Good Use of a ‘Bad’ Metaphor

Entropy is often introduced to students through the use of the disorder metaphor. However, many weaknesses and limitations of this metaphor have been identified, and it has therefore been argued that it is more harmful than useful in teaching. For instance, under the influence of the disorder metaphor, students tend to focus on spatial configuration with regard to entropy but disregard the role of energy, which may lead their intuition astray in problem solving. Albeit so, a review of research of students’ ideas about entropy in relation to the disorder metaphor shows that students can use the metaphor in developing a more nuanced, complex view of the concept, by connecting entropy as disorder to other concepts such as microstates and spreading. The disorder metaphor—in combination with other explanatory approaches—can be used as a resource for learning, in giving students an early flavour of what entropy means, so long as we acknowledge its limitations; we can put this “bad” metaphor to good use in teaching.     

Genetic technologies meet the public: the discourses of concern

To clarify concerns that the public has with genetic technologies, the article presents the results of focus group interviews conducted in Denmark in 2000. The concerns of the public are divided into three ideal-typical categories: social (dealing with environmental and health risks), economic (dealing with both the threats and opportunities of the new technologies), and cultural (taking up ethical and moral concerns). Following a general discussion of why it is important to take these discourses of concern seriously, each discursive category is discussed with examples taken from the focus group interviews.     

How is professionals’ information seeking shaped by workplace procedures? A study of healthcare clinicians

Professional work is often regulated by procedures that shape the information seeking involved in performing a task. Yet, research on professionals’ information seeking tends to bypass procedures and depict information seeking as an informal activity. In this study we analyze two healthcare tasks governed by procedures: triage and timeouts. While information seeking is central to both procedures, we find that the coordinating nurses rarely engage in information seeking when they triage patients. Inversely, the physicians value convening for timeouts to seek information. To explain these findings we distinguish between junior and expert professionals and between uncertain and equivocal tasks. The triage procedure specifies which information to retrieve but expert professionals such as the coordinating nurses tend to perform triage, which is an uncertain task, by holistic pattern recognition rather than information seeking. For timeouts, which target an equivocal task, the procedure facilitates information seeking by creating a space for open-ended collaborative reflection. Both junior and expert physicians temporarily suspend patient treatment in favor of this opportunity to reflect on their actions, though partly for different reasons. We discuss implications for models of professionals’ information seeking.     

A model for the development of university curricula in nanoelectronics

Nanotechnology is having an increasing impact on university curricula in electrical engineering and in physics. Major influencers affecting developments in university programmes related to nanoelectronics are discussed and a model for university programme development is described. The model takes into account that nanotechnology affects not only physics but also electrical engineering and computer engineering because of the advent of new nanoelectronics devices. The model suggests that curriculum development tends to follow one of three major tracks: physics; electrical engineering; computer engineering. Examples of European curricula following this framework are identified and described. These examples may serve as sources of inspiration for future developments and the model presented may provide guidelines for a systematic selection of topics in the university programmes.     

Collaborative and self-generated analogies in science education

It has long been recognised that analogies may be a useful tool in science education. At the same time, it has been found that there are challenges to using analogies in teaching. For example, students might not identify a suitable analogy, might not recognise how the taught target domain is similar to the source domain to which it is compared, or may fail to realise where the analogy breaks down. The present study offers a review of two trends which reflect the ambition to come to terms with such challenges: self-generated analogies, making use of students’ own analogies in teaching, and analogy generation in collaborative settings, such as in small-group work. Empirical studies show predominately positive results with regard to students’ enjoyment and learning gains, and point to opportunities for formative assessment. The specificities of language in conjunction with analogy and the role of analogies in authentic science classroom discourse are suggested as areas of study that deserve more attention going forward.     

Levers of Management in University-Industry Collaborations: How project management affects value creation at different life-cycle stages of a collaboration

This paper reports a longitudinal multi-case research project encompassing 38 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2011 and 2012 with four students, 12 researchers and 22 companies relating to a total of 25 university–industry collaborations. The interviews covered the collaboration type, the initiation of the collaboration and details concerning the planning of the collaboration. In addition, the interviews focused on the relationships between the people involved in the collaboration and the effects of project management. We distinguish between project management success and project success, and identify potential good practice. The paper concludes that, whereas project management success was not found to be causally related to project success, there seems to be a clearer link between project management success and ensuring effective use of resources in both companies and universities. There is also evidence that it is problematic when corporate managers think they can run research projects like lean production companies.     

Validation of networks derived from snowball sampling of municipal science education actors

Social network analysis (SNA) has been used in many educational studies in the past decade, but what these studies have in common is that the populations in question in most cases are defined and known to the researchers studying the networks. Snowball sampling is an SNA methodology most often used to study hidden populations, for example, groups of homosexual people, drug users or people with sexually transmitted diseases. By use of a snowball sampling approach, this study mapped municipal social networks of educational actors, who were otherwise hidden to the researchers. Subsequently, the resulting networks were validated through interviews with central respondents and by using prior investigations of the municipalities. Our results confirmed that the majority of the designated respondents recognized the resulting sociograms and their own position in these. It was also found that not all predictions based on existing knowledge of the municipalities aligned with SNA data. However, these discrepancies could be explained by development in the municipalities in the time following previous investigations. This study shows that snowball sampling is an applicable method to use for mapping hidden populations in educational settings, but also that qualitative studies are needed in order to interpret the networks in real-life contexts.     

The co-evolution of social and physical infrastructure for biotechnology innovation in Turku, Finland

We studied the emergence of biotechnology in Turku, Finland. First, we analysed it as a result of the interaction between the city and its national and international environment, focusing on the city’s industrial policy as the mediator. Second, we diagnosed the construction of BioCity, the first biotechnology centre building of Turku, as a key event: the conceptualisation and construction of BioCity required a new kind of collaboration between the city administration, the universities and various commercial actors. We argue that the systems approach to regional development needs to be complemented with approaches that focus on the regional mechanisms of adaptation.     

Type of education and civic and political attitudes

In addition to increasing cognitive skills and preparing students for the labour market, one of the core tasks of education is to prepare citizens for participation in democracy. Considering the ideal of democratic equality, it is important to know the degree to which civic outcomes of education are distributed equally. One feature of the education system that can lead to differential civic outcomes is tracking, that is, the sorting of students into different types of education. In this study, we examine the relationship between type of education (general/academic or vocational) and five attitudinal dimensions of civic and political engagement between the ages of 14 and 49 years in the Netherlands. By using panel data from the Netherlands Longitudinal Lifecourse Study (n = 5,312) and applying linear fixed effects models, we can observe the effect of a transition in the type of education on the within-person change in our outcome variables. The findings demonstrate that transitions in the type of education have little effect on intention to vote, trust in institutions or ethnic tolerance. However, students making transitions in general/academic education develop higher levels of interest in politics and generalised trust than do students in vocational education or people outside the education system. This point suggests that general/academic education fosters civic and political participation.