A synthesis of evaluations of distance education courses

Distance education courses are offered in a wide variety of formats. A range of media is available, and mechanisms for and levels of study and administrative support vary widely between courses. When new courses are established there is a wealth of experience to draw upon but little, if any, guidance on how to choose between the plethora of potential course formats. This article suggests that synthesising guidelines from evaluations of a selection of courses can help in drawing conclusions as to how courses are best formatted for given situations. As a case study, seven Hong Kong distance education courses with a variety of features were evaluated. Conclusions were synthesized—about the provision of tutorials, group activities, inter-student contact, telephone counselling and the use of video and television broadcasting—which could not have been reached from either evaluating one course alone or by examining existing literature.     

Attachment in deaf mothers and their children

In attachment research, there has been a growing interest in how adults conceptualize their relationships with their own parents as well as in the transmission of attachment status from parent to child and the variables that influence that transmission. The primary goal of the present study was to examine the transmission of attachment from deaf mother to child. Adult Attachment Interviews were collected on 32 deaf women and Strange Situation Procedure data were obtained from their children. While the distribution of deaf mother attachment classifications was similar to that found with hearing samples, the concordance between mother and child in terms of attachment status was lower than in hearing samples. Having a deaf parent did not affect a deaf adult's attachment status. Post hoc analyses suggested a trend towards a dismissing stance in attachment relationships. Results are discussed in terms of variables affecting attachment status as well as the transmission of attachment.     

Voting for Change: an International Study of Students’ Willingness to Support Measures to Ameliorate Climate Change

Research in Science Education - Voting for various pro-environmental governmental policies is an indirect, but potentially effective, action that citizens can take to reduce global warming (GW) and...     

The Role of Context for Characterising Students’ Strategies when Estimating Large Numbers of Elements on a Surface

International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education - This paper presents a qualitative study developed with a group of 16-year-old students who were asked to estimate large numbers of...     

Advisory services and farm-level sustainability profiles: an exploration in nine European countries

Purpose: This study explores the use of advisory services by farm managers and its linkages with the economic, environmental and social performance of farms.

Design/methodology/approach: Using cluster analysis we determined groups of farms according to their sustainability performance and explored the correlations between contacts with advisory services and a set of farm-level sustainability indicators.

Findings: There exist significant differences in the number of farmers’ contacts with advisory services across countries, type of farms, farmers’ degree of agricultural education, utilized agricultural area, legal type of farm ownership and economic size of the farms. We identified three groups of farms that have different sustainability performance, are different in farm characteristics and relate differently to advisory services. The number of contacts with advisory services is positively related to the adoption of innovations, the number of information sources utilized and the adoption of farm risk management measures. We find no clear linear relationship between advisory services and environmental sustainability.

Theoretical implications: This study derives hypotheses to analyze causalities between indicators of farm-level sustainability and advisory services.

Practical implications: Results suggest the importance of taking into account the heterogeneity of farming systems for the design, targeting and evaluation of advisory services. In addition, results confirm the importance of selection of indicators that can be used in multiple sites.

Originality/value: We used a harmonized indicator of advisory services and a harmonized set of farm-level sustainability indicators in nine different EU countries that could be used to evaluate the role of advisory services in the achievement of multiple objectives in different groups of farms in multiple sites.     

Perceived environment in relation to objective and self-reported physical activity in Spanish youth. The UP&DOWN study

The aims of the present study were to assess the association of environmental perception with objective and self-reported physical activity (PA) and the relation between environmental perception and meeting PA recommendations on children and adolescents. A sample of 1520 youth (770 boys) aged 8–18 years (12.1 ± 2.5 years) from the UP&;DOWN study were included in the data analyses. Environmental perception was assessed with the short adapted version of the ALPHA environmental questionnaire. PA was objectively (accelerometers) and self-reported measured (PA Questionnaire for Children, Patient-centered Assessment and Counseling for Exercise Questionnaire and Finnish PA Index). Linear regression models were used to assess the association of environmental perception with PA. Bivariate logistic regression models were used to assess differences between environmental perception and meeting PA recommendations. Environmental perception was positively associated with both objective and self-reported PA. Some differences were found in the association of environmental perception and PA between sex- and age-specific groups. Youth who perceived a more favourable environment were more likely to meet PA recommendations (at least 60 min · day^?1 of moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA)). Results suggest that environmental perceptions of children and adolescents may play an important role in achieving higher levels of PA.     

Cognition in the African Grey parrot: Preliminary evidence for auditory/vocal comprehension of the class concept

An African Grey parrot, previously taught to discriminate more than 40 objects by means of vocal labels, has now acquired a limited understanding of abstract class concepts. The subject, Alex, can routinely decode and successfully reply vocally to queries concerning either coloror shape for exemplars which simultaneously incorporate both variables (e.g., colored and shaped keys, wood, and rawhide).