Adapting Teaching to Match Learning Styles

The teaching of English as a foreign language （TEFL） experienced a major methodological shift in the1970s and 80s, with a move away from the Grammar-Translation （G-T） and Audio-lingual Approaches, which had been so popular throughout the 1950s and 60s, towards Communicative Language Teaching （CLT） and other humanistic approaches.     

Multi/intercultural education in Australia and the Netherlands

In this article, the authors tease out the constructions of multi/intercultural education in Australia and the Netherlands through a comparative study of the two contexts including the population, scope of diversity, policies of multiculturalism and the policy and practice of multi/intercultural education. The comparison highlights commonalities and context‐bound differences. The article then discusses some dilemmas in the practice of multi/intercultural education based on findings from the authors' recent empirical research in both countries using a critical multiculturalism framework. The dilemmas discussed include the interwoven dimensions of culturalism and individualism and the tendency towards social agnosticism among teachers and teacher education students.     

An exploration of family and individual profiles following father-daughter incest

This paper presents the results of a range of psychometric assessments which attempted to identify family and individual variables associated with father-daughter incest. Psychometric self-report measures were used to examine differences between families in which incest had been confirmed and a matched comparison group. Significant differences between the members of the incest and the comparison groups included behavioral and self-esteem problems in the daughters and differences in the familial environments of the two groups. Daughters who had been sexually abused reported lower levels of self-esteem about their intellectual and school status. Mothers in the incest group reported that their daughters had more conduct problems than the comparison mothers. The incest families were generally reported to be higher in conflict and organization and lower in cohesion, expressiveness, and active recreation. No differences between groups were found for levels of marital adjustment, self-esteem in mothers, or overall level of psychopathology in the perpetrators.     

体力活动与多发性硬化症研究的10大问题

摘要：全世界约有250万人患有多发硬化症（MS）,并且发病率有增加趋势。MS是一种中枢神经系统疾病,与多种症状和功能障碍相关。目前一线治疗方法对晚期患者基本无效。越来越多的证据表明体力活动（PA）有益于MS患者,但是大多数MS患者存在PA不足和静坐少动行为。因此,我们提出了10个研究问题,旨在指导今后有关PA和MS的研究：1）PA是否是一种MS的缓解性治疗行为？2）PA对MS患者有哪些益处？3）什么样的PA处方最适合MS患者？4）MS患者在PA中有哪些安全问题？5）哪些MS患者可以通过PA获得益处？6）哪些变量可以用来解释PA对MS患者的作用？7）有效促进 MS患者进行PA的行为干预方法是什么？8）我们如何将研究成果用于实际临床工作中？9）静坐少动行为对MS患者有什么影响？10）评价MS患者PA的最佳方法是什么？这些问题对于帮助我们了解PAPA对MS患者长期和短期的效果,开发新方法促进和保持MS患者的PA至关重要,解决这些问题可以大大改善MS患者的生活质量。     

Mesocycles in conserving plastics

Analysis suggests that progress in conservation of plastics objects and artworks can be described by a series of overlapping mesocycles. Focus has been placed for periods of 5–10 years each on determining the degradation pathways in the 1990s, developing strategies to inhibit those pathways from the late 1990s and, since 2006 on actively stabilizing and treating the symptoms of degradation. The primary driving forces behind the direction and rate of progress within each of these three mesocycles have been different and specific. The controlling factor in understanding degradation pathways for heritage plastics has been the origin of the data describing lifetimes. By contrast, mesocycles in developing suitable storage and display microclimates for plastics have mirrored preventive conservation practices for natural polymeric materials. The rate of the third mesocycle, interventive conservation, has been driven by the need to balance the requirements for reversibility in conservation practices with the artist's intent and significance. Developments within each of the three mesocycles from the 1990s to date are discussed in this article. Environmental science and toxicology of waste plastics offer a novel source of information about real time degradation in terrestrial and marine microenvironments that seems likely to contribute to the conservation of similar materials in contemporary artworks.     

Calibrating assessment literacy through benchmarking tasks

Abstract

In calibration tasks students assess exemplar texts using criteria against which their own work will be assessed. Typically, these tasks are used in the context of training for peer assessment. Little research has been conducted on the benefits of calibration tasks, such as benchmarking, as learning opportunities in their own right. This paper examines a dataset from a long-running benchmarking task (～500 students per semester, for four semesters). We investigate the relationship of benchmarking performance to other student outcomes, including ability to self-assess accurately. We show that students who complete the benchmarking perform better, that there is a relationship between benchmarking performance and self-assessment performance, and that students appreciate the support for learning that benchmarking tasks provide. We discuss implications for teaching and learning flagging the potential of calibration tasks as an under-explored tool.     

Increasing Research Self-Efficacy Among Students in Professional Academic Programs

Gains in research self-efficacy for 60 Social Work and 75 Speech-Language Pathology students were compared. Our interest was to investigate whether students enrolled in both research and practice courses made greater gains in research self-efficacy over a semester, as compared to students enrolled in practice courses only. Findings indicated that Speech-Language Pathology students taking both research and practice courses showed the greatest gain. Examination of the Speech-Language Pathology curriculum suggested that when research courses were augmented with opportunities to apply research learning outside of class, greater gain in student confidence was achieved. We discuss implications for curricular development and interdisciplinary discourse on curriculum matters, and these implications reach beyond the two specific disciplines.