Cognitions of Expert Supervisors in Academe: A Concept Mapping Approach

Eighteen expert supervisors reported their thoughts while preparing for, conducting, and evaluating their supervision sessions. Concept mapping (Kane & Trochim, 2007 ) yielded 195 cognitions classified into 25 cognitive categories organized into 5 supervision areas: conceptualization of supervision, supervisee assessment, supervisory relationship, supervisor self‐assessment, and administration of supervision. Implications for future research and supervisor training programs are discussed.     

Evaluating a monolingual multinational digital library by using usability: An exploratory approach from a developing country

In this paper the authors present a preliminary discussion on some of the results from a survey aimed to explore, describe and explain some of the usability characteristics in digital libraries evaluation in the Mexican context. The study is framed in the evaluation of a multinational and monolingual digital library: the Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library, from the University of Alicante in Spain. The evaluators were Mexican “expert” users (i.e. Spanish-speaking professional university librarians specialized in electronic reference services) who were asked to carry on an evaluation instrument based on usability criteria as taken from some models in developed countries. Some questions that might be answered with future research are outlined in this paper.     

The Co-Effects of Query Structure and Expansion on Retrieval Performance in Probabilistic Text Retrieval

The effects of query structures and query expansion (QE) on retrieval performance were tested with a best match retrieval system (InQuery¹). Query structure means the use of operators to express the relations between search keys. Six different structures were tested, representing strong structures (e.g., queries with facets or concepts identified) and weak structures (no concepts identified, a query is a bag of search keys). QE was based on concepts, which were first selected from a searching thesaurus, and then expanded by semantic relationships given in the thesaurus. The expansion levels were (a) no expansion, (b) a synonym expansion, (c) a narrower concept expansion, (d) an associative concept expansion, and (e) a cumulative expansion of all other expansions. With weak structures and Boolean structured queries, QE was not very effective. The best performance was achieved with a combination of a facet structure, where search keys within a facet were treated as instances of one search key (the SYN operator), and the largest expansion.     

Emotion recognition in fathers and mothers at high-risk for child physical abuse

Objective

The present study was designed to determine whether parents at high risk for physical child abuse, in comparison with parents at low risk, show deficits in emotion recognition, as well as to examine the moderator effect of gender and stress on the relationship between risk for physical child abuse and emotion recognition.

Methods

Based on their scores on the Abuse Scale of the CAP Inventory (Milner, 1986), 64 parents at high risk (24 fathers and 40 mothers) and 80 parents at low risk (40 fathers and 40 mothers) for physical child abuse were selected. The Subtle Expression Training Tool/Micro Expression Training Tool ( [Ekman, 2004a] and [Ekman, 2004b]) and the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy II (Nowicki & Carton, 1993) were used to assess emotion recognition.

Results

As expected, parents at high risk, in contrast to parents at low risk, showed deficits in emotion recognition. However, differences between high- and low-risk participants were observed only for fathers, but not for mothers. Whereas fathers at high risk for physical child abuse made more errors than mothers at high risk, no differences between mothers at low risk and fathers at low risk were found. No interaction between stress, gender, and risk status was observed for errors in emotion recognition.

Conclusions and practice implications

The present findings, if confirmed with physical abusers, could be helpful to further our understanding of deficits in processing information of physically abusive parents and to develop treatment strategies specifically focused on emotion recognition. Moreover, if gender differences can be confirmed, the findings could be helpful to develop specific treatment programs for abusive fathers.     

Online Celebrity Bashing: Wrecking Ball or Good for You? Adolescent Girls’ Attitudes Toward the Media and Public Bashing of Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez

Journalists and readers of celebrity news regularly bash celebrities online, a behavior that is easily accepted among adolescents. This study investigates whether these attitudes of acceptance differ according to the perpetrator of the bashing (media versus public) and the likeability of the involved celebrity (liked versus disliked). Using a vignette study, we examine adolescent girls’ attitudes toward media (journalists’) and public (readers’) bashing of a generally disliked celebrity (Miley Cyrus) and a generally liked celebrity (Selena Gomez). All participants read an identical negative news story (media bashing) and two related negative reader comments (public bashing). Participants were randomly assigned to read this information about either Miley Cyrus or Selena Gomez. Results of a mixed-design ANOVA showed that the girls had less negative attitudes toward media bashing compared with public bashing. Moreover, they more easily accepted the bashing of a disliked celebrity than the bashing of a liked celebrity.     

Paulo Freire,Critical Literacy,and Indigenous Resistance

Using several case studies drawn from Freire’s cultural context and contemporary Canadian Indigenous resistance movements, this article questions whether a Freirean approach to critical literacy can work with Indigenous literacy needs without reproducing colonial power structures. It also seeks to examine current scholarship in the literacy education of Maritime Aboriginal people in Canada and to illustrate the need for critical pedagogies honoring multiple cultural literacies and ways of knowing among Indigenous youth.     

What and how teacher educators prefer to learn

In which areas and domains do individual teacher educators prefer to work on their professional development? What kind of learning activities do they want to take on and with whom? Are there significant differences in these preferences between teacher educators? This article reports on a recent survey (N = 268) about the professional development of teacher educators and differences in learning preferences between less and more experienced teacher educators and between university-based and school-based teacher educators. Findings show, for example, that while most university-based teacher educators were mainly interested in improving their teaching, less experienced school-based teacher educators were more focussed on aspects such as coaching skills. In this study, ‘learning profiles’ have been developed for four categories of teacher educators. These profiles may help to create more meaningful arrangements for teacher educators’ initial education and further professional development in a context where teacher education is required to have a more school-based as well as a more research-based orientation.     

Significant networks and meaningful conversations observed in the first-round applicants for the Teachers’ Academy at a research-intensive university

The University of Helsinki established a Teachers’ Academy to reward excellence in teaching. This study focuses on teachers’ significant networks and their meaningful conversations about teaching and learning before the establishment of the Teachers’ Academy. The research data consisted of answers to open-ended questions, and were examined using social network analysis. The teachers’ network consisted of significant relations with (1) colleagues and other teachers, (2) peers in pedagogical courses and pedagogical experts, (3) students, and (4) family members and friends. The conversations with different parties varied in nature, content and the level of confidentiality.