Becoming a PI: From ‘doing’ to ‘managing’ research

While achieving research independence by becoming a principal investigator (PI) is a key aspiration for many postdocs, little is known of the trajectory from PhD graduation to first PI grant. This interview-based study examined how 16 PIs in science, technology engineering, mathematics or medicine, in the UK and continental Europe, prepared for and dealt with this career transition. Individuals demonstrated commitment to lengthy periods of postdoctoral work in a range of institutions (often involving international mobility) to achieve PI-status. Their emotionally laden journeys required resilience and self-belief, since getting a grant was conceived as partly luck. Once individuals had their grant they faced new challenges that distanced them from actively researching. Still, individuals navigated their intentions in a sustained fashion to create a distinct intellectual profile in the face of challenging circumstances. The results highlight the centrality of emotion in the journey, as well as curricular imperatives for both doctoral and postdoctoral learning.     

Preparing Preservice Teachers for Life in Schools: The Role of Doctoral Education

ABSTRACT

Physical education teachers face considerable sociopolitical challenges that can impede quality instruction and complicate recruitment into the profession. Physical education teacher education faculty members may not be prepared to address these challenges during their doctoral education. Accordingly, the purpose of the paper was to utilize the lessons learned from occupational socialization research to propose competencies that can be integrated into doctoral education to help future faculty members integrate sociopolitical learning into physical education teacher education. These include: (a) understanding socialization literature and the implications for teacher education, (b) helping doctoral students understand their own prior socialization experiences, (c) recruiting highly qualified preservice teachers, (d) helping preservice teachers question their subjective theories, (e) developing and coordinating field experiences, and (f) preparing preservice teachers for the sociopolitical realities of schools. These competencies align with the proposed addition of a new standard for initial teacher education that addresses sociopolitical learning.     

Deaf and hard of hearing students’ perceptions of campus administrative support

Most students with hearing loss attend community college, yet very little research on this population of students exists in higher education. This research was conducted in order to gain a better understanding of how students who are d/Deaf navigate the mainstream postsecondary environment. Purposeful sampling was used to gather data from 19 individuals who attended postsecondary institutions not designed specifically for d/Deaf students. These participants were enrolled in an urban community college district in the southwestern United States and were receiving accommodations from their campus accessibility office.

Participants shared their perceptions of the campus accessibility office, the individuals within it, and campus administrative support. The results from this study help shed light on the experience of d/Deaf students in community college and provide insight on how to facilitate their success in postsecondary education. The author provides recommended practices for campus accessibility offices to adopt in order to effectively serve this student population, including specialized orientation for students and instructors, specialized advising, utilization of student feedback, and increasing campus and community awareness of services offered.     

Injury variables in child abuse

The child abuse reporting records of 616 children seen by the child abuse team in a metropolitan children's hospital were analyzed. Boys were referred for abuse more often than girls, and black children were reported disproportionately more often than were white children. Mothers were the most frequent perpetrators of abuse, although males constituted more than half of the abusers. Bruises were the most frequent manifestation of abuse. The types of injury, injury site and types of instruments used varied with the age and race, but not the sex of the child. The wide variety of instruments used to perpetrate child abuse resulted in a broad spectrum of injury types. If professionals are to recognize common and early manifestations of child abuse, they must be aware of the influence of regional socioeconomic and cultural factors on the spectrum of child abuse.     

An evaluation of the impact of an inter‐agency intervention programme to promote social skills in primary school children

This paper describes a social skills programme run in one primary school designed to promote children's cooperative skills and anger management. The programme was staffed by Child and Adolescent Mental Health professionals with educational psychologist and school support. Eight children with severe emotional and behavioural problems participated and completed the 20‐week programme. Pre and post data were collected for the children, parents and teachers. Parents were supported by regular meetings and domiciliary visits from an assistant psychologist. Teaching staff met regularly with the team and had frequent supportive contact with the assistant psychologist. Two educational psychologists‐in‐training made an independent qualitative evaluation of the programme, interviewing the children, their parents and teachers, as well as members of the multi‐agency team. After attending the group, the children showed a significant reduction in their anxiety, parents reported a significant reduction in oppositional behaviour and teachers a significant reduction in attention‐deficit hyperactive difficulties type behaviour. All measures showed a significant or positive trend, although there was some disappointment in the level of parent participation in the school‐based parent meetings. Reasons for this are discussed and the case for multi‐agency social skills interventions is made, along with a broader discussion of the role of the educational psychologist.     

Challenging the productivity mantra: academic writing with spirit in place

Academic writing groups aim to improve the quality and/or the rate of academic publications. In this article, the authors reflect on a writing group with academic and non-academic members that evolved over two years to uphold a deeper and arguably spiritual purpose. The group commenced with the aim of increasing its members' publication rates, but it developed to be a safe space for members to search for meaning as part of a fellowship of writers. This transition was based in the members’ shared commitment to social justice values and individual concerns to generate meaningful research and writing experiences. The group’s distinct processes, the shared values of its members and the site of the group meetings in a socially stigmatised community, all work to deepen its purpose beyond academic productivity. Though the group functions to strengthen individual and group norms that contribute to academic productivity, emergent norms and the fellowship of the writers foster a spiritual dimension in the group. This exploration of the spiritual dimension of a writing group adds to the long list of benefits of fellowship through academic writing groups.     

Religious education and hermeneutics: the case of teaching about Islam

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to do three things: the first is an exploration of the ways in which Islam is presented in an essentialist way (with a focus on religious education (RE) in England and Wales), leading to stereotypes and unsubstantiated generalisations that are then embedded in resources and agreed syllabi, secondly, it provides a critique of essentialism, and finally a case is made for the role of hermeneutics in the teaching and learning of Islam. We argue that a hermeneutical approach is a sound way to both conceptualise the phenomenon of Islam and a pedagogical opening to make sense of it, that may help overcome some of the weaknesses of the current ways of teaching about Islam.     

Prediscursive Technical Communication in the Early American Iron Industry

Examining the discourse surrounding the charcoal iron industry between 1760 and 1860 in North America, this article suggests that, prior to the industrialization of work, technical communication took place in a prediscursive setting, an oral and physical world that we can just manage to glimpse even as we watch it recede. The letters of Robert Erskine written in 1770 illustrate the prediscursive methods of technical communication. By the 1860s, a flood of governmental, professional, and commercial publications appeared, each signifying the disappearance of this prediscursive world. This transition from prediscursive to discursive methods may mark one of the largest changes in the history of technical communication.     

A Collaborative Approach to the Development and Validation of a Principal Evaluation System: A Case Study

This article provides a case history of collaboration between the South Carolina Educational Policy Center (SCEPC) at the University of South Carolina (USC), the South Carolina Department of Education (SDE), and stakeholder committees in developing a principal evaluation system for South Carolina. This case, study is based on the authors’ experiences in the process and their review of program documents. The project staff used the Personnel Evaluation Standards and the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing to guide the review of the standards. They also worked with qualified job experts to develop performance standards, evaluation criteria, and instrumentation. The documented activities serve as evidence that validity issues were appropriately addressed. The project staff and stakeholder committees conducted an internal review and a field review of the proposed standards and criteria, as well as a pilot study of the proposed instrumentation. Stakeholder feedback served as an additional source of validity evidence. Although this case study focused on development of an evaluation system in one state, the information presented may be helpful to other states or districts that are planning to develop similar systems.     

Websites as educational motivators for adults with learning disability

Adults with learning disability pose an educational challenge for teachers and support workers. They frequently have limited skills in reading and writing, and may find it difficult to pay attention to topics of little interest to them. Nevertheless, they can be keen to use new technology, and often have hobbies and interests that are catered for on the Internet. This article describes a project aimed to highlight the advantages and weaknesses of web‐based learning for adults with learning disability, and to suggest improvements. Eight students with mild to moderate learning disability were helped to find websites related to their interests, and supported in creating multimedia work linked to those sites. Results showed the powerfully motivating effect of the websites for students, but highlighted the access difficulties posed by websites for such students. Further work in this area is needed, to develop strategies for exploiting the motivating effect of websites, and to improve the accessibility of sites for people with low literacy levels.