Writing as an Information Literacy Tool: Bringing Writing in the Disciplines to an Online Library Class

ABSTRACT

The Writing in the Discipline (WID) concepts lend themselves to execution in an online realm, where written communication is the primary means of contact between students and instructors. The author instituted WID in an online section of a 1-credit research class and found the WID framework also made it easier for students to demonstrate information literacy. WID provides space within a course for students to become accustomed to the discourse of a discipline, writing to understand before being asked to formally communicate. This article explains the concepts behind WID and outlines how it was executed within an urban community college online class.     

More Than Just Cat Pictures: Reddit as a Curated News Source

Uncritical acceptance of many occult and paranormal belief systems has become more and more common in modern Western society in the past decade. Until recently few professionals have taken the time to respond to these beliefs. However, within the past few years several journals and books have appeared which contain detailed refutations of numerous occult and paranormal beliefs. This article presents an annotated bibliography of such journals and books that are currently in print.     

Exposure to HIV/AIDS-Related Media Content and HIV Testing Intention: Applying the Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction

Despite considerable evidence of an association between mass communication efforts and HIV testing behavior, the mechanisms through which this association may be established have been less extensively studied. Drawing on the integrative model of behavioral prediction, this study assessed the relationship between exposure to HIV/AIDS-related media content, individual intention to be tested for HIV, and the psychosocial variables mediating the relationship among 986 urban and rural residents of northwest Ethiopia. Structural equation modeling revealed that the relationship between exposure to HIV/AIDS-related media content and HIV testing intention was partially mediated by the three psychosocial variables associated with the integrative model (attitude, normative, and self-efficacy beliefs). However, whereas exposure to HIV/AIDS media content was found to be associated most substantially with attitudes toward HIV testing, intention to be tested was found mainly to be influenced by normative beliefs, which suggests that there is a possible mismatch between mass media programming and the prevailing psychosocial processes within the study population. The relationship between exposure to HIV/AIDS-related media content and HIV testing intention was also found to be mediated differently across urban and rural groups. Thus, it appears that the two groups may require different types of intervention to promote the desired behavior.     

Recognizing the Variety of Rural Schools

The purpose of this article is to help education practitioners and researchers understand that research about rural education is complicated not only by issues of defining “rural,” but also by the often dramatic ways that rural schools differ from each other. We briefly address issues in defining rural and describe rural classification systems that two federal agencies use to identify rural places. Our main emphasis, though, is on showing the differences among rural schools and districts as identified under the standard U.S. Department of Education (US DOE) definition of rural. Students in rural schools nearest to towns and cities have distinctly different demographics from those in more distant and remote settings. Researchers in rural education should consider explicitly whether or not to use the standard US DOE definition of rural schools and districts, a modified version, or an alternative. Whichever definition is used, researchers should consider how the demographics of their selected group of schools or districts compare in race/ethnicity, family income, enrollment trends, and other characteristics to all schools or to other categorizations of rural schools.     

An Investigation of Examinee Test-Taking Effort on a Large-Scale Assessment

Assessment results collected under low-stakes testing situations are subject to effects of low examinee effort. The use of computer-based testing allows researchers to develop new ways of measuring examinee effort, particularly using response times. At the item level, responses can be classified as exhibiting either rapid-guessing behavior or solution behavior based on the item response time. Most previous research involving the study of response times has been conducted using locally developed instruments. The purpose of the current study was to examine the amount of rapid-guessing behavior within a commercially available, low-stakes instrument. Results indicate that smaller amounts of rapid-guessing behavior exist within the data compared to published results using other instruments. Additionally, rapid-guessing behavior varied by item and was significantly related to item length, item position, and presence of ancillary reading material. The amount of rapid-guessing behavior was consistently very low among various demographic subpopulations. On average, rapid-guessing behavior was observed on only 1% of item responses. Also found was that a small amount of rapid-guessing behavior can impact institutional rankings.