A Cross-Cultural Validation of Perceived Locus of Causality Scale in Physical Education Context

We examined the validity of the factor structure and invariance of the Perceived Locus of Causality (PLOC) scale instrument scores across two nations endorsing collectivist (Singapore) and individualist (Great Britain) cultural values. Results indicated that confirmatory factor analytic models of the PLOC exhibited adequate ft according to multiple criteria within each sample and across samples. There was invariance in the item-intercepts across the two cultures. In addition, the simplex-like pattern of relations among the PLOC constructs was confirmed within cultures and in invariance analyses. Finally, latent factor means analysis revealed that the British participants tended to rate less self-determined forms of motivation lower than and more self-determined forms of motivation higher than the Singaporean participants.     

Conducting Rigorous Survey Research in the Study of School-Based Consultation

The evidence base for school-based consultation practice and training is limited by a small number of studies, possibly due to unique challenges in researching consultation. For example, there are myriad variables to measure and idiosyncratic cultural and contextual factors to account for when investigating what works, for whom, and in what circumstances. Survey methodology offers one means for conducting consultation research. This article proposes a process for rigorous survey research in school-based consultation training and practice, which addresses some potential concerns regarding survey research. Specifically, issues of survey development, survey validation, sampling, and data collection are addressed. These processes are illustrated through the design and administration of an online survey of 262 early career school psychologists; preliminary data analyses suggested strong scale reliability, minimal item response bias, and population representativeness. Recommendations for future consultation survey research are provided.     

Wider access and progression among full-time students

By 2010 the UK government intends to widen access and provide experience of higher education to half of those aged up to 30. Unlike many institutions, University of Paisley (UP) has exceeded its individual target on access. It has done this by providing entry routes for students with ‘non-traditional’ qualifications. It is feared that low entry qualifications will adversely influence performance and progression statistics as wider access is pursued. Drawing on a student-attrition theory, performance and progression are investigated using data for students enrolling at UP for the first time in 2000. At UP non-traditional entry coincided with the enrolment of many students over 21. The relationships between age and performance and between age and progression are nonlinear and involve interactions with gender. Also, there are interactions between entry qualification and field of study. These relationships and interactions could complicate the important task of translating wider access into academic success.     

Exploring Gender and Phenomenography

A critical feature of phenomenographic study is its generation of the “outcome space” which constitutes the results of the study. The central idea underlying this article is that women may be “lost in space" — the phenomenographic outcome space. First, women seem to be literally missing in the majority of phenomenographic studies. These studies have usually been in fields in which women are poorly represented and in research samples in which women have not been present. Second, the traditional disciplines of study, the values of which largely determine the structure of the typically hierarchical outcome space, are patriarchal. Without attention to the hidden as well as the explicit aspects of what learners are coming to know, the understanding that we gain from the outcome space may be distorted. Third, the outcome space tends to be defined in many studies in cognitive terms, excluding or neglecting the affective dimension often associated with women's ways of knowing. This article explores the implications of looking for and elaborating on women's experience in phenomenographic research and suggests several ways in which women's experience might be recognised: by ensuring that women are included in research; by questioning in gender‐sensitive ways; by collecting and analysing the data with attention to the gendered construction of disciplinary knowledge and gendered ways of knowing.     

Social Influences on Terrestrial and Satellite Mobile-TV Adoption in Korea: Affiliation,Positive Self-Image,and Perceived Popularity

Mobile TV is a representative product of media convergence. In South Korea, the diffusion of mobile TV has been in high gear, which provides an exemplary case study of mobile-TV adoption. The study examines the relation between the social influence, adopters' individual factors, and the adoption of the 2 different forms of mobile TV: terrestrial and satellite. Factor analysis identified 3 dimensions of social influences, defined respectively as “affiliation,” “positive self-display,” and “perceived popularity.” Results suggest that these 3 social influences differ in degree in relation to the adopters' demographic characteristics and innovativeness. Adoption of terrestrial or satellite mobile TV was predicted by social influence and, in particular, driven by the motivation to maintain a positive self-image. Because of the implications this may have on media management, the article calls for future research on the social construction of new media technology use to assess how individuals become susceptible to social influences and how social influences affect the diffusion of the technology.     

Construction of difference and diversity within policy and practice in England

Policy and practice responses to diversity and difference in pupil populations continue to challenge education systems around the world. This paper considers how teachers’ understandings of diversity and difference and their pedagogical responses at the local level are influenced by, and can be reconciled with, policy at the general level with its impulse for categorisation, normalcy and ‘ableness’. Two frameworks around orientations to diversity and types of pedagogic need are combined in order to examine this tension and develop possible responses. This is illustrated through the example of special educational needs as a type of difference. The paper argues that for critical, ethical and socially just pedagogies, policy needs to support teachers in acknowledging and troubling difference at the classroom level.     

A Structural Equation Modeling of the Factors Affecting an Age-friendly Workplace

There has been a growing trend recently to examine the various factors affecting an age-friendly workplace. Through structural equation modelling (SEM), this study purports to test a model that shows the interaction between and among declining memories, wisdom, age discrimination, and an age-friendly workplace in Filipino elderly in a government setting. Two hundred elderly from a large government bank in the Philippines participated in this study. Data were obtained through a self-completion questionnaire and a one-on-one interview. Surprisingly, results revealed that declining memory has no significant effect on wisdom. However, wisdom has a positive impact on age discrimination as does age-discrimination on an age-friendly workplace. The authors discuss the implications of these results and highlight directions for future research.     

Reviews,Letters and Listings

The Internet: A Writer's Guide by Jane Dorner. London: A. & C. Black, 2000. Pp. x + 196, Hardback, £9.99. ISBN 0‐7136‐5192‐X