Training myths: False beliefs that limit the efficiency and effectiveness of training solutions,part 1

This article questions commonly held beliefs about training as a component of performance improvement solutions. Rather than being based on theoretical and empirical support, many beliefs about training are based on little more than myth. Part 1 of this article presents myths about the relationship of training and performance and myths about determining training content. Training fails when the performance problem is caused by something other than a lack of knowledge or skill. And it is compromised when we fail to include only the essential content.     

Anonymity

Anonymity is a form of nonidentifiability which I define as noncoordinatability of traits in a given respect. This definition broadens the concept, freeing it from its primary association with naming. I analyze different ways anonymity can be realized. I also discuss some ethical issues, such as privacy, accountability and other values which anonymity may serve or undermine. My theory can also conceptualize anonymity in information systems where, for example, privacy and accountability are at issue.     

Removal of mercury from solutions of mercuric nitrate by mercuric sulfide

The removal of mercury from dilute solutions of mercuric nitrate by mercuric sulfide is indicative of an adsorption process. The relation of log $\text{x}\text{m}$ vs. log C shows that the Freundlich adsorption isotherm exists.At higher concentrations of mercuric nitrate a reaction takes place with the mercuric sulfide forming a compound of the possible formula 2HgS·Hg(NO₃)₂ mercuric nitratodisulfide.     

Museums on the world wide web: A survey and analysis of sixteen institutions

Conclusion Unfortunately, for all four types of museums surveyed, the amount of digitized object offerings is not as robust as one would hope or expect. And, it is not entirely clear as to why this is the case. Copyright concerns? Cost issues? Unclear benefits? While museums may have sound justifications at this point in not offering a wide assortment of images, there is no clear reason why documentation was found to be so often lacking. Documentation is one of the crucial areas in the networked digital environment. It can help ensure that issues such as authenticity and ownership are well-managed in the digital realm. The WWW would also appear to provide an ideal mechanism through which to host non-current exhibitions, providing over future years rich collection tools of continuously available highly structured content.     

Up Against the Wall: Psychometrics Meets Praxis

In this article, two school administrators argue that care must be taken to fit the specifics of a testing program to Its intended purpose. Specifically, they argue that the purposes of testing for diagnosing individual student teaming and for school evaluation should not be confused. They suggest that while typical systemwide testing programs may provide useful evaluative information, they suffer from several characteristics that make them hardly useful as sources of diagnostic information for guiding instruction in individual teachers' classes.     

Learning from inquiry‐based laboratories in nonmajor biology: An interpretive study of the relationships among inquiry experience,epistemologies, and conceptual growth

The use of inquiry‐based laboratory in college science classes is on the rise. This study investigated how five nonmajor biology students learned from an inquiry‐based laboratory experience. Using interpretive data analysis, the five students' conceptual ecologies, learning beliefs, and science epistemologies were explored. Findings indicated that students with constructivist learning beliefs tended to add more meaningful conceptual understandings during inquiry labs than students with positivist learning beliefs. All students improved their understanding of experiment in biology. Implications for the teaching of biology labs are discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 40: 986–1024, 2003     

Curriculum Reform and the Case of the Disappearing Agents

It is an irony that, as the educational world has come to recognise the value of school or district‐based teacher leaders, many teachers have become wary of involvement in activities which take them beyond their own classrooms or schools. The problem becomes particularly apparent in centrally organised curriculum reform efforts that call for a cadre of teachers to be co‐opted to act as ‘link’ or ‘lighthouse’ teachers. This paper examines these issues in the context of an Australian state‐wide physics curriculum project in which a ‘pyramid’ implementation model required a group of school‐based ‘link’ or ‘lighthouse’ teachers to work as change agents in district school clusters. The study focused on the motivations of those teachers who chose, and those who chose not, to become involved. It reports a number of critical distinctions, in both experience and motivation, between these two groups of teachers. These differences are analysed as a set of interlocking themes: personal meaning, professional history, ownership, rewards, professional autonomy and gender.