‘He's behind you!’: Reflections on Repetition and Predictability in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

This article offers a reflection on the recent success of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. It considers what has contributed to the popularity of the series and questions whether its 13-volume length is a reflection of the need to tell the story over the duration it demands, or the decision to exploit a lucrative publishing opportunity.     

The Rhetoric of Junk Science

In this article, a biochemist and a rhetorician collaborate to define “junk science.” They apply that definition as they rhetorically analyze a book that makes strong claims about endocrine disruption (Our Stolen Future) and a website developed to embarrass those claims (Our Swollen Future). This article argues that junk science and accusations of junk science evince ideologicaVeconomic motives and pronounced efforts to construct, or assail, scientific ethos.     

Toward a Two‐Factor Theory of One Type of Mathematics Disabilities

A two‐factor theory is proposed in an attempt to explain the difficulty that children with math disabilities have in mastering the basic number facts. The theory is based on the premise that weak cognitive representations lead to poorer retrieval of information from long‐term memory. Two groups of children with disabilities are discussed: those with math disabilities alone (MD) and those with co‐morbid math and reading disabilities (MD/RD). It is proposed that weak phonological processing abilities underlie the learning difficulties of MD/RD children, and that weak number sense is a causal factor in the math‐fact learning difficulties of MD only and some MD/RD children.     

Examining Instructional Design Principles Applied by Experienced Designers in Practice

There has been ongoing debate regarding the efficacy of teaching instructional design models to novice designers given that experienced instructional designers often use principles and adapted models when they engage in the instructional design problem‐solving process. This study utilized the Delphi technique to identify a core set of guiding principles used by designers in their practice. The purpose of this study was (1) to examine and describe the principles that guided instructional designers’ practice and (2) to identify the extent to which participants’ frames of reference included components of the ADDIE instructional design model. Sixty‐one principles were ultimately identified (reached consensus among the Delphi panel members). Thirty‐two of the principles aligned with the primary components of the design process (e.g., analysis, design, development, and evaluation). Additional principles (n = 29) related to other characteristics of design such as communication, project management, and design characteristics.     

Student performativity in higher education: converting learning as a private space into a public performance

The paper sets out a conceptual analysis of student performativity in higher education as a mirror image of teacher performativity. The latter is well known and refers to targets, evaluations and performance indicators connected with the measurement of the teaching and research quality of university academics. The former is defined as the way that students are evaluated on the basis of how they perform at university in bodily, dispositional and emotional terms. Specifically, this includes rules on class attendance and assessment (‘presenteeism’), an increasing emphasis on participation in class and in groups as part of learning and assessment regimes (‘learnerism’) and the surveillance of students’ emotional development and values (‘soulcraft’). Student performativity is symbolic of the ‘performing self’ in wider society and is transforming learning at university from a private space into a public performance. This negatively impacts student rights to be free to learn as autonomous adults.