Evaluation of a Teaching Kit for Family and Consumer Science Classrooms: Motivating Students To Use a Food Thermometer with Small Cuts Of Meat

ABSTRACT: The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture recommends use of food thermometers to safely cook small cuts of meat, yet most consumers do not use them. Consumers lack knowledge about how and why to use food thermometers with small cuts of meat. Opportunities exist for family and consumer science classes to provide education about thermometers to adolescents, who may disseminate this information to parents. The most successful nutrition programs are based on behavior-change theories compared with standard interventions. A teaching kit for high school students was developed, based on the Health Belief and Transtheoretical Models, covering the "how's" and "why's" of using food thermometers. After participating in the lessons, students' knowledge about the reasons for using a thermometer and their self-confidence in using thermometers increased. In addition, students were more ready to use a thermometer with small cuts of meat after completing the intervention.     

PAINTING WITH IMPASTO: METAPHORS,MIRRORS, AND REFLECTIVE REGRESSION IN MONTAIGNE'S “OF THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN”

Analyzing Montaigne's triptych painting, “Of the Education of Children,” reveals a series of ever‐morphing, Dorian Gray–like canvases that depict metaphor mutations through which Montaigne defined education by distinguishing between schooling a child into a learned man and educating him into an able, active, and gentle person. Montaigne used metaphor and metaphor clusters to image key points in his educational philosophy, advanced his argument by intertwining, transmuting, and inverting metaphors, and thereby drew and vividly painted his philosophy of how to educate a person from cradle to coffin. Because the etymology and pronunciation of “essay” (from the French essai) support Montaigne's imaging and exploiting of this genre's creative potential, Virginia Worley begins by considering the term's etymology before positioning her analysis of Montaigne's work within metaphor research. She then examines the metaphors Montaigne used to paint the triptych word painting that embodies his philosophy of education: the meaning and value of educating in and for the art of living well.     

Speech production deficits in early readers: predictors of risk

Speech problems and reading disorders are linked, suggesting that speech problems may potentially be an early marker of later difficulty in associating graphemes with phonemes. Current norms suggest that complete mastery of the production of the consonant phonemes in English occurs in most children at around 6–7 years. Many children enter formal schooling (kindergarten) around 5 years of age with near-adult levels of speech production. Given that previous research has shown that speech production abilities and phonological awareness skills are linked in preschool children, we set out to examine whether this pattern also holds for children just beginning to learn to read, as suggested by the critical age hypothesis. In the present study, using a diverse sample, we explored whether expressive phonological skills in 92 5-year-old children at the beginning and end of kindergarten were associated with early reading skills. Speech errors were coded according to whether they were developmentally appropriate, position within the syllable, manner of production of the target sounds, and whether the error involved a substitution, omission, or addition of a speech sound. At the beginning of the school year, children with significant early reading deficits on a predictively normed test (DIBELS) made more speech errors than children who were at grade level. Most of these errors were typical of kindergarten children (e.g., substitutions involving fricatives), but reading-delayed children made more of these errors than children who entered kindergarten with grade level skills. The reading-delayed children also made more atypical errors, consistent with our previous findings about preschoolers. Children who made no speech errors at the beginning of kindergarten had superior early reading abilities, and improvements in speech errors over the course of the year were significantly correlated with year-end reading skills. The role of expressive vocabulary and working memory were also explored, and appear to account for some of these findings.     

Is choosing to go on placement a gamble? Perspectives from bioscience undergraduates

In the biosciences, a professional placement experience in academia or industry is intended to contribute to a student’s personal and professional training. While there is a general acknowledgement that a placement experience is beneficial for students, recent years have seen a decline in the number of students choosing to go on placements. Using a mixed‐method research design, this paper explores the attitudes that influence the bioscience students’ decisions on whether or not to undertake a year in a professional placement. Other questions considered in this study were whether placements influence student attitudes towards learning and if students achieve a better degree classification and better employment because of placement. Perspectives from academic staff and employers were compared with student perspectives on the added value of undertaking an extended placement during a period of study at university. While our findings reaffirm some of the perceived advantages of a professional placement in terms of learning and employability, it identifies important factors that influence student decisions not to undertake placements, revealing interesting questions on the placement perspectives between the student, academic tutor and employer.     

Early action and gesture "vocabulary" and its relation with word comprehension and production

Data from 492 Italian infants (8-18 months) were collected with the parental questionnaire MacArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventories to describe early actions and gestures (A-G) "vocabulary" and its relation with spoken vocabulary in both comprehension and production. A-G were more strongly correlated with word comprehension than word production. A clear developmental pattern for the different types of A-G was found. These findings are similar to those of different Western languages, indicating a common biological and cultural basis. The analysis of individual A-G and their relations with early words with a related meaning showed interesting similarities between the production of A-G with and without object manipulation and the comprehension and production of corresponding words. Results indicate that the transition from A-G to spoken language is mediated by word comprehension.     

Children's Activity Levels and Lesson Context during Third-Grade Physical Education

Abstract

Little is known about children's activity levels during physical education classes and how they relate to the national health objectives for the year 2000 (U.S. Public Health Service, 1991). We systematically observed students' physical activity and associated variables in 293 third-grade physical education lessons in 95 schools in 4 Child and Adolescent Trial for Cardio-vascular Health (CATCH) centers in California, Louisiana, Minnesota, and Texas. The influence of independent variables was assessed simultaneously by analysis of variance. Significant differences among study centers were evidenced for both physical activity and lesson context variables. Additionally, there were differences among variables for lesson location and teacher specialty, but not for teacher gender. Boys were more active than girls, but only during free play opportunities. The findings have widespread implications for educators responsible for developing and implementing health-related physical education programs, as well as for designing and conducting staff development.     

Education Trifecta: Win Attention,Place Knowledge,Show Understanding

Continuing education for librarians and educating library school students in the areas of technical services are topics often discussed within the field of librarianship. The presenters in this session provided alternatives to “on the job” education for technical services professionals. Two presenters provided strategies for instructing an online continuing education course on acquisitions. The third presenter shared information about the development and teaching of a serials course at a library school.     

Perceptions of Health Care Professionals' Credibility as a Predictor of Patients' Satisfaction with their Medical Care and Physician

The purpose of this study was to examine how patients' perceptions of source credibility related to their satisfaction with the quality of medical care they received and satisfaction with their physician. Patients' perceptions of the competence and caring dimensions of source credibility were analyzed for physicians, nurses, and support staff members. Three hypotheses were proposed and supported. Results indicated that higher perceptions of competence and caring for each member of the medical team were related to more patient satisfaction. This paper discusses the importance of the doctor-patient, nurse-patient, and support staff-patient relationships in light of the findings.     

Amount of communication in marital dyads as a function of dyad and individual marital satisfaction

Research is reported which examines the relationship between marital satisfaction and amount of communication in a marital dyad. Consideration is given to various topics of communication which are commonly addressed by marital dyads and to the impact of biological sex on these relationships. Results indicate that highly satisfied couples engage in significantly m ore communication, particularly on certain topics, than do less satisfied couples. Couples with low satisfaction levels engage in a low level of communication on most of the topics which are commonly addressed by married couples. Speculation concerning causation is addressed.