Reassessing the Effect of Survey Characteristics on Common Method Bias in Emotional and Social Intelligence Competencies Assessment

Since the idea of method variance was inspired by D. T. Campbell and Fiske in 1959, many papers have demonstrated an ongoing debate about both its nature and impact. Often, method variance entails an upward bias in correlations among observed variables—common method bias. This article reports a split-ballot multitrait–multimethod experimental design for estimating 2 opposite biases: the upward biasing method variance from the reaction to the length of the response scale and the position of the survey items in the questionnaire and the downward biasing effect of poor data quality. The data are derived from self-reported behavior related to emotional and social competencies. This article illustrates a methodology to estimate common method bias and its components: common method scale variance, common method occasion variance, and the attenuation effect due to measurement errors. The results show that common method variance has a much smaller impact than random and systematic measurement errors. The results also corroborate previous findings: the greater reliability of longer scales and the lower reliability of items placed toward the end of the survey.     

The Rights and Wrongs of Operational Practices in the Scottish Publishing Industry

Digital publishing has been considered as a panacea to bridge the gaps between different sized publishing companies: allowing small, independent companies to compete on an equal footing with cross-media conglomerates. However, this research discovered that Scottish publishers are not capitalising on new technology and new platforms for dissemination: this is detrimental to the authors they represent. The empirical research found that the majority of Scottish publishers are not fostering intellectual property rights (IPR) effectively across international markets and new media: The failure to do this means that the operational practices of the Scottish publishing industry are not in harmony with the burgeoning digital publishing environment. If Scottish publishers continue with current practices it will become increasingly difficult for them to compete in the national and international publishing environment. This study concludes that only by better training and knowledge exchange, in matters of rights exploitation and digital publishing, can Scottish publishers compete in the international arena and contribute to, and benefit financially from, the knowledge economy.     

Virtual Transgenics: Using a Molecular Biology Simulation to Impact Student Academic Achievement and Attitudes

The transgenic mouse model is useful for studying the causes and potential cures for human genetic diseases. Exposing high school biology students to laboratory experience in developing transgenic animal models is logistically prohibitive. Computer-based simulation, however, offers this potential in addition to advantages of fidelity and reach. This study describes and evaluates a computer-based simulation to train advanced placement high school science students in laboratory protocols, a transgenic mouse model was produced. A simulation module on preparing a gene construct in the molecular biology lab was evaluated using a randomized clinical control design with advanced placement high school biology students in Mercedes, Texas (n?=?44). Pre-post tests assessed procedural and declarative knowledge, time on task, attitudes toward computers for learning and towards science careers. Students who used the simulation increased their procedural and declarative knowledge regarding molecular biology compared to those in the control condition (both p?<?0.005). Significant increases continued to occur with additional use of the simulation (p?<?0.001). Students in the treatment group became more positive toward using computers for learning (p?<?0.001). The simulation did not significantly affect attitudes toward science in general. Computer simulation of complex transgenic protocols have potential to provide a ??virtual?? laboratory experience as an adjunct to conventional educational approaches.     

Cyberbullying: through the eyes of children and young people

The topic of cyberbullying is raising international debate and concern. Through the development and dissemination of a questionnaire 12 student researchers were supported in surveying 325 UK students across Years 7, 8 and 9 to gain further knowledge of this area, in relation to children and young people. Results were analysed and comparisons made between gender and age, allowing conclusions to be drawn about the area of cyberbullying and its many elements. Conclusions acknowledge that bullying has entered a “digital era” and professionals and adults require the knowledge and skills to help young people to further understand the issues involved and to protect themselves in this area.     

Universities and a Human Development Ethics: a capabilities approach to curriculum

This article takes up the challenge of curriculum change in relation to the contested purposes of universities. It argues for an expansive, public good understanding, rather than the thin market exchange norms which currently drive higher education policies. The paper suggests that a human capital approach to curriculum is then insufficient to capture the full range and potential of a university curriculum. Instead, an approach to curriculum based on human development and capabilities formation is advanced as offering a richer perspective on what it means to be human and hence on the kinds of graduates universities should educate. Some implications for teaching, learning and assessment are outlined and a framework to design and operationalise a human development approach to curriculum is proposed.     

Development of Items for a Pedagogical Content Knowledge Test Based on Empirical Analysis of Pupils' Errors

In view of the lack of instruments for measuring biology teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), this article reports on a study about the development of PCK items for measuring teachers' knowledge of pupils' errors and ways for dealing with them. This study investigated 9th and 10th grade German pupils' (n?=?461) drawings in an achievement test about the knee-jerk in biology, which were analysed by using the inductive qualitative analysis of their content. The empirical data were used for the development of the items in the PCK test. The validation of the items was determined with think-aloud interviews of German secondary school teachers (n?=?5). If the item was determined, the reliability was tested by the results of German secondary school biology teachers (n?=?65) who took the PCK test. The results indicated that these items are satisfactorily reliable (Cronbach's alpha values ranged from 0.60 to 0.65). We suggest a larger sample size and American biology teachers be used in our further studies. The findings of this study about teachers' professional knowledge from the PCK test could provide new information about the influence of teachers' knowledge on their pupils' understanding of biology and their possible errors in learning biology.     

The Interactive Science and Technology Project: the Nuffield Foundation's Launchpad for a European Collaborative

The development of interactive science and technology centres in the UK, catalysed by the example of successful North American science centres, is also a reflection of increasing British concern for public understanding of science.

In 1986, the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science was established jointly by the Royal Society, the Royal Institution and the British Association, as a focus for initiatives to improve public awareness of science and technology. The COPUS ‘Interactive Science and Technology Centres’ working group linked COPUS's own programmes with the co‐ordination and promotion activities developed by the Nuffield Foundation's interactive science and technology project.

Launched in 1987, the Nuffield project served as a resource for the science centres and, building a strong network of contacts stretching from the BBC and British Association to science centres worldwide, itself served as a launchpad for ECSITE‐the European Collaborative for Science, Industry and Technology Exhibitions.     

Homelessness as the Unforgiving Minute of the Present: The Rhetorical Tenses of Democratic Citizenship

Popular discourse and advocacy efforts characterize homelessness as a social problem bound by the present-centered concerns of physical affliction and material deprivation. Wayne Powers's documentary film Reversal of Fortune exemplifies this tendency by performing a “social experiment” to investigate how giving a homeless man $100,000 would change his life: the film chronicles the intervention in terms of an ever-fleeting opportunity that the man ultimately fails to utilize. Such discourses deny the future-oriented grounds for identification between homeless and housed as citizens sharing a common political destiny. Discourses of homelessness thus provide an important opportunity for questioning how the rhetorical tenses of democratic citizenship can be cultivated or suppressed, and how such rhetorical work can contribute to a more dynamic democratic culture.     

Not the nine o'clock service: Using children's culture

This paper discusses current thinking and practice about the use of popular culture in the primary school to teach literacy. It attempts to question the methods that attempt to galvanise children's interest in popular texts to teach the current literacy curriculum. It argues that there is an incompatibility between the pleasures and practices of the world of popular culture and the traditional environment and curricula of school. The paper argues that instead of ‘using’ children's culture to teach the literacy curriculum in school, children's vibrant, sophisticated and valuable culture needs to be embedded within it.     

Developing the Theory and Practice of Action Research: a South African case

The three tales told here concern my experiences of teaching educational action research. I first became involved in action research in 1973 while a doctoral student working on peace and cultural studies education curriculum in Northern Ireland where project teachers inquired into their own classrooms so as to facilitate the teaching of contentious social and political issues for mutual understanding across the religious–political divide. My three tales of teaching action research are rooted in three very different settings: one working with gypsy education projects in inner-city Dublin; the second as part of a small university–school collaborative in rural North Carolina, and the last a tale of a doctoral seminar at East Carolina University.