Negotiating the "Rackety Bridge" — a Dynamic Model for Aligning Supervisory Style with Research Student Development

Postgraduate research student supervision is examined with the aim of developing a model of the supervisory relationship to improve practice by encouraging a more proactive role for students. The term "competent autonomy" is defined and argued to be a universal objective of the PhD. A tentative "supervisor/student alignment model" based on the development of this objective is proposed. It draws upon some features of earlier models but stresses the need for a dynamic alignment of supervisory style with the student's degree of development. Operationalised as a tool and tested empirically, it was found to encourage students to periodically reflect on and discuss their needs as competent autonomy is developed. Feedback is presented from a group of PhD students with whom the tool has been used at approximately 6 monthly intervals for up to three years to deliver supervision aligned to their dynamic needs.     

Improving the presentation of printed text for tertiary level distance education: Literature review and survey

This paper furnishes recommendations for improving the presentation of distance education study guides. Two approaches were used to distil these recommendations. First, a review of the literature was undertaken. Then, the opinions of thirty‐five practitioners with first‐hand experience of printed study guide production for distance education were surveyed. The questionnaire (which was constructed on the basis of the literature findings) covered many aspects of textual design and layout including general, as well as macro and micro textual issues. Both sources generally agreed that simplicity, consistency, adequate use of white space, utilisation of a hierarchical heading structure, and use of access devices are essential for optimal textual design. But the applicability of a universal layout style, methods of separating paragraphs, whether to use section numbering, replacing textual cues with icons, the readability of fully justified text, and techniques for differentiating levels of headings were more contentious issues.     

Home advantage and the debate about competitive balance in professional sports leagues

A recurrent theme in sports economics is the extent to which overall league attendances will be raised by measures, such as revenue sharing, which aim to improve competitive balance. This debate has ignored the phenomenon of home advantage, which may, however, be important to the extent that, if all teams had equal talent, all matches may then be weighted heavily in favour of the home team. We present an analysis of the relationship between attendance and match-level uncertainty in the English Football League. A simulation from our model indicates that equality of playing talent would in fact lower aggregate attendance. This result is explained by the loss of prospectively the most uncertain games, where weak teams have home advantage over strong teams.     

The impact of cumulative change in early adolescence

This article examines the impact of experiencing several major life transitions simultaneously in early adolescence. For many children, entry into the new life period of adolescence is marked by the transition from a relatively intimate elementary school setting into a more complex, impersonal junior high school environment. This major shift in organizational context is often accompanied by dramatic changes in biology and social definition. We hypothesized that transitions will be easier for children to cope with if the various adolescent changes come into focus at different stages rather than simultaneously. In a longitudinal study conducted in a large Midwestern city, schoolchildren were followed from sixth into seventh grade in 2 different types of school systems. The effect of multiple life changes (school transition, pubertal development, early dating behavior, residential mobility, family disruption) on students' self-esteem, academic grade-point average, and participation in extracurricular activities was analyzed. The results identify children who are forced to cope with several life transitions concurrently as a group at risk. Theoretical implications are discussed, with development of the notion that individuals need an "arena of comfort" in at least some spheres of their lives.     

Getting it Right: selection and setting in a 9‐13 years middle school

Educational selection has been a central issue for Structural Functionalist, Marxist and Interpretative sociologists of education. While knowledge about selection processes within schools has increased over the past two decades, as a result of ethnographic studies of schooling, the social process of collective teacher decision making, when teachers are engaged in institutional channelling, has been largely neglected. This paper explores collective teacher decision making at a point of allocation through the medium of a case study of setting in one 9‐13 years middle school. The paper argues that the discussion concerning the recent initiatives of educational selection embodied in modularisation, pupil assessment, common examinations and national testing should be informed by research of teacher interaction at points of allocation.     

Relative efficiency among South African universities: A data envelopment analysis

Based on a sample of ten of the country's 21public universities, this article examines therelative efficiency of South Africanuniversities between 1994 and 1997 using DataEnvelopment Analysis. After outlining thenature and limitations of the technique, aseries of seven models were tested. Each used aconsolidation of the annual output of graduatesand research as the output variable and testedthis against various input variables. A highdegree of consistency and stability was found.Differences in efficiency during the four yearperiod were studied and the article concludeswith a discussion of four factors which appearcentral in explaining differences in efficiencybetween universities.     

A Framework for the Analysis and Management of Library Security Issues Applied to Patron-property Theft

This paper adapts three conceptual frameworks from Environmental Criminology – Routine Activity Theory, Rational Choice Theory, and Situational Crime Prevention – to create a Crime Prevention Toolkit that helps librarians analyze and manage criminal activity in contemporary academic libraries. The toolkit is applied to a case study of patron-laptop theft at an urban academic library to demonstrate its use in analyzing criminal activity and creating a crime-problem intervention. The intervention was rapidly successful at eliminating patron-property theft. There were no patron-laptop thefts of any kind in the library after implementation of the intervention, in contrast to 12 recorded laptop thefts the previous academic year. This is the first time a research-based, conceptual framework of three theories from Environmental Criminology has been used to analyze and manage criminal activity in an academic library. It is also the first time a patron-property theft intervention in an academic library has been demonstrated effective in an empirical inquiry.     

Improving beginning reading instruction and intervention for students with LD: reconciling "all" with "each"

We begin with an examination of the tensions that exist between educational efforts that target the needs of all students and efforts that target the needs of individual students with disabilities. Next, we provide reasons why, in beginning reading, a schoolwide system designed to teach all students to read can also support individualized and flexible instruction designed to teach each student to read. Finally, we describe a schoolwide beginning reading model that includes a schoolwide framework or infrastructure that supports comprehensive and coordinated reading goals, assessment, and instruction for all students integrated with ongoing progress monitoring and instructional adjustments that allow for differentiated and individualized instruction for each student, including students with disabilities.     

人草大战

我突然怀念起曾经住过的在城市陋屋区的旧房子来,陋室在12层的公寓上,没有电梯,只有一间屋子,半个卫生间。事情是这样的:这一切发生得非常简单。我们搬到乡下后不久,我的妻子,詹妮弗,觉得后院需要一次彻底的整理。“后院怎么了?”我问道“,看看我们院子里的草长得多壮实,多招摇。我敢打赌,这一带可没有哪家能比得上我们。”这时候詹妮弗透露了一个小秘密,我们草坪上的根本就不是草,只有壮实、招摇的毒葛。我认为,毒葛长得欣欣向荣,可不像后院的其他植物,我们也许应该除掉其他东西,比如说那个看起来病怏怏的玫瑰。我据理力争“:为什么要把真…