Using collaborative teaching and inquiry project-based learning to help primary school students develop information literacy and information skills

Information literacy and information technology (IT) skills have become increasingly important in today's knowledge society. Many studies have shown that students from primary school to postgraduate lack crucial information literacy and IT skills, hence there is a need for an effective pedagogical approach that will develop these skills. This study investigated the effect of combining a collaborative teaching approach with inquiry project-based learning (PjBL) on the development of primary students' information literacy and IT skills. Students in a Hong Kong primary school completed two inquiry-based group projects. A collaborative teaching approach involving three teachers in different subject areas (general studies, Chinese, and IT) and the school librarian was adopted in guiding students through the two projects. Results indicate that this program had a positive impact of on the development of different dimensions of the students' information literacy and IT skills.     

Shoe collar height effect on athletic performance,ankle joint kinematics and kinetics during unanticipated maximum-effort side-cutting performance

Side-step cutting manoeuvres comprise the coordination between planting and non-planting legs. Increased shoe collar height is expected to influence ankle biomechanics of both legs and possibly respective cutting performance. This study examined the shoe collar height effect on kinematics and kinetics of planting and non-planting legs during an unanticipated side-step cutting. Fifteen university basketball players performed maximum-effort side-step cutting to the left 45° direction or a straight ahead run in response to a random light signal. Seven successful cutting trials were collected for each condition. Athletic performance, ground reaction force, ankle kinematics and kinetics of both legs were analysed using paired t-tests. Results indicated that high-collar shoes resulted in less ankle inversion and external rotation during initial contact for the planting leg. The high-collar shoes also exhibited a smaller ankle range of motion in the sagittal and transverse planes for both legs, respectively. However, no collar effect was found for ankle moments and performance indicators including cutting performance time, ground contact time, propulsion ground reaction forces and impulses. These findings indicated that high-collar shoes altered ankle positioning and restricted ankle joint freedom movements in both legs, while no negative effect was found for athletic cutting performance.     

Culture,motivation, and reading achievement: High school students in 41 countries

This study examined how cultural values and family cultural capital were linked to adolescents' motivation and reading achievement using multilevel analyses on reading tests and questionnaire responses of 193,841 fifteen-year-olds in 41 countries. In countries that valued more rigid gender roles, girls had lower reading achievement than girls in other countries. Also, the link between extrinsic motivation and achievement was weaker for both boys and girls in more masculine countries than those in other countries, supporting the view that discouraging students from their preferred non-traditional career tracks reduces competition for the remaining students. This reduces the impact of extrinsic motivation on reading achievement for both types of students. Students with more family cultural capital (cultural possessions and cultural communication) had higher interest in reading, extrinsic motivation, effort and perseverance, and higher reading achievement than other students. These findings can inform education policy to improve students' reading achievement.     

Transformation of students into active and participatory citizens: an exploratory study in Hong Kong

Based on the data collected from focus groups and individual interviews with secondary school students and civic education teachers, this article explores how young people are transformed to become active and participatory citizens. The findings show that the roles and personal beliefs of civic education teachers are of critical significance at the very first stage whereas their teaching methods help enable students to construct the notion of active and participatory citizenship at the second stage. Eventually students gradually develop a strong sense of civic responsibility and competence through social inquiry and political action in the transformation process.     

Quality and clarity of health information on Q&A sites

This study investigated the quality and clarity of health information from a total of 238 (126 English and 112 Chinese) answers retrieved from Yahoo!Answers sites. Registered nurses and library professionals judged information quality based on 8 criteria: accuracy, completeness, relevance, readability, verifiability, professional advice, usefulness and non-commercialization. Writing clarity was assessed through rhetorical structure analysis. Results showed that 46% of answers were of poor quality. Furthermore, many Q&A site users were unable to distinguish adequately between high- and low-quality answers. Only 60% of their selected best-answers corresponded to those of the health professionals. These results indicate that the reliability of health information on Q&A sites is questionable. This unreliability may partially be due to the fact that Q&A site answers contain both medical information and social support. Although both are important, they are not always compatible. It may even be dangerous to mistakenly present social support as objective medical information. This research suggests that medical advice and social support should be separated. This has a further advantage in that medical advice could be subjected to stringent, necessary quality assurance measures, without interfering with social support.     

Can ability and working conditions explain the wage differential across industries and firms?

This article tries to explain the wage differentials across industries and firms by the human capital theory, the compensating wage differential theory or other reasons and also the empirical evidences.