The role of goal orientations for adolescent mathematics achievement

This study examines the association between personal goal orientations and mathematics achievement within the trichotomous goal framework. Participants comprised approximately 2000 seventh and eighth grade White, Hispanic, and Vietnamese students in a low-income urban school district in California. Regression analysis with classroom fixed effects minimized biases arising from non-random assignment of teachers and students to schools and classrooms. While all three achievement goal orientations were correlated with mathematics achievement, only a mastery goal orientation consistently predicted achievement when a full set of prior achievement and demographic controls were included. Performance-approach and performance-avoidance goal orientations did not predict achievement in the full model.     

Stochastic competitive Lotka–Volterra ecosystems under partial observation: Feedback controls for permanence and extinction

This paper is concerned with Lotka–Volterra models formulated using stochastic differential equations with regime switching represented by a continuous-time Markov chain. Different from the existing literature, the Markov chain is hidden and can only be observed in a Gaussian white noise in our work. For such partially observed problems, we use a Wonham filter to estimate the Markov chain from the observable evolution of the given process, and convert the original system to a completely observable one. We then establish the regularity, positivity, stochastic boundedness, and sample path continuity of the solution. Moreover, stochastic permanence and extinction using feedback controls are investigated. Numerical experiments are conducted to validate the theoretical findings and demonstrate how feedback controls perform in practice.     

International Communications

THE SOVIET PROPAGANDA MACHINE by Martin Ebon (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987—$22.95)

CLANDESTINE RADIO BROADCASTING: A STUDY OF REVOLUTIONARY AND COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION by Lawrence C. Soley and John S. Nichols (New York: Praeger, 1987—$47.95)

ASSIGNED TO LISTEN: THE EVESHAM EXPERIENCE, 1939–43 by Olive Renier and Vladimir Rubinstein (London: BBC External Services, 1986—L3.95, paper, plus 25% more to cover postage and packing outside of the U.K.)

INDEPENDENCE, LIBERATION, REVOLUTION: AN APPROACH TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE THIRD WORLD by Tran Van Dinh (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1987—$37.50)

FOLLOWING THE FOOTPRINTS: PROTECTING FILM AND TV RIGHTS IN THE WORLD SATELLITE MARKETPLACE edited by Charles Firestone and Daniel Brenner (Communications Law Program, UCLA School of Law, University of California, Los Angeles 90024—price not given, paper)     

An Investigation of Student Roles within Small,Racially Mixed Science Groups: A racial perspective

Achievement disparities among racial groups attest to the elusiveness of the ‘science for all’ goal, an emphasis of reform efforts in the USA. One popular approach to making science accessible to all is group work. The study investigated roles attained by five African American and six European‐American eighth graders working in small, racially mixed groups. What roles did the African‐American and European‐American students attain in the small, racially mixed science groups? Did race‐associated patterns of role attainment exist? If so, what was the nature of the patterns? Roles were derived and patterns examined via the qualitative and quantitative analyses of videotaped group interactions. The findings indicated that European‐Americans attained roles more frequently than their African‐American counterparts of comparable abilities and whiteness operated in the small groups. The findings imply racial inequities in group work and the need for teachers to consider race when employing it.     

Narrating Lives,Narrating Faith: “Organic Hybridity” for Contemporary Christian Religious Education

This article proposes that Christian Religious Education (CRE) today requires the practice of “organic hybridity” in fluid and shifting “diasporic spaces,” the prerequisite for which is the recognition that “hybrid subjectivities” is characteristic of our current postmodern, postcolonial, transnational, globalized world. Toward this aim, CRE must strive to understand how contemporary hybrid subjects negotiate identities and faith in the way they narrate situationally, improvisationally, and organically about the inter-activity between human and Divine for everyday living.     

Using group projects as a strategy to increase cooperation among low- and high-achieving students

This study aimed to investigate the perceptions, interactions and behaviours of different-ability college students when they worked on different types of assessments. Two classes of 145 Vietnamese college students participated in this three-month study. The students were assigned to mixed-ability groups, each of which consisted of five students. The results show that assessment designed as a group project helped close the gap in communication and interactions between different-ability students within groups. When the students engaged with assessment as a group project, all levels of performers increased productive learning behaviours and provided more relevant verbal help and assistance to each other. Importantly, this type of assessment created various opportunities for the low performers to participate in, and make a contribution to, group tasks. As a result, all group members became interested in working with others. They perceived cooperative learning groups as being enjoyable and fun.     

An Adapted Structurational Framework for the Emergence of Communication Networks

Although structuration theory (ST) has endured a considerable influence in communication research across various domains, there remains a paucity of quantitative empirical research using ST as a viable framework. The purpose of this article is to develop an adapted structurational framework to explain the emergence of communication networks. The adapted framework distinguishes between relational states/events and internal/external structural rules. For analysis, we introduce multipanel relational event modeling, a technique using processual inference that can empirically demonstrate the recursive nature of system and structure. As an introductory example of both the framework and method, we examined communication, using cell-phone data, of students living in the same dormitory from September 2008 through February 2009. Our results demonstrated how different structures (i.e., perceived social relations and internal/external structural rules) are reproduced and transformed over time. Our research has implications for communication research dealing with recursivity, event-driven network analysis, the changing nature of the phone call, and the promise of computational communication science.     

In‐house peer supported literature search training: a public health perspective

Public Health England plays a vital role in ensuring the health of the nation. The Knowledge and Library Service (KLS) is a key part of the organisation's evidence supply chain. KLS staff handle over 200 requests for literature searches per annum, and this number is increasing exponentially year on year. Searches are often complex and require specialist public health knowledge to complete effectively. Library staff who are new to the area of public health require support and training. In this article, Anh Tran, Knowledge and Evidence Specialist for Public Health England, discusses a peer supported literature search training course that has been developed in‐house for the benefit of new library staff, and to increase the Knowledge and Library Service's literature searching capacity at Public Health England. H. S.     

Limited legitimacy among academics of centrally driven approaches to internal quality assurance in Vietnam

For more than 15 years, Vietnam has worked to develop a quality assurance (QA) system as part of its effort to reform higher education. The government’s effort seeks to respond to widespread criticism over the quality of training in higher education. The appropriation of western QA mechanisms and the effectiveness of the QA system as it has been implemented, however, is still viewed with scepticism. This paper reports on a study of academics and QA practitioners’ perceptions of quality assurance. Documentation and in-depth interviews were used in the study. The findings show that QA remains a new concept in the country, which appears to have promoted a compliance-driven approach to mandated policies rather than a system that promotes academics’ engagement in continuous improvement. Moreover, the appropriated mechanism may be seen as contradictory to the values respected by academics and rooted in a Confucian society.     

Language and learning advisors as a valuable but under-recognised workforce in higher education: a Bourdieuian analysis of their professional development in international education

Language and learning advisors (LLAs) play a vital role in supporting the academic development of a fast-growing population of international students. This paper tackles the professional development practices for LLAs and barriers to their professional development. Using Bourdieu’s concepts of field and habitus, the paper addresses the mutual interactions between the work environment and LLAs’ thinking and actions regarding providing language and learning advice to international students. The analysis of 44 semi-structured interviews with LLAs from 18 institutions shows that there was a scarcity of targeted professional development opportunities for LLAs to improve their expertise directly related to international students and internationalisation of education. Financial shortage, time constraints, casualisation conditions, managerial issues, academic to professional employment re-classification for LLAs and the ongoing marginalisation of LLAs have created unfavourable contexts for LLAs’ professional development. The paper points out the critical need to create better work conditions for LLAs, to ensure more investment in creating targeted opportunities for LLAs’ professional development and to provide more resources and attention to support their enactment of agency and development of professional capacities.