The U.S. Government Printing Office's initiatives for the Federal Depository Library Program to set the stage for the 21st century

It is estimated that the majority of federal information is born digital. To that end, the U.S. Government Printing Office is transforming into a 21st century electronic information agency. As part of this effort, the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) has been investigating new options for the dissemination of Federal information that incorporate digitization, preservation, electronic metadata, and information retrieval. The FDLP's efforts to find new solutions will improve acquisitions, information access, and collection development for depository libraries. This article describes just a few of the initiatives GPO has undertaken to increase access to electronic U.S. Government information.     

MUSICAL PREFERENCES OF OLDER PEOPLE ATTENDING NUTRITION SITES

The purpose of this study was to determine the possible relationship between a subject's musical style preference and other variables: religious preference, age, sex, marital status, health, education, previous musical experience, and residence category. One hundred four persons aged 55 and older were seen at area nutrition centers. A questionnaire and musical preference test were administered to each subject. The latter consisted of 28 pairs of musical excerpts. Eight styles of music were included, distributed equally between vocal and instrumental examples. Each style was paired with every other style. Respondents were asked to state a preference for one of the two excerpts of each pair. Educational level and past musical experience most influenced choice of style, although there was some relationship between musical preferences and the majority of the other variables under consideration.     

Supporting programme teams to develop sequencing in higher education curricula

Curriculum sequencing is central to promoting a coherent student experience. Yet in the higher education context, the concept and practice of curriculum sequencing have not been fully explored. This research examined how seven programme teams approached the issue of sequencing across two Irish higher education institutions. A phenomenological approach was used to explore actions, challenges, and enhancers to sequencing. The three key themes emerging were: developing a collective philosophy; communicating the sequencing clearly; and, developing strong building blocks. Ideas are presented on how academic developers can work with academic staff to improve sequencing in their curricula.     

Teachers’ Perceptions of School Inspection: a stressful experience

Research into inspection is increasing, although in the past much of it tended to focus on either the perspective of the school management or the inspectors themselves. As part of a 3 year study into inspection, Brimblecombe, Ormston and Shaw have completed a national questionnaire survey and in‐depth interviews focusing on the classroom teacher's experiences of inspection. Whilst the analysis is still in the preliminary stages, several interesting issues have emerged. This paper focuses on one of them‐‐the stress on teachers generated by inspection‐‐and examines what causes it, how it is managed, what forms it takes and what impact it has on the inspection process, the inspection outcomes and the teachers themselves     

A rationale and description of a CAI program to teach the BASIC programming language

A BASIC Instructional Program is being developed as a vehicle for research in tutorial modes of computer-assisted instruction (CAI). Several design features will be appropriate to training in other technical areas and applicable in other instructional settings where the development of analytic and problem-solving skills is a goal. Methods are incorporated for monitoring and aiding the student as he works on programming problems in the BASIC language. The instructional program developed can be used to investigate schemes for optimizing problem presentation and giving assistance during problem-solving based on a model of the student's abilities and difficulties. Previous experience in the instructional and technical aspects of teaching a programming language indicates that a course in computer programming can be designed to help the student acquire programming concepts in a personalized and efficient manner as he develops skills at increasingly advanced levels. This article reports on work currently in progress and briefly summarizes observations and conclusions based on operation during the pilot year. A major goal of the research project is to increase the sophistication with which the instructional program monitors the student's work and responds to it with appropriate hints and prompts. One aspect of such work is the utilization of algorithms for checking the correctness of a student procedure. Limited but sufficient program verification is possible through simulated execution of the program on test data stored with each problem. Within the controllable context of instruction, where the problems to be solved are predetermined and their solutions known, simulated execution of the student's program can effectively determine its closeness to a stored model solution. The BASIC Instructional Program (BIP) is written in SAIL (VanLehn, 1973; Swinehart and Sproull, 1971), a versatile, ALGOL-like language, implemented exclusively at present on the DEC PDP-10 computer. SAIL includes a flexible associative sublanguage called LEAP (Feldman et al., 1972), which was used extensively to build BIP's information network. The course is now running on the PDP-10 TENEX timesharing system at the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences. It was offered during the pilot year as an introductory programming course at DeAnza College in Cupertino, California, and at the University of San Francisco in San Francisco, California. The collected data are being used to modify the problems and the “help” sequences in preparation for a more controlled experimental situation planned for the next academic year.     

Growing Talent for Inclusion: using an appreciative inquiry approach into investigating classroom dynamics

This paper reports on an Appreciative Inquiry project called ‘Growing Talent for Inclusion’ which has been running since 2002. The project grew out the authors’ work in a Local Authority Support Service assisting schools to meet the needs of pupils with a range of additional educational needs. Faced with a large number of individual referrals, many relating to the emotional, social and behavioural needs of pupils, it was considered that an eco – systemic approach was required and that a priority was to support pupils and teachers in developing more effective and satisfying interpersonal relationships in the classroom. ‘Growing Talent for Inclusion’ uses Appreciative Inquiry to investigate a management change process which has been used within large organisations and communities but less commonly at classroom level. It is a type of action research which is solution not problem focused and therefore lends itself well to a research focus of improving classroom dynamics. The paper introduces a 4‐D Cycle of Appreciative Inquiry: discovery, dream, design and deliver, as advocated by Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987, which guides the identification, acknowledgment and amplification of skills pertinent to improving social dynamics within the classroom and discusses the methodological issues which arise from this collaborative, participative form of inquiry. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods has been used to identify and track the development of attributes for improving working relationships in four different primary and secondary classrooms in three schools. 76 pupils and four teachers have been involved in the project since its inception in 2002 with classes in a further three primary schools using the approach during the academic year 2005–2006. Findings from the project show an increase in the number of pupils with whom other pupils are happy to work, a reduction in the number of pupils identified as socially excluded at the beginning of the project and enhanced capacity of the group in terms of the talents identified for growth. Feedback from staff and students also suggests that the process of noticing and acknowledging strengths has contributed to improvements in working relationships.     

Empathy and Cognition in High-Functioning Children with Autism

This study compares the ability of nonretarded autistic children (9-16 years of age) with the ability of normally developing children (9-14 years of age) to discriminate between various emotional states, to take the perspective of another regarding emotional states, and to respond affectively. The children's understanding of conservation was also assessed. While the children with autism did surprisingly well on the empathy-related measures, they performed less well than the normal children on these measures and on conservation. There was a closer association between cognitive abilities and affective understanding in the group of autistic children than in the control group.