Educational Television in Iceland: the availability and utilisation of video resources in schools

The results of a survey into the provision and extent of use of video resources in Icelandic schools is given. While all schools at primary and secondary level are provided with at least one television and video recorder, the utilisation of video resources is relatively low. Due in part to the absence of off‐air reception facilities in most Icelandic schools, the use of video is mainly via videocassettes borrowed from the National Centre for Educational Media. The future policy for ETV in Icelandic schools is considered in terms of the provision of production facilities and training needs.     

An application of cluster analysis to the study of organisation in a College of Education

As part of a wider study of organisation in a large College of Education, fifty-seven established staff members were interviewed and completed an Osgood-type instrument. The data from this instrument was subjected to Principal Components Analysis, and cluster analysis was used on the distance matrix calculated from the resulting component specifications. It is concluded that the clusters of staff members thus empirically identified are meaningful and consistent with interview responses and observational data. If internal staff groupings can be satisfactorily identified in relation to major issues in the enterprise by the use of such techniques, a useful tool for organisational analysis has been achieved, which holds out the hope that the internal politics of enterprises may be brought within the bounds of empirical research.     

Shock intensity and warning signal effects on several measures of operant avoidance acquisition

Acquisition of both signaled and unsignaled operant avoidance learning was studied in 64 rats as a function of shock intensity, with three different warning signals used in the signaled procedure. In both signaled and unsignaled avoidance, overall response rate was a progressively increasing function of shock intensity. This was due to both an absolute and relative increase in the frequency of responses at shorter interresponse times with increasing shock intensity. Presence of an effective warning signal in the interval immediately preceding shock increased the probability of an avoidance response in this interval, decreased overall response rate, and reduced shock frequency. A buzzer signal proved most effective, followed by tone and light. However, once a warning signal occurred, the probability of an avoidance response to the signal was virtually independent of shock intensity. Also, an index of avoidance efficiency proved to be inversely related to shock intensity.