The role of mentoring relationships in the career development of successful deaf persons

A qualitative study of deaf graduates of Rochester Institute of Technology in New York State who became supervisors in primarily hearing work settings found that having a mentor was a primary and persistent element in their career success. In the deaf individual's early years, generally it was a family member or teacher who conveyed a belief in that individual's abilities, encouraged effort, and helped instill self-esteem and confidence. Parents were often their strongest advocates, and teachers were their advisors and facilitators. In the work setting, a supervisor or coworker often served as a mentor by coaching, advising, and teaching the individual what they needed to know to succeed on the job. In many ways, these "informal" mentors provided the foundation that enabled the deaf individual to break through what are often barriers to career success despite their skills and abilities. The various forms of mentorship and their impact on deaf college graduates are explored.     

Estimation of Gestational Age: Implications for Developmental Research

Recent research in neonatology and obstetrics has challenged the validity of standard gestational age assessment methods. Length of gestation is a central component of research on the development of at-risk infants, yet issues concerning accuracy of this information are rarely addressed by developmental researchers. This article reviews prenatal and postnatal methods of gestational age estimation and evaluates implementation of this information in research. Recommendations concerning the assignment of gestational age in the perinatal period and the use of age correction for preterm infants are offered.     

Style and effectiveness in education and training: A model for organising teaching and learning

In the fields of education and training, there is nowadays an increasing recognition of the need to be effective. In order to be effective it is necessary, however, to ensure that both the content of one's teaching and its style of presentation are suitably matched to the needs and interests and abilities of the persons being taught. This in turn calls for a broadly based ecological approach in which careful attention is paid to the social and psychological conditions under which teaching and learning occur. By drawing on the pertinent literature in business management and organisation theory, the author indicates how the ecological approach might be applied to problems of style and effectiveness in education and training. A conceptual framework is developed within which it is possible to identify 4 broadly distinguishable and commonly occurring styles of teaching. The framework is then applied to an experiment in which the styles of three teachers were compared and contrasted. The paper ends with a presentation of 4 detailed hypotheses concerning the conditions under which each of the 4 proposed teaching styles is most likely to prove effective.     

Characteristics of youths with hearing loss admitted to substance abuse treatment

The purpose of this study is to provide a profile of youths with hearing loss admitted to substance abuse treatment facilities. Intake data on 4,167 youths (28% female; 3% reporting a hearing loss) collected via the Global Appraisal of Individual Need-I assessment was used for the analyses. Information on demographics, environmental characteristics, substance use behaviors, and symptoms of co-occurring psychological problems for youths with and without a hearing loss was analyzed via Pearson chi-square tests and effect sizes. The groups reported similar backgrounds and comparable rates of marijuana and alcohol use. However, youths in the hearing loss group reported substance use behaviors indicative of a more severe level of involvement. Across all measures of co-occurring symptoms, youths with hearing loss reported greater levels of distress and were more often victims of abuse. Results of this study will help inform treatment needs of youths with hearing loss and define a baseline for future research.     

Voice,Discourse and Transformation: Enabling learning for the achieving of social change

This paper proposes that transformative social change by community educators is not achievable unless they can challenge the social, economic and political discourses that have an impact on the practice of community education. As educators of community workers, the authors regard the development of voice to be a prerequisite for the challenging of discourse. Voice provides the foundations for understanding what it means to be who one is and how change is needed and possible. Voice, we argue, is inseparable from criticality and we draw on Brookfield's (2000) four traditions of criticality, in particular pragmatic constructivism, to link our understandings of voice. It is important, we conclude, to allow students to develop distinctive voices so that they become critically reflexive professionals who can work towards transformative social change. Shared and contrasting views on the development of voice are presented in a dialogical format to reflect the sometimes shared and sometimes contrasting voices of the two authors.     

Instructions for authors

Instructions for Authors

Instructions for Authors     

Why Can People Jump Higher on the Moon? A study of what children learned from Corners,a children's television programme

At the request of the production team, a study was carried out on the BBC children's general knowledge programme, Corners, in order to test how suitable and enjoyable the programme was for its intended audience (five to seven year olds). Three age groups of children (six, seven and 11 year olds) were tested on memory and liking for one episode of the programme. Eleven year olds were significantly better at remembering the programme than the younger age groups. But there was also an unexpectedly large significant difference between seven and six year olds. Six year olds found particular difficulty in answering questions based on large numbers. The programme was most popular with seven year olds and least popular with 11 year olds. Popularity of individual items was not associated with superior recall. Results are discussed in terms of their usefulness in guiding production decisions for the next series of Corners, and also in terms of possible developmental factors which could account for the age differences     

Publication Rates of Molecular Versus Non-Molecular Biologists: A Case Study of Seven Primarily Undergraduate Institutions

At many primarily undergraduate institutions, biology faculty members mentor student research collaborators. If publication is required for tenure and promotion, this research is expected to result in periodic publications; and publication rates are a common metric used to assess faculty productivity. However, we have uncovered a highly significant difference in the time required to publish articles based on biological sub-discipline. It takes, on average, twice as long for molecular biologists to publish articles than scholars from other sub-disciplines in biology. We believe that this analysis can be used to assess whether this phenomenon generalizes to other disciplines and/or other categories of institutions.