Evidence‐based practice: triumph of style over substance?

This feature examines the success of evidence-based practice (EBP) and the associated Cochrane Collaboration. It seeks to identify critical success factors associated with the way that both initiatives have been marketed. The simplicity of the original message used by each initiative allowed for subsequent assimilation of nuances and variants. Two implications for health librarians are highlighted; recognition that EBP is simply the embodiment of one world view and that many others may make a useful contribution and the need to craft a simple message capturing the unique selling points of the profession. To create a unique contribution health librarians require a detailed picture from market research of user information needs.     

Knowing your students in large diverse classes: a phenomenographic case study

The problem which this paper addresses is the difficulty of knowing students in large diverse classes in pedagogically useful ways. The paper discusses how the phenomenographic methodology can be employed to address this problem. It describes how phenomenographic studies and their results can enable teachers to ‘know their students’ at a collective level in terms of a set of qualitatively distinct idealised types rather than at a personal level of individuals with their particular characteristics, and demonstrates the pedagogical utility of this kind of knowing. The means used to describe the approach and to demonstrate its utility when teaching large classes is to present, as a case study, a phenomenographic investigation into the learning practices among students in a large, diverse cohort of entrants to an engineering programme in South Africa. General principles are drawn from the case study and are discussed as they apply to the teaching of large classes.     

Examining the text-based,on-demand,analytical writing of mainstreamed Latino English learners in a randomized field trial of the Pathway Project intervention

This study reports on the effects of the Pathway Project, a professional development intervention aimed at supporting the academic language development of English Learners (ELs). Using a subset of data collected during a multi-site cluster randomized controlled trial involving nine middle and six high schools in an urban, low-income school district over 3 years, this study examines how the Pathway Project intervention impacted ELs’ abilities to analyze literature, use academic words, and include commentary in their essays. A total of 103 English teachers were stratified by school and grade and randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. Each year, Pathway teachers participated in 46 hours of training and learned how to apply a cognitive strategies approach to literacy instruction in order to help students understand, interpret, and write analytical essays about themes in literature. Through a textual analysis of 300 randomly sampled pre- and 300 post-intervention essays collected from 1,640 mainstreamed secondary ELs (820 experimental and 820 control), this study examined the ways in which the intervention impacted the writing outcomes of secondary ELs. A univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the students’ literary analysis and the use of commentary in their essays with the number of years in the treatment condition as the independent variable revealed significant effects of the intervention on the afore-mentioned posttest measures, with students who received 2 years of the intervention outperforming those who received only 1 year of the intervention.     

Photographic History

Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt and Philip B. Kunhardt Jr.'s Mathew Brady and His World (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1977—S19.95)

Robert A. Weinstein and Larry Booth's Collection, Yse, and Care of Historical Photographs (Nashville, Tenn.: American Association for State and Local History, 1977—$16.00)

Thomas L. Davis , A Guide to Your Family's Photographic Heritage (Addison House, Shots: Morgan's Run, Danbury, N.H. 03230—S3.95, paper)

William Inns Homer's Alfred Stieglitz and the American Avant-Garde (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1977— $17.50)

19th and 20th Century Photographs (Lunn Gallery and Graphics International Ltd., 3243 P St. NW, Washington D.C. 20007—$10.00, paper)     

Remembering Smithells: Past,Present, Future

In this article, I analyze a set of narratives about, and memorials to, Philip Ashton Smithells, the founder of physical education in New Zealand and a pantheon figure within the discipline. Rather than analyzing these narratives and memorials as stories and artifacts that accurately reconstruct Smithells and his ideas and practices, I conceptualize them as choices that create representations or interpretations that are independent of the truth. I also conceptualize the memorials to Smithells, which include a building, painting, photograph, lecture, and scholarship, as triggers for personal and collective memories. But neither narratives nor memorials can guarantee what individuals or communities remember and, in this sense, history, as representations of the past, is always fluid. Notions of choice and representation may unsettle those who regard history as synonymous with facts and truths and who seek the clarity of a definitive past. However, conceptualizing history as representations reminds us that our understanding of physical education, its origins and its founders, will continually shift with new reflections and as fresh ideas emerge, material conditions change, and events unfold.     

The impact of past dating relationship solidarity on commitment,satisfaction, and investment in current relationships

The purpose of this study was to determine how previous romantic relationships impact subsequent romantic relationships. Specifically, this study examined if past relationship solidarity is related to current relationship commitment, satisfaction, and investment among individuals in dating relationships. Participants were 204 undergraduates at an Eastern university who were currently in a dating relationship. Results indicated that past relationship solidarity is significantly and negatively related to current relationship commitment and satisfaction, but not significantly related to current investment. Several moderating variables were also examined, including the nature and attribution of individuals' breakups, the length of past and current relationships, and participant sex. Results revealed that the nature and style of past breakups were particularly salient moderating variables, such that past solidarity was related to future relationship commitment and satisfaction only when breakups were mutual and somewhat ambiguous. Furthermore, these relationships were significant only for women and not men.