Library instruction and Wikipedia: investigating students' perceived information literacy,lifelong learning,and social responsibility through Wikipedia editing

Objectives:This article presents a multiyear pilot study delineating practical challenges, solutions, and lessons learned from Wikipedia editing experiences with first-year medical students at the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. The purpose of our project was to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of Wikipedia editing to improve information literacy and lifelong learning skills and to investigate aspects of social responsibility in first-year medical students.Methods:Lessons were provided through a combination of in-person and online instruction via the WikiEdu learning management system (LMS). Students next selected a health-related Wikipedia article to edit. After the editing experience, structural completeness data were collected from the WikiEdu LMS. Feedback was collected via an anonymous retrospective pre-post survey to assess the students'' attitudes toward their perceived information literacy skills and the social responsibility of improving Wikipedia articles. Nonparametric tests were conducted to compare pre versus post outcomes.Results:Fifty-seven (79%) participants in the 2018 cohort and forty-nine (64%) participants in the 2019 cohort completed the retrospective pre-post survey. In both cohorts, respondents showed statistically significant increases (p<.05) in self-rating of all ten domains of information literacy and social responsibility after completing the program.Conclusions:This study showed that medical students are competent editors of Wikipedia and that their contributions improve both the quality of the articles and their own perceived information literacy. Additionally, editing medicine-related articles provides an opportunity to build students'' social responsibility by improving content on an open platform that reaches millions each day.     

STAFF AND PEER ASSESSMENT ‐ MEASURING AN INDIVIDUAL'S CONTRIBUTION TO GROUP PERFORMANCE

Group Modelling is expanding in the UK and has provided a suitable medium for Communication training at Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology. The CNAA has approved a scheme in which 10% of the marks in Mathematical Models and Methods course are peer awarded. The criteria which students use are not cited explicitly because the scheme wishes to reflect the shift from staff‐sponsored instruction to self/peer sponsored perception of relationships and the tender of solutions. The scheme provides the opportunity to measure what happens outside class contact hours and is proving an effective method of group assessment.     

A comparative study of occupational stress among African American and white university faculty: A research note

This paper is a comparison of levels of occupational stress among African American and white college and university faculty members in U.S. institutions. Using survey data collected from a national sample of faculty, an analysis of reported occupational stress levels was undertaken to determine if issues raised in previous research regarding extra-academic assignments given to African American faculty limits their access to the more traditional faculty roles, creating pressure to perform in ways not expected of white faculty. To test these assertions, scales measuring stress from teaching, research, and service activities were constructed for African American and white faculty from a larger faculty stress index. Results of the analysis indicate that African American faculty report generally higher levels of occupational stress than their white counterparts, especially in the areas of research and service activities.     

Healthy meals,better learners? Debating the focus of school food policy in England

Abstract

Policy makers in the UK are trying to improve school meals, by focusing on eating well. This article explores the way policies are framed by academic performance and health as a reason for providing school lunches. Using Nussbaum’s capability approach we argue that the purpose of schooling should be to provide young people with the ability to lead a life of choice. We argue that school meals are an important social good, which allow young people to develop critical skills around food which they can then use throughout their lives. We draw on evidence from two ethnographic research projects on food in schools, conducted in England. We question whether the collocation between healthy eating and learning should be the focus of school food reform and contemplate the role of society and government to provide children with healthy meals, irrespective of learning outcomes. School meals are more than good exam results.     

‘Who likes fish? And I don’t mean fish fingers!’ Taste education,culinary capital,and distinction in a rural middle-class primary school

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how middle-class distinction is produced in a primary school by focusing on four different ‘scenes’. Using Bourdieu’s notion of distinction, this paper shows how children are educated on matters of middle-class taste. I argue that privilege is produced through food education in different formats. This taste education goes beyond what one should merely eat and consume. It is situated within a middle-class nostalgia for rural ‘villageness’. While this type of distinction is not in and of itself problematic, this paper discusses the implications for when these ideas are taken up in policy, and expected of all schools. I argue educators need to be aware of how these values are being rolled out as universal values, expected of schools in diverse areas. Educators should pay attention to how middle-class distinction and privilege is produced and reproduced in schools, in order to create a more inclusive food education.