Toward multimodal inquiry: opportunities,challenges and implications of multimodality for research and scholarship

In this article, we suggest that we are witnessing a challenge to the hegemony of text-based knowledge in academic scholarship, brought about by newly available modes of expression, and a cultural shift in our notions of reading and writing, authorship, and networked knowledge production. The central question we address here concerns the implications of widening our ideas of acceptable forms of inquiry, analysis and representation in academic scholarship. As a collective of scholar-practitioners exploring new modes of expression and working both within and outside the formal structures of academia, we argue for the increasing significance of multimodal research in the contemporary context of academic inquiry. By more equitably valuing different ways of thinking, knowing and communicating, multimodal research can facilitate wider and more diverse participation in the production of knowledge, offer a more nuanced and ethical mode of inquiry, emphasize different ways of knowing and connecting, and make scholarship more broadly accessible beyond academic contexts. Here, we analyze the key opportunities facilitated by multimodal inquiry, as well as the obstacles that stand in the way of a wider adoption of this type of research in higher education.     

Perceptual-cognitive expertise of handball coaches in their young and middle adult years

There is little research investigating the maintenance of perceptual-cognitive expertise in general and even less comparing coaches of different ages. The aim of this study was to test for perceptual-cognitive differences between age groups, licence levels, and their interaction. This study investigated differences in skilled performance between young and middle-aged coaches of three different skill levels. Participants performed an accuracy-oriented pattern recall (mean distance in pixel) and a time-oriented flicker test (mean detection time in ms). There were some significant differences between age groups and between skill groups for both tests, but no interactions. For the pattern recall test, the effect sizes were larger for skill level differences, while for the flicker test effects were larger for ageing. These results suggest coaches are able to maintain accuracy skills better than reaction timed tasks. This is in line with findings on speeded performance in general populations, which show declines with age. Moreover, results also support findings on perceptual expertise in skills where accuracy was important.     

Homeless Children and Youth at Risk: The Educational Impact of Displacement

We know that homelessness creates conditions of risk for homeless children and youth (e.g., malnutrition, missing parental support, affiliation with deviant peers, disconnect from schooling, and so forth). Researchers also document that these states of risk have devastating physical, emotional, social, and educational impacts on young people. In this article, we explore the final issue—how displacement affects the educational well-being of homeless children and youth. We begin our review with a variable—mobility—that has a good deal of explanatory power for the educational impacts examined. We conclude with the consequences of homelessness that follow displaced children and youth into adulthood. In between we discuss an assortment of outcome factors: placement in special education, attendance, academic success, and graduation.     

Education and Policy: Changing Paradigms and Issues

The aim of the article is to consider the treatment of education and policy in the International Review of Education between 1955 and 2001. The article focuses on the changing prominence given to various topics in education and policy in IRE during the period and the way conceptual thinking in this area has changed and developed. An attempt is made to link both the shifts in focus on various educational planning policy themes and issues, and the major paradigm shifts in the area, to the changes in perceived education and policy needs and problems in each decade during the period.     

PASS cognitive processes,phonological processes,and basic reading performance for a sample of referred primary‐grade children

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among cognitive processing, phonological processing and basic reading skill performance. Cognitive theorists propose that Planning, Attention, Simultaneous and Successive (PASS) processes are related to various phonological skills. A sample of 62 Primary Grade children referred for reading problems were administered measures of cognitive processes (Cognitive Assessment System), phonological processes (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing) and basic reading achievement (Woodcock‐Johnson Tests of Academic Achievement‐III). Findings indicated that some cognitive processes were significantly related to phonological processes as well as basic reading skills. The strongest relationships were found between phonological memory and successive processes and between phonological awareness and basic reading performance.     

Educational gaps in medical care and health behavior: Evidence from US Natality data

The US Natality files provide information on medical procedures and health related behavior during pregnancy and childbirth. The data set represents nearly the universe of mothers who give birth in the US, providing the most complete coverage possible of medical care and health behavior among a specific patient population. We document gaps in outcomes by education of the mother and the changes in these educational gaps during 1989-2002.     

Maximal Work Capacity of Human Intact Muscle under Hyperaemic Conditions

Abstract

Fatigue curves for the forearm muscles, doing maximal static and dynamic work, were obtained under control conditions and under conditions of hyperaemia. The hyperaemia was evoked by subjecting the muscles of the forearm for a specific length of time to circulatory occlusion with a blood pressure cuff and then suddenly releasing the cuff pressure. The maximal increase in forearm volume, resulting from the postocclusion hyperaemia, followed a mathematical curve when it was expressed as a function of the occlusion time. A significant decrement in work capacity was found immediately after ten minutes of occlusion. This short-time negative influence did not affect the total output.     

Attachment and Adolescent Psychosocial Functioning

To explore the meaning and function of attachment organization during adolescence, its relation to multiple domains of psychosocial functioning was examined in a sample of 131 moderately at-risk adolescents. Attachment organization was assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview; multiple measures of functioning were obtained from parents, adolescents, and their peers. Security displayed in adolescents' organization of discourse about attachment experiences was related to competence with peers (as reported by peers), lower levels of internalizing behaviors (as reported by adolescents), and lower levels of deviant behavior (as reported by peers and by mothers). Preoccupation with attachment experiences, seen in angry or diffuse and unfocused discussion of attachment experiences, was linked to higher levels of both internalizing and deviant behaviors. These relations generally remained even when other attachment-related constructs that had been previously related to adolescent functioning were covaried in analyses. Results are interpreted as suggesting an important role for attachment organization in a wide array of aspects of adolescent psychosocial development.