Critique of the article by Visser and Jehan (2009): ‘ADHD: a scientific fact or a factual opinion? A critique of the veracity of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder’

This article seeks to evaluate and take further the discussion put forward by Visser and Jehan (Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties 14, no. 2: 127–40). It begins by focusing on the biomedical discourse, its dominance in the academic and professional literature and why the existence of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as a medical category is questionable. This is followed by a discussion of other discourses including the sociological discourse and the bio-psychosocial discourse. The importance of multi-professional approaches in the identification, assessment and management of ADHD is highlighted, followed by an examination of what part the educational environment might play with regard to behaviours associated with ADHD. Attention is drawn to the need for continuing research and debate on this evolving concept.     

ADHD in schools: prevalence,multi‐professional involvements and school training needs in an LEA

As part of research undertaken by the first author, a survey of schools was carried out in one local education authority (LEA) in order to gather information about pupils diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). All mainstream and special schools and pupil referral units were approached and a response rate of 94% was achieved. In 151 schools there were 413 pupils reported as being formally diagnosed with ADHD. The survey results include details of prevalence, the balance of gender, age and special educational need (SEN) Code of Practice levels, issues of diagnosis and medication, co‐morbidity and school training needs. In addition, responses from two ADHD study days, one held during the survey data collection phase and the second following dissemination of the results, provided supplementary information regarding school training needs. Implications for inclusive educational practice are discussed with reference to: prevalence rates; multi‐professional identification, assessment and management of the disorder; the need for and nature of the training schools require.     

From Loving the Hero to Despising the Villain: Sports Fans,Facebook, and Social Identity Threats

This research explored how University of Cincinnati football fans used Facebook to manage a social identity threat arising from head football coach Brian Kelly leaving the school to become the head coach at the University of Notre Dame. A thematic analysis of 717 wall postings in the “Get Out of Our City Brian Kelly” Facebook group was conducted. Results revealed that fans responded to this social identity threat in the following ways: (a) rallying, (b) stigmatizing, (c) victimization, (d) intimidation, and (e) degradation. The results suggest that social media sites are prime vehicles for sports fans to collectively manage social identity crises. Social media enables fans to perpetuate messages that elevate group distinctiveness, minimize in-group issues, and derogate out-group members.     

Undercounting File Downloads from Institutional Repositories

ABSTRACT

A primary impact metric for institutional repositories (IR) is the number of file downloads, which are commonly measured through third-party Web analytics software. Google Analytics, a free service used by most academic libraries, relies on HTML page tagging to log visitor activity on Google's servers. However, Web aggregators such as Google Scholar link directly to high value content (usually PDF files), bypassing the HTML page and failing to register these direct access events. This article presents evidence of a study of four institutions demonstrating that the majority of IR activity is not counted by page tagging Web analytics software, and proposes a practical solution for significantly improving the reporting relevancy and accuracy of IR performance metrics using Google Analytics.     

The effects of nonverbal reinforcement and interviewee‐interviewer relationship on interviewee's verbal response

Utilizing survey data from 99 nursing home residents in nursing home facilities serving Medicaid patients, this study investigated the relationship of interpersonal network involvement to perceived life satisfaction and perceived need accommodations. Each subject completed three survey instruments developed to measure (a) resident's perceived quality care, (b) residents’ satisfaction with personal need accommodation and (c) interpersonal network satisfaction. Residents’ perceptions of quality care (i.e., attitude of staff, food, and self‐selected social activities) and satisfaction with roommates are significant predictors of perceived needs being met. Further, residents are more satisfied with self‐selected relationships than with institutionally‐selected roommates.     

THE EFFECTS OF IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK ON RETENTION IN AN ACADEMIC SETTING

The present study was to determine the effects of immediate feedback on retention. The sample included 186 students enrolled in eight sections of an introductory psychology course. Four sections were randomly assigned to the experiment group, and four were designated the control group. Experimental treatment was accomplished through the use of a self‐scoring test‐answer sheet. A quasi‐experimental, nonequivalent control group research design was used to allow testing of a null hypothesis. Analysis of variance revealed no significant difference in retention rates between the experimental and control groups.     

High performance query expansion using adaptive co-training

The quality of feedback documents is crucial to the effectiveness of query expansion (QE) in ad hoc retrieval. Recently, machine learning methods have been adopted to tackle this issue by training classifiers from feedback documents. However, the lack of proper training data has prevented these methods from selecting good feedback documents. In this paper, we propose a new method, called AdapCOT, which applies co-training in an adaptive manner to select feedback documents for boosting QE’s effectiveness. Co-training is an effective technique for classification over limited training data, which is particularly suitable for selecting feedback documents. The proposed AdapCOT method makes use of a small set of training documents, and labels the feedback documents according to their quality through an iterative process. Two exclusive sets of term-based features are selected to train the classifiers. Finally, QE is performed on the labeled positive documents. Our extensive experiments show that the proposed method improves QE’s effectiveness, and outperforms strong baselines on various standard TREC collections.     

Book reviews

The Fiscal Administration of City School Systems. By J. R. Mcgaughy. A report reviewed and presented by the Educational Finance Inquiry Commission under the auspices of the American Council on Education, Washington, D. C. New York: Macmillan Co., 1924.

Child Accounting. By A. B. Moehlman (University of Michigan). Detroit: Courtis Standard Tests, 1924. Pp. 205. Price, $1.85.

Principles of Teaching Practically Applied. By Ruby Minor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1924. Pp. xiii + 281. Price, $1.90.

Sex, for Parents and Teachers. By William Leland Stowell. New York: Macmillan Co., 1924. Pp. xx + 204. Price, $1.50.

The Child, His Nature and His Needs. Edited by M. V. O'Shea. Valparaiso, Ind.: The Children's Foundation, 1924. Pp. xi + 516.

Measuring Intelligence. By H. C. Hines (University of Washington). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1924. Pp. xii + 146. Price, $1.20.