Providing opportunities for student self-assessment: the impact on the acquisition of psychomotor skills in occupational therapy students

The Occupational Therapy department at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa is responsible for ensuring students achieve psychomotor skill proficiency, as it is an essential component of health care practice. The aim of this study was to determine whether the introduction of opportunities to afford self-evaluation better prepared students for psychomotor skill performance during clinical fieldwork. A quantitative analytical longitudinal design was used with a sample of second-year BSc occupational therapy students from 2007–2010. Self-assessment opportunities were introduced to students in 2009, enabling the comparisons of students’ performance based on Fitts and Posner’s motor skills learning theory. The results indicated that the pre-intervention group demonstrated poor psychomotor skill ability compared to the intervention group, concluding that students require deliberate opportunities to practice self-evaluation skills in their early years of study.     

Building Bridges Between Criminal Justice and the Forensic Sciences to Create Forensic Studies Programs 1

The ever‐increasing role of the forensic sciences in the criminal justice system requires criminal justice educators to integrate the study of forensic science into a traditional social science curriculum. Yet, most professors in criminal justice lack forensic science expertise sufficient to meet the educational demands of the field, as it is intertwined with natural science disciplines, especially biology and chemistry. Accordingly, this paper advocates the formation of an interdisciplinary forensic studies program, including a discussion of need, curricular components, and overcoming potential obstacles.     

Communication,Relationships, and Religious Difference in the Northern Ireland Workplace: A Study of Private and Public Sector Organizations

Four large organizations, two each from the private and public sectors of the Northern Ireland economy, were selected for this study which, first, explored the effects of religion-based workforce difference on intergroup relationships, second, investigated the contribution of organizational sector to communicative differences, and third, gauged the effects of group-based negativity on the flow and distribution of functional information within the organization. Little evidence of intergroup conflict was found although employees expressed a desire for greater quantity and quality of outgroup contact. Significant differences between the private and public bodies emerged in this respect. Contrasts were consistent with general organizational differences typifying the sectors. Findings are discussed in relation to diversity management and the characteristics of organizational sectors.     

Kitchen Antics: The Importance of Humor and Maintaining Professionalism at Work

The role of humor in workplace organizing is examined through a year-long ethnography of a hotel kitchen. An institutional and communicative frame reveals how the chefs use everyday humor to make sense of and shape their labor processes and to maintain their professional autonomy and identity and to resist managerial control of their craft.     

The Reactions of Special Education Teachers to Microteaching: A FolIow‐Up Study

This paper examines the reactions of special education teachers to microteaching, at the end of their first year of teaching. Although this meant that it was over three years since these teachers had actually undergone microteaching, the results show that their reactions were still very favourable. A detailed analysis of these reactions is incorporated in the final section of the paper.     

Age Differences in Imagery Abilities

Age differences were examined in 4 aspects of visual mental imagery, namely, image generation, maintenance, scanning, and rotation. The results suggested that one or more distinct processes are used to carry out each aspect of imagery, and that this is true for 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, 14-year-olds, and adults. There was no evidence that younger children have fewer processing components, which become differentiated into more specialized subsystems over age. In addition, the results suggested that younger children are relatively poor at scanning, rotating, and generating objects in images, but are relatively good at maintaining images.     

Barriers to participation and retention: engaging and returning ‘out of school’ children in the Gambia

This study explores the phenomenon of out-of-school children in the Gambia through the perspectives of children and families. Using mixed methods, the study reports the extent of school participation. Interviews with urban and rural out-of-school children reveal their experiences and reasons for non-enrolment or leaving school. The study highlights children's and families' views about the value of and aspiration for education, so often missed through statistical studies on access to education. Findings suggest the main barriers to participation and retention are a mix of family and school-based factors encompassing issues of affordability and accessibility of school, and family and cultural circumstances. In the context of wider policy reforms, initiatives to address unaffordable costs of school and to improve the quality of education such as the School Improvement Grant and Early Childhood Development provision show promise for engaging and returning children to school.