Examining child sexual abuse evaluations: the types of information affecting expert judgment

OBJECTIVE: There were two aims: First, to determine to what extent four variables, disclosure, doll play, affect and collateral information, affect the decision-making processes of child sexual abuse experts and lay persons when confronted with an abuse allegation, and second, to see how these two groups of raters might differ from one another. METHOD: A randomized block partially confounded factorial design was used. Participants made abuse likelihood and confidence ratings in response to six hypothetical cases of child sexual abuse, four of which had varying combinations of the four types of information and two of which were constant across all raters. Participants also completed attitudes and knowledge questionnaires. RESULTS: Disclosure and collateral information both had large effects on both rater groups. Doll play and affect had little or no effect on the decisions of either group. Experts were slightly more conservative in their judgments over all than students were. Experts also displayed more knowledge of the sexual abuse literature and more child-believing attitudes than their student counterparts. CONCLUSION: Concrete information such as disclosure statements and collateral information affected abuse decisions while inferential data such as doll play and affect did not. The goal of these evaluations may be the clarification of such concrete information and the inferential data may be used only to guide one's inquiry. This conclusion argues against the concern that experts might jump to conclusions of abuse merely based upon suggestive, symbolic material.     

Education Policy Research and the Global Knowledge Economy

Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold; it is and will be consumed in order to be valorised in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange.(Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: a report on knowledge. , 1984, p.4)
We live in a social universe in which the formation, circulation, and utilization of knowledge presents a fundamental problem.If the accumulation of capital has been an essential feature of our society, the accumulation of knowledge has not been any less so.Now, the exercise, production, and accumulation of this knowledge cannot be dissociated from the mechanisms of power; complex relations exist which must be analysed.(Michel Foucault, Remarks on Marx: conversations with Duccio Trombadori , 1991, p.165)     

IMPLICATIONS OF PRESTEL AND OTHER TV PRINT SOURCES

Since Prestel and other televised print sources signal a revolution in the presentation of reading material to the public, it is necessary to ensure that the viewers are able to read the material. Are they ready and able to adapt their reading skills to read televised texts? Differences between page print and television print are discussed, with respect to form and style, and recommendations are made about the responsibility of the educational establishment towards the preparation of potential viewers.     

Development and Evaluation of an Inquiry-Based Elementary Science Teacher Education Program Reflecting Current Reform Movements

The National Science Education Standards (National Research Council 1996, National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press) and various other national and state documents call for teachers who possess science content knowledge, employ an inquiry approach in teaching, and engage in reflective practices. This paper describes a rationale for choosing particular recommendations to implement and how we incorporated those as we revised our elementary science education program. An analysis of the impact of the reformed inquiry-based content courses revealed that students who take more than one reformed content course improve their science content knowledge and efficacy towards teaching science significantly more than students who take fewer courses.     

Multicultural Complexity: an Intersectional Lens for Clinical Supervision

The author discusses the need for counselor educators and supervisors to promote the intersectional nature of identities in counselor trainees and supervisees, especially as supervision serves as the vanguard for professional development and provides a more individually tailored space. This article introduces the concept of multicultural complexity, along with its current dearth in the counseling literature. The utility of multicultural complexity is explored, and recommendations made in the form of sample action plans (Appendix) regarding how counselor educators and supervisors can further incorporate the concept into the practice of clinical supervision.     

Interdisciplinary teaching

This exploratory study compared cognitive style and teaching technique when 25 doctoral students taught a class session within their field of study and a class session outside their field of study. Methodologies used were a narrative and an analysis comparing in-field teaching with out-of-field teaching. Results revealed that out-of-field teaching produces anxiety which respondents attempted to overcome by changing from less structured to more structured fields and from less formal to more formal teaching techniques. Inferences are that out-of-field teaching may be more appropriately described as traditional than nontraditional, and that out-of-field teaching may be inappropriate for nontraditional, student-oriented institutions.     

University research funding and publication performance—An international comparison

In current science policies, competition and output incentives are emphasized as a means of making university systems efficient and productive. By comparing eight countries, this article analyzes how funding environments of university research vary across countries and whether more competitive funding systems are more efficient in producing scientific publications. The article shows that there are significant differences in the competitiveness of funding systems, but no straightforward connection between financial incentives and the efficiency of university systems exists. Our results provoke questions about whether financial incentives boost publication productivity, and whether policy-makers should place greater emphasis on other factors relevant to high productivity.     

An Innovative Course Featuring Action Research Integrated with Unifying Science Themes

In this article, we describe an innovative capstone course for preservice K-8 teachers integrating action research and a unifying theme in science (AAAS in Science for all Americans. Oxford University Press, New York, 1989; NRC in National science education standards. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 1996). The goals of the capstone course are to increase student knowledge of the unifying theme, improve written communication skills, and introduce students to educational research. We provide evidence that each of these goals is met. Student growth in theme knowledge is demonstrated through concept maps, questionnaires, and previously reported assessments. Improved writing ability is demonstrated using the spelling and grammar checking feature of Microsoft Word. The analysis of action research reports demonstrates that students are able to connect their action research project results to previous research.