Blurring Boundaries between Technical Communication and Engineering: Challenges of a Multidisciplinary, Client-Based Pedagogy

Educational settings tend to provide highly specialized contexts for learning. In contrast, workplaces are increasingly multidisciplinary, presenting challenges often not considered in the technical communication curriculum. Our technical communication program is addressing this issue by building partnerships with programs in mechanical engineering and industrial engineering. In this article, we discuss a study of our initial semester matching technical communication students with teams of engineers in a capstone, client-based design course. We focus on challenges the students faced in the multidisciplinary, client-based experience. Based on our initial results, we suggest that academic and professional settings could do more to address the types of challenges identified. We call for a more inclusive pedagogy, one that expands the boundaries of technical communication and welcomes multidisciplinary experience in shared contexts.     

Predictors of Undergraduate Student Binge Drinking

The relative importance of a number of predictors of binge drinking and of high‐versus low‐frequency binge drinking among undergraduate students was studied. Findings demonstrated that race, class, fraternity or sorority membership, use of other drugs in the past 30 days, positive alcohol expectancies, perception of minimal risk, perception that friends do not disapprove of binge drinking, and perception of high normative drinking were factors in predicting episodes of binge drinking. Being male, having fraternity or sorority membership, perceiving that friends do not disapprove, and using other drugs distinguished high‐frequency from low‐frequency binge drinkers.     

Simple delayed discrimination of tastes in the rat

Although taste memory has been extensively studied within the context of long-delay taste aversion learning, little attention has been devoted to taste memory within more traditional memory designs, for example, simple delayed discriminations. This was examined in the present experiment. Specifically, following taste discrimination training during which responding was reinforced following exposure to only one of two tastes, delays were imposed between sampling of the initial taste and the opportunity to respond. On the average, subjects were able to perform the simple delayed taste discrimination with an accuracy of 80% or better at a delay of 45 sec. Discrimination performance returned to chance at an average delay of 58 sec. Taste memory within the simple delayed discrimination paradigm is discussed and compared with other assessments of short-term memory in the rat and other species.     

Using Information to Promote Equal Opportunities and Improve Decision‐making

This article explores how information can be used to assist policy‐makers and practitioners: an issue central to the work of Desmond Nuttall. The narrative draws on Desmond Nuttall's work as Director of the Research and Statistics Branch of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) and on seminars and workshops which the author ran jointly with him after the abolition of the ILEA. The paper focuses particularly on equality of opportunity.     

The differential expression of male sexual behavior in the Lewis, Fischer and Sprague-Dawley rat strains

Several indices of sexual behavior were characterized for male rats of the Lewis (LEW), Sprague-Dawley (SD) and Fischer (F344) strains. Males were permitted access to a receptive female of their own strain for five 50-min sessions every fifth day. LEW males emitted longer latencies (first mount, intromission, ejaculation and post-ejaculatory interval) and lower frequencies (mounts, intromissions, ejaculations, intromission ratio) relative to F344 males, with the SD strain in general, lying intermediate. Following this assessment, males of each strain were randomly assigned to females of their own or another strain to ascertain whether differences were due to differential female receptivity. Although there were no significant differences during this phase indicative of differential receptivity, the sample size may preclude a definitive interpretation of such results. The data were discussed in the context of other behavioral differences between the strains and the possible neurobiological mechanisms underlying these differences.     

The Aftermath of Remedial Math: Investigating the Low Rate of Certificate Completion among Remedial Math Students

Nationally, a majority of community college students require remedial assistance with mathematics, but comparatively few students who begin the remedial math sequence ultimately complete it and achieve college-level math competency. The academic outcomes of students who begin the sequence but do not complete it are disproportionately unfavorable: most students depart from the community college without a credential and without transferring to a four-year institution. Interestingly, however, many of these students continue to attend the community college after they exit the remedial math sequence, sometimes for an extended period. One is led to ask why students who do not complete the sequence generally are not finding their way to an alternative credential objective that does not require college-level math competency, such as a career and technical education certificate, sometimes referred to as a vocational certificate. In this study, I explore three possible answers to this question, including difficulty navigating to the alternative credential, declining participation in the community college, and declining academic performance. I find that all three of these explanations contribute (to varying degrees) to explaining the low rate of certificate completion among remedial math students who do not achieve college-level math competency.     

Why did you do that? Teachers explain the use of legal aggression in the classroom

Teachers (n = 233) who employ aggressive classroom management strategies were asked to theorise about their use. Levels of support for three theoretical explanations for aggressive behaviour were assessed via a 26 item scale. The items loaded to three factors: Attribution Theory; Efficacy Theory and Attachment Theory. Results indicated most teachers, 42%, supported Attribution, 34% supported Efficacy, and 33% supported Attachment as an explanation for aggressive behaviour. Moreover, 14% of teachers support all theories simultaneously, whilst 27% of teachers rejected all theories. The implications of these findings are that many teachers may be theoretically blind when it comes to classroom management: hence re- rather than pro-active. The importance of this finding for professional development providers and future qualitative research design is discussed.