Mass spectrometry of biochemical materials

Recent developments in mass spectrometry have made it a valuable technique for the identification of exceedingly small quantities of relatively small molecules (m. wt. up to 1000 or 2000). These new possibilities have been applied with particular success in the biochemical and biomedical and environmental fields and this article reviews the kind of techniques used, and the results achieved.     

‘Look Janet’, ‘No you look John’: constructions of gender in early school reader illustrations across 50 years

Children’s reading materials are a widely available cultural resource that children may draw on to make sense of gender. Much of the research on gender and reading materials has used content analysis and has focused on children’s literature. The research we present in this article detours from these approaches, using a feminist post‐structuralist analysis to examine constructions of gender in a randomly selected sample of 100 early school readers used in New Zealand schools over the last 50 years. Methodologically, our work contributes to the relatively small number of studies that analyze illustrations as texts of meanings. Analysis of the illustrations incorporates exploring the connotations of illustrations, identifying gender discourses, defining positions available within the discourses and illuminating similar discourses in other texts. Our analysis suggests relatively little change across 50 years in the availability of diverse representations of men, women and children in early school readers.     

Predicting the Grades of Low-Income–Ethnic-Minority Students From Teacher-Student Discrepancies in Reported Motivation

The aims of this study were to investigate the effects of discrepancies between teachers' perceptions of students' motivation and students' reports of their motivation on math and English grades and to identify possible gender and ethnic differences. Participants included 215 low-income, ethnic-minority students and their teachers in academically struggling schools. Discrepancy in motivation ratings accounted for a significant amount of variation in final grades. This teacher-student discrepancy effect was larger than both the effect of students' recent standardized test scores and the effect of self-efficacy in both subjects. Girls were found to attract positive teacher bias, but their grades were not differentially affected. Differences in teacher-student discrepancy effects between African American and Latino students were not found.     

Using learning analytics to assess student engagement and academic outcomes in open access enabling programmes

Curriculum design, teaching methods, assessments and range of academic support need to be inclusive in Open Access Enabling courses. The findings of this study confirm a correlation between student access to online learning materials and a positive impact on grades in science courses. More specifically, students who frequently use the online learning system to access materials have better assessment and exam results.     

‘Who’s Afraid of Secularisation?’ A Response to David Lewin

This response to David Lewin states the purpose of my critique of some aspects of Liam Gearon’s work. It clarifies my position on the aims of ‘inclusive’ religious education, rejecting Gearon’s view that REDCo researchers shared a common pluralistic theology, regarding religious education as having a single political aim. It reinforces Gearon’s misrepresentation of the development of the Toledo Guiding Principles. In addressing the concern that religious education serves political ends, I acknowledge that much educational discourse has a political dimension but, in the case of ‘inclusive’ religious education, I argue that an approach based on John Rawls’ view of political liberalism can facilitate understanding of religions. I respond to Lewin’s assumption that my own view of religious language is entirely propositional and I compare the view of religious language expressed by Morimoto, quoted with approval by Lewin, with that of D. Z. Phillips, noting that its adoption implies that religious ‘insiders’ and those with no religious commitments are incapable of mutual understanding. I introduce the interpretive approach as an impartial methodology for religious education. Finally, I invite Lewin to engage with empirical research informing European policy on religious education, relevant to issues of secularity and secularism.     

Long and short measures of flow: the construct validity of the FSS-2, DFS-2, and new brief counterparts

Long and short flow scales are examined from dispositional (n=652 long; n=692 short) and state (n=499 long; n=865 short) perspectives. The long flow scales constitute a 36-item multidimensional assessment of flow and have previously demonstrated good psychometric properties. The short flow scales constitute new abbreviated versions of the long forms, contain 9 items, and provide a brief measure of flow from a dimensional perspective. In the current study, long and short flow scales are assessed across a large and diverse physical activity sample. With few exceptions, these flow measures demonstrated acceptable model fit, reliability, and distributions; associations with key correlates in parallel and hypothesized ways; and invariance in factor loadings. Together, the scales provide options for assessing flow in different contexts and when different goals or constraints are operating. Researchers wanting to capture an aggregate of the multidimensional framework might find the short scales a pragmatic alternative when constraints prohibit use of the full-length versions.     

Autonomy and subordination in Thai history: the case for semicolonial analysis 1

ABSTRACT

Methods of postcolonial analysis can make a major contribution to refining understandings of modern Thai history and culture. However, the fact that Thailand was not colonised has incited a widespread resistance to postcolonial studies in the field. Conservative Thai studies scholarship dismisses the very possibility of postcolonial analysis of ‘never‐colonised’ Thailand. Even critical scholars who highlight similarities between Thailand and its once‐colonised Southeast Asian neighbours doubt that methods based on deconstructing the coloniser/colonised relation capture the specificity of a society whose history places it outside the strict contours of that binary. This study responds to both the conservative and critical objections to postcolonial analyses of Thailand by revisiting the originally Marxist notion of Thailand as a semicolony of Western empire. It is argued that a post‐Marxist reading of Thai semicolonialism can challenge conservative resistance to comparing Thailand to former colonies and also provide a basis for critical dialogue with postcolonial studies. While the Marxist frameworks that gave birth to the notion of semicolonialism lost influence after the end of the Cold War, the term is still widely used in critical Thai studies, although now in a theoretically impoverished form. The aim of this study is to reinvigorate semicolonialism with renewed theoretical force by investigating why the notion has outlived its Marxist origins and specifying the critical work that it continues to do, albeit implicitly, in post‐Marxist Thai studies. Such an understanding can provide a basis for a more comprehensive account of imperialism that incorporates the experiences of the empirically significant but still theoretically neglected category of non‐Western non‐colonies such as Thailand.