Digital Archival Image Collections: Who Are the Users?

Archival digital image collections are a relatively new phenomenon in college library archives. Digitizing archival image collections may make them accessible to users worldwide. There has been no study to explore whether collections on the Internet lead to users who are beyond the institution or a comparison of users to a national or international audience. This study of the Orang Asli Archive, a repository for anthropological, historical, journalistic, and other documentary sources relevant to Orang Asli peoples and cultures of Malaysia, examines the Web analytics of its digital archival image collections.     

Plowing in Rocky Land: Organizational Culture,Managed Change,and Quality Improvement in Selected Romanian Post-Communist Libraries

Romanian libraries have had a rich heritage of collecting and preserving materials in the domains of national and foreign history, literature, art, and science. During the communist regime they served as propaganda tools for the government's Marxist ideology. In post-communist Romania, there is a desire among some librarians to promote change from a system of limited access to information to a more open system that focuses on quality improvement of library services, operations, and organization. In their efforts to overcome the communist legacy to libraries in their country, some Romanian librarians—with local resources and support from international agencies—are implementing western managerial styles and services. This case study reflects the results, assessments, and recommendations from a survey conducted at a workshop of selected Romanian librarians in August 1998. Considerations for the implementation of needed changes are also included.     

A Teaching–Learning Sequence for the Special Relativity Theory at High School Level Historically and Epistemologically Contextualized

This paper discusses some topics that stem from recent contributions made by the History, the Philosophy, and the Didactics of Science. We consider these topics relevant to the introduction of the Special Relativity Theory (SRT) in high school within a contextualized approach. We offer an outline of a teaching?Clearning sequence dealing with the SRT within this frame of reference. Such a sequence was tried out on a group of high school students in Argentina. The results obtained seem to indicate that the proposal has been effective as regards the motivational aspects and the understanding students gained of some of its concepts.     

A longitudinal study of social relationships and networks in the transition to and within adulthood for vulnerable young adults at ages 24, 29 and 34 years: compensation,reinforcement or cumulative disadvantages?

This longitudinal study, spanning from 1995 through 2012, followed vulnerable youth from upper secondary school (T1) as they made the transition to their early twenties (T2), late twenties (T3) and mid-thirties (T4). We investigated their social network relationships in different phases of adult life, focusing mainly on factors that explain patterns of social adaptation. Internet-mediated relationships were also studied at T4. We found that attending special classes in upper secondary school explained the respondents’ risk of being in a small isolated and bonding network in their early twenties. In the transition from early to late twenties, the relative impact of a changed life situation, which increases the potential of network formation, is a resilience factor. Logistic regression analyses, however, showed that in the transition from T3 to mid-thirties, having intellectual disabilities was a risk factor for social isolation. In particular, males with intellectual disabilities or psychosocial difficulties at this age were isolated in small networks and less likely to be on Facebook/Twitter. A shift of factors in the explanatory model of the transition from school to adult life reflects the relative impact of contextual factors distant and closer in time, shedding light on the principle of social ties to others, linked lives and cumulative disadvantages across the life course.     

A Tale of Two Libraries: A Merger and Its Challenges. A Case Study

In 2005, representatives from Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), the Universities at Shady Grove (USG), and the University of Maryland Libraries, explored a potential partnership between their libraries. With different patrons and missions, merging the two library cultures and functions presented challenges and opportunities to administrators and librarians.

This study examines the dimensions and impact on both libraries. It will inquire whether it resulted in a limited, primarily administrative arrangement, or whether the libraries were able to achieve true collaboration. The findings highlight some issues libraries could take into account before embarking into a merger process.     

Comprehensive evaluation model: A tool for the evaluation of nontraditional educational programs

The Comprehensive Evaluation Model is a tool which can be used for the evaluation of nontraditional programs. This Model is useful in helping an educator address issues related to program quality, cost-effectiveness and program improvement. The Model is utilization focused, that is, in applying the Model one assesses who needs evaluative information, and for what purpose. There are four levels of program effects which the evaluator can choose to evaluate. The levels are: 1) participant reaction, 2) participant learning, 3) participant transfer of learning, and 4) organizational impact of the program.     

A qualitative inquiry on sources of teacher efficacy in teaching low-achieving students

Developing a high level of efficacy can be challenging to teachers who work with low-achieving students. The authors adopted a pragmatic qualitative research design to investigate the sources of efficacy information reported by five high-efficacy teachers and four low-efficacy teachers of secondary low-achieving students in Singapore. The results show that the psychological sources of information postulated by Albert Bandura (i.e., mastery experiences, verbal persuasion, vicarious experience, and physiological and emotional arousal), are valid but insufficient to explain high teacher efficacy. Three additional nonpsychological sources of information, including teachers' knowledge about students, rapport with students, and previous working experiences, also played significant roles in the creation of high teacher efficacy.     

Inquiry Science Learning and Teaching: a Comparison Between the Conceptions and Attitudes of Pre-service Elementary Teachers in Hong Kong and the United States

Research in Science Education - International studies of science education, such as the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), have revealed considerable national disparities in...     

Nature of Science and Science Content Learning

Besides viewing knowledge about the nature of science (NOS) as important for its own value with respect to scientific literacy, an adequate understanding of NOS is expected to improve science content learning by fostering the ability to interrelate scientific concepts and, thus, coherently acquire scientific content knowledge. However, there is a lack of systematic investigations, which clarify the relations between NOS and science content learning. In this paper, we present the results of a study, conducted to investigate how NOS understanding relates to students’ acquisition of a proper understanding of the concept of energy. A total of 82 sixth and seventh grade students received an instructional unit on energy, with 41 of them receiving generic NOS instruction beforehand. This NOS instruction, however, did not result in students having higher scores on the NOS instrument. Thus, correlational analyses were performed to investigate how students’ NOS understanding prior to the energy unit related to their learning about science content. Results show that a more adequate understanding of NOS might relate to students’ perspective on the concept of energy and might support them in understanding the nature of energy as a theoretical concept. Students with higher NOS understanding, for example, seemed to be more capable of learning how to relate the different energy forms to each other and to justify why they can be subsumed under the term of energy. Further, we found that NOS understanding may also be related to students’ approach toward energy degradation—a concept that can be difficult for students to master—while it does not seem to have a substantive impact on students’ learning gain regarding energy forms, transformation, or conservation.