Grading secondary vocational education students with disabilities: a national perspective.

A nationwide purposive sample of secondary vocational educators completed a questionnaire that examined practices and perceptions toward grading students with disabilities. A variety of grading methods was reportedly used, but over two-thirds of respondents included a competency-based grading component. An overwhelming majority believed that student effort should be used to determine grades. Two-thirds of vocational educators had never been involved in their students' IEP development. The most common changes teachers have made over time in their grading practices included becoming more flexible and individualized in grading. Overall, teachers displayed moderately positive attitudes toward grading students with disabilities.     

Information, systems and the construction of meaning

The term ‘information’ is seldom given a careful definition and is in practice used in more than one sense. In particular there is often a failure to distinguish ‘information’ from concepts such as ‘knowledge’, ‘belief’ and ‘meaning’. One attempt to build a suitable conceptual scheme with a firm philosophical basis has been made by Dretske. In corporate contexts, the meaning and significance of information can be seen as lying in its contribution to the maintenance and development of ‘systems’ of activities. It follows that a competent analysis of corporate information requirements and a specification of the characteristics of data collection, communication and processing needed to satisfy them, both depend on an appropriate form of systems analysis. The methods used by Checkland and Wilson provide means of exploring the requirements, while the approaches of Beer and Espejo define patterns of information flow necessary for their realization. As advanced techniques of information processing develop, clearer understanding of such approaches and their theoretical basis will become important in exploiting their potential.     

Deaf and hearing students' morphological knowledge applied to printed English

The study examined the ability of deaf and hearing students at the college and middle school levels to discern and apply knowledge of printed word morphology. There were 70 deaf and 58 hearing participants. A two-part paper-and-pencil test of morphological knowledge examined subjects' ability to (a) perceive segmentation of morphemes within printed words and (b) recognize meanings associated with various printed morphemes. The hearing college students performed best on every dependent measure of the two-part test. The deaf college students scored significantly lower than the hearing college students but similarly to the hearing middle school students. Deaf middle school students consistently scored the lowest on both parts of the test. While all students' performance declined as the difficulty of the morphemic content increased within both tasks, the decline was greatest among middle school deaf students. Although segmentation and semantic analysis skills necessary to morphographic decoding were apparent in the deaf students, their mastery levels fell significantly below those of the hearing subjects.     

Love Styles and Communication in Relationships: Partner Preferences,Initiation, and Intensification

The three exploratory studies reported here investigate the role of love styles in the early stages of romantic relationships. Study 1 (N = 108) had subjects rate and rank 14 characteristics of prospective romantic partners. As expected, individual's love style scores were related to the characteristics people report as desirable in a relational partner. Several of these effects, however, were moderated by sex. Study 2 (N = 173) revealed that scores on love styles were associated with ratings of opening lines and intensification strategies. None of these effects were moderated by sex. Study 3 (N = 137) investigated the association between love styles and ratings of secret tests among individuals currently involved in a romantic relationship. The results indicated that love styles were associated with ratings of secret tests. These data add to a growing body of literature suggesting that love styles are associated with individual differences in relational and communicative behavior across the life span of romantic relationships.     

Unpacking Our Academic Suitcases: The Inner Workings of Our Feminist Research Group

In this paper we focus on the lived experiences of multidisciplinary scholars as we navigated and coalesced into a productive, interdisciplinary collaboration. We pull from our foundations in feminist methodology and provide excerpts from personal journals and reflexive group interviews to provide a behind-the-scenes account of the inner workings of a feminist research group. While sharing a common research goal, each member negotiated her personal, conceptual, and epistemological stances as we produced an effective, interdisciplinary pastiche. Throughout this process, we worked to create a non-hierarchical atmosphere, continuously and ethically questioned our methods, and incorporated reflexivity in the research processes. In addition to sharing our past experiences, we note challenges we encountered and offer practical suggestions based on the lessons we learned through this collaboration.     

Information Literacy and Research-Intensive Graduate Students: Enhancing the Role of Research Librarians

This article investigates how psychology graduate students find information for coursework and research, who teaches them how to find it, and whether differences emerge over the course of their graduate careers. Findings indicate that these graduate students are comfortable using campus libraries, prefer electronic resources, ask supervisors when they need assistance locating information, and have some interest in furthering their information literacy knowledge. Finally, the master's students use different information management skills than do the PhD students, as evidenced by the use of bibliographic management software. Suggestions for furthering the role of research librarians focus on being more proactive, rather than expecting students to come to librarians for assistance.