Preventive Maintenance Study: A Key Component in Engineering Education to Enhance Industrial Productivity and Competitiveness

We suggest that a chief contributor to the continued economic success of the western economies will be the productivity gains available through efficient preventive maintenance planning. We further argue that this fact is largely unrecognized and that engineering curricula need to be modified to include a substantive component dealing with equipment reliability and maintenance. The strong connections between manufacturing equipment availability and industrial productivity have not been widely recognized. Maintenance is usually viewed as a necessary inconvenience and the very substantial benefits of efficient maintenance planning are not generally incorporated in productivity calculations. In this paper, we describe the formulation of maintenance planning problems and illustrate with some numerical examples the potential productivity gains that are attainable using preventive maintenance strategies. We then argue that engineering students should be taught how to obtain these benefits.     

THE ECOLOGY OF CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT

Research on classroom assessment has tended to focus on standardized tests and has paid minimal attention to teacher-developed assessments. As a result, we have a narrow understanding of the classroom assessment environment. This study was designed to broaden that understanding by exploring the nature and quality of teacher-developed assessment. Teachers from a range of grades, subjects, and school districts described their patterns of test use, concerns about assessment, and use of performance assessment by completing an extensive questionnaire. When responses are summarized across teachers, the results suggest that the foundation and structure of classroom assessment consists primarily of teacher-developed assessments, with performance assessment serving as one of the key assessment tools. Teachers are concerned about assessment and know that improvement may be needed, but they will need help to bring about necessary changes. Action plans are suggested for enhancing the quality of teacher-developed tests.     

Convergent and discriminant construct validity of the internalizing symptoms scale for children with the BASC‐SRP‐C

This brief report details a study of the construct validity of the Internalizing Symptoms Scale for Children (ISSC) in comparison with the Child Self‐Report Form of the Behavioral Assessment System for Children (BASC). Using self‐reports of 121 students ages 8–12 from general education classes, who were administered both measures, correlational data were obtained between the scores of the two instruments. ISSC factor and total scores were found to have weak associations with the BASC School Adjustment Scales, and negatively associations with the BASC personal adjustment scales, providing discriminant evidence of the construct validity of the ISSC. Moderate to strong correlations were found between ISSC scores and the BASC Clinical Maladjustment, Other Problems, and Emotional Symptoms Index scores, evidencing convergent construct validity between the two measures. These results support the validity and clinical use of the ISSC as a measure of internalizing symptoms and emotional problems. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 139–144, 2003.     

Why Minimally Guided Teaching Techniques Do Not Work: A Reply to Commentaries

Knowledge, although seemingly available, is often not used for problem solving. That means it remains "inert." Three types of explanations exist for this phenomenon. Metaprocess explanations assume that the relevant knowledge is available, but it is not used because of disturbed access processes (e.g., lacking metacognitive control). Structure deficit explanations suppose that the deficit is rooted in the structure of the knowledge itself (i.e., the knowledge is not available in a form that allows for its application). In situatedness explanations, the traditional concepts of knowledge and transfer are questioned. One basic assumption of this perspective is that knowledge is fundamentally situated (i.e., context-bound). In the last decade, instructional models have been developed that try to remedy the inert knowledge problem and take into account important aspects that have been raised by the different explanations.     

Merlin C. Wittrock's Enduring Contributions to the Science of Learning

This paper critiques present trends in several areas of educational psychology from the perspective of the inapplicability of their research designs for producing knowledge which can be applied in classrooms. Several suggestions are offered for adapting designs and/or changing research emphases so that more applicable findings are produced.     

Proteus Rising: Re‐Imagining Educational Research

The idea that educational research should be ‘scientific’, and ideally based on randomised control trials, is in danger of becoming hegemonic. In the face of this it seems important to ask what other kinds of educational research can be respectable in their own different terms. We might also note that the demand for research to be ‘scientific’ is characteristically modernist, and thus arguably local and temporary. It is then tempting to consider what non‐modernist approaches might look like. The purpose of this article is to sketch a case for one particular reaction against modernist thinking: romanticism. How might our understanding (apprehension, sense) of education be changed by readmitting the insights and perspectives of romanticism? And, crucially, what confidence could we have in educational research that was thus inspired and that took the ‘romantic turn’?