The provision of higher education in regional areas: an integrative review of the literature

There is a great deal of literature surrounding the needs of regional Australia. This integrative review of the literature focuses on the experience of nursing academics teaching on a satellite campus, many of which are located in regional Australia. Four themes were identified: (1) challenges specific to regional satellite campuses, (2) student characteristics, (3) student experiences and (4) the academics’ experiences. These themes identified not only significant benefits but also considerable challenges to the provision of higher education on regional university campuses. The experience of nursing academics and indeed their students is remarkably different from the experience of their metropolitan counterparts, and therefore the local context needs to be considered in regional education provision. Australian regional nursing academics need to be multi-skilled to address the workload and social inequity in support service provision.     

Using the Joint Standards to Design Postsecondary Assessments With Evidence of Validity and Reliability: An Approach to CAEP Accreditation

Validity and reliability are a major focus in teacher education accreditation by the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). CAEP requires the use of “accepted research standards,” but many faculty and administrators are unsure how to meet this requirement. The Standards of Educational and Psychological Testing abbreviated Joint Standards, are the implied accepted research standards. The purpose of this study was to test empirically the extent to which the Joint Standards could serve this purpose. The primary outcome of this study is a pragmatic set of implementation strategies organized into assessment specifications connecting CAEP requirements to the Joint Standards. An example set of assessment specifications is provided. Use of this process can improve assessments in any academic discipline for any accreditation agency, become a faculty professional development tool, raise assessment literacy, and potentially impact instruction of future educators.     

8大金点子 高效养成术

在职场上,你是否常常感觉,8小时上班一眨眼就过去了,但好多事情却做得还不够好!似乎一整天就是浏览和回复一些电邮,打了几个客户电话。如果这是一个你正在苦恼的问题,就要谨慎了,因为这说明低效的工作方式正在拉你的后腿。本期职场达人专门为大家收集了几个可以有效提高工作效率的妙招,看看高效率的职场都需要具备哪些工作守则。     

Mapping the core journals of the physical therapy literature

Objectives:

The purpose of this study was to identify (1) core journals in the literature of physical therapy, (2) currency of references cited in that literature, and (3) online databases providing the highest coverage rate of core journals.

Method:

Data for each cited reference in each article of four source journals for three years were recorded, including type of literature, year of publication, and journal title. The journal titles were ranked in descending order according to the frequency of citations and divided into three zones using Bradford''s Law of Scattering. Four databases were analyzed for coverage rates of articles published in the Zone 1 and Zone 2 journals in 2007.

Results:

Journal articles were the most frequently cited type of literature, with sixteen journals supplying one-third of the cited journal references. Physical Therapy was the most commonly cited title. There were more cited articles published from 2000 to 2007 than in any previous full decade. Of the databases analyzed, CINAHL provided the highest coverage rate for Zone 1 2007 publications.

Conclusions:

Results were similar to a previous study, except for changes in the order of Zone 1 journals. Results can help physical therapists and librarians determine important journals in this discipline.

Highlights

• More cited references were published in the last eight years studied than in any previous full decade.
• Physical Therapy, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (APMR), and Spine were the most frequently cited titles. Previous studies found APMR to be the most cited journal.
• CINAHL provided the highest coverage rate for the most commonly cited titles, with MEDLINE and EMBASE providing the best coverage for the next group of titles.

Implications

• Health sciences librarians and clinicians can use these results to identify important journals for developing collections and determining the need for access to back issues of journals.
• Multiple databases are needed for comprehensive coverage of the physical therapy discipline

Implications

• Health sciences librarians and clinicians can use these results to identify important journals for developing collections and determining the need for access to back issues of journals.
• Multiple databases are needed for comprehensive coverage of the physical therapy discipline

     

Age 26 cost-benefit analysis of the child-parent center early education program

Using data collected up to age 26 in the Chicago Longitudinal Study, this cost-benefit analysis of the Child-Parent Centers (CPC) is the first for a sustained publicly funded early intervention. The program provides services for low-income families beginning at age 3 in 20 school sites. Kindergarten and school-age services are provided up to age 9 (third grade). Findings from a complete cohort of over 1,400 program and comparison group participants indicated that the CPCs had economic benefits in 2007 dollars that exceeded costs. The preschool program provided a total return to society of $10.83 per dollar invested (18% annual return). The primary sources of benefits were increased earnings and tax revenues and averted criminal justice system costs. The school-age program had a societal return of $3.97 per dollar invested (10% annual return). The extended intervention program (4-6 years) had a societal return of $8.24 (18% annual return). Estimates were robust across a wide range of analyses including Monte Carlo simulations. Males, 1-year preschool participants, and children from higher risk families derived greater benefits. Findings provide strong evidence that sustained programs can contribute to well-being for individuals and society.     

Language Education in English Education: Grammar instruction,grammar plus,or critical social analysis?

I consider the difficulty of deciding what to include in a one-semester course on language education in English education for preservice teachers. While it is imperative to prepare teachers to talk about language in written texts, other concerns of the English classroom, from classroom talk to reflections on self, can be illuminated by knowledge about language. I describe different representations of the language system: one proposed in a scope and sequence document prepared by a group of linguists and educators in the United States; and the other Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), which, while relatively unknown and unsupported in the United States, has influenced education in Australia. While I admire the advances in language education being made in the United States, in my view, SFG offers a conceptual advantage to those who want to make the link between grammar and broader concerns. I believe it is possible to use SFG conceptually in the design of classroom activities, while also relying on non-SFG methods to make visible, for instance, the operations of talk in the classroom. In the end, I advocate linking language to issues that matter, focusing above the language system to meaning-making more broadly, and using knowledge about language in the service of social analysis as well as the interpretation of texts.     

EFFECT OF CLASS SIZE,GRADES GIVEN,AND ACADEMIC FIELD ON STUDENT OPINION OF INSTRUCTION

This study reviewed the effect of class size, grades given, and academic field on student opinion of instruction. Data analysis showed that there were no significant correlations between variables of the three groups: (a) class size and student opinion of instruction; (b) grades given and student opinion of instruction, and (c) college and national academic field rankings and student opinion of instruction. These results leave teacher effectiveness as the most likely variable to explain ratings of student opinion of instruction.     

Teacher Leadership: Rationale,strategy and impact

This article presents arguments for teacher leadership. It challenges the current orthodoxy of school organisation and seeks to extend the current debate about distributed leadership. It offers a view of teacher leadership which is inclusive rather than limited to those with management responsibility or specific change agent roles. It focuses on learning-centred development work in which teachers act strategically to improve the quality of teaching and learning. The article includes illustrative cases and proposals for strategies to support teacher leadership. It also offers a framework for planning and evaluating the impact of teacher-led development work.