USING RETIRED PROFESSIONALS TO VIDEOTAPE CAREER PERSPECTIVES FOR EDUCATING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

In the project reported in this paper retired persons, living historians, were teachers of young adults. Professional persons now retired who were residents of one, large mid‐west retirement home cooperated in the design and development of two career‐history videotapes to benefit pre‐professional university students. Nursing and teaching careers were addressed in the two tapes.

The tape preparation and production methods are detailed. In‐class evaluations from university students and from their professors yielded highly positive results for this personal approach to career history. Likewise, the retired persons who participated expressed satisfaction with the project as having met their contributive and expressive needs. Inter‐generational applications and implications are noted. The authors conclude with specific recommendations for replication of this model project for greater involvement of older adults as educators of young adults.     

The Curriculum and Pedagogic Properties of Practice-based Experiences: The Case of Midwifery Students

This paper outlines curriculum considerations for the ordering, enactment and experiencing of practice-based experiences (e.g. practicums) in tertiary education programs developing occupational specific capacities. Increasingly, these programs are engaging students in practicum experiences (i.e. those in the circumstances of practice). These practice-based experiences require considerable investment on the part of all involved and so need to be used in ways that do justice to those investments. However, such experiences are often provided and engaged in by students without consideration being given to their educational purposes; their likely contributions and how they can be sequenced and utilised to achieve those purposes. Here, the specific concern is to identify bases for considering these purposes and how these might be realised through the selection and sequencing of student experiences. A case study of two practicum experiences comprising midwifery students’ ‘follow-through’ experiences with birthing women and clinical placements is used to identify the kinds of learning that can arise through different kinds of practice-based experiences and how they might be most effectively organised. The concern, therefore, is to identify how the midwifery curriculum (i.e. pathways of experiences) can be ordered and augmented by particular pedagogic practices that assist realise the program’s intended learning outcomes. The two different practice-based experiences are found to generate distinct learning outcomes for the students. The follow-throughs generate understandings about the birthing process from the birthing mothers’ perspectives and provide goal states for midwifery work and understandings about midwifery practice, whereas the development of clinical capacities that arise through clinical placements. Consequently, the formers kinds of experiences might be best provides before, or in conjunction with second. Importantly, rather than viewing these experiences as being supplementary to what is provided within tertiary education institutions, they need to be consider as particular kinds of experiences on their own terms and engage with and utilise their contributions accordingly.     

Research in information science: An assessment

A critical analysis of research methods in the published literature in the field of information science. Report on the results of the comparison made between a set of 430 articles published 1969–1971 and another set of 152 articles published in 1974. Overall findings indicate that while the amount of research reported is remaining stable, the methods have improved somewhat in 1974, as compared to earlier years.     

On synthetic technologies: the book,the university,the Internet

This article examines the ‘synthetic’ – i.e. constructed and recombinant – histories of the book, the university and the Internet to argue that the vitality of the institution that links them all, the university press, will depend on yet further syntheses. These will include, in particular, an increasing commitment to the collaborative development of innovative digital technologies.     

Evidence-based databases versus primary medical literature: an in-house investigation on their optimal use.

OBJECTIVE: The objective is to investigate the effectiveness of evidence-based medicine (EBM) resources in providing evidence for complex clinical questions versus general care management questions to identify situations for their optimal use. METHODS: In this investigation, forty complex clinical questions were randomly selected from an in-house archival database of questions received by librarians during clinical rounds. An additional forty questions were selected from a list of general care management questions received by the library from Pathways teams. To measure the effectiveness of resources in answering the questions, a team of librarians was asked to search UpToDate, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and HealthGate Clinical Guidelines (formerly, EBM Solutions). The team then established consensus on whether a question was fully or partially answered by one of the above-mentioned EBM resources and was instructed to record the instances in which the primary literature needed to be used to answer the question completely. RESULTS: The study found that the EBM resources completely answered 20.0% of the 40 complex clinical questions and 47.5% of the 40 general care management questions, partially answered 40.0% of the complex clinical questions and 22.5% of the general care management questions, and did not answer 40.0% of the complex clinical questions and 30.0% of the general care management questions. CONCLUSION: The pervasive use of EBM resources in answering clinical questions is making it imperative for information specialists to develop an expertise on their appropriate use. By exploring their use in answering complex clinical questions and general care management questions, this paper underlines the strengths and weakness of EBM resources and provides information specialists with some basic knowledge about how these resources can be combined with the primary literature to strengthen their effectiveness.     

Teachers’ Emotional and Behavioral Support and Preschoolers’ Self-Regulation: Relations With Social and Emotional Skills During Play

Research Findings: Drawing from a Dutch sample of 113 Dutch children (M age = 37 months, SD = 3.5) from 37 early care and education classrooms (19 child care centers and 18 preschools), this study examined whether the relation between classroom emotional and behavioral support and children’s observed social integration and positive mood in a play situation depends on children’s observed behavioral self-regulation. Multilevel analyses revealed a positive association between emotional and behavioral support and children’s social integration for children low on behavioral self-regulation, but there was no such association for children high on behavioral self-regulation. Contrary to our expectations, children low on behavioral self-regulation showed more integration in the case of relatively highly supportive classrooms but not less integration in classrooms that were low in support. For children’s positive mood, a positive association with emotional and behavioral support was found, and no association was found with behavioral self-regulation. Practice or Policy: This study’s findings highlight the importance of emotionally and behaviorally supportive classroom experiences for young children’s social and emotional skills. Moreover, results hint that experts should perhaps not see children low in behavioral self-regulation as always at risk for poorer social outcomes.     

Advocacy for the independence of the State Records Office of Western Australia

Shortly after the election of the new Western Australia (WA) Government in March 2017, the new Premier, Mark McGowan, announced the first round of Machinery of Government changes to the WA public sector. The structural changes were promoted as creating collaborative departments focused on whole-of-government objectives and for delivering services in a more efficient and effective way. Part of these changes was to move the State Records Office of Western Australia under the State Library of Western Australia. The Australian Society of Archivists Western Australia Branch Committee discusses this act and the implications for the independence of the State Records Office.     

中国甘肃省农村地区为低收入家庭服务的民办学校

在甘肃省农村地区,研究小组发现586所民办学校,这些民办学校目前拥有59,958名在读学生。出于研究比较的原因,研究小组同时调研了309所农村地区的公办学校。研究结果表明尽管公办学校与民办学校的生师比相等,但是与公办学校相比,民办学校的女童入学率更高。尽管公办学校与民办学校收取相同的学费,但是民办学校教师的工资远远低于公办教师。仅有少量的民办学校得到当地政府的资助。研究结果表明建立民办学校的主要原因是因为公办学校距离太远。公办学校与民办学校在教学活动中没有显著性差异。本文阐述了这些研究结果对于中国和国际发展机构在制定教育发展政策方面的启示。     

Preschool teachers’ perceptions of school learning environment and job satisfaction

We report a survey of 100 preschool teachers from 15 preschools in Singapore using a modified instrument called the Pre-School Level Environment Questionnaire. The aims were to explore differences in actual and preferred perceptions of preschool teachers’ school-level environment and to investigate the relationship among preschool teachers’ profile, preschool learning environments and job satisfaction. Quantitative data using paired samples t tests indicated that there were significant differences in teachers’ actual and preferred perceptions of their preschool learning environments except for the scale of Work Pressure. Logistic regression revealed a positive influence of Resource Adequacy on preschool teachers’ job satisfaction.