Book reviews

International Review of Education -     

The role of team behavioral integration and cohesion in shaping individual improvisation

The notion of improvisation has recently emerged in managerial studies as a viable answer to flexibly dealing with unexpected occurrences. Nonetheless, research on improvisation has essentially approached the issue through a metaphorical framework, and has regularly relied on conceptual frameworks residing either at the individual or the team-level. We investigate how team-level processes affect individual improvisation in complex project domains. Using data from 138 team leaders and members belonging to 38 information systems development teams, we test cross-level hypotheses through hierarchical linear modeling. Team behavioral integration and team cohesion positively affect individual improvisation. Moreover, cohesion positively moderates the influence of team behavioral integration on individual improvisation. In concluding this paper we offer theoretical and practical implications.     

Joint attention strategies used by a preschool educator who is deaf

This exploratory study examined the attention-gaining and attention-regaining strategies used by a preschool educator who is Deaf during child-directed play. Four children (2 with typical hearing and 2 with severe-to-profound hearing loss) were videotaped interacting with the educator in two different play contexts. The educator used four different strategies to gain and to regain the children's attention: visual, visual using an American Sign Language (ASL) sign, tactile/vibratory, and observing/waiting. Overall, tactile and visual strategies were used with the same frequency and occurred more often than either waiting or using an ASL sign to establish joint attention. With the exception of waiting, all strategies were equally successful at gaining or regaining the children's attention. The knowledge and experience of educators with hearing loss potentially provide important insights into enhancing the effectiveness of the communicative environment for preschool children with hearing loss. The implications of this line of inquiry include training for educators on the effective use of strategies to establish joint attention with preschool children with hearing loss.     

Towards a network governance of European lifelong learning: a structural analysis of Commission expert groups

ABSTRACT

The influence of the European Commission (EC) expert groups on policy coordination within the European Union has received a growing interest among researchers, who have assessed their role in policy-making processes, their participation patterns, their transparency, and their knowledge-generating process. This article interrogates the structural configuration of the networks, and the relationships between the actors, formed through the Commission expert groups on adult learning, and under the Education and Training 2020 work programme, respectively, by means of a Social Network Analysis. So attention is paid on the mutual-constitutivness of a social network and its members, or the potential power within a network, and of a network, to influence member states’ domestic adaptation of communitarian policies. Our analysis points at noticeable differences between the connectivity of each of the Commission expert groups, and the groups emerging from the two forms of network governance these produce in the adult learning, and education and training domains. A key result, however, is that two actors (i.e. Flemish Department for Education and Training, Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland) stand out as fully embedded in both forms of network governance, and represent highly connected ‘informal’ brokers across policy domains.     

Multimodal learning analytics to investigate cognitive load during online problem solving

To have insight into cognitive load (CL) during online complex problem solving, this study aimed at measuring CL through physiological data. This study experimentally manipulated intrinsic and extraneous load of exercises in the domain of statistics, resulting in four conditions: high complex with hints, low complex with hints, high complex without hints and low complex without hints. The study had a within-subject-design in which 67 students solved the exercises in a randomized order. Self-reported CL was combined with physiological data, namely, galvanic skin response (GSR), skin temperature (ST), heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). Multiple imputation was used for handling missing data from resp. 16 and 19 students for GSR/ST and HR/HRV. First, differences between conditions in view of physiological data were examined. Second, we investigated how much variance of self-reported CL and task performance was explained by physiological data. Finally, we investigated which features can be used to assess (objective) CL. Results revealed no significant differences between the manipulated conditions in terms of physiological data. Nonetheless, HR and ST were significantly related to self-reported CL, whereas ST to task performance. Additionally, this study revealed the potential of ST and HR to assess high CL.     

The role of collaborative networks in supporting the innovation performances of lagging-behind European regions

In rapidly changing regional economies, less innovative European regions (henceforth referred to as lagging-behind regions) must actively work to reduce the gap between them and knowledge-intensive regions. Recent literature has stressed that the lack of efficient institutional settings reduces the opportunities of local knowledge spillover and increases the need for local organisations to exploit collaborative networks to better support their innovation performance. In this light, since increasing attention has recently been directed at the role of inter-regional collaborations, we have measured the capacity of local innovative organisations embedded in lagging-behind European regions to develop internal and external regional inventors’ networks by exploring their collaborative patenting processes. Then, a seven-year panel dataset (2002–2008) was organised using patents data at a regional level to validate the research hypothesis that collaborations, and specifically with highly innovative (knowledge-intensive) regions, positively affect the innovation performances of lagging-behind regions. Finally, the implications of EU policies for supporting lagging-behind regions are discussed.     

“Better an egg today than a hen tomorrow” on the implications of deaccess policies for donations to museums

Severe budget cuts in the cultural sectors of many countries have spurred disparate suggestions for alternative sources available to public institutions. Deaccessioning may be an option, although controversial, to guarantee the survival of cultural institutions. This paper addresses the consequences that deaccessioning may have on donations of artworks to museums, by developing a sequential game with incomplete information. We investigate the interactions between donors and museums, when the former is uncertain about the commitment of a museum not to deaccess part of its endowment in the future. Our analysis shows that deaccessioning may reduce art donations to museums. Interestingly, public grants to museums cause a negative externality to a committed museum, which experiences a reduction in donations. Results provide intuitions for the widespread resistance to deaccessioning of museum associations, for their efforts to enforce common regulation restricting the use of proceeds to the acquisition of art, and also for the proliferation of private art museums.     

Performance evaluation of the high sensitive troponin I assay on the Atellica IM analyser

IntroductionThe Fourth Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction Global Taskforce recommends the use of high sensitive troponin (hs-Tn) assays in the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction. We evaluated the analytical performance of the Atellica IM High-sensitivity Troponin I Assay (hs-TnI) (Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Inc., Tarrytown, USA) and compared its performance to other hs-TnI assays (Siemens Advia Centaur, Dimension Vista, Dimension EXL, and Abbott Architect (Wiesbaden, Germany)) at one or more sites across Europe.Materials and methodsPrecision, detection limit, linearity, method comparison, and interference studies were performed according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute protocols. Values in 40 healthy individuals were compared to the manufacturer’s cut-offs. Sample turnaround time (TAT) was examined.ResultsImprecision repeatability CVs were 1.1–4.7% and within-lab imprecision were 1.8–7.6% (10.0–25,000 ng/L). The limit of blank (LoB), detection (LoD), and quantitation (LoQ) aligned with the manufacturer’s values of 0.5 ng/L, 1.6 ng/L, and 2.5 ng/L, respectively. Passing-Bablok regression demonstrated good correlations between Atellica IM analyser with other systems; some minor deviations were observed. All results in healthy volunteers fell below the 99th percentile URL, and greater than 50% of each sex demonstrated values above the LoD. No interference was observed for biotin (≤ 1500 µg/L), but a slight bias at 5.0 g/L haemoglobin and 50 ng/L Tn was observed. TAT from was fast (mean time = 10.9 minutes) and reproducible (6%CV).ConclusionsReal-world analytical and TAT performance of the hs-TnI assay on the Atellica IM analyser make this assay fit for routine use in clinical laboratories.