Preferred social organization of learning formats among pupils experiencing different kinds of internalizing problems in secondary school

The aims of this study were to investigate the dimensionality of internalizing problems among secondary high school pupils and to find out about their preferences for the social organization of learning formats. We wanted to see if preferences varied for pupils reporting different kinds of internalizing problems. Five hundred and one pupils in Grades 8, 9 and 10 (aged 13–16 years) from two secondary schools in a city in the south of Norway participated in the study. The results indicate that internalizing problems can be sub‐divided into symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety and social passive behaviour. We found a high association between symptoms of depression and symptoms of anxiety. However, scores for social passivity showed relatively low associations with symptoms of anxiety and depression. Our results indicated that all pupils with internalizing difficulties had lower than average negative preferences for most of the learning formats. Our results also suggest that depressed pupils have a particularly low preference for individual work, whereas socially passive pupils are most negative about whole class interactions.     

Television

Erik Barnouw's The Sponsor: Notes on a Modern Potentate (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978—$10.00)

Bert Randolph Sugar's “The Thrill of Victory”: The Inside Story of ABC Sports (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1978—$12.00)

David L. Wolper and Quincy Troupe's The Inside Story of TV's “Roots” (New York: Warner Books, 1978—$2.25, paper)

James Robert Parish and Mark Trost's Actors' Television Credits, Supplement 1 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1978—$16.00)

Jerry Mender's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (New York: Wm. Morrow, 1978—$11.95/4.95)

Mary Lewis Coakley's Rated X: The Moral Case Against TV (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, l978—$9.95)

TV and Elections: Proceedings of the Meeting (Prix Italia Secretariat, c/o RAI, Radiotelevisione Italiana, Viale Mazzini, 14, Rome—price not provided, paper)

FTC Staff Report on Television Advertising to Children (Federal Trade Commission, Washington D.C. 20580—free on request, paper)

The CoEvolution Quarterly (Winter 1977/78, Issue 16 available from Box 428, Sausalito, Calif. 94965—$3.50, paper)     

Understanding Technology Adoption Through Individual and Context Characteristics: The Case of HDTV

Technology adoption research has a tradition of using and improving Davis' (1989) “Technology Acceptance Model” (TAM) and extended versions of it. This article suggests a break with this tradition by showing that the TAM is limited in its understanding of technology adoption. Two alternative approaches are proposed that focus on the role of knowledge and user-technology match, and on the role of temporary dynamical contexts in the process of adoption decision-making. Together with the TAM, both approaches were empirically tested and compared to the TAM by incorporating them in a questionnaire regarding the adoption intention of HDTV in the Netherlands. Results show that the constructs of both approaches show significant relations with the respondents' adoption intentions of HDTV and, together, offer a good alternative to the TAM. This result can be seen as a basis for more future research that uses technological and contextual factors as a starting point for adoption research. Using this starting point will contribute to a better understanding of future technology adoption processes.     

Blended learning: communication,locations and work-life practices

The article discusses blended learning and how various delivery formats affect the way learning is situated in work-life practices. The authors approached this issue through an empirical study of an in-service training programme for middle-level managers in a number of case organisations. The programme used a combination of e-learning, textbooks and face-to-face seminars. The conclusion reached is that a purposeful blend of delivery modes and technology systems can situate learning outside the daily work location and at the same time facilitate the creation of communities of practice embedded in daily work experience. It is further argued that inflexibility can be a necessary for creation of such communities.     

Perceived Classroom Interaction,Goal Orientation and Their Association with Social and Academic Learning Outcomes

This study aimed to investigate students’ perceptions of classroom interaction and goal orientation in association with academic achievement, school non-attendance, and disobedience among students in lower-secondary schools. The sample contained 1975 students from grades 8–10 (age 14–16) in 11 Norwegian lower-secondary schools. The results generally supported the theoretical model in which classroom interaction is significantly associated with goal orientation, which in turn is associated with academic achievement, school non-attendance, and disobedience. However, some grade-specific relations were observed.     

Research on Teachers and Teacher Education in Scandinavia: a retrospective review

The important role in learning and upbringing played by teachers has been acknowledged for a long time. However, research on this question belongs with few exceptions, to the post‐war area in all the Nordic countries. During the last few decades a extensive research within a variety of studies have addressed the question. And, in accord with realistic expectations, the research conducted within this area since the middle of the 1950ties reflects a change in the interest of researchers similar to that found outside the Nordic countries, from studies of teacher behaviour to research on teacher cognition and analyses of the interactions between students and teachers in the classroom. The review also reveals a clear and significant change in the use of research methods: quantitative methods have declined while qualitative methods have expanded. It seems characteristic of research within this area that a great number of studies have been explorative in nature and that few of them have been followed up by more intensive and theoretically grounded research. It is the authors' opinion that, considering the great number of unanswered questions and the importance of solid knowledge of the questions related to teachers' qualifications and to teacher education, it seems that research within this area is still in its infancy stage.     

Assessing Reasons for School Non-attendance

The aim of the present study is to assess reasons for school non-attendance including somatic symptoms, subjective health complaints, truancy, and school refusal and to investigate the relationship of these with gender, grade, and self-reported special educational needs. The study is based on a self-reported questionnaire distributed to students recruited from seven municipalities in Norway. The total sample included 5,465 students in the sixth to tenth grades. The measurement model yielded indices of good fit, and the four suggested dimensions of reasons for school non-attendance were supported. Subjective health complaints emerged as the most commonly reported reason for school non-attendance, whereas 6.2% of students reported that their non-attendance “quite often” was due to truancy- or school refusal-related reasons. There was a tendency for students who report special educational needs to report more truancy reasons and for females to report more school refusal reasons. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

The Rhetorical Question of Human Rights—A Preface

Does rhetoric have a place in the discourse of human rights? Without certain reply, as the dilemmas of defining, claiming, and promoting human rights appear both to include and exclude the rhetorical gesture, this question invites inquiry into the preface of the contemporary human rights regime, the moment of the aftermath that provokes a struggle with language. Grasped partly through Richard McKeon's extended thought on human rights and conflict resolution, including his collaboration with a committee of philosophers charged by UNESCO to assess the grounds for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this preface opens the work of discovery, an inquiry that recognizes how the hypocrisy of “acting words” constitutes a potential for expression which beckons being toward its human rights.