What is a real story? Investigating the perceptions of Key Stage One children

This small‐scale piece of research stemmed from a larger study on oral storytelling and the responses of children to stories told and read to them. In the larger study several children expressed preferences for stories from picture books, as told stories were not real stories. This concept of real stories and what constitutes a real story in the eyes of an infant child, aged between five and seven years, is what led to the basis of the research. One hundred and thirty‐five children between the ages of five and seven years old were involved in the research. The investigation was conducted in three different schools in South Wales, UK. It was hoped that the research would give some insights into the literacy habits of children today. The children were asked some basic questions about home practices relating to storytelling and story‐reading and about preferences in relation to oral stories and picture books. Finally they were asked if they thought oral tales were real stories. This essay gives an overview of some of the literacy practices of the children and deliberates on their comments as they wrestle with the concept of a real story.     

Contemporary Classics? The Early Onset of Influence of Articles Published in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals, 2010–2015

Citation analysis is a valuable method for tracking the growth and transmission of scientific knowledge. In criminology and criminal justice, such analyses tend to be focused on “classic” works or on highly cited scholars over many years. As an alternative approach, we focus on work that has been cited rather quickly – what we term the “early onset” of impact. In doing so, we identified 221 of the most highly cited peer-reviewed articles, authored by 480 scholars, which were published in criminology and criminal justice journals between 2010 and 2015. Analyses reveal wide variation in substantive topics and methodological approaches, as well as a substantial gender gap with respect to authorship. Additional analyses provide insight into both journal and institutional/program prestige. We conclude with directions for future research and stress the importance of tracking over time articles that appear to be off to an early start with respect to scholarly impact.     

Lesbian,gay, bisexual,and transgender college students with disabilities: A look at multiple cultural minorities

College students with disabilities who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) represent diverse cultural minorities with multiple service needs involving disabilities, identities, and adjustment strategies. These students are usually accommodated in the college environment because of their disability while simultaneously marginalized based on their sexual orientation. This article discusses LGBT college students with disabilities as multiple cultural minorities with a focus on educational environments, institutional issues, and strategies for university personnel. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Teaching Basic Science and Clinical Medicine at a distance: An Evaluation of Satellite Communication

The evaluation plan arid preliminary results are reported for the ATS‐6 Satellite interactive telecommunication program for teaching at sites remote from an established medical school. The technical aspects of the system were seen as quite adequate and did not appear to substantially inhibit interaction. In the Fairbanks broadcasts analyzed, the average number of interactions ranged from 1.49 to 2.60 per minute. Ninety percent of the interaction flowed across the Satellite during Omak transmissions. Participants tended to initiate communication when they were on camera rather than when viewing their counterparts. Omak participants directed a higher percentage of the communication in student/resident programs (70%) than in faculty continuing education programs (59%). Interaction analysis indicated the categories of giving opinion, information, and suggestion were most frequent. Asking for opinion and suggestion occurred infrequently. The most frequent emotional expression was offering solidarity (e.g., reassurance), while there were exceedingly few expressions of disagreement, tension and antagonism. User acceptance of the system was determined to be very high. Participants with frequent exposure to the Satellite modality tended to have positive reaction. A significant difference in knowledge gain is reported in one of two basic science areas taught via Satellite as compared to regular instruction.     

Accounting for Model Uncertainty in the Prediction of University Graduation Rates

Empirical analysis requires researchers to choose which variables to use as controls in their models. Theory should dictate this choice, yet often in social science there are several theories that may suggest the inclusion or exclusion of certain variables as controls. The result of this is that researchers may use different variables in their models and come to disparate conclusions with respect to predicted effects and their statistical significance. In such cases one is uncertain of which particular set of regressors forms the model that represents the data. The approach used below accounts for uncertainty in variable selection by using Bayesian model averaging (BMA). Accounting for uncertainty, we demonstrate that BMA provides better out-of-sample prediction for university graduation rates than results based on alternative variable selection methods.     

A matched cohort comparison of a criminal justice system's response to child sexual abuse: a profile of perpetrators

OBJECTIVE: This study was undertaken to examine whether alleged child sexual abuse perpetrators are handled differently by the courts than other alleged felony perpetrators. Comparisons were made from the time of prosecutorial case acceptance through prosecution to sentencing, with emphasis on judicial and prosecutorial decision-making and plea-bargaining. METHOD: Data were retrospectively abstracted on the entire defendant population of cases of sexual abuse of children and adolescents (ages 2-17) over a 5-year period. Using a case-flow analysis, comparisons were made between a child sexual abuse cohort and a cohort of matched felony cases from a single jurisdiction. RESULTS: Three important findings emerged. First, compared to other felons, abuse perpetrators were employed, had been married, were mostly European American, and were older than 30 years of age. Second, in the abuse cohort, as many as 14% had a previous sexual or violent record compared to 2% in the comparison group. Third, similar percentages of perpetrators in both groups were released on their own recognizance, had the charges against them dropped, and were found guilty. As well, no differences between groups were found in the proportion of individuals sentenced to jail, probation, counseling, or work release. CONCLUSIONS: Although the treatment of perpetrators of child sexual abuse was similar to the treatment of perpetrators of other felonies, the profile of the child abuse perpetrator was quite different. Knowledge about this profile may impact prosecution or treatment and recidivism rates, to the extent that recidivism is related to characteristics of the abuse perpetrator.     

Relational and Physical Aggression among Preschoolers: The Effect of Language Skills and Gender

This study examined the relation between language skills, gender, and relational/ physical aggression. Language skills of 100 preschoolers were assessed with 3 standardized instruments. Relational/physical aggression was rated by the children's teachers. Results indicated that relational and physical aggression tended to increase as language scores decreased. When the alternative form of aggression was held constant, girls' expressive language skills predicted relational aggression more than boys', and receptive language skills predicted physical aggression more than relational aggression, especially for boys. Classroom variables predicted relational aggression more than physical aggression. Results suggest that receptive and expressive language are important in predicting form and level of aggression. Implications for early identification of girls at risk for problem behavior in the preschool years are discussed.     

Biot's paper and Arago's plates. Photographic practice and the transparency of representation

Fran?ois Arago and Jean-Baptiste Biot, two of the physicists most involved in early photography, mobilized this new technology for their ongoing debates about the proper boundaries of the public in France. Each threw his weight behind one of the competing photographic processes, Arago supporting daguerrian silver plates and Biot favoring paper soaked in silver solution. For both men, disagreement at the level of materials and techniques was further bound up with disagreement about what kind of visual evidence the photograph was and who was capable of understanding it. Biot argued for a severely restricted community of photographic practitioners. His papers, he claimed, revealed an invisible world of chemical radiation accessible only to those who understood the chemistry involved. Arago's reliance on resemblance, on the other hand, permitted him to present daguerreotype plates as a form of representation available to all, even incorporating them into his campaign for universal male suffrage.     

Building Multicultural Competencies in School Counselor Trainees: An International Immersion Experience

The authors describe an international cultural immersion field experience, make recommendations for counselor educators who want to establish a similar program, and present an example of a student's reflection on the experience as recorded in the personal multicultural competency portfolio.     

Problem-based learning and the development of metacognition

This study samples first year undergraduates from two programmes at a Hong Kong University (N = 66). One programme uses an entirely problem-based approach to learning and teaching, whilst the other uses more traditional methods. Using the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) as a measure of student perceptions of their thinking, or metacognition it explores differences in metacognitive development between each group of students between the beginning and end of their first year in each programme. The paper argues that, in addition to the formal learning context, everyday challenges emerging from the additional new social contexts provided by problem-based curricula provide fertile environments for the development of metacognition because whilst the highest ‘meta-level’ of cognition is usually not implicated when we receive an outside task and when the task solution is known, the meta-level does tend to be consulted when things go wrong or when the situation is new. In other words, when we are faced with finding solutions to a problem whether posed by the teacher as part of a problem-based curriculum or a new social environment, we are more likely to develop generic, as well as subject specific skills.