Designing informal learning experiences for early career academics using a knowledge ecosystem model

This article presents a ‘knowledge ecosystem’ model of how early career academics experience using information to learn while building their social networks for developmental purposes. Developed using grounded theory methodology, the model offers a way of conceptualising how to empower early career academics through (1) agency (individual and relational) and (2) facilitation of personalised informal learning (design of physical and virtual systems and environments) in spaces where developmental relationships are formed, including programmes, courses, events, community, home and social media. It is suggested that the knowledge ecosystem model is suitable for use in designing informal learning experiences for early career academics.     

Predicting transition and adjustment to college: biomedical and behavioral science aspirants’ and minority students’ first year of college

The purpose of this study is to explore key factors that impact the college transition of aspiring underrepresented minority students in the biomedical and behavioral sciences, in comparison with White, Asian students and non-science minority students. We examined successful management of the academic environment and sense of belonging during the first college year. Longitudinal data were derived from the Higher Education Research Institute’s (HERI) 2004 Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey and the 2005 Your First College Year (YFCY) Survey. Using a reformulation of the integration model (Nora, Barlow, and Crisp, 2005), we find concerns about college financing, negotiating family support and responsibility, and campus racial dynamics (perceived and behavioral) affect student adjustment and sense of integration in the first year. This study was made possible by the support of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH Grant Number 1 RO1 GMO71968-01. This independent research and the views expressed here do not indicate endorsement by the sponsor.     

Parent question use during shared reading time: How does training affect question type and frequency?

This study was designed to examine whether participation in a shared reading workshop alters the frequency with which parents ask their children questions during book reading sessions, particularly questions designed to strengthen component reading skills that they may not have known about before training. Participants in the reading workshop series (N = 57) were taught strategies for asking questions about story content and word structure to build children's language and literacy skills. Findings suggest that parents may be somewhat familiar with traditional dialogic reading strategies focused on story content and utilize them without instruction, whereas parents may be less knowledgeable about sound or print‐focused skills and do not employ strategies focused on word structure until instructed to do so. It is also notable that parents do not use all story content prompts equally. This information can be used by school psychologists to refine the messages educators share with parents about how to best support their children's reading development.     

Constituting information technology research: the experience of IT researchers

The collective consciousness of effective groups of researchers is characterized by shared understandings of their research object or territory. In this study, we adopted a phenomenographic approach to investigate information technology (IT) research, and its objects and territories, as they are constituted in the experience of IT researchers. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with researchers representing different sub‐disciplines. Analysis revealed the variation in meaning associated with the idea of IT research; and the awareness structures through which participants experience variation in ways of seeing the object and territories of IT research. Eight ways of seeing IT research were found. The outcomes of our project appear to make visible the changes and developments that are an essential part of the character and experience of contemporary IT research.     

What makes a skilled writer? Working memory and audience awareness during text composition

This study investigated the role of working memory capacity as a factor for individual differences in the ability to compose a text with communicative efficiency based on audience awareness. We analyzed its differential effects on the dynamics of the writing processes, as well as on the content of the finished product. Twenty-five graduate students composed a procedural text explaining how to assemble a model turbine. They were free to consult a documentary source, featuring captioned pictures of turbine parts and assembly steps, at any time. Graphomotor and eye movements were recorded using ‘Eye and Pen’ software with an eye-tracker and digitizing tablet. Results showed that high WM capacity writers used a different strategy to explore the visual source, making longer writing pauses and producing more detailed procedures, and achieved the communicative goal more efficiently, by introducing more reader supports. In conclusion, we discuss the feasibility of audience awareness training.     

ROLF—an open learning delivery system

The Resourced Open Learning Facility (ROLF) has been developed by the UK Skills Training Agency (STA) as a means of delivering off-the-job skill training in the national network of 60 skillcentres. STA introduced ROLF as a pilot scheme in six skillcentres at a time when the government was introducing a new programme for the long-term unemployed (Employment Training). The authors evaluated the pilot scheme and concluded that ROLF was working well for low achieving adults. ROLF is also important because it is a systematic approach to open learning delivery in a chain of centres under the same management. Most educational technology literature about open learning features materials, rather than delivery.     

Effects of breakfast with different calorigenic amounts on blood glucose,insulin and glucagon levels

SUBJECTSANDMETHODSSubjectsTwenty four 2 1to 2 4yearsoldhealthymedi calstudentsenrolledinZhejiangUniversityCol legeofMedicinevolunteeredforthestudy .Theyconsistedof1 1malesand 1 3femalesweightsallwithinthenormalrangefortheirheightaccordingtoChinesenorms.Me…     

The effect of adaptivity on the reliability coefficient in adaptive comparative judgement

Comparative Judgement (CJ) is an increasingly widely investigated method in assessment for creating a scale, for example of the quality of essays. One area that has attracted attention in CJ studies is the optimisation of the selection of pairs of objects for judgement. One approach is known as adaptive comparative judgement (ACJ). It has been claimed in the literature that ACJ produces very high reliability, often higher than can be obtained by conventional marking. Bramley showed by simulation that adaptivity can substantially inflate the apparent reliability in ACJ. The empirical study described here compared an adaptive with a non-adaptive CJ study using GCSE English essays. An all-play-all set of comparisons of a subset of the essays allowed the extent of scale inflation to be quantified: the reported adaptive reliability was 0.97 whereas the deflated value was 0.84. The value from the non-adaptive study was 0.72. However, the scale from the non-adaptive study correlated slightly higher with external variables, suggesting the non-adaptive study was no less valid than the adaptive one.