Going the Distance for Grads: What Online Graduate Students Want from the Library

With new program additions and changes to existing graduate programs, librarians at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas were interested in investigating if students taking online courses were successful in accessing the library services and instruction. A survey was created that included all types of graduate students (fully online to fully in-person) to identify how they accessed the library and how confident they were in finding resources. The results of this survey have provided the researchers insight regarding successful strategies and where we need to improve; where distance learners are struggling more than on-campus students; and how we need to create varied approaches to disseminate library information and instruction. The study has also opened up communication and stronger collaborations with teaching faculty and instructional designers to better integrate the libraries into the curriculum. To help make findings more generalizable, the researchers aligned them with the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Standards for Distance Learning Library Services.     

Spelling development in Arabic as a foreign language among native Hebrew speaking pupils

It has been suggested that linguistic proximity affects the ease of acquisition between typologically similar languages, due to the fact that the languages have shared phonological and orthographic properties (Koda, 2008). Thus, a native Hebrew speaker learning Arabic as a foreign language (AFL) would be expected to easily develop linguistic proficiency. This study examined the developmental trajectory for spelling in AFL among native Hebrew speaking adolescents, with specific attention to the development of accurate representations for four novel phonemes and their graphic symbols ( ). The sample included eighth (N = 119), ninth (N = 125), and tenth graders (N = 91). We were further interested in examining the contribution of orthographic as opposed to phonological knowledge to spelling in AFL. Five experimental tasks were created for the study: real word recognition, orthographic sensitivity, auditory discrimination, and dictation of real and pseudowords. Findings for the eighth grade replicated earlier findings for real word spelling (Fragman & Russak, 2010) showing 20 % accuracy scores. While spelling accuracy improved by tenth grade, scores remained extremely low (25 %). Lexical representations for the four novel phonemes tested were also generally low, with different levels of accuracy for each phoneme. It is possible that the difficulties were the result of interference from shared linguistic elements. Finally, it was found that both orthographic as well as phonological knowledge contribute to real and pseudoword spelling. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to language teaching policy and pedagogy.     

Engineering students' use of computer assisted learning (CAL)

This study examines the use of Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) by undergraduate engineering students studying a business and management course. Discussing both the relationship between management and engineering and CAL applied to engineering education, this study is based on a survey of 82 undergraduates and adopts a quantitative research methodology. The results suggest that engineering students generally displayed positive attitudes towards CAL and that increased use of CAL improved course performance where it matched exactly the course assessment format. On the basis of this survey, the authors go on to consider the use of CAL in teaching engineering students business and management subjects at university.

Cet article étude comment les étudiants de l'ingénierie utilisent l'enseignement assisté par ordinateur dans les études de gestion. L'article est fondé sur un sondage parmi quatre-vingt deux étudiants et une méthodologie de recherche quantitative. Il traite aussi le rapport entre l'ingénierie et la gestion et le rôle de l'enseignement assisté par ordinateur dans le cadre des études techniques. Les résultats semblent indiquer, qu'en général, les étudiants de l'ingénierie considèrent que l'enseignement assisté par ordinateur a un valeur educatif. De plus, l'enseignement assisté par ordinateur semble promouvoir une amélioration en matière de résultats, pourvu que les formats du logiciel et les contrôles soient les mêmes.     

Introducing the Microcomputer into English. III. An evaluation of TRAY as a program using problem-solving as a strategy for developing reading skills

The models of reading and learning that underlie TRAY are examined, and criteria for selecting texts for classroom use identified. The kinds of language activities characteristic of groups using TRAY are described, and 15 categories of language activity are identified. The results of an analysis of the language activities of three groups are presented. The kinds of learning that are encouraged by TRAY are considered. Pupil and teacher evaluations are found to be favourable. TRAY is concluded to be an example of a good, content-free, problem-solving language development program.     

Humor: A preventive health strategy

Some functions of humor in the counselling process are presented as a preface to a discussion of the role that a humorous life attitude can play in mental health. The author suggests that facilitating the development of client humor constitutes a preventive health strategy in promoting coping behaviours and developing social support systems.Paper presented at the XIIIth International Round Table for the Advancement of Counselling.     

The Contribution of Naming Speed to the Simple View of Reading

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether naming speed makes a contribution to the prediction of reading comprehension, after taking into account the product of word decoding and listening comprehension (i.e., the Simple View of Reading; [Gough, P.B. & Tunmer, W.E. (1986). Remedial and Special Education 7, 6–10]), and phonological awareness. In grade 3, word decoding was measured with the Woodcock [(1998). Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests – Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Services]. Word Identification and Word Attack subtests, listening comprehension with the Woodcock (1991) [Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery – Revised. Chicago: Riverside Publishing Company] test of Listening Comprehension, naming speed with a picture naming task, and 4 measures assessed phonological awareness. Reading comprehension was assessed in grades 3, 4, and 5 with the Woodcock (1998) Passage Comprehension subtest and in grade 5 with the Gates–MacGinitie reading test. The Simple View was evaluated twice: first, with a pseudoword measure for decoding (Grapheme–Phoneme-conversion product) and, second, with a word identification measure for decoding (word recognition product). Hierarchical regression and commonality analyses indicated that the decoding and listening comprehension products accounted for considerable variance in reading comprehension. Naming speed had a small but significant effect after accounting for the Grapheme–Phoneme-conversion product (2–3%), but little effect after accounting for the word-recognition product (0–2%). Subgroup analyses indicated that naming speed had its primary effect for less able readers. Commonality analyses supported the interpretation that naming speed contributes after the Grapheme–Phoneme-conversion product but not after the word recognition product because naming speed has already had its effect upon word recognition. These results indicate that it is important how the Simple View decoding term is defined, and that the Simple View may be incomplete, especially for less able readers.     

Reverberating chords: implications of storied nostalgia for borderland discourses in pre-service teacher identity

The research that is the subject of this paper set out to interrogate pre-service teachers’ responses to issues of national identity, ideology, and representation in contemporary multicultural Canadian picture books. While the research focused on whether and how the literature could serve to inform and broaden pre-service teachers’ conceptualizations of diversity, we retrospectively decided to re-visit the focus group and interview data to know which of the 70 picture books had most engaged the teachers and why. We critically consider the implications of teachers’ attachments for social justice education and teachers’ cultivation of a critical, ‘borderlands’ discourse aware of self and open to others. The research suggests that a significant source of teacher knowledge and thinking is lodged in teachers’ personal memories of childhood texts, called touchstones. Touchstones were a place from which teachers implicitly began; certain stories struck particular chords, chords largely attributable to childhood memories. Most intertextual connections were personal, with some tangential to the text. While touchstones performed different functions depending on the subject position of the pre-service teachers, they pointed to the existence of an underlying position of teacher as nostalgic subject. Given the importance of this subject position for teachers’ responses to picture books, we explore critical reconceptualizations of nostalgia that can support the development of borderland discourses. We suggest that pre-service teachers need to be invited to individually and collectively examine their responses to both old and new touchstone stories. More nuanced research also needs to be conducted on the role of nostalgia in teacher formation, how it influences teacher practice, and how to best design teacher education courses to foster ‘borderland discourses’ related to the storying of teacher identity, especially with respect to popular ‘collectibles’ and core teaching texts like picture books.