitions leads to acceptable inter-rater agreement, and potentially to more valid moral intuition extractions. While this study was motivated by issues related to MFT and MIME research, the methods and findings in this study have implications for extracting latent content from text narratives that go beyond moral information. Accordingly, we provide a tool for researchers interested in applying this new approach in their own work.     

Teachers as mediators between educational policy and practice

Teachers obviously serve as the medium for causing the result of policy as they carry it into schools and classrooms and deliver it to pupils. They mediate between education policy and practice. Knowledge of the exact nature and effects of this vital role is limited. Drawing on a range of research and evaluation of both national and local policy in practice, carried out by the authors in England, this paper illustrates how teachers mediate policy and the resulting outcomes. Further, it proposes a typology of teacher adaptation to education policy. The paper argues that as yet the appropriate professional role for teachers within policy‐making and implementation has not been achieved, and outlines what this might be. Finally, it outlines some implications for teacher education.     

Differences that make a difference: comparisons of metacomponential functioning and knowledge base among groups of high and low IQ learning disabled, mildly mentally retarded, and normally achieving adults

To determine if cognition among persons with learning disabilities (LD) and mild mental retardation (MMR) is similar, we compared metacomponential functioning and knowledge acquisition across groups of incarcerated adults with LD and high IQ (HIQLD), with LD and low IQ (LIQLD), with normal achievement (NA), and with MMR. The Slosson Intelligence Test Computer Report (Nicholson, 1984) formula established criteria for group inclusion. Metacomponential functioning among 77 males and 26 females was measured by a confidence test (Echternacht, Boldt, & Sellman, 1971) designed for the general knowledge subtest of the SRA Achievement Battery (Naslund, Thorpe, & Lefever, 1982). Knowledge base and group membership were significantly related to metacomponential ability (R2 = .84). Persons with HIQLD and LIQLD performed better than those with MMR on both measures. The HIQLD, however, did not outperform their peers with NA. Results show that (a) knowledge base is the best predictor of metacomponential skill, (b) metacomponential orchestration differentiates persons with HIQLD from those with LIQLD and both groups from persons with MMR, and (c) IQ mediates metacognition, but does not explain it. Education should emphasize knowledge acquisition for people with HIQLD; people with LIQLD and MMR require more attention to metacognition.     

BMI-referenced cut-points for recommended daily pedometer-determined steps in Australian children and adolescents

The purpose of this study was to establish sex-specific criterion-referenced standards for pedometer-determined physical activity related to body mass index (BMI)-defined weight status among youth. We analyzed data from 7-16-year-old boys (n = 338) and girls (n = 337) and used pedometer-assessed physical activity and anthropometric data to derive average steps/day and BMI. Sex-specific criterion-referenced standards for steps/day relating to healthy weight and overweight/obese were determined using the contrasting groups method. Healthy weight children took more steps/day than overweight or obese (boys: 14,413 vs. 12,088, and girls: 12,562 vs. 10,114, respectively; p < .001). The optimal BMI-referenced cut-point emerging flom our sample was 16,000 steps/day for both boys and girls. Our results and those reported elsewhere suggest that youth take insufficient pedometer-determined steps/day to avoid becoming overweight.