Building bridges: towards integrated library and information services for mental health and social care

This research focuses on identifying the information needs of health professionals, social workers and staff from voluntary agencies, who work together in the provision of services for people with a mental illness. The aim is to provide a fully integrated library and information service for mental health and social care. A number of recent government reports have prompted this research. These have culminated in the publication of the National Service Framework for Mental Health. It was decided to conduct a qualitative study using 17 semi‐structured interviews with individuals and multi‐professional groups. A thematic analysis highlighted a number of key themes including: information need, information seeking behaviour and information flows. Results have indicated that because of the dispersed nature of mental health services, across primary and secondary care, and from statutory and non‐statutory organisations, information technology is viewed as the only realistic vehicle to provide the required information. As specialist mental health trusts are configured, covering wider geographical areas, this can only increase the reliance on information technology, for information access and information sharing.     

Phonological recoding,orthographic decoding,and comprehension skills during reading acquisition

To become skillful readers, children have to acquire the ability to translate printed words letter by letter into phonemic representations (phonological recoding) and the ability to recognize the written word forms holistically (orthographical decoding). Whereas phonological recoding is the key for learning to read and useful for recognizing unknown or low-frequent words, orthographical decoding is often more efficient and takes less time, thus facilitating reading processes on the sentence and text level. Several studies with English-speaking children provided evidence for the relevance of the two routes but the question whether and to what extent both word recognition skills contribute to reading comprehension in young German readers requires further clarification. Based on data from a cross-sectional study with German primary school children we investigated whether and to what extent both types of word recognition skills are associated with sentence (N = 666) and text comprehension skills (N = 149) and how these relationships develop from Grade 2 to 4. The results indicate that both phonological recoding skills and orthographical decoding skills are important for reading comprehension skills. Their relative weight does not change across grade levels.     

The use of source-related strategies in evaluating multiple psychology texts: a student–scientist comparison

Multiple text comprehension can greatly benefit from paying attention to sources and from using this information for evaluating text information. Previous research based on texts from the domain of history suggests that source-related strategies are acquired as part of the discipline expertise as opposed to the spontaneous use of these strategies by students just entering a field. In the present study, we compared the performance of students and scientists in the domain of psychology with regard to (a) their knowledge of publication types, (b) relevant source characteristics, (c) their use of sources for evaluating the credibility of multiple texts, and (d) their ability to judge the plausibility of argumentative statements in psychological texts. Participants worked on a battery of newly developed computerised tests with a think-aloud instruction to uncover strategies that scientists and students used when reading a text. Results showed that scientists scored higher in all of the assessed abilities and that these abilities were positively correlated with each other. Importantly, the superior performance of scientists in evaluating the credibility of multiple texts was mediated by their use of source information. Implications are discussed in terms of discipline expertise.     

Connecting Classroom Science with Everyday Life: Teachers’ Attempts and Students’ Insights

This multiple case study examines how teachers request students’ use of their content knowledge and conceptual understandings from out-of-school experiences while reasoning about science concepts and the ways in which students perceive and respond to these requests. Three middle school teachers and a total of 57 middle school students participated in this study. The data collection involved classroom observations and multiple interviews with each of the teachers individually and with small groups of students. The findings indicate that the students appreciate the usefulness of making relevant connections between their in-school and out-of-school learning, but seldom do so during science lessons. We also found that teachers’ attempts to facilitate these types of connections during classroom discourse events involved the use of analogies, examples, or questions. Finally, the findings also indicate that students often recognize teachers’ requests but seldom relate to these requests in the way the teacher intends.     

Do Belonging and Social Exclusion at School Affect Structural Brain Development During Adolescence?

Students’ sense of belonging presents an essential resource for academic and health outcomes, whereas social exclusion at school negatively impacts students’ well-being and academic performance. Aiming to understand how feelings of school-related belonging and exclusion shape the structural brain development, this study applied longitudinal questionnaire-based data and MRI data from 71 adolescent students (37 females, M_age at t1 = 15.0; t2 = 16.1 years). All were white participants from Germany. Voxel-based morphometry revealed only an association of social exclusion (and not of belonging) and gray matter volume in the left anterior insula: From t1 to t2, there was less gray matter decrease, the more social exclusion students perceived. School-related social exclusion and disturbed neurodevelopment are thus significantly associated.     

“Science-trained professionals”—A new breed for the new century

If students of science are to have more career options in the future, the people who hire and work with them are going to have to know more science and more about what scientists do. That's one of the conclusions of a recent study of the perceptions and realities that young and mid-career physical scientists are having to cope with in a post-cold war environment. It's also the conclusion of a survey of CEO's from 500 of the Fortune 1000 companies in the U.S, undertaken in September and October 1995 by the Johnson School of Management at Cornell. Corporations are becoming more and more concerned about science and technological illiteracy on the part of their managers.Sheila Tobias is not a scientist or a mathematician, but the author of seven books on science and mathematics education. Her most recent, in collaboration with policy analyst Daryl Chubin and physicist Kevin Aylesworth, is Rethinking Science as a Career: Perceptions and Realities in the Physical Sciences, available from Research Corporation, 101 N. Wilmot Road, Tucson, Arizona for $2.50 per copy. In 1995–1996, she is spending three months at the University of Amsterdam as a visiting consultant in physics and science and society.     

Faculty careers: Maturation,demographic, and historical effects

Sixty-five University of Michigan arts and science faculty members were interviewed on a number of matters related to their careers. Roughly one-third joined the faculty as assistant professors in each of the three years, 1960, 1965, or 1970. Vitae were used to obtain scholarly productivity measures. The data were analyzed with regard to productivity, promotion rate, and perceptions and values of faculty with respect to the weight that research, teaching, and service are and should be given in promotion decisions. The various outcomes were then examined from the perspectives of maturation (aging), demographic (cohort), and historical effects. The conclusion is that different perspectives are needed to explain different phenomena. Cohort effects, sometimes modified by historical events, were more effective and called upon more often than were explanations relating to age.