Effective Strategies for Information Technology in Teacher Education: the use of an evolving permeation model

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the debate in recent years about the most effective strategy for establishing the use of information technology in teacher training establishments in the United Kingdom. Evidence is presented to support the notion that efforts should continue to permeate the use of information technology throughout the courses of such establishments. However, the paper suggests that staff development and the degree of permeation of information technology within the culture develop alongside each other. As one of these variables change, it feeds the development of the other; neither is an independent variable though both are influenced by external factors. Recognising this as a relatively slow process, the paper proposes a model of evolutionary permeation.     

Contemporary Classics? The Early Onset of Influence of Articles Published in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals, 2010–2015

Citation analysis is a valuable method for tracking the growth and transmission of scientific knowledge. In criminology and criminal justice, such analyses tend to be focused on “classic” works or on highly cited scholars over many years. As an alternative approach, we focus on work that has been cited rather quickly – what we term the “early onset” of impact. In doing so, we identified 221 of the most highly cited peer-reviewed articles, authored by 480 scholars, which were published in criminology and criminal justice journals between 2010 and 2015. Analyses reveal wide variation in substantive topics and methodological approaches, as well as a substantial gender gap with respect to authorship. Additional analyses provide insight into both journal and institutional/program prestige. We conclude with directions for future research and stress the importance of tracking over time articles that appear to be off to an early start with respect to scholarly impact.     

Value judgments in textbooks: The coefficient of evaluation as a quantitative measure

Treatment of minority groups in textbooks has traditionally been studied by subjective means. This factor has rendered the research, despite its volume, essentially noncumulative. Evaluative Coefficient (ECO) Analysis was designed to provide a valid quantitative index of the evaluative treatment of a subject by a communication source. Use of the instrument in an analysis of evaluative treatment of four minority groups in history textbooks used in Ontario schools revealed significant differences among evaluations accorded to the different minorities, and between different classes of textbooks. The ability of ECO Analysis to produce a quantitative measure of evaluation, along with its relative simplicity, suggests its potential for further comparative analysis of textbooks and of other communications content.

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Résumé Le traitement des groupes de minorité a traditionnellement été étudié par des moyens subjectifs. D'où les recherches en ce domaine, malgré leur volume, sont essentiellement noncumulatives.Evaluative Coefficient (ECO) Analysis a été conçu afin de fournir un indice valide quantitatif du traitement évaluatif d'un sujet par une source de communication. L'emploi de cet instrument pour analyser le traitement évaluatif de quatres groupes de minorité dans les textes d'histoire employés par les écoles de l'Ontario a révélé des différences significatives parmi les évaluations accordées aux différentes minorités, et parmi les différents groupes de textes scolaires. La capacité de l'ECO à produire une mesure quantitative d'évaluation, et sa relative simplicité, suggère son potentiel pour d'autres analyses comparatives de textes et contenus de communication.

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Queen's University     

Young Children Understand That Looking Leads to Knowing (So Long as They Are Looking into a Single Barrel)

3 experiments were conducted to investigate the claim made by Wimmer, Hogrefe, and Perner that 3-4-year-old children do not understand that people gain knowledge about something by looking at it. The first experiment involved a simple forced-choice procedure in which children had to judge which of 2 assistants knew what was inside a box when one of the assistants had looked inside and the other had lifted it up. In this experiment, the children did realize that the assistant who had looked in the box knew its contents. The second experiment followed the Wimmer et al. procedure, but with a simpler question form. The children were just asked to state whether someone knew what was in the box. Again, the children were able to work out that a person who had looked in a box knew what was inside it. In the third experiment, a direct comparison was made between the simpler question and the more complex, double-barreled question asked by Wimmer et al. The children found the more complex question considerably harder. The results of these experiments suggest that, in contrast to the claims made by Wimmer et al., 3- and 4-year-old children do understand that looking leads to knowing, and that their difficulty in the Wimmer et al. study was mainly with the form of the question that they were asked.     

And Robins I have Never Seen...

A group of children aged 9 and 10 were asked what signified Christmas to them. The children had all English as a mother tongue and were in the traditional mainstream English culture pattern. The children were asked: (1) to write random ideas on Christmas; (2) to define certain terms used in the nativity story, otherwise seldom used; (3) to identify unmarked greetings cards, isolating if possible reasons for their identification.

Afterwards, they heard a reminiscence of Christmas in another land, and applied their imagination to drawing cards appropriate to that.

The whole exercise was in the context of trying to give explicit reasons for signs which have implicit basic cultural significance, and the authors raise the question of whether at least partial knowledge of reasons is important in this type of semiological context, and whether making intuitive knowledge explicit could make a difference to learning.     

Chinese and non‐Chinese scholars’ contributions to communication research on greater China, 1978–98

This content‐analytical study investigates, over a two‐decade period, the contribution of ethnic and non‐ethnic scholars to communication research on Greater China. Although its findings show a significant increase in research publications on China over the years by both Chinese and non‐Chinese scholars, Chinese scholars are much more productive than non‐Chinese scholars. In addition, mixed ethnicity scholars have published more comparative studies than single ethnicity scholars. Telecommunications and advertising are the two fastest growing areas in communication research on China.     

Interrogative strategies and information exchange in computer‐mediated communication

The explosive growth of Internet and E‐mail use has provided exceptional opportunities for humans to mediate their communication and thus their relationships in new ways. This study reports on a content analysis of interrogative strategies used in E‐mail messages exchanged over six months between intergenerational sets of senior citizens and youngsters. A great deal of relationship development is facilitated by the use of questions which are a core aspect of uncertainty reduction processes. While Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) has been a predominant theoretical position for examining face‐to‐face initial interaction, its utility for examining communication in an asynchronous, computer‐mediated environment was only partially effective. Data analyses focused on politeness of questions, types of questions, and, temporal effects. Results suggest that the interrogative strategies we engage in to achieve interpersonal connectedness are sometimes different in computer‐mediated communication (CMC) and a new standard for transacting relational message exhange may be emerging.