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.     

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.     

Postgraduate Education Towards the Year 2000 — A Changed Role for the Commonwealth Postgraduate Awards Scheme 1

Ph.D. research training in Australia only came into existence after World War II. It grew slowly until the late 1950s when The Commonwealth Postgraduate Award (CPRA) Scheme was introduced to promote the development of research training. The scheme has had an extensive impact on research training, supporting over 700 new students a year by 1982. However, no serious evaluation has been made of the Scheme and whether in the changed circumstances of the 1980s it needs to be revised. The present article reports some of the key results of the evaluation that the Commonwealth Department of Education commissioned. This study has shown that the CPRA scheme achieved its original objectives’, to develop postgraduate research schools; to maintain a flow of highly trained personnel to the workforce; and to promote the full intellectual development of the most talented students. But it is now operating in a new context where the conditions of expansion of the 1960s no longer exist and stronger pressures for relevance are being exerted on university research. In short, education policy and research policy have come into conflict, the result of which is new pressures on research education in general and the CPRA scheme in particular. Solutions to this conflict are proposed, involving no radical alterations of the scheme, but the trial introduction of a pluralist approach to postgraduate support which leaves the present scheme intact but meets the new demands the changing context is placing on postgraduate education.

     

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.     

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.