Library links on medical school home pages

The purpose of this study was to assess the websites of American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC)-member medical schools for the presence of library links. Sixty-one percent (n?=?92) of home pages of the 150 member schools of the AAMC contain library links. For the 58 home pages not offering such links, 50 provided a pathway of two or three clicks to a library link. The absence of library links on 39% of AAMC medical school home pages indicates that the designers of those pages did not consider the library to be a primary destination for their visitors.     

Positioning university as a brand: distinctions between the brand promise of Russell Group, 1994 Group,University Alliance,and Million+ universities

Branding is now widely used by higher education (HE) institutions, yet questions still surround the transference of private sector concepts to a university context. This article reports on findings from studies that investigated the brand promises of four UK universities – one from each of the HE ‘mission groups’. The evidence indicated that, contrary to existing published presumptions, there is considerable potential for the application of branding in HE, but in differing and nuanced ways. Clear branding themes emerged across the cases such as environment, experiences, aspiration, and global positioning. While these enabled the universities to position their brands with distinction, the overriding method used across the cases – and the key point of differentiation – proved to be the presence of a core brand promise.     

The Self‐Reference Effect on Memory in Early Childhood

The self‐reference effect in memory is the advantage for information encoded about self, relative to other people. The early development of this effect was explored here using a concrete encoding paradigm. Trials comprised presentation of a self‐ or other‐image paired with a concrete object. In Study 1, 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children (N = 53) were asked in each trial whether the child pictured would like the object. Recognition memory showed an advantage for self‐paired objects. Study 2 (N = 55) replicated this finding in source memory. In Study 3 (N = 56), participants simply indicated object location. Again, recognition and source memory showed an advantage for self‐paired items. These findings are discussed with reference to mechanisms that ensure information of potential self‐relevance is reliably encoded.     

Infant educators’ beliefs about infant language development in long day care settings

This study examined infant educators’ beliefs about infant language development in the context of early childhood classrooms. Participants were 59 educators who were employed to work directly with under-two-year-old children. Educators were interviewed to determine their understandings of infant language development and Grounded Theory qualitative techniques were used to develop a conceptual model which illustrates their perceptions of the relationships between contextual, personal and teaching and learning components of their classroom contexts. The model provides a means of conceptualising ‘insider’ practitioner voices on how, as a dynamic system, contextual, individual and pedagogical components mutually interact to bring about the kinds of experiences and interactions that can shape language development. Findings have implications for understanding educators’ perspectives on infant room quality, suggesting that issues related to educator-infant ratios, staff consistency, qualifications and professional knowledge about language development processes may impact efforts to provide intentional language development support.     

New York State and the politics of postsecondary spending

This paper attempts to place the fiscal problems faced by higher education in a broad political economic context so strategies for coping with declining resources can be better evaluated. At the national level, fiscal crisis theories are used to examine broad changes in higher education spending patterns. At the state level, theories of regional variation are used to understand more fully why some states face conditions of greater fiscal authority than others. At a concrete level, the strategies evolving in New York State for allocating resources are explored, and the responses of one institution - the State University of New York at Buffalo - are examined.My thanks to the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance, School of Education, University of Houston, for support that made this research possible. My thanks to Paul Loucks for his careful reading and commentary on a draft of this paper.     

Positive psychology goes to school: Are we there yet?

Implicit within a perspective of positive psychology is the assumption that environments can be promoted to foster individual strengths through a preventative focus and the development of positive institutions. Given that the development of positive institutions has direct implications for school psychology, this paper begins to draw attention to the potential of positive psychology within school systems. Throughout the paper, it is suggested that a focus on schools may serve as the nexus between the movement in positive psychology searching to promote positive human development and the institutions that could serve as the vehicle for this development. Historic and emerging trends are examined, with particular attention to how positive psychology could promote the development of positive schools (institutions) that foster success for all students. Specifically, the parallel histories of discontent with deficit‐oriented practice in the fields of mental health and school psychology are reviewed, and precursors to building and maintaining positive institutions that focus on working within the existing system to promote lasting change are explored. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 101–110, 2004.     

Infant Educators’ Use of Pedagogical Questioning: Relationships With the Context of Interaction and Educators’ Qualifications

Research Findings: This study investigated the prevalence of pedagogical questions posed by 27 early childhood educators as they interacted with infants in each of two naturally-occurring contexts: book-focused interactions and educator mediated play. The pedagogical questions expressed by educators to infants were coded as confirm (yes/no), specify (what, who, where, when) or explain (why, how) on the basis that these question types present infants with different opportunities to use their developing communication skills to provide information to others. We sought to determine associations between question use, activity context and educators’ qualification levels. Explain questions were used very rarely, while confirm and specify questions were more frequent, comprising 7.60% and 8.32% respectively of the messages expressed by educators to infants. A 2 (activity context) × 2 (qualification level) mixed factorial MANOVA, supplemented with post-hoc qualitative analyses, demonstrated that, in specific activity contexts, degree qualified early childhood teachers used pedagogical questioning in ways which differed from their less-qualified counterparts. Practice or policy: The findings provide much needed data on how educator questioning is used with children under two, how questioning affords context-specific language learning opportunities for infants in ECEC centres, and how educator qualifications may be implicated in these opportunities.     

In-class examinations in college-level science: New theory,new practice

Every faculty member knows that exams drive student behavior. Testing and grading are part of every course, but generally of lesser importance to faculty members than course content itself. Recently, instructional methods and pedagogy. But as issues of grade inflation, student attrition, accountability, and authentic assessment grow in importance, we see some interesting innovations in testing methods and some interesting innovations. The authors are publishing a collection of some of these as described in their own words, by faculty themselves. Two questions underlie the study: 1) why is it so difficult to change tests and testing traditions in college-level science and 2) will the enormous efforts underway to reform pedagogy and curriculum in these disciplines have any lasting effect if testing does not have a prominent place on the reform agenda?     

Educators’ use of commanding language to direct infants’ behaviour: relationship to educators’ qualifications and implications for language learning opportunities

This study investigated the manner in which 56 infant educators used language to direct the behaviour of infants (defined as children aged birth to two years), on the basis that the ways in which educators frame their commands represent an important component of young children’s learning experiences. Underpinned by systemic functional linguistic theory, the study analysed the frequency and type of command produced by educators with university, diploma and certificate qualifications. Suggestive and indirect commands convey a sense of negotiation, as if the addressees’ subjective opinions and thoughts are considered, while nonsuggestive and direct commands foreground the speakers’ power and authority. The findings demonstrate that commands feature frequently in educators’ talk to infants, with nonsuggestive and direct commands being most commonly used. Individual differences were related to the qualifications of staff. University-qualified early childhood teachers used significantly fewer nonsuggestive and direct commands than did diploma and certificate-qualified educators, and they were more likely to provide infants with a reason for the command. These findings have implications for the way in which learning opportunities are created by the language that educators use, and for the overall quality of infant early childhood programmes.