Moths,candles and fires: examining dance as creative practice research in a Master's degree

This article reflects on the purposes and functions of examination criteria for Masters' research degrees with creative practice components. With a particular focus on dance projects that incorporate both a performed and a written expression of the research, we consider how a rubric for creative practice research degrees might address formative and summative assessment purposes and clarify goals for learners, supervisors, examiners and academic institutions. Our discussion is situated within a South Pacific postgraduate learning context and is informed by post-colonial and post-Cartesian concerns over how dance knowledge is recognized in global academia. Much current literature has argued how particular research methods and diverse approaches to the presentation of research outputs can destabilize dominant, logocentric methods of valuing knowledge. Our queries extend this argument into the actual quantifiable measuring and evaluation of such knowledge, which Masters' grading necessitates in order to maintain its value as an institutional currency. This leads to the reflections on the rubric for Masters' degrees with Creative Practice components that is currently used within the Dance Studies programme of the University of Auckland, and how this rubric might be seen as contributing to an evolving ‘cultivated’ community of practice within postgraduate examination. The rubric continues to grow through ongoing consultation with postgraduate students, supervisory staff, internal and external examiners and international experts in creative arts academia. Our reflections extend the argument for how creative practice might be further rationalized within academia.     

Science and scientists in Victorian and Edwardian literary novels: insights into the emergence of a new profession

Literary fiction has seldom been seriously considered as a mode of science communication. Here, I review novels from the 19th century canon of English literature in which characters either have, or aspire to have, substantive professional scientific roles to see what insights they provide into the practice of science in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. They reflect the historical transition of science from an intellectual hobby to a paid occupation, but also reveal that while a career in science became possible for a wider range of people, it seldom allowed these new entrants to undertake fundamental scientific research.     

A faceted approach to conceptualizing tasks in information seeking

The nature of the task that leads a person to engage in information interaction, as well as of information seeking and searching tasks, have been shown to influence individuals’ information behavior. Classifying tasks in a domain has been viewed as a departure point of studies on the relationship between tasks and human information behavior. However, previous task classification schemes either classify tasks with respect to the requirements of specific studies or merely classify a certain category of task. Such approaches do not lead to a holistic picture of task since a task involves different aspects. Therefore, the present study aims to develop a faceted classification of task, which can incorporate work tasks and information search tasks into the same classification scheme and characterize tasks in such a way as to help people make predictions of information behavior. For this purpose, previous task classification schemes and their underlying facets are reviewed and discussed. Analysis identifies essential facets and categorizes them into Generic facets of task and Common attributes of task. Generic facets of task include Source of task, Task doer, Time, Action, Product, and Goal. Common attributes of task includes Task characteristics and User’s perception of task. Corresponding sub-facets and values are identified as well. In this fashion, a faceted classification of task is established which could be used to describe users’ work tasks and information search tasks. This faceted classification provides a framework to further explore the relationships among work tasks, search tasks, and interactive information retrieval and advance adaptive IR systems design.     

Six into One: The Contradictory Art School Curriculum and how it Came About

This article reports historical research which sought to understand the present‐day post‐secondary art curriculum through analysing its history in terms of changes in conceptions of art. It found that there have been six distinctive curricula: Apprentice, Academic, Formalist, Expressive, Conceptual and Professional. As a new curriculum has been introduced, it has co‐existed with much contained in a previous one. Most of the curriculum changes have taken place in the past 65 years. During this time, there has been a massive expansion in the education of artists and at the same time art schools accommodated first modernism and then post‐Duchampian aesthetics. A conclusion is that this has made for a very crowded curriculum. Moreover, despite there being an ever increasing choice of things a student might learn, it appears that there is nothing which all students have to learn. It can be problematic that one part of the curriculum is in contradiction to another part, and moreover this lack of a core raises fundamental, ontological questions about what art as a discipline is.     

Preparing for the Silver Tsunami: The Demand for Higher Education Among Older Adults

Over the next decade, Baby Boomers will be reaching retirement age in large numbers and the U.S. will be undergoing one of the most significant demographic shifts in its history. This demographic shift has important implications for the role of higher education as a provider of lifelong learning and for the changing composition of postsecondary institutions. Using data from the 2005 National Household Education Survey, the results of this study informs the higher education community about this emerging student market segment as a way to help us better respond to older adults?? demand for formal learning in postsecondary institutions.     

The Determinants of Students' Perceived Learning Outcomes and Satisfaction in University Online Education: An Empirical Investigation*

In this study, structural equation modeling is applied to examine the determinants of students' satisfaction and their perceived learning outcomes in the context of university online courses. Independent variables included in the study are course structure, instructor feedback, self‐motivation, learning style, interaction, and instructor facilitation as potential determinants of online learning. A total of 397 valid unduplicated responses from students who have completed at least one online course at a university in the Midwest were used to examine the structural model. The results indicated that all of the antecedent variables significantly affect students' satisfaction. Of the six antecedent variables hypothesized to affect the perceived learning outcomes, only instructor feedback and learning style are significant. The structural model results also reveal that user satisfaction is a significant predictor of learning outcomes. The findings suggest online education can be a superior mode of instruction if it is targeted to learners with specific learning styles (visual and read/write learning styles) and with timely, meaningful instructor feedback of various types.     

Identity Politics and the Queering of Art Education: Inclusion and the Confessional Route to Salvation

In this article I discuss the relationship between theories of identity and making practices in secondary art and design. Of particular interest is the way students are invited to explore identities in relation to a sense of self and the extent to which this is informed by schools' concern to make diversity visible through multicultural celebration, thus framing and possibly limiting exploration. It is notable that non‐heternormative sexual identities remain largely invisible in the official curriculum and I examine the disjunction between this absence and their hypervisibilty in the mass media and its culture of confession/exposure. I revisit Michel Foucault's discussion of the history of sexuality as a way to understand the development of confessional discourses in modern culture and to provide an alternative and ambivalent reading of the power relations implicit in work exploring identities by art and design students. Specifically, I look at the position of gay and lesbian students and teachers, and ask whether their sexuality can figure within the injunction ‘explore your identity’. Given the heteronormative culture of schooling, I end by recommending that individuals should be wary of outing themselves in the name of self‐expression but that art teachers could use strategies of distancing to engage students with issues of sexuality and join with others to counter homophobia by queering the curriculum.     

On Fitting a Multivariate Two-Part Latent Growth Model

The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of the number of targets specified on the quality of exploratory factor analysis solutions with a complex underlying structure and incomplete substantive measurement theory. Three Monte Carlo studies were performed based on the ratio of the number of observed variables to the number of underlying factors. Within each study, communality, sample size, and the number of targets were manipulated. Outcomes included a measure of congruence and a measure of variability with regard to the rotated pattern matrix. The magnitude of the main effect for the influence of the number of targets on congruence and variability ranged from moderate to large. The magnitude of the interaction between the number of targets and level of communality ranged from small to moderate with regard to congruence and variability. Consistent with theoretical expectations, the minimum number of targets to specify to be reasonably assured of obtaining an accurate solution varied across study conditions.