Determining validity and identifying nonresponse bias in a survey requesting income data

Two procedures for validating incomes self-reported in ranges by University of Kentucky doctoral graduates, one comparing grouped data to income data collected by the National Academy of Sciences (1974) for the same year, 1973, the other comparing individual self-report data in a double-blind process to state income tax records, indicating that the self-report data were generally accurate. A check of respondents versus nonrespondents in various categories (sex, age, graduation year, Holland type, Biglan type) showed no difference in the proportion of response in any category. Comparison of nonrespondent income with respondent income in state income tax records revealed that nonrespondents averaged almost $3,500.00 less income during that year than did respondents. This finding held true across all categories but two.     

Adaptive sliding mode control for a class of MIMO nonlinear systems with uncertainties

This paper proposes an adaptive scheme of designing sliding mode control (SMC) for affine class of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) nonlinear systems with uncertainty in the systems dynamics and control distribution gain. The proposed adaptive SMC does not require any a priori knowledge of the uncertainty bounds and therefore offers significant advantages over the non-adaptive schemes of SMC design. The closed loop stability conditions are derived based on Lyapunov theory. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated via simulations considering an example of a two-link robot manipulator and has been found to be satisfactory.     

Causal Modeling and Research on Teacher Education

Causal modeling was applied to data collected in a naturalistic setting in an attempt to validate a conceputal model of teaching. These data, collected on 44 student teachers, included supervisory ratings of the variables: specifying performance objectives, diagnosing learners, selecting instructional strategies, and interacting with learners. Additionally, the mean number of objectives achieved by the classes of each of the student teachers was used as a measure of the fifth variable in the model, evaluating the effectiveness of instruction. A recursive causal model which described the relationship of these variables was developed and analyzed, using four linear equations. Examination of the path coefficients from these equations revealed that the variables, specification of performance objectives, and diagnosing learners account for over one-half the variance in selecting instructional strategies. Other results indicated there were low to moderate amounts of variance shared by the variables in the model. This study illustrates the application of causal modeling techniques in testing theoretical models in education using data collected in naturalistic, nonexperimental settings.     

Erratum to: Student voice and engagement: connecting through partnership

Tertiary Education and Management - Gray, C., Swain, J., and Rodway-Dyer, S. (2014). Student voice and engagement: connecting through partnership. Tertiary Education and Management, 20(1), pp....     

Information retrieval in the workplace: A comparison of professional search practices

Legal researchers, recruitment professionals, healthcare information professionals, and patent analysts all undertake work tasks where search forms a core part of their duties. In these instances, the search task is often complex and time-consuming and requires specialist expertise to identify relevant documents and insights within large domain-specific repositories and collections. Several studies have been made investigating the search practices of professionals such as these, but few have attempted to directly compare their professional practices and so it remains unclear to what extent insights and approaches from one domain can be applied to another. In this paper we describe the results of a survey of a purposive sample of 108 legal researchers, 64 recruitment professionals and 107 healthcare information professionals. Their responses are compared with results from a previous survey of 81 patent analysts. The survey investigated their search practices and preferences, the types of functionality they value, and their requirements for future information retrieval systems. The results reveal that these professions share many fundamental needs and face similar challenges. In particular a continuing preference to formulate queries as Boolean expressions, the need to manage, organise and re-use search strategies and results and an ambivalence toward the use of relevance ranking. The results stress the importance of recall and coverage for the healthcare and patent professionals, while precision and recency were more important to the legal and recruitment professionals. The results also highlight the need to ensure that search systems give confidence to the professional searcher and so trust, explainability and accountability remains a significant challenge when developing such systems. The findings suggest that translational research between the different areas could benefit professionals across domains.     

The Resources and Strategies Boys Use to Establish Status in a Junior School without Competitive Sport

The data in this paper comes from an ethnographically based study of Year 6 (10-11-year-old) boys in an English junior school. It investigates the resources and strategies used and created by the boys to classify themselves, and to construct and perform their masculinity in a tightly regulated school where competitive sport (including playground football) is prohibited for the majority of the school year. The paper considers the relationship between the formal school culture and informal pupil culture, and, in particular, the options open, limited and closed to the boys to construct their masculinities and establish status/prestige within their immediate peer group. One option open was being able to work hard in class without peer reprovement, but despite the limitation of competitive games/sport, the most favoured form of masculine status was still exemplified by embodied forms of athleticism and physicality. The paper also explores another way of gaining status, which was by a form of verbal abuse known as 'cussing': this was a pervasive and prevalent part of school life, and is viewed as another form of competitive, stylised performance.