Teaching Repayment of Parents' Kindness

This article introduces a Buddhist Sutra about the deep kindness of mothers and ways of repaying mothers' kindness. The Sutra has been used to teach children about mothers' kindness and the obligation to repay to their mothers in their old age. It contains discourses about 10 types of kindness that a mother bestows on her child and how to repay the kindness in her old age. The paper discusses the profound nature of mothers' kindness, the way of repaying the kindness, the reciprocal caring relationship between the mother and the child, the status of mothers in Buddhism, and implications for aging.     

Family child care in four Midwestern states: Multiple measures of quality and relations to outcomes by licensed status and subsidy program participation

Quality of family child care in four Midwestern states was examined using four measures designed to assess structural and/or process quality to determine if dimensions converge or vary across types of family child care (licensed and license-exempt/registered) and subsidy receipt (programs serving children whose care is paid by subsidies and programs not serving subsidized children). Two instruments designed specifically for use with family child care that measure both structural and process quality were used (Family Day Care Rating Scale and Quality Instrument for Informal Child Care), as well as one instrument measuring process quality (Caregiver Interaction Scale) and one instrument measuring structural quality (Midwest Child Care Assets Index). The two instruments designed to measure both structural and process quality in family child care were highly correlated with each other, while both of these were moderately correlated with the measure of process quality. The measure of structural quality was not significantly correlated with the measure of process quality. Licensed family child care homes scored higher than license-exempt/registered family child care homes on three of the four measures (all but the Caregiver Interaction Scale), and family child care homes receiving child care subsidies scored lower than those not receiving subsidies on three of the four measures (all but the Assets Index).     

Assuring quality in Asian open and distance learning

Open and distance learning (ODL) is enjoying phenomenal growth in Asian higher education, new forms of provision are being developed, new institutions are being established and there is a surge in online export and import. However, there is still need to ensure that increasing access does not result in lowering standards and to prove that ODL is at least as good as conventional education and, in many cases, more innovative, effective and efficient. The paper examines the various quality assurance approaches employed in Asian university ODL, and the values, assumptions and advantages and disadvantages of these. It concludes by suggesting what is needed to encourage and achieve a culture of quality in the field.     

Cost‐effectiveness of online teacher training

This study aims to compare the cost‐effectiveness of an online teacher training method with a face‐to‐face training method in teaching ‘ICT integration in the school curriculum’. In addition, the study explores the possibilities of a school‐based voluntary training method in supporting other approaches to ICT teacher training. The analyses of various quantitative and qualitative data showed that online teacher training was more cost‐effective than face‐to‐face teacher training, mainly due to the lower opportunity cost of the participants. The voluntary teacher training revealed the possibility of providing cost‐effective training, especially in the actual application of ICT in classrooms. Based on the results of the study, factors affecting cost‐effectiveness of the teacher training approaches are discussed and further research areas suggested.     

Modelling patterns of improvement over time: value added trends in English secondary school performance across ten cohorts

This paper looks at underlying patterns of school effectiveness through analysing a GCSE examination data‐set over a period of ten cohorts (1993–2002) in one very large English school district. Both value added and raw score approaches were explored by employing different statistical multilevel models to examine time trends of school and pupil performance from two perspectives: consistent (linear) and inconsistent (non‐linear) school improvement. Overall, levels of measured attainment for the vast majority of the schools increased over the decade and the results indicate that one in four schools had significantly higher value added improvement trajectories (linear) than would be expected over the decade—in comparison to the average school. Those schools with a lower value added starting point in 1993 were more likely to make significant improvement. However, underlying these linear improvement trajectories it appears that only one in 16 schools managed to improve continuously for more than four years at some point over the decade in terms of value added.     

Information Manipulation Through the Media

This article models media manipulation in which a sender or senders manipulate information through the media to influence receivers. This article shows that if there is only 1 sender who has a conditional preference for maintaining its credibility in reporting accurate information and if the receivers face a coordination situation without information about their opponents' types, the sender could influence the receivers to make decisions according to the sender's primary preference by manipulating the information through the media, which makes the report common knowledge. This is true even when the sender and the receivers have contradictory primary preferences. This result extends to the cases in which the sender has imperfect information or in which the sender's primary preference is to maintain its credibility. In the case of multiple senders, however, when there is enough competition among the senders or when simultaneous reporting takes place, the receivers could play their favored outcome against senders' preferences, which sheds light on a solution to the media manipulation problem.     

The Influence of Friends' Instant Messenger Status on Individuals' Coping and Support-Seeking

Although there is an increasing amount of research on social support in cyberspace, little is known about how Internet technologies influence social support among people who share offline personal relationships. The current study examined how friends' instant messenger (IM) status might influence individuals' coping and support-seeking, and what mechanisms could account for those effects. Four hundred and ninety-four college students read and responded to a hypothetical scenario in which they logged onto IM after experiencing a stressful situation. Participants perceived higher levels of self-efficacy, greater stress decrease, and greater likelihood of seeking support from a friend when the friend was said to be online than offline. Perceived social presence mediated the influence of a friend's online status on participants' coping and likelihood of seeking support from the friend.     

Book reviews

Critical studies in media commercialism edited by Robin Andersen and Lance Strate. Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 2000, 341 pages. ISBN 0–19–874277–0. http://www.oup.co.uk/

Using communication technology ‐ creating knowledge organizations, written by Bettina S.T. Buchel. Palgrave, New York, 2001, 208 pages. ISBN 0333929500. http ://www.palgrave.com

Media law ‐ a practical guide to managing publication risks, written by Simon Gallant & Jennifer Epworth. Sweet & Maxwell, London, 2001, 442 pages + 1 CD ROM, ISBN 0421 598 204. http://www.sweetandmaxwell.co.uk