An examination of the intertemporal returns of patented inventions

This paper examines the intertemporal returns of patented inventions using estimates of patent value obtained from German employee inventors’ compensation records. The paper finds heterogeneity in the mean age and dispersion of the annual returns by technology and cumulative patent value. While the returns earned by most patents dissipate rapidly, high valued patents tend to receive significant returns through the latter part of the patent term. These high valued patents which account for the vast majority of the realized returns, further can be identified based on past returns, relatively early in the patent term. These findings suggest that while shortening the length of the patent term could substantially reduce realized returns, graduated maintenance fees may not adversely affect returns, as firms would be able to identify and selectively renew the subset of high valued patents.     

Shifting themes in OECD country reviews of higher education

There have been changes in the political economy since the 1980s, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has changed as well. Scholars have noted shifts in OECD discourse in some policy fields since that time: shifts away from what might be called classic neoliberal perspectives. This paper reflects on the changes in the political economy and in OECD and explores how they might be related to changes in OECD discourse in higher education. Specifically, it examines country reviews of higher education systems conducted by OECD in the mid-1990s and the late-2000s for evidence of shifts in its higher education discourse. Instead of a softening of neoliberal perspectives, it finds a further entrenchment of assumptions associated with neoliberalization. It also describes what appears to be a deepening contradiction in the discourse concerning the private and public benefits of higher education. Finally, it reflects on how the contexts of the political economy as framed by OECDs discourse, affects its proposed goals and strategies for higher education.     

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT ASSESSMENT,TEACHING, AND LEARNING: TOWARD A CAMPUSWIDE LANGUAGE AND SYSTEM

On most community college campuses where quality and improvement are taken seriously, there are at least three coexisting languages. The language of total quality management is spoken by administrators and by faculty members who teach management or business courses; the language of assessment is spoken by both faculty members and administrators; and the language of teaching and learning is spoken primarily by faculty members and academic administrators. Each language reflects a philosophical commitment to improvement. Each overlaps in terminology with the other two. Each suffices well in its own domain. Yet each is, by itself, insufficient as a campuswide lingua franca of continuous improvement. These languages may continue to coexist. If a college is really to accomplish a paradigm shift throughout the institution, however, it must generate its own language—a language spoken by all, a language that describes and discusses a campuswide system of quality, improvement, and change.     

The Development of the Network Examination for Student Socialization (NEXSS) Observational Instrument

The complexity of learning has plagued the educational establishment for decades. Recently, ideas of complexity theory and complex adaptive systems have made headway in how we think of institutions of learning. This study developed and tested an instrument for the modeling of underlying social structures, as an element of complexity, within the physical education learning environment. Currently, there are no instruments capable of producing valid and reliable models of underlying student social networks in physical education classes. This study sought to develop and test one of the first instruments for the explicit purpose of this modeling. The Network Examination for Student Socialization was developed as a product of this effort. Testing demonstrated the Network Examination for Student Socialization is both a reliable and valid instrument for modeling underlying student social structures within physical education classes. It is hoped that in years to come, the Network Examination for Student Socialization can play a key role in the study of complexity within physical education.     

Daily fluctuations in young children’s persistence

Children's behavior changes from day to day, but the factors that contribute to its variability are understudied. We developed a novel repeated measures paradigm to study children's persistence by capitalizing on a task that children complete every day: toothbrushing (N = 81; 48% female; 36–47 months; 80% white, 14% Multiracial, 10% Hispanic, 2% Asian, 1% Black; 1195 observations collected between January 2019 and March 2020). Children brushed longer on days when their parents used more praise (d = .23) and less instruction (d = −.22). Sensitivity to mood, sleep, and parent stress varied across children, suggesting that identifying the factors that shape an individual child's persistence could lead to personalized interventions.     

Examining the legacy of the Warnock Report in Northern Ireland: A Foucauldian genealogical approach

Over 40 years after the publication of the Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Handicapped Children and Young People, commonly referred to as the Warnock Report, this article uniquely considers its legacy in the context of Northern Ireland. The article adopts a Foucauldian genealogical approach to consider first the specific context of the ‘emergence’ or ‘origins’ of the Warnock Report in the 1970s, highlighting competing political forces and the positioning of the report at the very end of the age of post-war welfarism. The approach details the key elements of the Warnock Report itself, and then charts the resulting development of SEN policy in Northern Ireland, culminating in the faltering process of reform which began in 2006 and has been partially completed but which has recently been halted by the collapse of the power-sharing Executive and the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly in January 2017. The legacy of the Warnock Report is critically examined, identifying the main positive contributions of the report but also acknowledging the enduring challenges set against a complex current financial and political context. Finally, rather than leaving Warnock completely behind, a case is made for a fresh, detailed, context-specific reading of this seminal report.     

A Novel Approach to Gross Dissection of the Human Pelvis and Perineum

Progressive curricular changes in medical education over the past two decades have resulted in the diaspora of gross anatomy content into integrated curricula while significantly reducing total contact hours. Despite the development of a wide range of alternative teaching modalities, gross dissection remains a critical component of medical education. The challenge posed to modern anatomists is how to maximize and integrate the time spent dissecting under the current curricular changes. In this study, an alternative approach to the dissection of the pelvis and perineum is presented in an effort to improve content delivery and student satisfaction. The approach involves removal of the perineum en bloc from the cadaver followed by excision of the pubic symphysis, removal and examination of the bladder and associated structures, examination and bisection of the midline pelvic organs in situ, and midsagittal hemisection of the pelvis for identification of the neurovasculature. Results indicate that this novel dissecting approach increases the number of structures identified by 46% ± 14% over current dissecting methods. Survey results indicate that students were better able to integrate lecture and laboratory concepts, understand the concepts, and successfully identify more structures using the new approach (P < 0.05). The concept of anatomic efficiency is introduced and proposed as a standard quantitative measure of gross dissection proficiency across programs and institutions. These findings provide evidence that innovative solutions to anatomy education can be found that help to maintain critical content and student satisfaction in a modern medical curriculum.     

Different underlying motivations and abilities predict student versus teacher persistence in an online course

Free online courses, including Massively Open Online Courses, have great potential to increase the inclusiveness of education, but suffer from very high course dropout rates. A study of 172 K-12 students and 114 K-12 teachers taking the same free, online, summertime programming course finds that student and teacher populations have different underlying motivational models that predict rates of persistence in the course despite having generally similar motivational levels. Student persistence is predicted by prior programming knowledge, intrinsic interest in the subject matter, and mastery approach goals. By contrast, teacher persistence is similarly predicted by intrinsic interest, but then also by self-identity as a programmer, performance approach goals, and negatively by performance avoidance goals. This sub-population discrepancy in predictive factors is novel, and may be reflective of differing environmental conditions or internal mechanisms between students and teachers. Future design of free choice learning environments can take these factors into account to increase rates of user persistence for different target user populations.