Providing access to electronic information resources in further education

This article aims to provide a baseline for future studies on the provision and support for the use of digital or electronic information services (EIS) in further education. The analysis presented is based on a multi‐level model of access, which encompasses access to and availability of information and communication technology (ICT) resources, access to and availability of EIS resources, and the third leg of staff skills and their development. The research was conducted within the third cycle of the JISC (Joint Information Services Committee) User Behaviour Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, in 2001/2002. Evidence was gathered from library and information service web sites and various stakeholders, including library and information service staff, academic staff and students to generate insights into the provision of access to EIS in further education. Sector‐wide funding initiatives have had a significant impact on ICT infrastructures, and these attract a positive response from students. EIS are represented on some library web sites but both web site development and EIS availability is very much less advanced than in higher education. Staff, however, lack sufficient dedicated access to ICT to be able to develop their own skills and use. There remains a low level of access to electronic information resources, with only limited access to these resources through library web sites. LIS managers face a number of challenges in enhancing this provision, including licensing arrangements, tight budgets that need to be spread across many discipline areas, and the absence of EIS designed specifically for the further education student. The other key challenge lies in the provision of time and opportunity for academic and LIS staff to develop their ICT and EIS skills, and, more generally in the further development of the role of Information and Learning Technology (ILT) Champions.     

Web Sites that Address Prematurity

Families of preterm infants need a tremendous amount of support. This resource column highlights several Web sites that may be useful to health care providers and childbirth educators, as well as to parents of premature infants and their families.     

Soy protein

Soy protein comes from soybeans and offers multiple health benefits, some of which are just beginning to be discovered. This column reviews the health benefits of soy products with a special focus on women and children's health. To date, little has been written or researched that is directly related to perinatal health. Thus, the column has a more broad focus so that childbirth educators have a general resource to gain knowledge related to the use of soy-based foods.     

Improving nutrition in pregnant adolescents: recommendations for clinical practitioners

Pregnancy represents an ideal time for health promotion activities. Many women, including adolescents, are interested and willing to change health behaviors to improve the chance that they will deliver a healthy infant. This paper focuses on improving nutrition in pregnant adolescents. Seven recommendations are presented to help achieve this goal: 1) Focus on foods, not nutrients; 2) individualize and work within the pregnant adolescent's current eating habits; 3) consider the context of family and peer groups; 4) reward efforts; 5) make it easy; 6) focus on weight gain patterns for optimal birth outcomes; and 7) refer to a dietician, as needed. Use of these recommendations comprehensively addresses adolescent developmental needs to improve nutrition during pregnancy. These recommendations are not meant to be all-inclusive; rather, they are meant to serve as a guide for clinical management of nutrition for pregnant adolescents.     

Factors contributing to research excellence

What factors contribute to high-quality funded research activity in research universities? What do these institutions have in common? What management strategies do they employ to encourage funded research excellence and activity? In this period of decreased or level government spending, competition for grants among research universities becomes fierce. In order to stay competitive, it is important to know what works in research management. Preliminary research has allowed us to provide some answers and to clarify some key questions on what makes a successful research program.     

Science,education, and republican values: Trends of faith in America: 1750–1830

The history of curriculum debate involving science in the United States has touched all levels and concepts of schooling. It has involved a wide spectrum of competing interests and ideas. It has helped guide the framing of concepts as complex and influential as those of progress, human nature, and the national welfare. It has been a stage on which many players have entered, spoken, left, and returned (not always in the guise of farce). Above all, it is itself something from which a great deal can be learned: for in large part any current situation stands at the apex of this long history and cannot in any sense be divorced from what it reveals about the larger place of science and learning in American consciousness. Eric Hobsbawm once wrote that the progress of schools and universities measures that of nationalism, and that education generally is the most conscious champion of the state. History reveals this to be an enormous oversimplification, woefully expedient, and particularly so in the case of science. Here, in fact, nationalism itself can be revealed as a collision of many conflicting interests, myths, visions, and hopes, all of which at some point took the scientific as legitimating dais. No committed history could be so reductive. It must rather open both inward and outward, toward the past and its continued momentum.     

Executive functions in elementary school children with and without problems in written expression

This study examined the executive functioning of 55 elementary school children with and without problems in written expression. Two groups reflecting children with and without significant writing problems were defined by an average primary trait rating across two separate narratives. The groups did not differ in terms of chronological age, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, special education status, or presence of attention problems or receptive vocabulary capabilities; however, they did differ in reading decoding ability, and this variable was controlled for in all analyses. Dependent measures included tasks tapping an array of executive functions grouped conceptually in accordance with a model of executive functioning reflecting the following domains: initiate, sustain, set shifting, and inhibition/stopping. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) procedures revealed statistically significant group differences on the initiation and set shift domains, with the sustaining domain approaching significance. Children with writing problems performed more poorly in each of these domains, although the effect sizes were small. A multiple regression that employed these four factors and the reading decoding variable to predict the primary trait score from the written narratives revealed a statistically significant regression function; however, reading decoding contributed most of the unique variance to the writing outcome. These findings point out the importance of executive functions in the written language process for elementary school students, but highlight the need to examine other variables when studying elementary school-age children with written expression problems.     

Banners for Books: “Mighty-Hearted” Kindergartners Take Action through Arts-Based Service Learning

Teaching about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, is one way to support students’ learning about issues of fairness. However, learning about this document is not enough. Students need to have experiences where they explore issues of justice and equity in order to learn about respect and dignity for others. The present study explored an arts-based project in a kindergarten classroom about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 26—The Right to Education. Over the course of several months, nineteen kindergarten students learned about educational inequities around the world and specifically about an under-resourced partner school in El Salvador. Children’s literature about human rights became the catalyst for critical conversations, written responses, and drawings inspiring action. Students worked to address injustice by screen printing images they drew about their beliefs regarding a child’s right to education on fabric banners to raise awareness about school inequity. These banners were then displayed in their school and in the partner school. Overall findings from students’ discussions, writing, illustrations, and interviews indicated that the kindergartners were able to recognize their own rights and educational privilege. Through the project they demonstrated active citizenship centered on care and sought further connections with children at the partner school. In using arts-based service learning, educators involved in the study discovered how art can be used as a creative process and a teaching method to support young learners raising awareness about global inequities.     

Parental Explanatory Models of Child’s Intellectual Disability: a Q Methodology Study

This study with families caring for an individual with an intellectual disability in a mid-sized Indian city explored the diverse explanatory models that parents constructed of causes, preferred treatment approaches and perceived social effects of their child’s intellectual disability. Seventeen mothers and three fathers rank ordered 48 disability related statements and participated in a qualitative interview. The intercorrelations and factor analysis of participant sorts helped to generate three parental explanatory models which were named religious resilience, in search of treatment and social change, and it is a burden to bear. The three models extracted 23%, 20% and 9% variance respectively. Interpretations based on factor arrays, consensus and differentiating statements, and qualitative interviews indicated that the first explanatory model utilised religion and spirituality to positively frame their child’s intellectual disability. The second explanatory model rejected religious notions and did not dwell on the cause of disability, but rather focused on optimal rehabilitation of individuals with an intellectual disability. The third model was characterised by maladaptive religious attributions and rehabilitation approaches.     

Developmental Status and Social–Emotional Functioning of Young Children Experiencing Homelessness

The developmental status and social–emotional functioning of young children who are homeless has received inadequate attention in spite of high rates of homelessness among families with young children and the potentially negative impact of homelessness and associated stressors on children’s well-being. The aim of this study was to gain understanding of homeless children’s social–emotional adjustment and their functioning in language, motor, and cognitive skills. We also examined gender and age differences in those areas of development. The sample included 328 children residing with their parents in one of 11 emergency shelter or transitional housing programs for families who were experiencing homelessness in a central North Carolina county. Child case managers administered the Brigance Early Childhood Screen II and the Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Socioemotional form in the shelter setting. Findings indicated variability in competence among the children, with some children performing above average on the developmental screening and demonstrating few social–emotional problems. However, developmental scores for overall functioning of the sample were significantly below the norming group, with particularly low functioning in language and communication skills. Parents of 24.8 % of the children had substantial concerns about their children’s mental health status. Although there are individual differences in adjustment of children experiencing homelessness, results support wide-scale screening and access to early intervention for these vulnerable children. Future investigations could be directed to identifying factors associated with resilience among children without homes.