Genetics Interfaces: Representing Science and Enacting Public Discourse in Online Spaces

This article analyzes the Web interfaces of two well-known national civic action groups, both related to genetics research: the Genetic Alliance and the Innocence Project. These two sites are excellent examples of interface design and information retrieval, and they also attempt to translate complex science to the general public, even those traditionally most underrepresented and marginalized by the complexities of science and technology. The Genetic Alliance and Innocence Project provide excellent case studies for technical communication courses about the necessity to marry factual scientific knowledge with cultural and emotional rhetorics while providing an interface for multiple stakeholders in public policy change.     

The Effects of Autocorrelation on the Curve-of-Factors Growth Model

This simulation study examined the performance of the curve-of-factors model (COFM) when autocorrelation and growth processes were present in the first-level factor structure. In addition to the standard curve-of factors growth model, 2 new models were examined: one COFM that included a first-order autoregressive autocorrelation parameter, and a second model that included first-order autoregressive and moving average autocorrelation parameters. The results indicated that the estimates of the overall trend in the data were accurate regardless of model specification across most conditions. Variance components estimates were biased across many conditions but improved as sample size and series length increased. In general, the two models that incorporated autocorrelation parameters performed well when sample size and series length were large. The COFM had the best overall performance.     

The role of teacher, student and ICT in enhancing student engagement in multiuser virtual environments

This paper reviews the teaching and learning practices and processes that were adopted in a study that incorporated multi-user virtual environments to support General Paper teaching and learning. The paper discusses the roles of the teacher, student and ICT in facilitating engaged learning. As this project is the first of its kind for the subject in Singapore, the paper seeks to highlight strategies that were adopted or could have been adopted to facilitate the enactment of such teacher and student roles as well as ensure effective deployment of ICT to support engaged learning.     

Quality of alternatives,institutional preference,and institutional commitment among first‐year college students

We tested the hypotheses derived from investment theory that quality of alternatives and institutional preference exert additive and interactive effects on institutional commitment in a sample of 1166 first‐year college students at a large state university, who were surveyed within two weeks of the start of their first semester. As predicted, a hierarchical regression analysis revealed: as quality of alternatives increased, institutional commitment decreased; as preference for the university increased, institutional commitment increased; and as institutional preference decreased, the inverse relation between quality of alternatives and institutional commitment increased. The findings of the present study suggest that first‐year college students who do not rank their university as one of their top three choices and who rate the quality of alternatives as high should be classified as at risk of dropping out and targeted for proactive advising.     

‘So you can’t blame us then?’: gendered discourses of masculine irresponsibility as biologically determined and peer-pressured in upper-primary school contexts

In a global climate increasingly shaped by neoliberal agendas that privilege meritocratic individualism, it is apparent that society as a whole and educational policy-makers and practitioners in particular expect students to take more ‘responsibility’ for their own learning and behaviour at school. In the Australian context, as elsewhere, schools are seen as sites in which students should develop and practise responsibility for self and others in ways that are enterprising, productive, civic-minded, and in accordance with social norms. Yet, few studies have critically examined how the concept of responsibility features in the everyday, taken-for-granted, discursive practices of policy-makers, teachers and students. This paper discusses findings from an ethnographic study concerned with how the discursive constructions of responsibility in three regional Australian primary schools shape upper-primary students’ understandings and experiences of responsibility for self and others. Using the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas and Judith Butler to interpret data, I argue that gendered discourses of biological determinism and peer pressure work to reinforce the misconception that violence and irresponsibility are ‘naturally’ masculine traits.     

Sexual, physical, verbal/emotional abuse and unexplained chest pain

Objectives

Approximately one third of patients with non cardiac chest pain (NCCP) report a history of abuse, however no data exists on the prevalence of abuse among people with unexplained chest pain in the general population. We aimed to determine if there is a relationship between childhood sexual, physical, emotional abuse and unexplained chest pain, and to identify whether any potential relationship is being driven by an association with psychological distress.

Methods

Subjects were identified from 2 previous random population surveys that included people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and/or functional dyspepsia (FD) and healthy controls. People in the unexplained chest pain group (n = 27) had chest pain in the past 12 months that was not heartburn or heart disease. People in the comparison group (n = 60) did not have chest pain for more than 12 months. Self-reported abuse and psychological variables were assessed using validated measures.

Results

Emotional/verbal abuse (20.8% versus 4.4%, P = 0.032) and physical abuse (16.7% versus 2.2%, P = 0.028) were significantly more common in people with unexplained chest pain versus the comparison group. Only a history of emotional/verbal abuse was a significant independent predictor of meeting criteria for unexplained chest pain (OR = 5.66; 95%CI 1.01–31.80, P = 0.049) even after controlling for IBS and/or FD (OR = 5.45; 95%CI 0.96–30.83, P = .05), but not when depression was controlled for (OR = 4.70; 95%CI 0.90–27.61), P = 0.08.

Conclusions

A history of childhood emotional/verbal abuse is a risk factor for having unexplained chest pain but the association may be moderated by psychological distress, specifically depression.     

Rethinking the learning space at work and beyond: The achievement of agency across the boundaries of work-related spaces and environments

This paper focuses on the notion of the learning space at work and discusses the extent to which its different configurations allow employees to exercise personal agency within a range of learning spaces. Although the learning space at work is already the subject of extensive research, the continuous development of the learning society and the development of new types of working spaces calls for further research to advance our knowledge and understanding of the ways that individuals exercise agency and learn in the workplace. Research findings suggest that the current perception of workplace learning is strongly related to the notion of the learning space, in which individuals and teams work, learn and develop their skills. The perception of the workplace as a site only for work-specific training is gradually changing, as workplaces are now acknowledged as sites for learning in various configurations, and as contributing to the personal development and social engagement of employees. This paper argues that personal agency is constructed in the workplace, and this process involves active interrelations between agency and three dimensions of the workplace (individual, spatial and organisational), identified through both empirical and theoretical research. The discussion is supported by data from two research projects on workplace learning in the United Kingdom. This paper thus considers how different configurations of the learning space and the boundaries between a range of work-related spaces facilitate the achievement of personal agency.