THE LOST PROFESSION

In the United Kingdom, the higher education community is being deprived of components of its professionalism just when it is clarifying to itself the nature of that professionalism. Historically, academics were not required to define their obligations to society. Now, they must function in an age of accountability in which public services are being asked to demonstrate their wider value. Behind this shift stands a changing relationship between higher education and the state in which the state has moved to assess the quality of what was on offer and is now playing a direct part in influencing the shape of graduate formation. Currently, academic life is becoming so subject to external control that the autonomy required as a necessary component of professionalism is being lost. In Halsey's terminology, academics are changing from being a status group to being a proletariat but without ever having properly been a profession.     

THE EFFECTS OF GROUP COACHING ON THE HOMEWORK PROBLEMS EXPERIENCED BY SECONDARY STUDENTS WITH AND WITHOUT DISABILITIES

Research on the effectiveness of homework provides ample evidence that homework has a positive effect on learning, particularly for secondary students. Unfortunately, the rate of consistent homework completion for students, with and without disabilities, is low. This study used a between‐groups design to examine the differential effectiveness of coaching, a self‐management intervention, compared with the local treatment‐as‐usual (homework center) on improving the homework completion of 50 middle school students (Grades 6 to 8) with and without disabilities who were having substantial difficulty with homework. Results indicated that both group coaching and homework center (treatment‐as‐usual) were effective in significantly decreasing homework problems, with no clear indication that one intervention was, overall, superior to the other. However, preliminary analyses suggest that these interventions might be differentially effective as a function of disability status.     

Comments on Holmes

Certain basic moral propositions are unlike basic religious propositions in that it is incoherent to deny them. A community needs a shared set of moral beliefs in a way that it does not need a shared set of religious beliefs. The cultivation of certain types of behaviour is necessary in a community. For these three reasons, bringing up children to adhere to certain basic moral principles is justified in a way that bringing them up to accept basic religious tenets is not.Simon Fraser University     

Students' Perceptions of Study Modes

This paper reports on a survey of how Australian undergraduate students perceive the benefits of broad study modes: face‐to‐face classes, web‐based study, and print‐based study. Two benefit types were identified through factor analysis: engagement and functionality. Respondents rated face‐to‐face classes highest on engagement and print‐based study highest on functionality. However, they distinguished only marginally between the engagement and functionality benefits of print‐based and web‐based study. Two variables associated with differences in students’ perceptions of study modes were attendance mode and student tenure. The findings raise questions about the learning and marketing rationales for offering web‐based delivery of educational programmes at the expense of both the traditional face‐to‐face experience and the traditional “distance” experience in Australia using print materials.     

A Brief View of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions World Library & Information Congress (IFLA WLIC 2017) in Wroclaw,Poland

A review of select sessions at the IFLA WLIC Congress in August 2017.