British Communications

LAW OF INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: REGULATION OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA by Verena A.M. Wiedemann (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1989—about $40.00, ISBN 3-7890-1649-7, 336 pp.)

KEEPING FAITH/ CHANNEL FOUR AND ITS AUDIENCE by David Docherty, David Morrison, and Michael Tracey (1988—$29.00, paper, ISBN 0-86196-158-7, 184 pp.)

GODWATCHING: VIEWERS. RELIGION AND TELEVISION by Michael Svennevig, Ian Haldane, Sharon Spiers and Barrie Gunter (1988—$18.00, paper, ISBN 0-86196-199-4, 67 pp.)

PATTERNS OF TELETEXT USE IN THE UK by Bradley S. Greenberg and Carolyn A. Lin (1988—$18.00, paper, ISBN 0-86196-187-0, 58 pp.)     

Moral education: dilemmas for the teacher

ABSTRACT

The paper examines recent developments in food‐focused education following the implementation of the 1988 Education Reform Act. Drawing on data from an ESRC‐funded project on Teaching and Learning about Food and Nutrition in Schools (1993‐4), the paper explores evidence which demonstrates a marginalized and fragmented curriculum for food, and considers its implications. The paper comprises two sections. The first focuses on literature and curriculum documentation available at the start of the research and examines the formal corpus of school knowledge about food. This informs the second section which draws on data collected during case‐studies of four English secondary and primary schools and on what the data tell us about the food curriculum and its implications for transmission in the case‐study schools. Specific examples highlight issues of diversity, ambiguity and contradiction in implementation. Conclusions emphasize the need for greater curriculum coherence in policy and practice and for a reassessment of the framing and interpretation of food knowledge and skills. In the absence of systematic evaluations, schools continue to replicate rather than challenge the contradictions in understandings about food use which are documented features of the adult population in general.     

Cognitive neuroscience and education: unravelling the confusion

This paper critically examines the application of research into cognitive neuroscience to educational contexts. It first considers recent warnings from within the neuroscientific community itself about the limitations of current neuroscientific knowledge and the urgent need to dispel popular ‘neuromyths’ which have become accepted in many classrooms. It also criticises the use of over‐simplified neuroscience to add scientific credibility to curricular reform, as has been the case in the rationale behind the recent implementation of the Northern Ireland Revised Curriculum. The paper then draws on the philosophy of Wittgenstein to highlight a further conceptual confusion which often surrounds the application of neuroscience to education.     

The nature of lead users and measurement of leading edge status

“Lead users” are defined as being at the leading edge of markets, and as having a high incentive to innovate. Empirical research has shown the value of lead user need and solution data to new product development processes. However, the nature of the lead user construct itself has not been studied to date. In this paper we fill this significant gap by proposing and evaluating a continuous analog to the lead user construct, which we call leading edge status (LES). We establish the validity and reliability of LES and examine the characteristics of users having high levels of this variable. We also offer a first exploration of how LES is related to traditional measures in diffusion theory such as dispositional innovativeness and time of adoption (TOA). We find a strong relationship and explain how users with high LES can offer a contribution to both predicting and accelerating early product adoption.     

Engaging in vocabulary learning in science: the promise of multimodal instruction

To a science ‘outsider’, science language often appears unnecessarily technical and dense. However, scientific language is typically used with the goal of being concise and precise, which allows those who regularly participate in scientific discourse communities to learn from each other and build upon existing scientific knowledge. One essential component of science language is the academic vocabulary that characterises it. This mixed-methods study investigates middle school students’ (N?=?59) growth in academic vocabulary as it relates to their teacher’s instructional practices that supported academic language development. Students made significant gains in their production of general academic words, t(57)?=?2.32, p?=?.024 and of discipline-specific science words, t(57)?=?3.01, p?=?.004 in science writing. Results from the qualitative strand of this inquiry contextualised the students’ learning of academic vocabulary as it relates to their teacher’s instructional practices and intentions as well as the students’ perceptions of their learning environment. These qualitative findings reveal that both the students and their teacher articulated that the teacher’s intentional use of resources supported students’ academic vocabulary growth. Implications for research and instruction with science language are shared.     

University students’ conceptions of the good teacher: A Hong Kong perspective

One way that universities assess teaching effectiveness is by eliciting student feedback. However, what standards do students themselves use to judge whether a lecturer is a ‘good’ teacher? As part of a study carried out at a Hong Kong university, students were interviewed about their first-year learning experience and asked what they felt constituted ‘good’ and “bad’ teaching. Unlike when asked to complete teacher effectiveness surveys, no criteria or characteristics were given. Responses focused primarily on teaching skills that supported student learning and encouraged critical thinking, particularly the teacher’s ability to give clear explanations supported by relevant, practical examples.     

A Needs Assessment for the Introduction of a Food Science Program at The Univ. of Guyana

Abstract: This research describes the outcome of a needs assessment to determine whether the Univ. of Guyana should introduce a Food Science program. The research design utilized interviews and questionnaires to large manufacturing organizations and agroprocessors to determine if the required skills are available for the manufacturing process. Results revealed that the lack of skills, particularly in food processing, is one factor that has negatively impacted value‐added production in large manufacturing companies; as well as in the micro, small and medium enterprises, limiting the range of products produced by these entities. Based on this, it was established that the university should introduce a program in food science and be the focus for formal training to satisfy the demands of the food manufacturing industry.     

Deaf students’ metacognitive awareness during language comprehension

This study explored deaf and hearing university students’ metacognitive awareness with regard to comprehension difficulties during reading and classroom instruction. Utilising the Reading Awareness Inventory (Milholic, V. 1994. An inventory to pique students’ metacognitive awareness of reading strategies. Journal of Reading 38: 84–6), parallel inventories were created to tap metacognitive awareness during comprehension of sign language (deaf students) and spoken language (hearing students). Overall, both deaf and hearing students appeared to have greater metacognitive awareness of ongoing comprehension and repair strategies during reading than during instruction in the classroom, but deaf students scored lower than hearing students in both modalities. Deaf students were no more likely than hearing students to report adopting inappropriate strategies, but both groups indicated they were more likely to do so in classroom contexts than during reading.