e-Business usage across and within firms in the UK: profitability, externalities and policy

Using data from the third UK Community Innovation Survey we model the usage of e-business across and within firms in the UK in the year 2000 as a single observation upon an integrated process of inter- and intra-firm diffusion. The intra-firm dimension is a significant extension to standard analysis. The model estimates indicate that the pattern of e-business usage reflects the heterogeneity of firms in terms of size, other innovative activity and labour force skills (generating differences in the payoffs to use) as well as market and non-market intermediated externalities. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Divergent Thinking in Italian Students with and Without Reading Impairments

Several studies have explored the relationship between dyslexia and creativity, but results have been rather mixed. This study examines whether Italian dyslexic children are more creative than their peers without a reading impairment. One hundred ninety Italian children aged between 9 and 13 participated in this study, divided into two groups: Ninety five dyslexic students and ninety five peers without a reading impairment. All the participants’ creativity skills were assessed. The results indicated that dyslexic children outperformed their peers in the total score, and in the originality, elaboration, and titles sub-scores, whereas no differences were found in the fluency and flexibility sub-scores. The results are discussed in relation to the practical implications, and provide indications for supportive learning environments.     

Principles of Integrated Instruction for Engagement in Reading

Our purpose in this article is to propose a set of design principles to serve as a structural framework for enhancing engagement in reading. We provide a rationale for our emphasis on engagement, which we believe is an important aim of reading instruction. We discuss the sources of the proposed design principles. These design principles consist of a set of features of the classroom context including: conceptual themes, real-world interactions, self-direction, interesting texts, social collaboration, self-expression, cognitive strategy instruction, time for engaged reading, and coherence. We present empirical support from the educational psychology literature for each principle. For illustration, we provide a brief depiction of each principle functioning within a framework of Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). We emphasize that each principle is dependent on several others, and we describe how the functioning of each principle is contingent on the occurrence of several affiliated principles in the vignettes of CORI.