Are Letter Detection and Proofreading Tasks Equivalent?

When readers search for misspellings in a proofreading task or for a letter in a letter detection task, they are more likely to omit function words than content words. However, with misspelled words, previous findings for the letter detection task were mixed. In two experiments, the authors tested the functional equivalence of both tasks. Results reveal similar patterns of omissions for both search tasks when misspellings were produced by substituting one letter for another: There were more omissions for function words than for content words. However, when two letters were transposed, differences between the two tasks emerged. It is possible to conclude that letter detection and proofreading are based on common cognitive processes but the nature of the target can modulate the effects. Results are interpreted in light of the attentional disengagement model and the guidance organization model of the missing-letter effect.     

Challenges and transformations: Counselling in a multicultural context

During the last two decades counselling in a multicultural context has been on the increase with more and more training programmes now including issues of race, culture and ethnicity. This has led to numerous approaches, for example transcultural, inter-cultural, cross-cultural, multicultural, Afro-centric, anti-racist and black feminist, which define counselling with minority groups. Although many of these approaches have a sound theoretical base, they nevertheless remain marginal in terms of convincing the minority communities of their value and effectiveness. This is clearly seen in the pre-mature termination and lack of participation by minorities in counselling and therapy. The chief criticism against counselling throughout this period is that, it has remained essentially, Eurocentric, ethnocentric and individualistic. Culture-sensitive counsellors and counselling within a "culture fit" model have been suggested as a way of making the process more appropriate to a diversity of cultures. Furthermore, this has led to some practitioners strongly advocating the inclusion of socio-economic and political constructs as part of a broader definition of multicultural counselling. For example, the issues of power and influence, cultural hegemony, racism and masculinities are becoming key schemas in cross cultural counselling practices. The challenge for multicultural counselling, in the next decade, would be to include traditional healing practices as part of its discourse, if it is to encourage the active participation of ethnicminorities. This paper is an attempt to explore some of these challenges and highlight some of the transformations that are taking place within multicultural counselling. Finally, through a discussion of a case vignette, the paper illustrates the need to accommodate traditional healing methods in counselling the culturally diverse client.     

Enrico Fermi — The complete physicist

Enrico Fermi was a versatile physicist contributing in equal measure to theory and experiments. He is credited to be the ‘Father of the Atomic Age’ following his successful demonstration of sustained chain reaction in Chicago Pile-1. In this article, I have discussed his major experimental contributions that clearly demonstrate his simplicity of conception, meticulous attention to detail and directness of approach to the problem at hand.     

Discriminating between Competent and Not Yet Competent Beginning Teachers: an analysis of principals’ reports

Principals’ written assessments of 50 high school teachers whom they judged competent for full registration and 32 whom they judged not yet competent and in need of an extended period of provisional registration were analysed in terms of the characteristics used to describe and determine beginning teacher competence. It was found that principals consistently refer to a narrow range of characteristics when describing competent beginning teachers and focus on an even narrower range in deciding whether or not full registration should be granted. Characteristics that describe approaches to teaching are used most often in this regard. While the majority of beginning teachers possess an adequate knowledge base in their subject area, success in the first year of school experience hinges on the ability to communicate such knowledge and concepts to students. The need for further refinement of the appraisal process, including professional development programmes for principals, is highlighted.     

Toward a Learning Technologies knowledge network

The National Science Foundation-funded Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT) is designed to be a national resource for stimulating research and development of technology-enabled solutions to critical problems in K-14 science, math, engineering and technology learning. The Center, launched at the end of 1997, is organized around four themes identified as areas where research is likely to result in major gains in teaching and learning, and sponsors research across disciplines and institutions in its four theme areas. CILT brings together experts in the fields of cognitive science, educational technologies, computer science, subject matter learning, and engineering. It engages business through an Industry Alliance Program and is also training postdoctoral students. CILT's founding organizations are SRI International's Center for Technology in Learning, University of California at Berkeley (School of Education and Department of Computer Science), Vanderbilt University's Learning Technology Center, and the Concord Consortium. Through its programs, CILT seeks to reach beyond these organizations to create a web of organizations, individuals, industries, schools, foundations, government agencies, and labs, that is devoted to the production, sharing and use of new knowledge about how learning technologies can dramatically improve the processes and outcomes of learning and teaching. This paper describes the rationale and operations of the Center, and first-year progress in defining a set of CILT partnership projects with many other institutions that came out of our national theme-team workshops. Roy Pea, of SRI International, is Director of CILT. Marcia Linn (U. California, Berkeley), John Bransford (Vanderbilt University), Barbara Means (SRI International), and Robert Tinker (Concord Consortium), serve as CILT's coprincipal investigators. Sherry Hsi (Ubiquitous Computing) and Sean Brophy (Technology and Assessment Models) are among the first group of CILT Postdoctoral Fellows. Jeremy Roschelle (SRI International) and Nancy Songer (University of Michigan) are CILT theme-team leaders. Roy Pea and Marcia Linn would like to thank the Spencer Foundation for support during their year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, in which they developed the CILT concept with the other authors. CILT is funded by National Science Foundation grant #CDA-9720384. Pea and Linn would also like to acknowledge contributions to this article by the many authors of CILT partnership project proposals, and by theme-team leaders. The authors thankfully acknowledge Donna Baranski-Walker for her many contributions to developing the CILT Industrial Alliance Program while serving as its Director in 1998.     

Optimal duration of static stretching exercises for improvement of coxo-femoral flexibility

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of different durations of static stretching exercises on coxo-femoral (hip) flexibility. The experimental group, consisting of 20 sedentary women (20-30 years of age), participated in an exercise programme of static stretching exercises with emphasis on the hamstring muscles. The programme lasted for 10 weeks and consisted of two 50-min sessions per week. A control group of 15 sedentary women did not participate in the programme. Hip flexibility was determined before, during and at the end of the programme by means of a goniometric measuring technique developed by us and described elsewhere. Three sub-groups were formed, each following the same programme except that the duration of the static stretch differed (group 1, 10 s; group 2, 20 s; group 3, 30 s). The ANOVA tests showed that for all groups - the control group excepted - the hip flexibility had improved significantly after 10 weeks (P less than 0.05). No significant differences in hip flexibility were noted between the three subgroups at the end of the programme. This finding suggests that a duration of 10 s static stretching is sufficient for improving coxo-femoral flexibility.     

ATTITUDINAL ROOTS OF POPULAR PROTEST: THE FRENCH UPHEAVAL OF MAY 1968

On the basis of logistic regression and employing individual-leveldata from a national panel sample survey, participation in demonstrationsand strikes during the French upheaval of May 1968 is analysed,in terms of attitudes measured during the spring of 1967, morethan a year before the May events occurred. Among the potentialexplanatory factors considered, conventional political orientationswere found to be of pervasive importance, forms of satisfactionand opinions on major issues were operative in a highly selectivefashion, particular to the protesting group, and more genericpsychopolitical values such as trust in government or politicalefficacy, were virtually without independent effects.     

An example of regional co-operation: APEID

Increasingly, as has been seen in other contributions to this ‘dossier’, developing countries are realizing that one way to increase the value of international aid and to improve their own selfsufficiency, is to co-operate among themselves. The United Nations system, in turn, has increasingly supported efforts on a regional level to exchange experience, information and know-how. At a recent meeting, ‘Technical Co-operation among Developing Countries’ (UNDP/ESCAP regional meeting, Bangkok, Thailand, March 1976), the Director of the Asia Programme for Educational Innovation for Development (the main thrust of the programme has previously been described inProspects, Vol. IV, No. 4, p. 535) made the following statement about the specifically Asian aspects of the question, as reflected through the activities of APEID.