UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES AND INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY IN THE COMPUTER AGE

Through increasingly sophisticated computerization, libraries will evolve from being passive depositories of published materials to becoming dynamic information systems. Stored information will be analyzed and recoinbined in original ways which are similar to the processes occurring on the frontiers of disciplines which are giving rise to new combined disciplines: Thus the partnership of computerized information systems and interdisciplinary scientific research will vastly widen the frontiers of human discovery.     

Learning Styles Compared Across Health Science Courses

The Honey and Mumford Learning Style questionnaire was applied to undergraduate students at the first and third year level courses in Nursing, Optometry and Podiatryin the Queensland University of Technology Faculty of Health Science, and to students in the post‐graduate courses in Nursing and Nutrition and Dietetics. With one exception, there were no significant differences between first and third year student results for any learning style or course. The mean scores from all courses fell within the normal range defined by Honey and Mumford, but some differences were identified in the preferred learning styles across the different disciplines.

The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the use of different teaching techniques such as structured lectures, practical exercises, case discussions and role‐play, as the findings may be used to predict the type of instructional techniques which would be most effective. Recommendations are made on the most appropriate of these techniques for different health science courses.     

The Use of Behavioural Self‐management in Primary School Settings: a review

The present paper attempts to review the studies which employed behavioural self‐management technology as a means of improving aspects of children's academic and social behaviour. The review is limited to those studies which involve primary school children attending mainstream schools. Studies are divided into three categories: those where the treated target behaviour(s) is academic, those where it is behavioural, and those which combine academic and behavioural target behaviours or are collections of two or more studies, some of which are academic and some behaviour‐ally oriented. Special attention was given to the problem of the absence of a ‘common’ language underpinning this area of research, which is considered to be one of the reasons that some of the results reported are equivocal. Finally, the orientation of future research in behavioural self‐management is discussed.     

Self‐assessment in university assessment of prior learning procedures

Competency‐based university education, in which lifelong learning and flexible learning are key elements, demands a renewed vision on assessment. Within this vision, Assessment of Prior Learning (APL), in which learners have to show their prior learning in order for their goals to be recognised, becomes an important element. This article focuses on a first step in APL, namely students’ self‐assessment of their prior learning before entering university education. The main aim of the presented study is to examine the suitability of the use of self‐assessment in APL. First, in an explorative study, the main sources for self‐assessment are derived and the relation between sources and domain of study is investigated. Second, in a pre‐test post‐test research design, the hypothesis that students’ self‐assessment of prior learning related to a course changes after studying a domain‐specific course is tested. Pre‐test results reveal that students indicate that they have prior knowledge related to the chosen university programme. In general, this prior learning is obtained from study experience, work experience, books, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, TV, radio, film or video. A relation is found between the type of source and the university programme. The hypothesis that students change their self‐assessment after a study period could not be confirmed. Based on these results, it is concluded that self‐assessment in APL might be a suitable tool. Implications for further research are discussed.     

Self‐Compassion,Affect, and Body Image in College Women

The aim of this study was to understand the relationships between self‐compassion, positive affect, negative affect, and variables representative of positive body image for college women. Regression analyses indicated that self‐compassion and affect accounted for 39% and 30% of the variance, respectively, in body appreciation and body image quality of life. Mediational analyses demonstrated that positive affect mediated the relationships between self‐compassion and both indicators of body image. Implications for college counseling are discussed.     

Targeting Parenting in Early Childhood: A Public Health Approach to Improve Outcomes for Children Living in Poverty

In this article, the authors posit that programs promoting nurturing parent–child relationships influence outcomes of parents and young children living in poverty through two primary mechanisms: (a) strengthening parents' social support and (b) increasing positive parent–child interactions. The authors discuss evidence for these mechanisms as catalysts for change and provide examples from selected parenting programs that support the influence of nurturing relationships on child and parenting outcomes. The article focuses on prevention programs targeted at children and families living in poverty and closes with a discussion of the potential for widespread implementation and scalability for public health impact.     

The Relationship of Supervisory Styles to Satisfaction With Supervision and the Perceived Self‐Efficacy of Master's‐Level Counseling Students

The purpose of this study was to determine whether supervisors' supervisory styles are related to master's‐level counseling students' satisfaction with supervision and their perceived self‐efficacy. Multiple regression analyses of data obtained for 82 participants indicated that particular supervisory styles were significant predictors of supervisees' satisfaction with supervision and perceived self‐efficacy. Findings can be used to enhance the training of supervisors.     

The Stability of Individual Differences in Basic Mathematics‐Related Skills in Young Children at the Start of Formal Education

The current study investigated the development of children's performance on tasks that have been suggested to underlie early mathematics skills, including measures of cardinality, ordinality, and intelligence. Eighty‐seven children were tested in their first (T1) and second (T2) school year (at ages 5 and 6). Children's performance on all tasks demonstrated good reliability and significantly improved with age. Correlational analyses revealed that performance on some mathematics‐related tasks were nonsignificantly correlated between T1 and T2 (number line and number comparison), showing that these skills are relatively unstable. Detailed analyses also indicated that the way children solve these tasks show qualitative changes over time. By contrast, children's performance on measures of intelligence and nonnumerical ordering abilities were strongly correlated between T1 and T2. Additionally, ordering skills also showed moderate to strong correlations with counting procedures both cross‐sectionally and longitudinally. These results suggest that, initially, mathematics skills strongly rely on nonmathematical abilities.     

Evaluation in the Design of Complex Systems

We identify literature that argues the process of creating knowledge‐based system is often imbalanced. In most knowledge‐based systems, development is often technology‐driven instead of requirement‐driven. Therefore, we argue designers must recognize that evaluation is a critical link in the application of requirement‐driven development models because it provides the information that keeps the iterative developmental process on track. In this study we took a closer look at the decision‐making in the design of a complex performance system in a non‐profit organization. The purpose was to gain insights into the roles and functions of evaluation during the process of building a performance support system. This study adopted an exploratory case study as its inquiry method. Findings suggested that effective communication is as important a function to evaluation as is decision‐making, and that the implementation of evaluation seldom follows the textbook guidelines. That is, evaluation practice is a patchwork history of the designers' knowledge and experience. Further, neither complexity nor the informality of the evaluation protocols seems to influence the quality of decision‐making.