Learning about domestic violence: young people's responses to a Healthy Relationships programme

This paper reports on an evaluation of a drama‐based Healthy Relationships programme on domestic violence delivered on a pilot basis to Year 8 pupils. The programme included a play delivered by a local theatre‐in‐education company followed by a series of weekly workshops. Eighty‐five pupils in a secondary school located in an area with high rates of social exclusion participated in the programme and the evaluation. Pupils completed questionnaires immediately before and after the programme and one year after the programme had finished. Thirteen pupils also took part in gendered discussion groups, which considered their views and opinions concerning the play and the workshops. The evaluation indicated that the programme was successful in enhancing pupils' understandings of domestic violence up to one year after delivery. Pupils responded well to the use of drama as a medium for learning, and some young people were able to demonstrate that they had developed positive ideas about healthy relationships. However, there was evidence of uncertainly for some young people with regard to the gendered nature of domestic violence following the programme. The discussion highlights this issue and identifies additional recommendations for both future research and future programmes.     

Connecting to the Good Life through outdoor adventure leadership experiences designed for Indigenous youth

Indigenous voices are largely silent in the outdoor education and adventure therapy literature. The purpose of this research collaboration was to understand how a 10-day outdoor adventure leadership experience (OALE) may promote resilience and well-being for Indigenous youth through their participation in the program. The process was examined through a community-based participatory research project that sought insight from the perspectives of one First Nations community in Canada. The OALE was implemented with six different groups for a total of 43 youth participants (ages 11.9–18.7 years) from Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve in northeastern Ontario. Field data were collected from multiple sources including participant interviews, journals, focus groups, and talking circles. Using a critical ethnographic lens, we analyzed the data inductively to understand how the OALE promoted resilience and well-being. We listened to Indigenous voices, adhered to principles of Indigenous coding for thematic content and respected Indigenous ways of knowing for interpreting results. The process of connecting to the Good Life (Anishinaabe Bimaadziwin) or waking up (nsidwaaswok) to the Good Life emerged as the dominant theme. Connecting to the Good Life may offer a simple yet compelling way to understand the net impact of the OALE.     

Teacher educators working on their own professional development: goals,activities and outcomes of a project for the professional development of teacher educators

This article reports on the professional development of teacher educators within the context of a national project, ‘Professional Quality of Teacher Educators,’ where a professional standard and a standards‐based procedure of (self‐)assessment and professional development have been created and effectively implemented. This project offered a unique opportunity to analyze the goals, activities and outcomes of the process of professional development of teacher educators in a situation in which this development is promoted by the professional group as a whole. In our research, we used 25 completed portfolio's made by teacher educators participating in the standards‐based procedure of (self‐)assessment and professional development. We found that teacher educators, participating in this procedure, prefer the development of their knowledge and skills over the development of their attitudes and beliefs. For their professional development, the teacher educators experiment with new activities within the work‐situation and interact with colleagues within their professional community, more than that they study theory or reflect on their work. The participating teacher educators experience a positive impact at the personal level (change in cognition and behavior). More than one‐third of them share outcomes with others. Above, they report a more positive self‐esteem and more enthusiasm for teacher education. This article may motivate other countries or institutions to invest in the professional development of teacher educators. Further research is necessary on the essence of the professional qualities of teacher educators and the relation of their professional development with student learning.     

Bridge over troubled waters? Connecting research and pedagogy in composition and business/technical communication

Although different writing courses exist because of the different forms and purposes of writing they teach, some continuity between composition and business/technical communication would allow students to move more readily from one course to the next, while clarifying for them that writing is primarily a system of options based on analyses of situations, readers, obstacles, and goals. In this article, I call for that kind of continuity not only in pedagogy but also in research. Explaining the value of connections in pedagogy and research between composition and professional communication studies, I conclude with various questions and avenues for further research.     

COMMUNITY COLLEGE RETENTION: DIFFERENTIATING AMONG STOPOUTS,DROPOUTS, AND OPTOUTS

One fact often overlooked in discussing the retention issue is that not everyone who fails to return to school is a dropout. Some persons return after an absence of a semester or more; they can be called stopouts. Some intended to take only a few classes and stop attending when they accomplish their educational goals; they can be called optouts. The only persons who should be labeled dropouts are those who failed to accomplish their educational goal and have no definite plans to accomplish it later.

During the 1990‐91 school year, Del Mar College (DMC) and the Texas A&M Adult and Extension Education program developed and executed a plan to identify, count, and interview nonreturnees at DMC. The purposes of the study were toprovide DMC with baseline data on its nonreturnees and to test the feasibility of gathering interview information by telephone.

Stopouts far outnumbered dropouts and optouts among respondents, with 303 of 399 nonreturnees identifying themselves as such.

In this article, we define relevant terms, outline the data‐gathering process and describe the findings of the present study, and present recommendations regarding data gathering and the focus of retention efforts.     

Decision Science and Applied Neuroscience: Emerging Possibilities

Recent neuroscientific research describes how the brain and extended nervous system make decisions. This article depicts current theory as it relates to decision‐making strengths, shortcuts, simplifications, biases, and serious data restricting habits of the brain. This information demonstrates that the brain, both individually and collectively, can be a deceptive guide for decision making in emergent situations when information is based on preexisting, subconscious frames of reference. Training is proposed to strengthen conscious information‐processing capacity.     

Stability of switching linear systems with switching signals driven by stochastic processes

This paper presents conditions to assure the exponential stability in probability for autonomous switching linear systems. The switching signal acting on the autonomous system produces intervals that follow independent, identically distributed stochastic processes—the stability then follows by verifying simple-to-check linear matrix inequalities.     

The current state of human performance technology: A citation network analysis of Performance Improvement Quarterly, 1988–2010

This study conducted a citation network analysis (CNA) of human performance technology (HPT) to examine its current state of the field. Previous reviews of the field have used traditional research methods, such as content analysis, survey, Delphi, and citation analysis. The distinctive features of CNA come from using a social network analysis approach to see relational and network patterns in the citation data. This CNA found that the Performance Improvement Quarterly network showed more widely but loosely connected and less centralized structural attributes than the human resource development network; the 10 most influential articles in the field were identified; frequently co‐cited articles were recognized as having a strong relationship by subsequent researchers; and five cohesive subgroups showed key topics in the field (performance, instructional design, performance support, organization/workplace, and transfer of training). Implications from the results of the CNA were elaborated on for future research in HPT.     

A New Student Learning Focus for the Academic Library: From Geographical Proximity of the Learning Commons to Organizational Proximity within the Library

In 2015, student learning programs at the University of Saskatchewan moved organizationally to the university library. While these services resided physically in the library as part of the Learning Commons partnership, this recent change presents the library with a new focus and responsibility for broader student learning support and academic skill development. Highlighting examples of organizational integration of student learning support, this article uses a proximity perspective, suggesting that geographical proximity of services in the learning commons does not go far enough to achieve the deeper collaboration and integration necessary for holistic and integrated learning, and that organizational proximity is needed.