Reflections on Deaf Education: Perspectives of Deaf Senior Citizens

Parents with deaf children face many challenges in making educational choices, developing language and a sense of belonging. Other key aspects of life including concept development and social competency are also critical decision points faced by parents. Developing language, whether it is through spoken or signed modalities, is of utmost importance during the formative years and for many families with deaf children, there are no prior experiences with deafness, American Sign Language, Deaf culture, or the deaf community. This study aims to understand the educational and familial experiences of older deaf citizens by examining the meaning of being deaf and members of biological and cultural families, and the concern for education of young deaf children as constructed by deaf senior citizens from both deaf and hearing families. For the purpose of obtaining both childhood and educational experiences of older deaf citizens and examining what advice they would offer to families of today with deaf children, a qualitative design was implemented in which 13 participants participated in focus group and individual interviews. Themes that emerged from the data include, but are not limited to, community-based learning, the value of communication, involvement with other deaf individuals, importance of family communication and signing, sibling involvement and including deaf children as true members of a family. One recommendation made by the deaf senior adults was that families with deaf children engage with deaf seniors more frequently as a valuable resource.     

Savouring Rajasthan's Shiksha Karmi in a remote village: the prospect of dismantling the student-teacher divide

The Shiksha Karmi Project in Rajasthan, one of the most educationally challenged states, is at the frontiers of alternative models of primary education in India. The key ideas underlying this model are: (i) the taking over of ‘sick’ schools in remote regions of the state and turning them around, (ii) creating new schools driven by demand from the ground, (iii) human resource investments to train local village teachers, (iv) strong linkages between the school and the community built upon a spirit of voluntarism, (v) an explicit movement toward gender equity and (vi) a bold attempt at the universalization of primary education through a combination of formal and non-formal institutions. This article provides a grounded feel for the Shiksha Karmi Project in a stellar school, Meena Dant Ka Pura. While the case highlights the shortage of locally based female teachers in the entire Shiksha Karmi Project, it also suggests the very real possibility of employing Shiksha Karmi Project alumni and higher grade students in teaching roles. Overall, primary education in India has much to learn from the Shiksha Karmi Project experience.     

Factors affecting assigned information problem ordering during Web search: An exploratory study

Multitasking is the human ability to handle the demands of multiple tasks. Multitasking behavior involves the ordering of multiple tasks and switching between tasks. People often multitask when using information retrieval (IR) technologies as they seek information on more than one information problem over single or multiple search episodes. However, limited studies have examined how people order their information problems, especially during their Web search engine interaction. The aim of our exploratory study was to investigate assigned information problem ordering by forty (40) study participants engaged in Web search. Findings suggest that assigned information problem ordering was influenced by the following factors, including personal interest, problem knowledge, perceived level of information available on the Web, ease of finding information, level of importance and seeking information on information problems in order from general to specific. Personal interest and problem knowledge were the major factors during assigned information problem ordering. Implications of the findings and further research are discussed. The relationship between information problem ordering and gratification theory is an important area for further exploration.     

The assessment of usability of electronic shopping: A heuristic evaluation

Today there are thousands of electronic shops accessible via the Web. Some provide user-friendly features whilst others seem not to consider usability factors at all. Yet, it is critical that the electronic shopping interface is user-friendly so as to help users to obtain their desired results. This study applied heuristic evaluation to examine the usability of current electronic shopping. In particular, it focused on four UK-based supermarkets offering electronic services: including ASDA, Iceland, Sainsbury, and Tesco. The evaluation consists of two stages: a free-flow inspection and a task-based inspection. The results indicate that the most significant and common usability problems have been found to lie within the areas of ‘User Control and Freedom’ and ‘Help and Documentation’. The findings of this study are applied to develop a set of usability guidelines to support the future design of effective interfaces for electronic shopping.     

Web-based interaction: A review of three important human factors

With the rapid development of information technology, the World Wide Web has been widely used in various applications, such as search engines, online learning and electronic commerce. These applications are used by a diverse population of users with heterogeneous backgrounds, in terms of their knowledge, skills, and needs. Therefore, human factors are key issues for the development of Web-based applications, leading research into human factors to grow significantly in the past decade. This paper identifies and reviews three important human factors that have been examined in existing empirical studies, including gender differences, prior knowledge, and cognitive styles. The main results from the analysis include that: (a) females have more disorientation problems than males; (b) flexible paths are more beneficial to experts while structured content is more useful to novices; and (c) Field Dependent and Field Independent users prefer to employ different search strategies. In addition to reviewing the existing empirical studies, this paper also highlights areas of future research.     

Patterns of conceptual change in evolution

The purpose of this study was to investigate the patterns of students' conceptual restructuring within the theoretical framework of biologic evolution. The study draws on conceptual change theory in an effort to define the limits of the theory and suggest other models of restructuring. Through a series of 17 structured and open-ended interviews with each of 4 participants, the students' changing conceptions about facets of evolutionary theory were documented throughout the school year. Interview questions were developed from the wealth of alternative conceptions documented in the literature, and many interview techniques were employed to assure the mode validity of all research findings. The conceptual change documented demonstrates that many conceptions in this content area are closely interwoven, so that a change in one conception requires a change in many others. Four patterns of conceptual change were seen: (a) cascade, (b) wholesale, (c) incremental, and (d) dual constructions. Of these 4, only 2 conform to the changes described by conceptual change theory. The other two patterns suggest that different models of conceptual restructuring are required for further science education research. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Hinduism and the State in Trinidad

Abstract

Between 1845 and 1917, a total number of 143,939 Indian immigrants were brought to Trinidad under the system of Indian indenture to fill the labour gap created by the abolition of slavery. Approximately 88% of these immigrants practised various facets of Hinduism. Upon completion of their five‐year periods of contracted labour, over 90% of the indentureds opted to make Trinidad their permanent home. From their very entrance into Trinidad society, Hindus were engaged in the practice of many aspects of their religion. However, in Trinidad, elements of religion were variously truncated, modified, diluted, intensified or excised. During the initial decades of Indian indenture, Indian cultural forms were met with either contempt or indifference. Yet, despite the arduous nature of the task, various dimensions of Indian culture have now been integrated into the Trinidad and Tobago's multicultural prism.

Whether within the context of colonialism, the immediate post independence ferment, or the post 1980s dynamic political ethos, Trinidad's ‘cultural’ diversity has consistently underscored intriguing, sometimes tumultuous dialogue between the State and various elements of the society. Predictably, the common factor and point of contention was the conflict between Hindu and non‐Hindu ideologies. This essay seeks to explore one dimension of that dialogue; namely, the engagement of the Trinidad Hindu community with the State, with specific emphasis on the issues that can be situated within the realm of culture. These include Adult Franchise, the Hindu Marriage Bill, the Divorce Bill, the Cremation Ordinance, the issuing of capitation grants, education, symbolic claims and ‘nationalizing’. Underscoring the dialogue are two, often contradictory, determinants: the attitude of the State towards Hinduism (and Indian culture on the whole), and the tension between the retention of ‘Hindu’ culture and the need to transcend the boundaries of communalist discourse into the nationalist frame. Therein resides the crux of a most intriguing interaction between two very dynamic entities.     

Genetically modified food in perspective: an inquiry‐based curriculum to help middle school students make sense of tradeoffs

To understand how students learn about science controversy, this study examines students' reasoning about tradeoffs in the context of a technology‐enhanced curriculum about genetically modified food. The curriculum was designed and refined based on the Scaffolded Knowledge Integration Framework to help students sort and integrate their initial ideas and those presented in the curriculum. Pre‐test and post‐test scores from 190 students show that students made significant (p?<?0.0001) gains in their understanding of the genetically modified food controversy. Analyses of students' final papers, in which they took and defended a position on what type of agricultural practice should be used in their geographical region, showed that students were able to provide evidence both for and against their positions, but were less explicit about how they weighed these tradeoffs. These results provide important insights into students' thinking and have implications for curricular design.