MEASURING KINDNESS AT SCHOOL: PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF A SCHOOL KINDNESS SCALE FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

In this study, we sought to create and validate a brief measure to assess students’ perceptions of kindness in school. Participants included 1,753 students in Grades 4 to 8 attending public schools in a large school district in southern British Columbia. The School Kindness Scale (SKS) demonstrated a unidimensional factor structure and adequate internal consistency. The pattern of associations of the SKS to a corpus of theoretically relevant constructs obtained via student self‐reports (classroom supportiveness, optimism, happiness, prosocial and social goals, satisfaction with life, and academic self‐efficacy) provided evidence for convergent and discriminant validity. Furthermore, the SKS was significantly and positively associated with teacher reports on students’ empathy, social skills, and peer acceptance. Analyses by gender and grade indicated that girls perceived significantly higher levels of kindness in school than did boys, and that students’ perceptions of kindness in school decreased from fourth to eighth grade, with fourth‐grade students reporting the highest levels of kindness in school and eighth‐grade students reporting the lowest levels. The theoretical importance of investigating students’ perceptions of kindness in the school context and the practical implications of this research for informing educational efforts to promote social and emotional competencies in school communities are discussed.     

Implementation of a Research Information Management System in a Pediatric Hospital

Faculty publications have been collected in universities, health, and medical institutions for many years, and Cincinnati Children’s is no exception. Since 1949, a yearly list of faculty publications was manually compiled using multiple data sources and disseminated by the Edward L. Pratt Research Library. Products to centralize faculty publication collection and analysis with bibliometric tools are growing in popularity. This article will review the collaborative decision to choose a Research Information Management System and the implementation process including successes, challenges, and future opportunities.     

高校继续教育项目的市场推广

2004年,对美国64名从事继续教育市场推广的专门人员进行的调查研究发现:大约一半的从业人员制定了推广计划;最常用的测评方法是在学员注册时收集的学生反馈信息:网络是最重要的也是最常用的市场推广技巧;广告牌是最不重要和最少用的技巧;除了广告牌以外,所有的市场推广技巧在近五年的使用都在增长.定性研究还显示,一些高校市场推广人员、经费不足,缺乏市场推广专业技能.