Legislation for library and information services in French-speaking Africa revisited

The aim of this article is to review the situation regarding legislation on library and information services, and in particular, the changes that have taken place over the past 20 years in French-speaking African countries. Our study concerns 24 African countries, located in North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia), West Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Togo), as well as East and Central Africa (Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Rwanda), Djibouti, the Comoros, Madagascar and Seychelles.The institutions examined in this study are primarily national libraries and documentation centres. Nevertheless, we will also look at legislative decisions affecting national information systems and public and university libraries, as well as some decisions governing the practice of the librarian profession.The main changes that took place over the past two decades concern the setting up of international Francophone institutions and the support provided to information and library infrastructures in developing countries. We also note a definite improvement in documentation systems, due largely to a greater priority placed on information and the action of professionals trained in library science faculties and colleges, who continue to promote the need for adequate legislation to ensure well-performing institutions.     

Looking for students’ personal characteristics predicting study outcome

The central goal of this study is to clarify to what degree former education and students’ personal characteristics (the ‘Big Five personality characteristics’, personal orientations on learning and students’ study approach) may predict study outcome (required credits and study continuance). Analysis of the data gathered through questionnaires of 1,471 Universities of Applied Sciences students make clear that former Education did not come forth as a powerful predictor for Credits or Study Continuance. Significant predictors are Conscientiousness and Ambivalence and Lack of Regulation. The higher the scores on Conscientiousness the more credits students are bound to obtain and the more likely they will continue their education. On the other hand students with high scores on Ambivalence and Lack of Regulation will most likely obtain fewer Credits or drop out more easily. The question arises what these results mean for the present knowledge economy which demands an increase of inhabitants with an advanced level of education. Finally, implications and recommendations for future research are suggested.     

On the interplay between normalisation,bias, and performance of paper impact metrics

We evaluate article-level metrics along two dimensions. Firstly, we analyse metrics’ ranking bias in terms of fields and time. Secondly, we evaluate their performance based on test data that consists of (1) papers that have won high-impact awards and (2) papers that have won prizes for outstanding quality. We consider different citation impact indicators and indirect ranking algorithms in combination with various normalisation approaches (mean-based, percentile-based, co-citation-based, and post hoc rescaling). We execute all experiments on two publication databases which use different field categorisation schemes (author-chosen concept categories and categories based on papers’ semantic information).In terms of bias, we find that citation counts are always less time biased but always more field biased compared to PageRank. Furthermore, rescaling paper scores by a constant number of similarly aged papers reduces time bias more effectively compared to normalising by calendar years. We also find that percentile citation scores are less field and time biased than mean-normalised citation counts.In terms of performance, we find that time-normalised metrics identify high-impact papers better shortly after their publication compared to their non-normalised variants. However, after 7 to 10 years, the non-normalised metrics perform better. A similar trend exists for the set of high-quality papers where these performance cross-over points occur after 5 to 10 years.Lastly, we also find that personalising PageRank with papers’ citation counts reduces time bias but increases field bias. Similarly, using papers’ associated journal impact factors to personalise PageRank increases its field bias. In terms of performance, PageRank should always be personalised with papers’ citation counts and time-rescaled for citation windows smaller than 7 to 10 years.     

International Trends in Health Science Librarianship Part 14: East Africa (Kenya,Uganda, Rwanda)

This is the 14th in a series of articles exploring international trends in health science librarianship in the 21st century. This is the second of four articles pertaining to different regions in the African continent. The present issue focuses on countries in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda). The next feature column will investigate trends in West Africa. JM     

Unravelling the social dynamics of an industry–school partnership: social capital as perspective for co-creation

Increasingly, innovative collaboration between industry and schools is being exploited as a way of improving the quality and relevance of education. Even though these innovations appear to have substantial benefits, often the impact proves to fade away after their implementation. A better understanding of how to sustain complex innovations seems important. Unfortunately, only a limited amount of research investigates the ‘inside’ of complex innovations. This article reports on a three-year, large-scale industry–school programme in the Dutch Leisure sector. The research, from start to finish, adopted a qualitative case study methodology with a mixed-methods approach, drawing upon social capital theory as lens to understand the dynamics of processes and effect on outcomes. Findings indicate that the social capital theory helps to unravel crucial factors of processes and outcomes. The researched innovation process depended not so much on formal project plans and objectives but largely built on the quality of social relationships at all levels. Sustaining this social capital proved crucial, while managing according to a planned change strategy appeared to be counterproductive. The outcomes show to be twofold, in terms of new knowledge and products for the organisations and of sustainable benefits for the professionals, in terms of new abilities.     

The Role of Direct Strategy Instruction and Indirect Activation of Self-Regulated Learning—Evidence from Classroom Observation Studies

Educational Psychology Review - Despite the consensus about the importance of self-regulated learning for academic as well as for lifelong learning, it is still poorly understood as to how teachers...     

Cooperative Learning in Dutch Primary Classrooms

This study examines teachers' use and evaluation of cooperative learning along with pupils' reactions to cooperative grouping and the quality of the group cooperation in a sample of Dutch primary school teachers who implemented cooperative learning methods. Teachers reported that cooperative learning occurred in their classrooms about four times a week. Teachers reported social skills, on-task behaviour and pupil self-esteem to improve as a result of having pupils work in groups. The pupils reported a positive attitude towards cooperative group learning and rated their work in groups as effective. About half of the teachers reported problems with the monitoring of the cooperative groups. Observations showed the time-on-task levels of the pupils working in groups to be high, but effective learning and cooperation not to be promoted. The teachers devoted little time to the teaching of groupwork skills. In general, the implementation of cooperative grouping was found to lack the features recommended in the literature for effective cooperative learning.     

Training Teachers in Mixed‐age Classrooms: effects of a staff development programme

A quasi‐experimental, treatment‐control group investigation was designed to test the effects of the staff development programme Dealing with Mixed‐age Classes. Research findings from mixed‐age glasses, effective teaching and classroom management and organisation were translated into teacher behaviours. Following seven three‐hour workshops teachers in mixed‐aged classes implemented self‐designed plans to increase selected research‐derived teaching behaviours and pupils’ time‐on‐task. Based on pre‐ and post‐training classroom observations, a significant treatment effect was found for pupils’ time‐on‐task levels in mixed‐age classrooms and for teacher behaviours regarding effective instruction, lesson design and execution, classroom organisation and management.     

Improving Instruction and Classroom Management Behaviour in Mixed‐age Classrooms: results of two improvement studies

This article describes the results of a second school improvement study directed at schools with mixed‐age classes, and compares the results of this second study with the first study. The second improvement study examines the effects of a staff development programme which introduced selected findings from teaching effectiveness research into ongoing school settings with mixed‐age classes. In addition to the staff development programme the effects of coaching are also evaluated. In contrast to the first improvement study the staff development programme was implemented by teacher educators and school counsellors in the regular educational support context (in‐service teacher education). A quasi‐experimental, treatment‐control group investigation was designed to test the effects of the staff development programme ‘Dealing with mixed‐age classes’, and the effects of coaching. Based on pre‐ and post‐training classroom observations, the second improvement study‐‐like the first one‐‐revealed a significant treatment effect for pupils’ time‐on‐task levels in mixed‐age classrooms, and for teachers’ instructional and classroom management skills. Only two coaching effects were found: for organising effective instruction and for dealing with disturbances. Time‐on‐task levels improved more strongly in classes of coached teachers. In the second improvement study the effects on teacher instructional and classroom management skills, and pupil behaviour are smaller than in the first study. The staff development programme as conducted in regular in‐service settings by teacher educators and school counsellors was less effective than the staff development programme as conducted in an evaluation setting by the designers of the programme.     

Training proportionality through peer interaction

The study aimed at determining the effects of training based on peer interaction over practical problems of proportion with normal subjects aged from 8 to 12 years. Two experimental groups were assigned to two treatment conditions: (a) training in solving problems of proportionality with social interaction (T1), and (b) training in solving the same problems without social interaction (T2).Training groups included either 5 or 10 subjects who were heterogeneous with regard to their initial level of mastery of the concept of proportion. The results indicated that in group T1 the scores on proportionality improved significantly while group T2 and a control group did not. Thus, practice alone produced no change. The improvement on proportionality in T1 proved durable over a period of two months and generalized to a structurally related concept (probability). The variation in group size did not affect the extent of improvement. The number and duration of interactions within the group discussion over problems were not directly related to the amount of improvement. A detailed analysis of the pre- and post-test difference revealed that only 50% of the Ss in T1 improved substantially, and, in line with the Genevan view, improvement from training was found to follow the same sequence as normal development.