Collaboration at the Troy University Libraries

With relatively new staff in all the Troy University campus libraries technical services departments, it was critical to collaborate on policies and procedures for consistency. Developing an online manual housed on a wiki that could be used and contributed to by staff on all three campuses was essential to this goal. Multi-campus meetings and online discussions are additional methods we use to promote collaboration. This article will include a literature review of collaboration and wikis along with methods the Troy University Libraries Technical Services departments are using to establish communication across the campuses.     

Modification of a School Programme in the Deutsches Museum to Enhance Students’ Attitudes and Understanding

The study examines the nature, conditions, and outcomes of student learning from an organised guided tour in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The instructional methods that best support students’ cognitive and affective learning as well as how students’ motivational and emotional states influence their achievement were investigated. A sample of 96 secondary school students took part in two different versions of a guided tour on an energy topic. The tours varied in the degree of support of students’ active involvement, group work, and the variety of general activities offered during the tour. The data collected indicate that both tour versions led to an increase in student understanding of the visit topic to nearly the same extent. However, the version stimulating students’ active participation, group work, and including a larger variety of activities aroused more positive attitudes. Students of the modified school programme showed higher interest and intrinsic motivation, felt more competent, and were less bored after the guided tour. In addition, the results suggest that students’ visit‐related emotional states predict the degree of their post‐visit topic understanding, even when demographics and prior knowledge are taken into consideration.     

Gender Effects in Assessment of Economic Knowledge and Understanding: Differences Among Undergraduate Business and Economics Students in Germany,Japan, and the United States

Gender effects in large-scale assessments have become an increasingly important research area within and across countries. Yet few studies have linked differences in assessment results of male and female students in higher education to construct-relevant features of the target construct. This paper examines gender effects on students’ economic content knowledge with a focus on construct-relevant explanations. Moreover, we compare gender effects cross-nationally between Germany, Japan, and the United States. To assess economic content knowledge of higher education students, we used translated, adapted, and validated versions of the Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE, 4th ed.), an instrument that is commonly used internationally. We found gender effects on test scores in all three countries; effects were larger in Germany and the United States than in Japan. Gender effects were generally more pronounced on the numeracy subscale than on the literacy subscale, that is, male students had a greater edge over female students when items required calculations. In our conclusion, we discuss how numeracy and literacy items may tap different abilities.     

Measuring faculty learning in curriculum and teaching competence online courses

Online education is used for a variety of purposes in higher education. Two such purposes are improving one's performance over time and understanding one's professional development in the context of online teaching and learning. Relying on data from online staff development courses delivered in five Spanish universities, this article explores online faculty learning through the lens of staff development theory. This theoretical perspective emphasizes the universities' quality assurance contexts and offers an empirical examination of the ways in which faculty members learn curriculum and teaching competencies (CTCs) in online staff development programmes. At the core of this analysis is the contention that faculty members understand and respond to quality teaching lessons and activities. Finally, this study highlights the points deemed important when designing, implementing, and evaluating Internet CTC training courses.     

Does majoring in criminal justice affect perceptions of criminal justice

Research continues to show that the public holds misperceptions about crime and criminal justice. The media influences the public in many of these misperceptions, often shaping beliefs and ideologies. Higher education gives criminal justice majors the opportunity to gain much more accurate knowledge than the general public. Nonetheless, it is the public that heavily influences the development of the criminal justice system. It is important, therefore, to examine the influence of criminal justice education. Criminal justice majors and non-majors in a Midwestern university were surveyed with regard to demographics and perceptions of crime and criminal justice. Results indicate that criminal justice majors have significantly different perceptions about criminal justice issues than non-majors. Implications for educating the public are discussed.     

The impact of impairment on kinematic and kinetic variables in Va’a paddling: Towards a sport-specific evidence-based classification system for Para Va’a

ABSTRACT

Para Va’a is a new Paralympic sport in which athletes with trunk and/or leg impairment compete over 200 m. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of impairment on kinematic and kinetic variables during Va’a ergometer paddling. Ten able-bodied and 44 Para Va’a athletes with impairments affecting: trunk and legs (TL), legs bilaterally (BL) or leg unilaterally (UL) participated. Differences in stroke frequency, mean paddling force, and joint angles and correlation of the joint angles with paddling force were examined. Able-bodied demonstrated significantly greater paddling force as well as knee and ankle flexion ranges of movement (ROM) on the top hand paddling side compared to TL, BL and UL. Able-bodied, BL and UL demonstrated greater paddling force and trunk flexion compared to TL, and UL demonstrated larger bottom hand paddling side knee and ankle flexion ROM compared to BL. Significant positive correlations were observed for both male and female athletes between paddling force and all trunk flexion angles and ROM in the trunk and pelvis rotation and bottom hand paddling side hip, knee and ankle flexion. The results of this study are important for creating an evidence-based classification system for Para Va’a.     

‘We've Already Done that One’: Adolescents' Repeated Encounters with the Same Artwork

This article explores the way young people's responses to an image evolve when they engage with it repeatedly. An analysis of the sequential encounters of six adolescents with a Renaissance painting reveals that, as they gained experience with the picture, the youngsters probed for increasingly deeper layers of meaning in the work. Specifically, on their second encounter with the painting, the students showed greater sensitivity to visual information, and they incorporated their own experiences and knowledge into the meaning‐making process more actively than on their first encounter. This study also shows that, once the participants had established a relationship with the artwork on their own terms, they seemed eager to discover contextual information about it. However, far from accepting this information as ‘authority’, the young viewers considered it critically and used it to deepen, expand and revise their personal visions of the painting.     

Vagal Reactivity and Affective Adjustment in Infants during Interaction Challenges

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and heart period were evaluated in 5-month-old infants (N = 40) during interaction challenges requiring affective adjustment. The paradigm consisted of four 2-min experimental conditions designed to elicit behavioral and autonomic responses to object-mediated (Picture Attention and Toy Attention) and person-mediated (Still Face and Social Interaction) engagement. The data demonstrated that autonomic state systematically changed during engagement and disengagement with the environment. During the object-mediated challenge, increases in RSA were uniquely related to positive engagement. During the person-mediated challenge, there was a more complex integration of autonomic and behavioral responses characterized by concordant increases and decreases in RSA, heart period, positive engagement, negative affect, and motor activity. When participants were partitioned into two groups, based on their RSA response pattern during the person-mediated challenge, only participants who exhibited a pattern of RSA decrease from Toy Attention to Still Face followed by a rapid recovery during Social Interaction demonstrated regulation of behavioral activity, including concordant recovery from stress. These findings provide additional empirical support for the role of vagal regulation of the heart in the modulation of affective adjustment and engagement behavior.     

Exploring French adolescents’ and adults’ comprehension of the greenhouse effect

The aim of the present study was to gain an insight into French young people’s conceptual development regarding the greenhouse effect. Because this effect cannot be directly manipulated, we can assume that its conceptualization is mainly shaped through the sharing of information. Eighty French students from Grade Seven through to adulthood responded to statements in a questionnaire on the greenhouse effect’s causes, consequences and solutions. Unlike in previous studies, participants were asked to justify their choices, as some of the statements were quite complex. Results showed that performances improved with grade, mainly between Grade Nine and adulthood, although participants continued to have a weaker grasp of the causes of the greenhouse effect than of its consequences and solutions. Participants’ justifications also showed that they misunderstood some of the statements.