Animated agent immediacy and news services with handheld computers

The present study considers the design and implementation of immediacy behaviors for an animated agent and the influence of such an agent on viewers. Immediacy, a widely studied construct in human communication research, is defined as the verbal and nonverbal communication behaviors that enhance physical and psychological closeness between people. In this study, the use of animated agent immediacy with new technology, a handheld computer, was studied as a form of affective computing. The purpose of the study was first to find out whether users perceive the communication behaviors of the agent that were intended to enhance immediacy, second, what effects animated agent immediacy has on evaluations of a news service, and third whether affective learning or recall of news content is related to agent immediacy. The results revealed that communication behaviors that enhance immediacy were perceived by the users. Those behaviors were also related to their perception of immediacy. However, the animated agent immediacy did not have a significant effect on evaluation of the news service. Additionally, agent immediacy had no effect on affective or cognitive learning from the news. The results show that it is possible to construct immediacy behaviors for the animated agents, but in this context the influences differed from those reported in human‐to‐human communication. The possibilities for and consequences of agent immediacy are also discussed, as are the reasons why the effects of immediacy on evaluations and learning were not found in the present study.     

Estimates of the number of people in England who attain or exceed vigorous intensity exercise by walking at 3 mph

Abstract

Walking is a safe, accessible and low cost activity, amenable to change and known to have great potential to increase physical activity levels in sedentary individuals. The objective of this study is to estimate the proportion of the 2009 adult population of England who would attain or exceed vigorous intensity activity (>70% maximum heart rate [HR_max]) by walking at 3 mph. We conducted predictive impact modelling using participants' (n = 1741, aged 25–64 years) cardiovascular fitness data from treadmill walking tests. We combined this data with English population estimates adjusted for age and sex to estimate the numbers of individuals that would exceed 70% HR_max (an intensity considered sufficient for fitness gains) when walking at 3 mph (4.8 km · h^?1). We estimate 1.5 million men (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.9–2.2 million) (from 13.4 million corresponding to 11.6% (95% CI 7.0–16.2%)) and 3.9 million women (95% CI 3.0–4.8 million) (from 13.6 million corresponding to 28.6% (95% CI 22.0–35.1%)) in England aged 25–64 years would benefit from regularly walking at 3 mph. In total, a projected 5.4 million individuals (95% CI 3.9–6.9 million) aged 25–64 (from 26.97 million corresponding to 20.1% (95% CI 14.6–25.7%)) could benefit from walking at 3 mph. Our estimates suggest a considerable number of individuals in the English population could receive fitness and health benefits by walking regularly at 3 mph. Physical activity messages that promote walking at this speed may therefore have the potential to significantly impact national fitness levels and health in England.     

The precursors of double dissociation between reading and spelling in a transparent orthography

Research and clinical practitioners have mixed views whether reading and spelling difficulties should be combined or seen as separate. This study examined the following: (a) if double dissociation between reading and spelling can be identified in a transparent orthography (Finnish) and (b) the cognitive and noncognitive precursors of this phenomenon. Finnish-speaking children (n?=?1963) were assessed on reading fluency and spelling in grades 1, 2, 3, and 4. Dissociation groups in reading and spelling were formed based on stable difficulties in grades 1–4. The groups were compared in kindergarten phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, letter knowledge, home literacy environment, and task-avoidant behavior. The results indicated that the double dissociation groups could be identified even in the context of a highly transparent orthography: 41 children were unexpected poor spellers (SD), 36 were unexpected poor readers (RD), and 59 were poor in both reading and spelling (RSD). The RSD group performed poorest on all cognitive skills and showed the most task-avoidant behavior, the RD group performed poorly particularly on rapid automatized naming and letter knowledge, and the SD group had difficulties on phonological awareness and letter knowledge. Fathers’ shared book reading was less frequent in the RD and RSD groups than in the other groups. The findings suggest that there are discernible double dissociation groups with distinct cognitive profiles. This further suggests that the identification of difficulties in Finnish and the planning of teaching and remediation practices should include both reading and spelling assessments.     

Speechlessness,anxiety, and confusion in a teacher education student group

The aim of the study was to explore the tensions, as experienced by student teachers, in a teacher education program that is based on psychodynamic theory. Previous research shows that students have had orientation problems in innovative university studies because it involves students having to take steps toward their discomfort zone. It was therefore considered important to study the mismatch or match of the training model and student experiences. The data were gathered through student interviews. The data analysis utilized a case study methodology and proceeded from thematic network analysis toward a deeper interpretation of the data. The analysis shows students struggle to understand the meaning and practices of psychodynamic-oriented pedagogy. The analysis also shows that students were unable and unwilling to share their learning experiences with students outside the new program. This can be understood as a tension between different conceptual understandings of learning.     

Communication strategies to overcome functional and psychological resistance to Internet banking

This paper aims to investigate how customers experiencing different kinds of resistance to Internet banking perceive the information and guidance offered by the service provider. A postal survey was conducted and 251 effective responses from Internet banking non-users were received. Based on the earlier literature a typology of consumer resistance to innovations is proposed and four resistance segments, namely Non-Resistors, Functional Resistors, Psychological Resistors and Dual Resistors are identified. The results show that those customers reporting both functional and psychological resistance to Internet banking are more dissatisfied with the information and guidance offered by the service provider compared to those with only psychological resistance or no resistance to the innovation. Communication strategies to reduce and overcome different kinds of resistance to Internet banking are proposed.     

Preservice and Inservice Teachers’ Challenges in the Planning of Practical Work in Physics

Practical work in school science plays many essential roles that have been discussed in the literature. However, less attention has been paid to how teachers learn the different roles of practical work and to the kind of challenges they face in their learning during laboratory courses designed for teachers. In the present study we applied the principles of grounded theory to frame a set of factors that seem to set major challenges concerning both successful work in the school physics laboratory and also in the preparation of lessons that exploit practical work. The subject groups of the study were preservice and inservice physics teachers who participated in a school laboratory course. Our results derived from a detailed analysis of tutoring discussions between the instructor and the participants in the course, which revealed that the challenges in practical or laboratory work consisted of the limitations of the laboratory facilities, an insufficient knowledge of physics, problems in understanding instructional approaches, and the general organization of practical work. Based on these findings, we present our recommendations on the preparation of preservice and inservice teachers for the more effective use of practical work in school science and in school physics.     

Finnish Cooperating Physics Teachers’ Conceptions of Physics Teachers’ Teacher Knowledge

This article examines Finnish cooperating physics teachers’ conceptions of teacher knowledge in physics. Six experienced teachers were interviewed. The data was analyzed to form categories concerning the basis of teacher knowledge, and the tradition of German Didaktik and Shulman’s theory of teacher knowledge were used in order to understand the results. The results show that the teachers strongly emphasize knowledge related to day-to-day teaching practice. In German Didaktik, this means knowledge of the best instructional methods, while in Shulman’s categorization it belongs to the category of representations, strategies, and methods. It was also found that the teachers appear to lack some of the essential key ideas of modern physics teacher education, such as a holistic view of instructional approaches.     

Missing in action? Content of records management metadata in real life

During the last 15 years, records managers and archivists have focused on defining requirements for functionality and metadata of electronic records management systems. So far little is known about metadata that are actually created in these systems. This study examines metadata in records of a Finnish government agency. The metadata comply with the national SÄHKE records management metadata specification. The main findings are that a substantial number of metadata elements in SÄHKE remained unused. Generated metadata were largely about event history. Optional metadata elements were used rarely. The metadata show clear patterns, which may suggest systematic recordkeeping processes and possibly minimal human intervention in metadata creation.     

从国际传播到全球媒介化

最近,我还一直在揣摩和重读已故的Jan Ekecrantz教授的著作.他的著作对我们今天关于全球媒介问题的讨论有重大贡献.我在这里以及今后将参加的会议中都将感念他的智慧和人格魅力.今天我将尝试解决Jan在他最新的文章中提给自己的问题--"在全球化的世界里如何进行媒介研究?"(Ekecrantz,2007:169).因此,我的评论不仅仅是针对Straubhaar教授的演讲或著作,而更多地针对从国际传播到全球媒介研究的范式的变化,以及这些变化对我们研究工作的影响.我的演讲基于以下的假设:当理论发生变化时,我们就必须改变方法论以及与方法论相对应的经验事实的收集.这些变化理所当然会影响我们的结论.