Television and education: A review of research

Summary The existing research on television of interest to educators was analyzed and found to be grouped into four general categories: (a) studies of the general social effects of television, (b) content analyses, (c) studies of the educational effects of television, and (d) technical studies. Studies in each of these four categories were reviewed and generalizations drawn from them. No attempt was made to review related research that is, no doubt, applicable to the problems of television. For example, the vast amount of research information developed in the audio-visual field during the past 30 years was not touched. Future investigators will find that the existing television research and the existing audio-visual research provide only a sketch map of the field of audio-visual communication. To use these important instruments wisely, and this is particularly true of television, it is necessary that we know and understand much more. This is the challenge for future research. To the knowledge of the editor, this is the first comprebensive review of educational television research to be published. The organizing of the research into four categories—general social effects, content analyses, educational effects, and technical problems—the rather detailed reviewing of the results, and the drawing of general conclusions should greatly aid the educator in understanding the unique contributions of educational television. An attempt will be made in future issues of Audio-Visual Communication Review to supplement this review of research by regularly publishing, in “Research Abstracts,” reviews of the most recent television studies. Dr. James D. Finn is Associate Professor of Education and Chairman of the Audio-Visual Education Department, University of Southern California. This paper was originally prepared at the request of the California State Department of Education for inclusion in theBrochure of Background Materials: Educational Television for the Governor’s Conference on Educational Television, held in Sacramento, California, December 15–16, 1952. It was necessary to develop the material in a very short time, and the writer wishes to express his indebtedness to F. Dean McClusky and May V. Seagoe of the University of California, Los Angeles, and to Lester F. Beck and Nicholas Rose, his colleagues at the University of Southern California, as well as to several of his graduate students for helping in locating copies of the studies reviewed.     

Research incentives and research output

This paper first briefly reviews the worldwide development of the size of the university sector, its research merits and authorities’ use of incentive systems for its academic staff. Then, the paper develops a static model of a researcher’s behaviour, aiming to discuss how different salary reward schemes and teaching obligations influence his or her research merits. Moreover, special focus is placed on discussing the importance of the researcher’s skills and of working in solid academic environments for quality research. The main findings are as follows: First, research achievements will improve irrespective of the relative impact quantity and quality of research have on researchers’ salaries. Second, small changes in fixed salary and teaching duties will not influence the amount of time academics spend on research and, as such, their research merits. Third, because research productivity, i.e. the number of pages written and research quality increase with the researcher’s skills and effort, both these figures signal a researcher’s potential when adjusting for his or her age and the kind of research carried out. Finally, because researchers’ utility depends on factors beyond salary and leisure time, employers have a number of instruments to use in order to attract skilled researchers in a globalised market.     

A systematic review of evidence on the effectiveness of interventions and strategies for widening participation in higher education

Widening participation (WP) in higher education (HE) is an increasingly important policy issue, with interventions to increase participation from minority ethnic, low-income and other under-represented groups undertaken in HE sectors in many countries. In the UK there is a large amount of WP activity but a lack of robust evidence of its effectiveness. This article presents a systematic review in the topic area of WP in HE. We included studies of systematic review, randomised controlled trial (RCT) and quasi-experimental (QE) designs, and assessed evidence of the effectiveness of university access strategies and approaches in relation to the participation of disadvantaged students at university. We searched for, quality appraised and synthesised the international evidence, that is, evidence published in any country, in the English language. The findings from 4 systematic reviews and 12 experimental studies (4 RCTs, 4 RDDs and 4 QEDs) are presented as narrative syntheses in a series of thematic sub-topics. We found some evidence of effectiveness for a number of university access interventions. ‘Black box’ WP programmes (those with multiple elements in a single programme) and financial incentives were found to be effective. However, much of the evidence had design limitations and the majority were conducted in the US. The article concludes with research recommendations in relation to UK interventions, including suggested designs for future quasi-experimental evaluation.     

A sentence-combining intervention for struggling writers: response to intervention

Reading and Writing - Children who struggle with writing are a heterogeneous group and may experience difficulties in a range of domains, including spelling, reading, and oral language. These...     

Establishing the Role and Impact of Academic Librarians in Supporting Open Research: A Case Study at Leeds Beckett University,UK

ABSTRACT

This practical article presents findings of a small scale study undertaken at a large U.K. University. The purpose of the study was to encourage academic engagement with Open Access (OA) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) mandate with the measurable impact being increased engagement with the Repository and dissemination of research while circulating information to the wider community. In order to promote research, a series of “Focus on” webpages were created aligned to a particular theme and were then disseminated via social media. It was anticipated that by potentially increasing access to research outputs, academic staff would be motivated to make their work available following OA models and use the institutional repository (IR) as a means to achieve this. The main drivers for the study were the Finch Report, the HEFCE Policy for open access in the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework and the institutional strategy for research. Data was collected through a statistical analysis of both the “Focus on” pages and journal article downloads via the IR, with results indicating increased engagement with the IR making research openly accessible.     

Automation and education

Summary An attempt has been made in this paper to describe automation, both as an industrial process involving flow and control and as an intellectual system involving planning and decision-making. General effects on education in the areas of curriculum and program of studies, administration, general education, organization for instruction, the necessity for teaching new patterns of thinking, vocational and technical education were discussed. The concept of the possibility of automatizing the instructional process itself was introduced, and the outlines of a new content for education as a discipline were suggested. The following paper will deal with the problem of automatizing instruction through audio-visual means, and the third and last paper in the series will consider the dangers and difficulties involved in such a process. This is the first in a series of three articles that will discuss one of the most important and timely problems that educators face today-the effects of automation upon education.