The “right kind of telling”: knowledge building in the academic design studio

Studio-based instruction, as traditionally enacted in design disciplines such as architecture, product design, graphic design, and the like, consists of dedicated desk space for each student, extended time blocks allocated to studio classes, and classroom interactions characterized by independent and group work on design problems supplemented by frequent public and individual critiques. Although the surface features and pedagogy of the studio have been well-documented, relatively little attention has been paid to student and teacher participation structures through which design knowledge is co-produced among instructors and students within the studio. The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of faculty?Cstudent interactions through which students learn to think and act as designers. To that end, we have collected and analyzed ethnographic data from five studio classrooms across three design disciplines (architecture, industrial design, and human?Ccomputer interaction). Our findings provide insight as to the ways that dialogue??the ??right kind of telling????and particular social practices in the studio support students as they learn to solve ill-structured design problems while being simultaneously inducted into practices that reflect the professional world of their discipline. In each of the studio classrooms, the instructors were able to create an environment where students and faculty practiced reflection-in-action and listening-in as a form of intentional participation, design knowledge was conveyed through modeling and meta-discussions, and focused assignments and in-progress critiques enhanced opportunities for the individual and group processes through which design knowledge was co-constructed in these studio classrooms.     

Everyday pedagogical practices in mathematical play situations in German “Kindergarten”

This study describes situations in German daycare facilities (Kindergarten) in which the development of mathematical thinking in children is specifically encouraged through examination of common play objects. Using micro-sociological methods of analysis, the mathematical potential of such interactions between teacher and child is elaborated within the framework of everyday pedagogical practices (Bruner, 1996) and instructional models (Rogoff; Mind, Cult Activ 1(4): 209–229, 1994). It is also considered which concepts of mathematics may be important in these interactions.     

Performance of conceptual framework elements for the retrieval of qualitative health literature: a case study

Objective:A growing volume of studies address methods for performing systematic reviews of qualitative studies. One such methodological aspect is the conceptual framework used to structure the review question and plan the search strategy for locating relevant studies. The purpose of this case study was to evaluate the retrieval potential of each element of conceptual frameworks in qualitative systematic reviews in the health sciences.Methods:The presence of elements from conceptual frameworks in publication titles, abstracts, and controlled vocabulary in CINAHL and PubMed was analyzed using a set of qualitative reviews and their included studies as a gold standard. Using a sample of 101 publications, we determined whether particular publications could be retrieved if a specific element from the conceptual framework was used in the search strategy.Results:We found that the relative recall of conceptual framework elements varied considerably, with higher recall for patient/population (99%) and research type (97%) and lower recall for intervention/phenomenon of interest (74%), outcome (79%), and context (61%).Conclusion:The use of patient/population and research type elements had high relative recall for qualitative studies. However, other elements should be used with great care due to lower relative recall.     

Transformational Leadership and Communication Style of Finnish CEOs

This study focuses on the communication style of transformational leaders. Seven different communication styles were established and labeled: emotionally intelligent, impatient, controlled, insecure, avoiding, dominating, and transparent. Responses from 216 Finnish CEOs indicate that certain communication styles are connected with transformational leadership, including the emotionally intelligent, the transparent, and the controlled styles.     

土壤肥力变化的社会经济影响因素分析

自然过程和人类活动是影响土壤质量演变的两大因素，而人们的农业生产行为对农田土壤肥力的影响日益加深。中国人口众多，土壤资源有限，其80年代初以来的农地土壤肥力变化备受世人关注。同时中国农村的经济、制度、政策发生了深刻的变化。本文利用80年代初和2000年的土壤肥力数据以及相应的社会经济调查数据，试图揭示自农村改革以来可能影响土壤肥力变化的社会经济和政策因素及其相互关系。初步分析表明，经济发展水平对土壤肥力提高有一定促进作用，耕地资源禀赋则相反。现行土地产权制度与土壤肥力变化之间没有表现出某种明显的相关关系。20年来中国农地的复种指数变化没有破坏土壤肥力，反而因复种指数微略下降而改善土壤肥力。同时近年来秸秆还田的增加有助于提高土壤有机质含量。