Do discounted journal access programs help researchers in sub‐Saharan Africa? A bibliometric analysis

Prior research has suggested that providing free and discounted access to the scientific literature to researchers in low‐income countries increases article production and citation. Using traditional bibliometric indicators for institutions in sub‐Saharan Africa, we analyze whether institutional access to TEEAL (a digital collection of journal articles in agriculture and allied subjects) increases: (i) article production; (ii) reference length; and (iii) number of citations to journals included in the TEEAL collection. Our analysis is based on nearly 20,000 articles – containing half a million references – published between 1988 and 2009 at 70 institutions in 11 African countries. We report that access to TEEAL does not appear to result in higher article production, although it does lead to longer reference lists (an additional 2.6 references per paper) and a greater frequency of citations to TEEAL journals (an additional 0.4 references per paper), compared to non‐subscribing institutions. We discuss how traditional bibliometric indicators may not provide a full picture of the effectiveness of free and discounted literature programs.     

PERSONAL AND SCHOOL CULTURAL FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH THE PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHERS’ EFFICACY IN HANDLING STUDENT MISBEHAVIOR

One approach for understanding teachers’ behavioral responses to classroom student misbehavior is through the perceptions of efficacy in handling this stressor. The present study investigated the relationship and predictive ability of personal and school cultural factors as they relate to perceptions of teachers’ efficacy in handling student misbehavior (TEHSM). Participants were 344 primary (n = 189) and secondary (n = 155), full‐time, public school teachers from a southeastern state in the USA. Teachers completed online self‐report measures of TEHSM and all personal and school cultural factors. Student socioeconomic status (SES) information was provided by the school districts. Structure equation modeling (SEM) results indicated the final empirical model to account for 66% of the variance in TESHM, with professional development and student SES having the strongest association with TEHSM. This study provides a vital step towards understanding factors that drive teachers’ perceptions of their efficacy in handling misbehaving students.     

Inquiry-based learning with young learners: a Peirce-based model employed to critique a unit of inquiry on maps and mapping

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) has become a common theme in both school and higher education in recent years. It suggests a model of curriculum development and practice that moves educational debate beyond teacher or student-based approaches towards a model of teaching and learning in which the endeavour is shared. This paper discusses an investigation into the practice of IBL among primary schoolchildren in the setting of the Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate. Three ideas from the work of the philosopher C.S. Peirce are used to provide an epistemological base for analysing the pedagogical practice of IBL: semiotics, reasoning and community of inquiry. Findings are presented under these three headings to illustrate the potency of Peirce's conceptualisation of learning. Drawing in particular on findings from a unit of inquiry on maps and mapping, it suggests an empirical frame for IBL for the use of teachers in the development and assessment of IBL.     

Toward a cosmic sociology of education

We old warriors of ideology critique and wissensoziologie should not be too hard on ourselves for having forgotten reflexivity and the labors of putting paradigms, including our own, back into the context of history and social movement. Normal science is our necessary bread and butter. We achieved a lot by shaking the liberal foundations of sociology of education, although in America, despite a mandatory ‘inclusiveness’ in educational studies, in the higher science of sociology of education, liberalism still holds sway, underneath the triumphant pyrotechnics of advanced multivariate analyses. You may have some qualitative research, however, even focused on studies of race and gender. Still, class analysis did, and again now, does, make a dent, accumulating careful empirical research, both in ethnographies and models of statistical causality. Likewise, when postmodernism took the stage, curriculum studies added new light and meaning to understanding the school text. More recently and less prominently, ‘spirituality’ now revitalizes interest in ‘holistic’ education, even ‘transcendental learning’, as Miller calls his revival of the nineteenth-century American Transcendentalist movement, in education.     

Destroy All Humans: The Dematerialisation of the Designer in an Age of Automation and its Impact on Graphic Design—A Literature Review

Digital automation is on the rise in a diverse range of industries. The technologies employed here often make use of artificial intelligence (AI) and its common form, machine learning (ML) to augment or replace the work completed by human agents. The recent emergence of a variety of design automation platforms inspired the authors to undertake a review of the research literature on the impact of Automation, AI and ML on visual communication, and its subset practice of graphic design, with a view to understanding the implications for the education of practitioners entering that specific field. This review discovered that there was relatively little research published on the topic but what did exist noted that graphic design as we have known it has an uncertain future. Furthermore, the scant literature argued for a shift in educational and professional focus away from the aesthetic and technical skills required to design visual modes of communication and towards a deeper engagement with the softer, more human skills associated with negotiation, facilitation and judgement. The paucity of literature on this topic suggests to the authors that visual communication design education and the industry are poorly prepared for the impact of automation, AI and ML on them.     

Cascaded spiral microfluidic device for deterministic and high purity continuous separation of circulating tumor cells

Inertial microfluidics is an emerging class of technologies developed to separate circulating tumor cells (CTCs). However, defining design parameters and flow conditions for optimal operation remains nondeterministic due to incomplete understanding of the mechanics, which has led to challenges in designing efficient systems. Here, we perform a parametric study of the inertial focusing effects observed in low aspect ratio curvilinear microchannels and utilize the results to demonstrate the isolation of CTCs with high purity. First, we systematically vary parameters including the channel height, width, and radius of curvature over a wide range of flow velocities to analyze its effect on size dependent differential focusing and migration behaviors of binary (10 μm and 20 μm) particles. Second, we use these results to identify optimal flow regimes to achieve maximum separation in various channel configurations and establish design guidelines to readily provide information for developing spiral channels tailored to potentially arbitrary flow conditions that yield a desired equilibrium position for optimal size based CTC separation. Finally, we describe a fully integrated, sheath-less cascaded spiral microfluidic device to continuously isolate CTCs. Human breast cancer epithelial cells were successfully extracted from leukocytes, achieving 86.76% recovery, 97.91% depletion rate, and sustaining high viability upon collection to demonstrate the versatility of the device. Importantly, this device was designed without the cumbersome trail-and-error optimization process that has hindered the development of designing such inertial microfluidic systems.     

Assessing the Nature of Science: What is the Nature of Our Assessments?

This paper discusses the nature of the instruments used to assess students' and teachers' conceptions of the nature of science during the last four decades. Two salient points emerge from critically reviewing the various research emphases and associated assessment instruments specifically related to the nature of science. The first is to question the validity of much of the research presented on the grounds that (a) assessment instruments are interpreted in a biased manner, and (b) some assessment instruments appear to be poorly constructed. Although such comments are well founded, it is important to note that the research conclusions were unusually uniform regardless of the particular instrument used in an investigation. The second point is a more critical concern about the traditional paper and pencil approach to the assessment of an individual's understanding of the nature of science. Although not a new insight, discrepancies between the interpretation of a written response to a traditional instrument (e.g., multiple choice assessment) and the intent of the respondent have been well documented. It is suggested that the current educational research shift toward more qualitative, open-ended approaches to assessment of individuals' understanding (of any concept) be applied to the assessment of individuals' nature of science conceptions.