“We thought it might encourage participation.” Using lottery incentives to improve LibQUAL+™ response rates among students

Libraries deploying the LibQUAL+? survey can offer a lottery incentive and many do so in the hope of increasing response rates. Other libraries may be prohibited from offering one because of Institutional Review Board restrictions, as is the case at Oregon State University. We wanted to discover why libraries offer lottery incentives, what kinds of incentives, and if they believe these incentives have a positive impact on their response rates. The responding libraries hold a general belief that lottery incentives are effective, but base this on feeling rather than research. We examine what the literature says about lottery incentives and student populations.     

Leading the Local: Teachers Union Presidents Chart Their Own Course

Teachers unions are among the most powerful, yet least studied, actors in public education today. Although public attention focuses on the influence of national unions, the policies that most affect teachers and schooling are bargained by local unions and school boards. Interviews with 30 recently elected local union presidents reveal that these leaders balance competing interests and obligations, from the concerns and priorities of their members to pressures from state and national affiliates. Although these presidents reaffirm the traditional union agenda, most also advocate an expanded agenda of teacher professionalism and more collaborative approaches to collective bargaining and contract management.     

Older people in accident and emergency: the use of action research to explore the interface between services in an acute hospital

This article reports on an ongoing action research study into the organisation of care for older people in a United Kingdom accident and emergency (A&E) department. The study is located at the interface between A&E and the in-patient services for elderly people (SEP) wards, and aims to work between these two services to seek improvements for change to the care of older people in A&E. Preliminary data are used in the article to explore three claims about the value of action research: action research enables an understanding of the issues from the perspectives of the different participants; action research enables work to take place that explicitly takes account of the different perspectives; and action research helps to explain the reasons for resistance to change. The analysis is used to highlight the value that action research may have in bridging gaps between services in an acute hospital.     

Differential electronic detector to monitor apoptosis using dielectrophoresis-induced translation of flowing cells (dielectrophoresis cytometry)

The instrument described here is an all-electronic dielectrophoresis (DEP) cytometer sensitive to changes in polarizability of single cells. The important novel feature of this work is the differential electrode array that allows independent detection and actuation of single cells within a short section ( ～ 300?μm) of the microfluidic channel. DEP actuation modifies the altitude of the cells flowing between two altitude detection sites in proportion to cell polarizability; changes in altitude smaller than 0.25 μm can be detected electronically. Analysis of individual experimental signatures allows us to make a simple connection between the Clausius-Mossotti factor (CMF) and the amount of vertical cell deflection during actuation. This results in an all-electronic, label-free differential detector that monitors changes in physiological properties of the living cells and can be fully automated and miniaturized in order to be used in various online and offline probes and point-of-care medical applications. High sensitivity of the DEP cytometer facilitates observations of delicate changes in cell polarization that occur at the onset of apoptosis. We illustrate the application of this concept on a population of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells that were followed in their rapid transition from a healthy viable to an early apoptotic state. DEP cytometer viability estimates closely match an Annexin V assay (an early apoptosis marker) on the same population of cells.     

London Revisited: South Korea at the Olympics of 1948 and 2012

1948 was South Korea's first ever appearance in the Olympics – a poor country, forced to adjust to division on the peninsula, with a limited athletic presence. But South Korea won its first medals and contributed to the tortuous process of securing its international standing. Sixty-four years later, by the time of its second appearance in a London Olympics South Korea had become a powerful economy with a high international profile and a strong athletic representation – coming 5th in the final medal table. This study compares and contrasts not just the two London Olympics in terms of athletic performances but also the changed roles for South Korea within both the global sporting community and broader international society. Despite the continuing division on the peninsula, the two London Olympics provide symbols and markers of the aspirations, achievements and failures of South Korean policy-makers and their people.     

Teachers’ content knowledge about oral language: measure development and evidence of initial validity

Reading and Writing - Efforts to improve classroom language practices and children’s language learning, as a means of supporting reading comprehension, may depend on teachers’ knowledge...     

Improving teacher preparation and selection: lessons from the Pennsylvania experience

This paper examines Pennsylvania's teacher preparation and selection processes over the last decade. Teacher test scores are examined across colleges of education, and extreme differences in teacher test scores are found. Also, extreme variations are evident among districts' employed teachers. A unique survey of district employment practices reveals that, on average, 40% of a district's teachers previously attended there as students. An exploratory econometric model indicates that the higher the unemployment rate in a district, the more likely it will hire its former students to teach, and that the greater the fraction of former students now in the district's teacher force, the lower is student achievement. The paper concludes with a discussion of conventional and unconventional strategies to improve the quality of teachers actually hired by school boards.