Opportunity for change in the future roles for the health library and information professional: meeting the challenges in NHS Scotland

BACKGROUND: NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is the Special Health Board responsible for supporting best practice in education, training and development for all staff groups within NHS Scotland. As part of its remit, the Knowledge Services Group within NES is responsible for the e-Library, a national electronic resource providing and supporting access to the evidence base. The Knowledge Services Group also supports the national development of library services to NHS Scotland. AIMS: This article aims to provide a reflective overview of some recent challenges within the health library and information field in Scotland, and the positive role opportunities these have afforded. METHODS: The information was gathered through extensive professional interaction with staff across the sector over the first year of establishing the new role of Librarian Staff Development Manager. FOCUS: New roles have emerged for health library and information professionals generally; for example, in response to new technology or new user groups. The development of the NHS Scotland e-Library provides examples of role development that emerges symbiotically from core skills applied to a new situation or applied in an innovative way. Role development among health library and information professionals operating at the local service level can be both reactive and proactive. Working together, the partnership between the national Knowledge Services Group and local library and knowledge services for NHS Scotland has resulted in the emergence of additional new roles, extending the role portfolio of the local professional (for example, the Librarian-Tutor role) and supported by other national infrastructures (for example, the competency framework initiative).     

Why teachers leave: Factors that influence retention and resignation

Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior is used to examine continuing teachers’ plans to remain or resign and the likelihood of resigned teachers to return to teaching in the next 3 years. Specifically, this study examined factors that encourage or hinder resigned teachers from returning to teaching, the importance of such factors, and the importance of those factors for teachers who remained in teaching. We find that family issues are of greatest concern to all teachers, and that leavers place much more emphasis on the time they are able to spend with their families than do stayers. The importance assigned to all factors is influenced by demographic characteristics.     

Teacher Evaluation in The Netherlands and its Relationship to Educational Effectiveness Research

In this article, we describe the history, current practice and future of teacher evaluation in The Netherlands. After a short introduction describing the Dutch educational system, we present information about teacher evaluation practices performed by persons outside the school (the Inspectorate) and inside the school (the principal). We then pay attention to the progress of teacher and school effectiveness research in The Netherlands and the relatively weak links between research and evaluation practices in schools. Finally, we outline some potential future developments in the field of teacher evaluation in The Netherlands.     

Correlates of spelling abilities in children with early speech sound disorders

The correlates of spelling impairment wereexamined in children with histories of earlyspeech sound disorders. The spelling errors of52 children with histories of speech sounddisorders were analyzed to predict theassociation between weaknesses in expressivelanguage skills in early childhood andschool-age spelling abilities. Resultsrevealed that children with preschool speechsound and language problems became poorerspellers at school age than did children withpreschool speech sound disorders only. However, even children with isolated speechsound disorders demonstrated a weakness inspelling skills relative to their reading andlanguage abilities and Weschler Performance IQ.Measures of phonological awareness were highlycorrelated with spelling skills, suggestingthat phonological processing abilities arerelated to the ability to spell phoneticallypredictable words. Analysis of spelling errorsbased on level of phonological awareness skillrevealed that children with preschool speechsound disorders utilize phonetic strategies inspelling phonetically predictable words. Familial aggregation of spelling disorderssuggests a possible genetic component that ismodified by gender.     

The influence of classroom climate on science process and content achievement of community college students

The effect of two specific classroom climates on learning of science process skills and content achievement in college level science classes was studied. Two classroom climates were established and designated as discovery classroom climate (DCC) and nondiscovery classroom climate (NDCC). The term discovery denotes the degree of freedom the teacher established in classroom interactions, both verbal and nonverbal. Verbal interactions were monitored with the Science Laboratory Interaction Categories. These data indicate that students in the two classroom climates achieved equally as well on learning of biological content of the course, but students in the discovery classroom climate achieved significantly higher scores in science process skills as measured by the Welch Science Process Inventory. This study, conducted in a large, suburban community college, offers some useful information to the person who has educational goals beyond, but including, the learning of science information and concepts, and possibly science process. Students in the less directive discovery climate learned as much content as those in a more directive comparison class-they lost nothing of what is traditionally sought in a college science class. In addition, the discovery climate facilitated the development of science process skills which were significantly better than the comparison class. A five-week intensive class using the discovery climate was found to provide as much content acquisition as the ten-week nondiscovery climate.     

Detection of deficits in temporal pattern discrimination using the seashore rhythm test in young children with reading impairments

A deficiency in temporal pattern discrimination frequently is a distinguishing characteristic of children with dyslexia or learning disabilities (LD). We studied the feasibility of using the Seashore Rhythm Test, a subtest of the Halstead-Reitan neurological assessment battery (Halstead, 1947), with young children to discriminate children with reading impairments from age-matched controls reading at a normal level, in an effort to develop tools to determine readiness to read in young school-age children. Major considerations in test selection were ease of administration and wide use and acceptance. Fifty-nine children in Grades 1 through 3 were administered a battery of tests during the last 3 weeks of the school year by blinded experimenters. Tests administered included the Seashore Rhythm Test, Benton Visual Retention Test, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Blau Torque Test, and the Rod and Frame Test. Children with reading impairments (n = 24) in all age groups were found to exhibit a marked deficit in the ability to discriminate patterned pairs of tones on the Seashore Rhythm Test compared to controls (n = 26). These children also exhibited deficits in right-left orientation, as indicated by their poor performance on the Blau Torque Test. Performance on the Seashore and the Blau by a group of children diagnosed as learning disabled (n = 9) was similar to the group with reading impairments. No significant differences between controls and children with reading impairments or LD were observed in Rod and Frame or Benton performance. The results suggest that the Seashore Rhythm Test may prove to be a useful tool to detect young children who will later show signs of reading impairment.     

Emerging teachers–emerging identities: trust and accountability in the construction of newly qualified teachers in Norway,Germany, and England

Within the context of globalisation, this article problematises some of the literature on teachers’ professional identities in which a convergence and homogenisation of the profession is implied. It achieves this by focusing on the early experiences of 32 newly qualified teachers in Norway, Germany, and England. The article explores conceptions of identity, deployed for this research, relating these to high- and low-trust forms of trust and accountability in teaching. Aspects of similarity and difference between the three education systems are then used to focus on generic as well as culturally specific issues raised by some of the interview extracts.     

Academics’ perspectives of the teaching and development of generic employability skills in science curricula

ABSTRACT

Graduate employability is a key issue for higher education as new graduates face a highly competitive and rapidly changing employment sector. To maximise their likelihood of employment, graduates need to be able to demonstrate the skills and attributes most valued by employers. Employers, however, have long criticised the ability of graduates to contribute effectively to the workplace, especially due to a perceived lack of generic employability skills. This indicates a possible mismatch between the skills required by employers and those possessed by graduate applicants. This study addresses a gap in the scholarly literature regarding employability skills – the perspectives of science academics at an Australian and UK university regarding the promotion of generic employability skills in the subjects they teach. More specifically, this article discusses academics’ perspectives regarding: (a) which of the targeted generic skills were developed and assessed through their science units, and (b) the approaches used to promote the targeted skills and any associated challenges in employing those approaches. The discussion explores how shifting from traditional transmissive pedagogies to more problem-based approaches and embedding reflection into pedagogy and assessment practices would contribute to promoting the skills employers increasingly demand from science graduates.     

The Concept of Vision in Educational Effectiveness Theory and Research

Educational effectiveness theory and research have developed considerably in recent years. Despite the advances, several problems remain, such as the inability of effectiveness characteristics to explain variance in student outcomes satisfactorily and consistently. In this article, we introduce the concept of vision as a potential solution for these problems. Educational effectiveness has focused heavily on behavioural factors, but the ideas behind these factors could be important as well. After discussing related concepts at the national, school and classroom levels, we introduce the concept of vision which relates ideas and behaviour more strongly than earlier concepts such as expectations and beliefs because it emphasises causal relations between educational goals and means and pays attention to the psychological, pedagogical and sociological dimensions of education. Consequences for further theory and research are discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.