A Complex Case: Using the case study method to explore uncertainty and ambiguity in undergraduate business education

The case method is a definitive and foundational technology in business education. It was first developed as a vocational training tool equipping students for future employment. In this conception, the organisation was seen as a machine, and managers as the engineers who would maintain it through planned interventions. The case method allowed aspiring managers to practise intervention skills in a safe environment. Since the origins of the case method in US business schools before the First World War, conceptions of organisations have moved on. They are no longer seen as machine-like, but as complex, ambiguous, and protean. The 'wicked' problems that potential managers will face in an uncertain world require the development of critical thinking and sensemaking abilities. While the traditional approach to the case continues, its use as a vehicle to explore and manage complexity and ambiguity is emerging, although this is facing resistance from some students and staff.     

The Latest Research on Conceptual Change from Developmental Psychology

Science & Education -     

The Indirect Association Between Television Exposure and Self-Protective Behavior as a Result of Worry About Crime: The Moderating Role of Gender

Persistent fear of crime can have serious consequences for one’s social behavior. Previous research has shown that people who fear crime are more likely to engage in self-protective behavior. Although a substantial amount of research has examined the relationship between television exposure and fear of crime, research on the association between television exposure and self-protective behavior is scarce. Based on cultivation theory and the mediated fear model, the current study aimed to examine whether news and crime drama television viewing are indirectly related to self-protective behavior via fear of crime. Structural equation modeling of data from 392 undergraduate students showed that news viewing and crime drama viewing is indirectly associated with self-protective behavior. The current study provided evidence for the importance of accounting for gender when investigating the complex issue of media effects on fear of crime and self-protective behavior.     

Developing Teaching Best Practice—Pedagogy,Preferences, and Professional Development

This column examines advances in public services internal and external to libraries. The focus is on how public services, such as instruction and education, programming, research consulting, and circulation evolve and impact users. The strength of the column is its broad, international focus and contributors are encouraged to explore issues and recent advances in public services relevant to their geographical region, as well as the larger, global audience. Interested authors are invited to submit proposals and articles to the column editor at andrea.falcone@ucdenver.edu     

Transitions to becoming a teacher on an initial teacher education and training programme

This article is based on research with a group of one‐year Postgraduate Certificate in Education secondary trainee teachers during their initial teacher education and training in England. It considers tensions between trainees’ prior experiences and conceptions of teaching and their training programme. In doing so, it seeks to examine how a trainee’s dispositions as revealed through practice in various contexts are reflective of Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’. Associated with this, the paper also examines how particular forms of pre‐existing cultural capital and manifestations of biographical identity also pre‐dispose trainees to form affinities and disaffinities within particular fields. Lacanian concepts of the symbolic, imaginary and real are used to help explain how trainee teachers articulate resonance and dissonance during their field experiences, particularly in relation to ontological concerns of securing a professional stable sense of self.     

Construct Validity of Self-Reported Metacognitive Learning Strategies

Despite their significant contributions to research on self-regulated learning, those favoring online and trace approaches have questioned the use of self-report to assess learners' use of learning strategies. An important rejoinder to such criticisms consists of examining the validity of self-report items. The present study was designed to assess the validity of items to assess 9th-grade students' use of planning, monitoring, and regulation when studying math. To establish response process evidence of construct validity, cognitive interviews were coded to determine whether students' interpretations of the items were consistent with their intended meaning and whether their response choices were congruent with those interpretations. Evidence supported the construct validity of monitoring and regulation items, but to a lesser degree those designed to assess planning. We discuss implications of the evidence for the self-report assessment of learners' use of metacognitive strategies.     

Reading Instruction for English Learners in the Middle Grades: a Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis synthesizes the last two decades of experimental and quasi-experimental research on reading instruction across academic contexts (e.g., social studies, science, mathematics, English language arts) for English learners (ELs) in grades 4 through 8, to determine (a) the overall effectiveness of reading instruction for upper elementary and middle school students who are ELs and (b) how the magnitude of the effect varies based on student, instructional, and study characteristics. The analysis included a total of 11 studies with 46 individual effect sizes and yielded a mean effect size of g?=?0.35 across all (i.e., standardized and unstandardized) reading measures, g?=?0.01 across standardized reading measures, and g?=?0.43 across unstandardized reading measures. For all reading, unstandardized reading, all vocabulary, and unstandardized vocabulary measures, results suggest that higher quality studies tended to have smaller effects, and these effects were even more evident for unstandardized measures (i.e., one unit increase in study quality was associated with decreased effects: g?=?0.21, g?=?0.30, g?=?0.24, g?=?0.30, respectively). For all comprehension measures, effects were larger for instruction that included both vocabulary and comprehension (g?=?0.39) than for instruction that focused on vocabulary alone (g?=?0.08). Results suggest the benefit of developing and refining high-impact approaches to reading instruction for ELs that can be delivered across content areas and grades.     

Potentiation of responding on a VR schedule by a stimulus correlated with reinforcement: Effects of diffuse and localized signals

In Experiment 1, rats were trained to leverpress on a variable ratio (VR) 30 schedule with a 500-msec delay between the reinforced response and food delivery. Subjects that experienced a signal during the delay responded faster than did control subjects that received the stimulus un-correlated with reinforcement. Higher response rates were obtained when the stimulus used to signal reinforcement was auditory rather than visual. Experiments 2 and 3 compared the effects of signaling reinforcement with either a localized or a diffuse light on responding maintained by VR schedules of reinforcement. Elevated response rates were observed with the diffuse stimulus, but the localized stimulus failed to produce such potentiation. Experiment 3 also examined the conditioned reinforcing power of localized and diffuse visual stimuli. These results are discussed with reference to (1) theories of selective association and sign tracking and (2) their implications for current theories of signaling reinforcement.