The motivation activation measure and media use in Singapore: cross-cultural stability

The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, it tests how the Motivation Activation Measure [MAM; Lang, A., Bradley, S. D., Sparks Jr, J. V., &; Lee, S. (2007). The motivation activation measure (MAM): How well does MAM predict individual differences in physiological indicators of appetitive and aversive activation? Communication Methods and Measures, 1(2), 113–136] applies in a non-American (i.e. Asian) context, in order to provide evidence for the universality asserted through its theoretical underpinnings as an indicator of biologically based motivation systems. It thus investigates cross-cultural variation in the MAM scores and the associations with established measures of theoretically related personality factors. Second, the paper examines how individual differences in motivational system responsiveness correlate with media use and interests in an Asian culture. Eight hundred sixty-five respondents completed MAM, personality measures and self-reported media preference in an online survey. Findings indicate that the MAM values recorded in the Asian sample associate with the measures of theoretically related human traits as expected, and had a similar pattern of scores with those found in American samples. Moreover, results suggest that audience interests in different types of media can be predicted through their variation in motivation systems activation.     

Center Stage: Performing a Needs Assessment of Campus Research Centers and Institutes

Outreach to research centers and institutes is often overlooked in academic libraries. This article discusses a needs assessment conducted by the Liaison Services Department at the University of Houston Libraries that reviewed library services to centers and institutes at the University of Houston's main campus. The assessment was conducted for two purposes: to build collaborations with centers and to determine how the libraries might create new services and/or market existing services to meet the centers and institutes' growing research needs.     

Managing and Coding References for Systematic Reviews and Scoping Reviews in EndNote

This article describes a novel approach for using EndNote to manage and code references in the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews and scoping reviews. The process is simple and easy for reviewers new to both EndNote and systematic reviews. This process allows reviewers to easily conduct and report systematic reviews in line with the internationally recognized PRISMA reporting guidelines and also facilitates the overall task of systematic or scoping review conduct and reporting from the initial search through to structuring the results, discussion, and conclusions in a rigorous, reproducible, and user-friendly manner.     

Identifying Children with Persistent Developmental Dyscalculia from a 2‐min Test of Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Numerical Magnitude Processing

Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is a mathematical learning disability that occurs in around 5%–7% of the population. At present, there are only a handful of screening tools to identify children that might be at risk of developing DD. The present study evaluated the classification accuracy of one such tool: The Numeracy Screener, a 2‐min test of symbolic (Arabic numerals) and nonsymbolic (dot arrays) discrimination ability. A sample of 222 children who demonstrated persistent deficits (n = 55), inconsistent deficits (n = 51), or typical performance (n = 116) on standardized tests of math achievement over multiple observations was tested. The Numeracy Screener correctly classified children in all three groups. Notably, the symbolic condition has greater sensitivity in discriminating children with persistent DD from the other two groups. Screening tools that assess early numeracy skills may be promising for identifying children at risk for developing severe mathematical difficulties.     

GOVERNING FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND WITH LOVE: PARENTS AND CHILDREN BETWEEN HOME AND SCHOOL

A bstract .  In this essay, Benjamin Baez and Susan Talburt analyze the U.S. Department of Education's Helping Your Child Series to consider how the government of children, families, and schools reflects a concern with two seemingly unrelated political objectives of neoliberal projects: creating responsible, self-reliant citizens and making schools more efficient. Where these two objectives converge is in their techniques: they both use the parent-child relationship and what appears to motivate it. Drawing on Michel Foucault's conceptualization of government as "the conduct of conduct," Baez and Talburt analyze two pamphlets with an eye to several themes: the "commonsensical" nature of its address to loving parents; the "responsibilization" of parents and children; the insidious entry of school goals and behavioral norms into homes; and the seeming empowerment of the parent as partner in his or her child's learning. Finally, the authors discuss how the logic of modern forms of governing families and schools might be contested.     

THE CELTIC LANGUAGES AND TELEVISION

The article proposes the subtitling of English television programmes in the Celtic languages and of Celtic language programmes in English in order to serve the Celtic speaking minorities in Britain and to produce an appreciation of the Celtic languages among English speaking viewers. Parallels are drawn between the proposed British bilingual project and those in other countries for deaf viewers and for speakers of minority languages. Results of a survey of English and Welsh viewers are reported, and difficulties such as viewer resistance, cost, etc., of implementing a bilingual subtitling program in Britain are discussed.