Part 1. If We Frame It,They Will Respond: Undergraduate Student Responses to the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

There remains significant confusion surrounding the purpose, audience, and proposed application of the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. This exploratory study addresses the question of whether undergraduate students can understand the language and concepts in this document. By presenting student responses to pretest questions recorded at the beginning of a semester-long research methods course, this article shows that students can, even on first impression, begin to make sense of the complexity and richness found in the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.     

Strategy selection for cognitive skill acquisition depends on task demands and working memory capacity

The involvement of working memory capacity (WMC) in ruled-based cognitive skill acquisition is well-established, but the duration of its involvement and its role in learning strategy selection are less certain. Participants (N = 610) learned four logic rules, their corresponding symbols, or logic gates, and the appropriate input–output combinations in three-gate circuit patterns. Participants practiced 120 repetitions of each rule (480 total gates) over the course of 10 training blocks. Memory load varied between subjects. The confluence of task demands and individual differences in WMC (N = 518) dramatically affected speed–accuracy tradeoffs and strategic use of a computerized help function. Cluster analysis revealed five distinct groups of participants based on the combination of response accuracy, latency, and help use. Some groups with moderate to high mean WMC acquired the task with predictable performance patterns. Other groups, prevalently under a memory load and with low mean WMC, failed to learn or overused help.     

Sport-specific factors predicting player retention in junior cricket

Understanding factors that motivate young athletes to continue participation in sport can help key stakeholders cultivate an environment that fosters long-term participation. This investigation sought to determine the performance and participation factors that influenced continued participation in junior cricket. Administration-level data were collected each annual season across a seven-year period by a community-level junior cricket association in Australia and analysed to identify the performance and participation-based predictors of player retention. All players were males aged <16 years. Players were categorised according to whether they remained in (or departed from) the association at the end of each playing season. A multivariate logistic regression model with a stepwise variable selection was employed to identify significant independent predictors of player retention. The number of innings batted and overs bowled were significant participation-related contributors to junior cricket player retention. Performance factors such as the number of wickets taken and the number of runs scored also significantly influenced player retention. Finally, team age group, the number of previous seasons played and age were also significant factors in player retention. This demonstrates that sufficient opportunity for children to participate in the game and expression of skills competence are key factors for retention in cricket.     

All I really needed to know I learned during gastrulation

Note from the Editor     

Matters of Form: Questions of Race,Identity, Design,and the U.S. Census

This case examines how functionalist approaches manifest culturally based on users’ contexts. The authors conduct a critical visual semiotic analysis of the race and Hispanic origin questions on the 2010 U.S. Census form, demonstrating how incongruities in design potentially harm people. This demonstrates a need for adding critical analyses to design and research and it refocuses the Society for Technical Communication’s value of promoting the public good on to design and documentation in order to fight injustice.     

Peer Teachers With Autism Teaching 3D Modeling

ABSTRACT

Few autism programmes address the needs of adolescents and young adults, and those that do are unlikely to include individuals with autism in the design and evaluation of the programme. This study involved nine youth with autism (ages 16–25) in the development and evaluation of a peer teaching programme where they taught three-dimensional modelling to other students with autism spectrum disorder. The methodology was participant-oriented research where the students with autism were co-designers and programme evaluators in the research. This approach highlighted their unique strengths and abilities and shifted the power such that they were leaders and not simply the recipients of knowledge from instructors. Four themes emerged through the qualitative analysis of the students’ perceptions of the peer teaching programme: 1) the meaning of peer teaching, 2) motivations for peer teaching, 3) challenges and 4) coping with the challenges of the role.     

Is There a Need for Transcendental Arguments in Discourse Ethics?

In this essay, James Scott Johnston examines Jürgen Habermas's transcendental justification of his discourse theory of morality. According to Johnston, the application of Habermas's theory to educational issues often assumes that this justification is a cogent one. However, if the theory is to provide reasoned and appropriate guidance for educators, the justification of discourse ethics requires closer examination. Johnston argues that Habermas's so‐called “weak” transcendental approach is in fact unsustainable because it fails to reconcile two conflicting schools of philosophical thought: Kant's transcendental idealism and George Herbert Mead's social pragmatism. Johnston concludes that a more plausible justification of the discourse ethical project can be achieved by rejecting Habermas's Kantianism and appealing solely to Mead's social pragmatic conception of rationality.     

Preparing a CPT Submission Package

The candidate chooses projects for his or her ability to establish credentials as a performance technologist. The clearer the links between actions and improved performance for the client, the stronger the case each example makes. Candidates will need to show this linkage between contribution and outcome for each project used in preparing the submission package.     

The professionalisation of teaching: teacher training and education reform in Austria, 1867–1914

This article examines Austria’s efforts to reform teacher education during the period of the Dual Monarchy, 1867–1914. It offers insight into the role of teachers in Austrian society and how this role changed over time. It demonstrates that, during this period, teaching became an institutionalised and professionalised occupation. This process of professionalisation brought teachers firmly under state control, leading to conflict between teachers and the Austrian educational bureaucracy. This process also led to the development of a robust network of teachers’ associations to represent the interest of Austrian teachers and to contribute to their professional development. This article utilises documents from the Austrian educational bureaucracy, printed curriculum and pedagogical journals to illustrate that Austrian teacher training reforms offer crucial insight into the development of public education in the late nineteenth century.