The Representation of Altruistic and Egoistic Motivations in Popular Music over 60 Years

Content analyses examining the values expressed in popular music have been predominantly ad hoc, limited to antisocial themes, and lacking a comprehensive theoretical coding scheme. We applied a content analytic scheme based in the model of intuitive morality and exemplars (MIME) to examine altruistic and egoistic values in popular music over 60 years. Findings show (a) more frequent representation of egoistic than altruistic motivations, and (b) the profusion of egoistic motivations focused mostly on romantic (in adult-targeted music) but also platonic (in child-targeted music) relationships.     

Effects of strategy training on reading comprehension in first and foreign language

In this article we report on the effects of an experimental programme to train reading strategies. Students had to work in pairs on the execution of reading tasks following a consciousness-raising method, consisting of an orientation phase in which they explore the reading tasks and select a reading strategy, a practice/application phase in which actual performance takes place and a verbalisation phase, in which the steps that lead to a correct solution must be formulated explicitly. The programme was directed to four reading strategies: looking for key fragments, paying attention to structure marking elements (hinge words), making up questions (questioning) and mapping the most important information from a text (semantic mapping). On the basis of this programme 15-year old Dutch students from the third year of regular secondary education (N=12) have been trained in applying these reading strategies when reading in their first language (Dutch). The results have been compared with those of a control group (N=119). We will show that the training programme has an effect on the mastery of the four strategic reading activities and leads to a substantial improvement of the reading comprehension in the first language (Dutch). Transfer effects to reading in a foreign language (English) could not be ascertained.     

Personality and problem behaviours as predictors of adolescents’ social status: academic track and gender as moderators

This study examined adolescent personality and problem behaviours as predictors of two types of social status: social preference and popularity. Academic track (college preparatory and vocational) and gender were expected to moderate these associations. The sample included 693 students (49.0% female; M = 15.46 years) attending classrooms in two academic tracks (vocational and college preparatory). Participants completed self-report measures of personality and problem behaviours and peer-reports of preference and popularity. Results of structural path analyses indicated that academic track and gender moderated several associations. Specifically, externalising problems were associated with more popularity for males and less preference for females in college preparatory classrooms. Internalising problems were associated with popularity and preference for adolescents in vocational classrooms. The findings illustrate the complexities associated with predicting the social status of male and female adolescents attending different academic tracks. The salience of status norms and implications for intervention programmes are discussed.     

CNI: Compelled Nonuse of Information

Purpose

The study reported in this paper reviewed the literatures of information science, psychology, sociology, political science, education, and communication science to analyze Compelled Nonuse of Information (CNI). This study of a behavior defined by its absence (i.e., the not using of information) involved the development of a methodology consisting of an iterative performance of a nine-step heuristic leading to a retroductive recognition of absence, here termed RRA.

Principal results

The study concluded with a hierarchical taxonomy of the mechanisms that compel a person not to use information. The six primary mechanisms are:

1.

Intrinsic somatic (bodily) conditions

2.

Socio-environmental barriers

3.

Authoritarian controls

4.

Threshold knowledge shortfall

5.

Attention shortfall

6.

Information filtering.

Major conclusions

The resultant taxonomy of CNI appears here as a comprehensive checklist with which information workers such as the teacher, librarian, advertiser, politician, or health care professional can respond efficiently and effectively to situations of nonuse of information. For example, a teacher might ask: “Why are students not responding to what I present?” Further, the social implications of any compelled behavior touch the very basis of the social contract, and this paper presents a first step toward understanding the compelled aspects of CNI.     

The rôle of performance indicators in higher education

This paper arises from the experiences in five countries (Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) in developing and using performance indicators in government-institutional relationships. The rôle of performance indicators in higher education depends on the political culture, the educational funding system and the quality assessment procedures that determine the optimal allocation of resources in a particular country. The political culture of education can be geared, on the one hand, to equivalence in the provision of educational opportunities and, on the other, to variety in the educational system. The funding system can be incremental or differential. Quality assessment can aim at quality across the system or at comparative quality judgements. Ten lessons for government and intermediate funding agencies are drawn, which are believed to facilitate the debate on the development and the use of indicators in government-institutional relations.The authors wish to thank Marianne Bauer, Toril Johansson and Hugo von Linstow for their contributions from Sweden, Norway and Denmark.     

Bridging the real and ideal: A comparison between learning community characteristics and a school-based case study

While a growing body of literature advocates the importance of school-based, collaborative action research, less attention has been focused on how these projects are developed and implemented in the early stages. This study, therefore, examines a small Canadian school's initial attempt at promoting a “learning community” approach and compares it to the ideals of collaborative teamwork set out by recent scholarship. Our findings suggest that collegiality holds promise for change in teachers' practice and meaningful professional development if the school's administrator accepts the learning community philosophy and is willing to take the lead in initiating the reform. As well, we found that all ideal characteristics set out in the literature need not be in place from the outset for a project of this sort to be successful.     

用内核级的噪声注入来刻画应用程序对操作系统干扰的敏感性

操作系统噪声是限制应用程序可扩展性的主要因素。很多研究试图采用用户层的机制来量化噪声的来源和影响。本篇论文描述了一种基于内核的噪声注入机制，并重点研究应用程序对各种噪声模式的敏感性。我们介绍了在Catamount轻载内核上噪声注入框架的实现，并展示了当节点数达到上万个时系统对应用程序产生的各类影响。我们的研究结果证明了噪声（不同频率和持续时间）产生原因的重要性，