Developing students' referencing skills: a matter of plagiarism,punishment and morality or of learning to write critically?

Just as plagiarism is viewed poorly in the academic community, so is plagiarism viewed poorly in student writing, with a range of sanctions and penalties applying for not displaying academic integrity. Yet learning to cite effectively to progress one's argument, position or understandings is a skill that takes time to develop and hone. This paper examines the skills underlying effective use of citation and the problems students have in citing effectively. It compares these to the messages that beginning students receive about citation through a focus on academic integrity, plagiarism and punishment. It examines the prevalence of plagiarism and the development of citation skills in student writing when the teaching focuses instead on developing critical writing abilities through the skillful selection, use and acknowledgement of sources.     

Building literacy in alphabetic, abjad and morphosyllabic systems

Preschoolers?? metalinguistic and visual capabilities may be associated with the writing system of their culture. We examined patterns of performance in phonological awareness, naming of letters, morphological awareness, and visual-spatial relations, in 5-year-old native speakers of Spanish (n?=?43), Hebrew (n?=?40), and Cantonese (n?=?63) and the relations of these literacy related skills to concurrent word writing and word reading. The writing systems in these languages represent three major categories, i.e., alphabetic (Spanish), abjad (Hebrew), and morphosyllabic (Chinese). Phonological awareness, letter naming, and perception of visual-spatial relations differed across groups, whereas morphological awareness showed a similar level of attainment in all three languages. Stepwise regression analyses explaining writing and reading for each language separately revealed both commonalities and differences between languages. Phonological awareness assessed by initial syllable deletion contributed to writing and to reading in Cantonese and in Spanish. Phonological awareness assessed by final phoneme isolation explained reading in Hebrew, whereas final and initial phoneme isolation explained writing in Hebrew. Letter naming predicted both writing and reading in Spanish and in Hebrew, while perception of visual-spatial relations did so in Cantonese. At age 5, children??s metalinguistic knowledge and visual discrimination abilities are already attuned to the particular features of the writing system to which they are exposed.     

The impacts of different types of workload allocation models on academic satisfaction and working life

Increasing demands on academic work have resulted in many academics working long hours and expressing dissatisfaction with their working life. These concerns have led to a number of faculties and universities adopting workload allocation models to improve satisfaction and better manage workloads. This paper reports on a study which examined the workload models in use across a large Australian university. Analysis revealed that the various models could be categorised into three types. The pros, cons and impacts of these three categories of model were compared from both a management and staff perspective. The study found that while models of all types can lay the foundation for equitable distribution of workload, some categories of model can have unintended consequences with negative effects on the work culture and hence staff satisfaction.     

Multifaceted Evaluation Criteria of Digital Libraries in Academic Settings: Similarities and Differences From Different Stakeholders

Digital library (DL) evaluation is essential to the success and enhancement of DLs. However, there is a lack of research on the assessment of comprehensive evaluation criteria across multiple dimensions of DLs. In particular, limited research is available on criteria prioritization to determine which criteria are perceived important by different stakeholders. This study was conducted to compare similarities and differences in perceptions of the importance of different DL evaluation criteria by heterogeneous stakeholders in academic settings. Ninety subjects were recruited with 30 from each of the group representing DL scholars, DL librarians, and DL users. Subjects were instructed to fill in an in-depth survey consisting of 10 evaluation dimensions with 94 criteria. ANOVA and t-test were applied to examine the similarities and differences among the three groups. This study reveals consensus and divergence in perceptions of criteria importance among the three groups, and indicates an inherent tension among the stakeholders. Moreover, the differences identify gaps not only between user expectations and the DL practice but also between what's desirable and what's possible in the academic environment. The findings provide a comprehensive list of criteria to guide practical evaluation of DLs, and contribute to the narrowing of the identified gaps.     

Allowing course compensation in higher education: a latent class regression analysis to evaluate performance on a follow-up course

Abstract

In this study, the consequences of allowing course compensation in a higher education academic dismissal policy are evaluated by examining performance on a second-year follow-up (i.e. sequel) course that builds on material from a first-year precursor course. Up to now, differences in the consequences of compensation on student performance across groups of students who portray different unobserved study processes were not considered. In this study we used a latent class regression model to distinguish latent groups of students. Data from two undergraduate curricula were used and latent classes were formed based on similar patterns in averages, variability in grades, the number of compensated courses, and the number of retakes in the first year. Results show that students can be distinguished by three latent classes. Although the first-year precursor course is compensated in each of these latent classes, low performance on the precursor course results in low performance on the second-year sequel course for psychology students who belong to a class in which the average across first-year courses is low and the average number of compensated courses and retakes are high. For these students, compensation on a precursor course seems more likely to relate to insufficient performance on a sequel course.     

Extending Learning Communities: New Technologies,Multiple Literacies,and Culture Blind Pedagogies

Technologies such as videoconferencing used for distance education are creating ways for high schools to extend their learning communities to connect youth with professional communities of practice in ways that approximate the face-to-face interactions in traditional classrooms. These technologies are often touted as a way to augment course offerings and curricula, particularly those needed for college-going. The use of videoconferencing technologies alone, however, does not ensure that the desired forms of interaction will occur particularly given their reliance on traditional banking-model pedagogies and literacies. In this article, we focus on college bound Black and Latino/a youth from under resourced urban communities and their negotiations of new technologies, multiple literacies, and traditional pedagogies within a music education learning community extended through videoconferencing technologies. Employing a multicultural feminist critical theoretical framework, we unearth the ways Black and Latino/a youths identities as active learners and college-bound musicians shape, and are shaped, in the interplay of new technologies, multiple literacies, and traditional pedagogies within a music education classroom.     

Children’s and Adolescents’ Specific Interest in Science and Technology,Participation in Out-of-School Activities and Inclination to Become Scientists

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Recently, the literature has repeatedly reported an interesting decrease in science and technology (S&T) among youngsters, and a drop of...     

Maternal Responsiveness to Infants in Three Societies: The United States, France, and Japan

This study examines and compares prominent characteristics of maternal responsiveness to infant activity during home-based naturalistic interactions of mother-infant dyads in New York City, Paris, and Tokyo. Both culture-general and culture-specific patterns of responsiveness emerged. For example, in all 3 locales infants behaved similarly, mothers also behaved similarly with respect to a hierarchy of response types, and mothers and infants manifest both specificity and mutual appropriateness in their interactions: Mothers responded to infants' exploration of the environment with encouragement to the environment, to infants' vocalizing nondistress with imitation, and to infants' vocalizing distress with nurturance. Differences in maternal responsiveness among cultures occurred to infant looking rather than to infant vocalizing and in mothers' emphasizing dyadic versus extradyadic loci of interaction. Universals of maternal responsiveness, potential sources of cultural variation, and implications of similarities and differences in responsiveness for child development in different cultural contexts are discussed.     

Qualitätsmanagement in Unternehmen

Zusammenfassung Durch den immer schwieriger werdenden Wettbewerb und die steigenden Ansprüche der Kunden an Qualit?t hat sich Qualit?tsmanagement zu einem wichtigen strategischen Managementinstrument entwickelt. Einen besonderen Stellenwert hat die Norm ISO 9000 gewonnen, die zum Ziel hat, die Qualit?tsf?rderungsma?nahmen der Unternehmen transparenter zu gestalten. Die aktuelle Norm betont insbesondere den prozessorientierten Ansatz und die Notwendigkeit der kontinuierlichen Verbesserung. Generell wird Qualit?tsmanagement als Oberbegriff für eine Vielzahl von Managementmethoden verwendet, von denen zentrale Konzepte wie TQM. Benchmarking und Balanced Scorecard im überblick vorgestellt werden. Die wirtschaftliche Bedeutung des Qualit?tsmanagements begründet sich vor allem durch die Annahme, dass eine hohe Qualit?t des Produktionsprozesses betriebswirtschaftliche Potenziale er?ffnet, die im Idealfall den Unternehmenserfolg deutlich steigern. Gleichzeitig müssen strategische überlegungen zur Produktqualit?t und Kosten-Nutzen-Analysen berücksichtigt werden. Besonderheiten für die Bereiche Dienstleistung und Handel werden kurz skizziert. Ein Ausblick auf zukünftige Entwicklungen veranschaulicht, dass die Bedeutung von Qualit?tsmanagement in Unternehmen in den n?chsten Jahren weiterhin zunehmen wird.

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Summary Quality management in private enterprises Due to stronger competition and growing customer demands concerning quality, quality management has become a significant strategic management tool. The DIN standard ISO 9000, particularly, with the objective of advancing transparency in the methods of quality management used by companies has gained in importance. The current DIN standard places special emphasis on processes and the need for continuous improvement. Quality management refers to a large number of management tools, including TQM, Benchmarking and Balanced Scorecard, which are reviewed briefly. The economic relevance of Quality Management is primarily based on the assumption that high quality production processes increase the potential for commercial success. At the same time it is important to consider overall management strategies as well as cost-benefit analyses. Specials issues regarding the areas of trade and service are briefly sketched. Finally, an outlook on future developments is given, showing that the significance of quality management in companies will increase in the coming years.