高技术企业创业的成功因素

通过对美国及德国的十多年研究表明,对于创新及合作网络的投资有利于促进高技术行业企业不断进步和发展.这些高技术行业包括电信、电脑设备及生物工艺的行业.研究表明政府政策在促进竞争及支持地区合作网络发展中起到了极其重要的作用.     

JUNIOR FACULTY AS LIAISONS: THE REALITIES OF PDS COLLABORATION

Conflicting perspectives on the parent’s role in the infant/toddler classroom can play a significant role in early educational settings. A recent ethnographic study of an Early Head Start program in New York City focused on conflict of this nature and raised the following set of questions: What sort of power and privilege should parents be given in decisions about classroom practice? Who or what should have the final say in these decisions: parents, teachers, administrators, or early childhood research literature? Should teachers unhesitatingly instruct parents as to what constitutes “best practice” or should the parents’ position be given primary consideration? How much weight should culturally based beliefs about child-rearing and early education carry in these decisions? The theoretical framework for this study, following Lubeck (1994) Lubeck, S. 1994. “The politics of developmentally appropriate practice: Exploring issues of culture, class and curriculum”. In Diversity and developmentally appropriate practices: Challenges for early childhood education, Edited by: Mallory, B. and New, R. 17–43. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.  [Google Scholar], challenges the notion that “disadvantaged” parents should be categorically dismissed as deficient in their thinking about what is educationally best for their children. The corollary notion that “disadvantaged” parents should be forced to defer to the assumptions of educators—most of whom are white and middle class—is similarly questioned. Greenman (1989) Greenman, J. 1989. Living in the real world: Diversity and Conflict. Exchange, 11 [Google Scholar] and Greenberg’s (1969 Greenberg, P. 1969. The devil has slippery shoes: A biased biography of the child development group of Mississippi (CDGM): A story of maximum feasible poor parent participation, Washington, DC: Youth Policy Institute.  [Google Scholar]/1991) assertions that conflicts that arise over teachers’, administrators’ and parents’ differing ideas about children, child-rearing, and early educational practice can be resolved in ways that are acceptable to all parties also inform this theoretical framework. An analysis of teacher interview data, coupled with classroom observational data, revealed four varying “theme perspectives.”     

Teaching English to speakers of other languages teachers’ views on the relationship between research and practice

This paper reports on a study investigating teachers’ views and beliefs about the relationship between second language (L2) research and practice. Although a gap has been frequently reported between the two, there is little empirical data to show what teachers’ views on this relationship are or how these views and beliefs influence their use of research. A total of 60 teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) teachers in England responded to a questionnaire which sought both qualitative and quantitative data.?Results of the data analysis suggest that although their views on research and its usefulness are positive, teachers are mainly sceptical about the practicality and relevance of L2 research. More importantly, they expect research to originate from rather than end in classrooms and maintain that the prime responsibility of bringing research and practice together is to be shared by teacher training programmes and educational policies of the institutions they work in. Our analysis of the data further implies that there are differences between teachers’ epistemological assumptions and the more established notions of research.     

Who mentors undergraduate student researchers? An analysis of faculty involvement at a four-year university

ABSTRACT

In this study, we investigated a profile of faculty who mentor undergraduate researchers at a four-year Hispanic-serving, public research university. Six variables were investigated: ethnicity, gender, age, tenure status, teaching evaluations, and research productivity. Data were compiled from institutional databases. Findings showed a greater percentage of tenured faculty mentoring undergraduate researchers while the percent of minority UR faculty mentors was consistent with institutional percentages. Additionally, findings included a higher percentage of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Undergraduate Research (UR) underrepresented minority faculty mentors compared to STEM Institution (INST) underrepresented minority faculty. For research productivity, UR faculty mentor funding comprised 28.0% of all external grant awards and 36.0% of all external funding during the sampling period. The majority funding for INST and UR faculty were found to be in the STEM disciplines. These findings provide evidence of potential predictors to describe UR faculty mentor profiles and can be considered important information for determining future educational policies and practices.     

Three‐Year‐Olds’ Reactions to a Partner's Failure to Perform Her Role in a Joint Commitment

When children make a joint commitment to collaborate, obligations are created. Pairs of 3‐year‐old children (N = 144) made a joint commitment to play a game. In three different conditions the game was interrupted in the middle either because: (a) the partner child intentionally defected, (b) the partner child was ignorant about how to play, or (c) the apparatus broke. The subject child reacted differently in the three cases, protesting normatively against defection (with emotional arousal and later tattling), teaching when the partner seemed to be ignorant, or simply blaming the apparatus when it broke. These results suggest that 3‐year‐old children are competent in making appropriate normative evaluations of intentions and obligations of collaborative partners.     

MplusAutomation: An R Package for Facilitating Large-Scale Latent Variable Analyses in Mplus

MplusAutomation is a package for R that facilitates complex latent variable analyses in Mplus involving comparisons among many models and parameters. More specifically, MplusAutomation provides tools to accomplish 3 objectives: to create and manage Mplus syntax for groups of related models; to automate the estimation of many models; and to extract, aggregate, and compare fit statistics, parameter estimates, and ancillary model outputs. We provide an introduction to the package using applied examples including a large-scale simulation study. By reducing the effort required for large-scale studies, a broad goal of MplusAutomation is to support methodological developments in structural equation modeling using Mplus.     

Improving the quality and effectiveness of computer-mediated instruction through usability evaluations

Brigham Young University's Center for Instructional Design (CID) creates online courses and multimedia instructional applications for university faculty. This paper asserts that including usability testing as a part of evaluation improves the quality and effectiveness of computer‐mediated instruction. The paper describes the fundamental purpose and functions of usability testing, and also distinguishes between different forms of evaluation: accessibility, quality assurance (QA), usability and implementation. Through a detailed case study, we describe how usability testing improved the quality of a computer‐based chemistry course and facilitated a clearer analysis of the learning effectiveness of this course.