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.     

Evidence‐Based Practices: Applications of Concrete Representational Abstract Framework across Math Concepts for Students with Mathematics Disabilities

Students with mathematics disabilities (MD) experience difficulties with both conceptual and procedural knowledge of different math concepts across grade levels. Research shows that concrete representational abstract framework of instruction helps to bridge this gap for students with MD. In this article, we provide an overview of this strategy embedded within the explicit instruction framework. We highlight effective practices for each component of the framework across different mathematical strands. Implications for practice are also discussed and a detailed case study is provided.     

Can Anyone Have it All? Gendered Views on Parenting and Academic Careers

This article is based on data from two qualitative studies that examined the experiences of 93 tenure-line faculty members who are also mothers and fathers. Using gender schemas and ideal worker norms as a guide, we examined the pressures that professors experience amid unrealistic expectations in their work and home lives. Women participants reported performing a disproportionate amount of care in the home while simultaneously feeling unable to take advantage of family-friendly policies. In contrast, men acknowledged that, although their partners performed more care in the home, they felt penalized for wanting to be involved parents.     

lol: new language and spelling in instant messaging

Written communication in instant messaging, text messaging, chat, and other forms of electronic communication appears to have generated a “new language” of abbreviations, acronyms, word combinations, and punctuation. In this naturalistic study, adolescents collected their instant messaging conversations for a 1-week period and then completed a spelling test delivered over instant messaging. We used the conversations to develop a taxonomy of new language use in instant messaging. Short-cuts, including abbreviations, acronyms, and unique spellings were most prevalent in the instant message conversation, followed by pragmatic signals, such use of emoticons, emotion words, and punctuation, and typographical and spelling errors were relatively uncommon. With rare exceptions, notably true spelling errors, spelling ability was not related to use of new language in instant messaging. The taxonomy provides an important tool for investigating new language use and the results provide partial evidence that new language does not have a harmful effect on conventional written language.     

Direct and Indirect Links Between the Couple Relationship and Child School Outcomes

This study measured aspects of the couple relationship to examine direct and indirect relations with parental involvement in education and children's school outcomes. The sample (n = 100) consisted of families that have at least one child between the ages of 8 and 11 in urban central Taiwan. Findings indicated that couple relationship quality is related to parent involvement and parent involvement is related to child school outcomes. Aspects of the couple relationship were also related to children's negative attitudes toward school. Path analyses showed a direct path from dyadic consensus to school success and an indirect path from coparenting strategy use to child school success through parental involvement in education. Bootstrap analyses confirmed the reliability of the models.     

Defining and Communicating What “Intercultural” and “Intercultural Communication” Means to Us

In order to engage in our larger discussion, we needed to share our definitions, framings, and theorizings of what “intercultural” and “intercultural communication” mean to us and how we inflect these based on our own experiences, identities, and perspectives. Discussants break down how they understand the notion of “intercultural” behind commonly used and circulated terms in our scholarship.     

Assessing positive attitudes toward older and younger adults

Meaningful intergenerational interactions between older and younger adults are rare outside of family relationships. Interventions to increase positive intergenerational interactions are growing, but finding appropriate measures of attitudes toward both younger and older age groups is difficult. Many measures assessing attitudes toward older adults can remind participants of negative stereotypes of aging and are rarely used to assess attitudes toward younger adults. We adapted Pittinsky, Rosenthal, and Montoya’s allophilia measure to assess attitudes toward younger (18–25 years old) and older (over age 65) adults. In the first study, 94 traditional college age and 52 older adults rated older and younger adults. The allophilia measure distinguished between younger and older adults’ attitudes toward each age group. In the second study, we compared the age-related allophilia measures with seven traditional measures of attitudes toward older adults. Forty-seven traditional college age students completed measures. As predicted, correlations between allophilia toward older adults and the traditional semantic differential measures were weak (i.e., r = |0.15|or less), whereas correlations with general attitudes toward older adults were more moderate (r = 0.59 or less). Correlations between allophilia toward younger adults and the traditional measures were primarily non-significant as predicted. The allophilia measure differentiated between the five domains of positive attitudes toward younger and older adults and was not highly correlated with measures of more negative attitudes toward older adults. Results suggest that the allophilia measure can fill a need for a measure of positive attitudes toward older and younger adults.