Literature and poetry

On native ground: memoirs and impressions. Jim Barnes, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997, 279 pages, $27.95 (hardcover). ISBN 0–8061–2898–4.

Caucasia. Danzy Senna, New York: Putnam Publishing Group, 1998, 353 pages, $24.95 (hardcover). ISBN 1–5732–2091–4.

Boyhood, Growing Up Male: A Multicultural Anthology (2nd ed.). Franklin Abbott (Ed.), Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998, 279 pages, $15.95 (softcover). ISBN 0–2991–5754–7.

Readings in African Popular Culture. Karin Barber (Ed.), Bloomington, IN: International African Institute in association with Indiana University Press, 1997, 192 pages plus index, $18.95 (soft‐cover), $45.00 (clothcover). ISBN 0–2532–1140–9 (softcover); 0–2533–3294‐X (clothcover). For orders, phone 1–800–842–6796.     

Edging Towards the Twenty First Century: Oxford and the North Commission of Inquiry

The University of Oxford has established a Commission of Inquiry, chaired by its Vice-Chancellor, to define the University's role in the Twenty-First Century. The purpose of this article is to explore the context within which the Commission has emerged and to suggest that it needs to tackle three broad tasks: to define the central purposes of the University, to show how it should be organized to achieve those purposes, and to consider how its activities are to be financed. The article ennumerates the problems that the Commission must tackle while addressing these tasks, and makes suggestions as to its likely recommendations. It concludes by raising the possibility that Oxford's attempt to define its role may help to generate a much needed debate on the future shape of higher education in Britain.     

Who Will Speak for the Universities? The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals in the Age of Mass Higher Education

Since the demise of the University Grants Committee (UGC) the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) has had an opportunity to forge a new relationship to the state. While the Committee has continued to engage in elite negotiations with state institutions such as the funding and research councils, it has also become an active pressure group exerting its influence upon the political process in general. Perhaps more interesting than the recent change in the CVCP's role is the way in which, given the expansion of the university sector following the passage of the Further and Higher Education Act, 1992, it will develop in the future. This future role, so the article argues, is dependent upon the interaction of two factors: the nature of the funding context imposed by government, and the ability of the Committee to sustain its own internal cohesion. The article poses alternative outcomes dependent upon contrasting interpretations as to how these two variables could develop.     

Young adult literature and the test of time

For young adult literature, a generation is not thirty years, but four or five. Books that last for several generations do so because of inherent qualities, including well-drawn characters, important themes intelligently explored, and richness of language. But they also survive because they are studied by researchers and used in college and school literature classes. Ted Hipple, a founder and past president of ALAN (the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English), currently serves that organization as its executive secretary. A professor of education at the University of Tennessee, Hipple has written widely about young adult literature.     

Responding to the Message: providing a social context for children learning to write

Abstract In this classroom‐based research study, written expression was viewed as an interactive social process involving written communication between the teacher and the children. Children received increased opportunities to write on topics they chose themselves, and their teacher responded in writing to the content of their writing. The teacher did not provide corrective feedback for accuracy of spelling or grammar throughout the study. Written content feedback from the teacher was provided to each child according to an intra‐subject ABAB research design. Analysis of the teacher's written feedback identified her use of six specific categories of positive response to the themes, ideas and characters of each child's writing. Significant increases in both quantity and quality of writing occurred during the written content feedback phases. Spelling accuracy was maintained at a high level of accuracy throughout the study.     

Is Self‐worth Protection Best Regarded as Intentional Self‐handicapping Behaviour or an Outcome of Choking Under Pressure?

Self‐worth protective students characteristically perform poorly when they anticipate that poor performance is likely to reveal low ability, yet perform well in situations that involve little threat to self‐worth. The present study sought a further understanding of this variable pattern of achievement, assessing two possibilities: (1) that the poor performance of students high in self‐worth protection in situations of high evaluative threat is appropriately viewed as self‐handicapping behaviour in the form of strategic withdrawal of effort, and (2) that the poor performance of students high in self‐worth protection is an outcome of anxiety or “choking under pressure”. Participants were 72 undergraduate students, either high or low in self‐worth protection, assigned to one of three performance feedback conditions: humiliating failure, failure allowing face‐saving, and success. They subsequently completed 20 anagrams and 12 remote associates tasks, assessing performance, followed by 16 unicursal tasks during what was believed to be a practice period, providing an assessment of behavioural self‐handicapping in the form of intentional low effort. Students high in self‐worth protection performed poorly on the anagrams and remote associates following humiliating failure. They also reported greater anxiety across experimental conditions and claimed greater anxiety impairment than students low in self‐worth protection. These outcomes provide little support for an interpretation of self‐worth protection as self‐handicapping behaviour, instead supporting an interpretation of self‐worth protection as an outcome of choking under pressure, fuelled by evaluative threat.     

Research on the effectiveness of computer-based instruction: A review

This article reviews the research on the effectiveness of computer-based instruction (CBI) conducted over the past two decades. Using student achievement as a dependent measure, research on CBI is reviewed under the headings of evaluative studies, summaries of the proportion of studies favourable and unfavourable to CBI (‘box-score reviews’) and meta-analyses. Conclusions are drawn as to the effectiveness of CBI with regard to academic and social achievement. Finally, a cost-analysis of CBI is provided.