Tell England and the perfection of death

Geoff Fox was a founding editor of CLIE and still serves as Secretary to the UK Editorial Committee. He has worked with young people and teachers in schools and universities in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia. He has written widely in the field, includingTeaching Literature 9–14 (with Michael Benton, Oxford University Press, 1985). He has recently written four short works of fiction.     

Attitudes toward Face-to-Face and Online Counseling: Roles of Self-Concealment,Openness to Experience,Loss of Face,Stigma, and Disclosure Expectations among Korean College Students

This study examined attitudes toward face-to-face (f2f) and online counseling among 228 Korean college students. In addition, it tested a hypothesized model proposing that general propensities (i.e., self-concealment, openness to experience, and loss of face) would influence counseling-specific expectations (i.e., self-stigma and disclosure expectations), which, in turn, would predict attitudes toward f2f and online counseling. Findings mirrored the results of earlier studies revealing that self-concealment was negatively related to attitudes toward both f2f and online counseling, while openness to experience and disclosure expectations were positively related. However, whereas self-stigma was associated with negative attitudes toward f2f counseling, it was not related to attitudes toward online counseling. In addition, disclosure expectations accounted for f2f attitudes more than online attitudes.     

Romani Language: Cataloging Ramifications for a Language in the Process of Standardization

In this article, the author discusses issues related to the cataloging of a language, Romani (or Romany), which is only in the twenty-first century beginning to achieve some degree of standardization. In his discussion, the author focuses on issues of Romani orthography, specifically a small number of unusual Unicode characters that may cause technical problems in certain automated cataloging environments, such as OCLC WorldCat, the OCLC cataloging client Connexion, and online library catalogs.     

Communicating With Bank Stakeholders During Recession: Why It's Important,Who Is Doing It,and How to Stay in the Loop

This study explores the attitudes and actions of bank managers toward communication spending during recession. Results of this study indicate that organizational leaders cut communication spending early during recession and also erroneously rely on the bank's financials to mitigate irrational customer withdrawals. This research is used to illustrate the need for public librarians to meet the needs of bank stakeholders when their institution ceases to communicate during crises, for academic librarians to educate students in undergraduate and graduate programs regarding heightened information needs during recession, and for corporate librarians to understand a potential avenue for competitive advantage during recession.     

Adapting an Embedded Model of Librarianship,College by College

Librarians are increasingly moving out of the library and into the wider university setting as patrons spend more time seeking information online and less time visiting the library. The move to embed librarians in colleges, departments, or customer groups has been going on for some time but has recently received more attention as libraries work to find new ways to reach patrons that no longer need to come to the physical library. Few universities have attempted to embed all their librarians. This case study describes how one group of health sciences librarians dispersed its professional staff throughout its campuses and medical centers.     

Local education authorities’ approaches to provision for children with specific speech and language difficulties in England and Wales

Children with specific speech and language difficulties (SSLD) pose a challenge to the education system as a result of their language needs and associated educational and social‐behavioural difficulties. Local education authorities (LEAs) in England and Wales have developed language units to meet their needs but previous research has indicated this provision was inadequate. The development of inclusion raises questions regarding this type of provision, compared with full inclusion into mainstream schools. The present study reports on a national survey of LEAs in England and Wales (97 respondents, 49.5% response rate) and interviews with 37 LEA special educational needs managers. Provision varied by age group with designated specialist provision more prevalent at key stages 1 and 2 (age 5–11 years), and relatively little at key stages 3 and 4 (11–16). LEAs’ decision‐making regarding provision varied, influenced by the lack of common criteria, which was highlighted by the difficulties in distinguishing children with SSLD from those with autistic spectrum disorder. There were also difficulties translating policies into practice, including the shortage of speech and language therapists. The implications of the study are discussed with reference to inclusion.     

Changes in Examination Performance in English Secondary Schools over the Course of a Decade: Searching for Patterns and Trends Over Time

The article explores changes in the examination performance of a random sample of 500 English secondary schools between 1992 and 2001. Using econometric methods, it concludes that: there is an overall deterministic trend in school performance but it is not stable, making prediction accuracy poor; the aggregate trend does not explain improvement over time at school level, where there is very considerable variation in improvement paths; there is a degree of persistence with respect to changes in performance at school level but it is short-lived; whilst there is evidence of a general upward trend across schools, there is a large amount of year-to-year variation and little evidence of sustained improvement at school level; and the model applied has little ability to forecast the direction of change for particular schools in the following year(s).     

An evaluation of the written texts of children with SLI: the contributions of oral language, reading and phonological short-term memory

In this study, we performed a fine grained analysis of writing by children with a specific language impairment (SLI) and examined the contribution of oral language, phonological short-term memory (STM), nonverbal ability, and word reading to three writing constructs (productivity, complexity and accuracy). Forty-six children with SLI were compared with 42 children matched for chronological age, receptive vocabulary (N = 46) and reading decoding (N = 46) on a measure of narrative writing. The SLI group performed worse on all measures compared to children of a similar chronological age. The SLI group produced a greater proportion of orthographic spelling errors than children with similar receptive vocabularies, but were comparable to children matched for reading decoding. The children with SLI showed specific difficulties in the omission of whole words (e.g. auxiliary verbs and subject nouns) and omissions of grammatical morphology (e.g. past tense—ed) reflecting the difficulties shown in their oral language. Receptive grammar made a significant contribution to writing complexity and accuracy. Phonological fluency contributed to writing productivity, such as the production of diverse vocabulary, ideas and content and writing fluency. Phonological STM and word reading explained additional variance in writing accuracy over and above the SLI group’s oral language skills.     

INCREASING TEACHER TREATMENT INTEGRITY THROUGH PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK PROVIDED BY SCHOOL PERSONNEL

When implementing behavioral interventions in educational settings, some implementers need support to maintain high levels of treatment integrity. Performance feedback has a large body of research supporting it as a strategy for improving teachers’ implementation of classroom interventions. However, in most prior studies, performance feedback has been delivered by a researcher, not by a school staff member, which limits generalizability of results to applied settings. In this study, school personnel (i.e., internal consultants) assessed teachers’ treatment integrity when implementing a classwide behavioral intervention and, when low, provided performance feedback. Further, researchers assessed internal consultants’ treatment integrity and provided performance feedback as needed. Results indicate that internal consultants are able to assess and briefly increase teachers’ treatment integrity with performance feedback, although some teachers needed more support than did others. Likewise, internal consultants’ treatment integrity was fairly high initially, but required consistent performance feedback to increase treatment integrity levels toward the end of the study. Implications for research and practice are discussed.