On the Move: Technology, Mobility, and the Mediation of Social Time and Space

The current explosion in mobile computing and telecommunications technologies holds the potential to transform "everyday" time and space, as well as changes to the rhythms of social institutions. Sociologists are only just beginning to explore what the notion of "mobility" might mean when mediated through computing and communications technologies, and so far, the sociological treatment has been largely theoretical. This article seeks instead to explore how a number of dimensions of time and space are being newly reconstructed through the use of mobile communications technologies in everyday life. The article draws on long-term ethnographic research entitled "The Socio-Technical Shaping of Mobile Multimedia Personal Communications," conducted at the University of Surrey. This research has involved ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a variety of locales and with a number of groups. This research is used here as a resource to explore how mobile communications technologies mediate time in relation to mobile spaces. First the paper offers a review and critique of some of the major sociological approaches to understanding time and space. This review entails a discussion of how social practices and institutions are maintained and/or transformed via mobile technologies. Ethnographic data is used to explore emerging mobile temporalities. Three interconnected domains in mobile time are proposed: rhythms of mobile use, rhythms of mobile use in everyday life, and rhythms of mobility and institutional change. The article argues that while these mobile temporalities are emerging, and offer new ways of acting in and perceiving time and space, the practical construction of mobile time in everyday life remains firmly connected to well-established time-based social practices, whether these be institutional (such as clock time, "work time") or subjective (such as "family time").     

Self‐assessment and the disadvantaged student: potential for encouraging self‐regulated learning?

The Science Foundation Programme (SFP) at the University of KwaZulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg attempts to address past educational inequalities by providing disadvantaged matriculants with the skills, resources and self‐confidence needed to embark on their tertiary studies. Students entering the Programme typically adopt a surface approach to learning with emphasis being placed on high score achievement which results in a mark‐driven attitude towards assessment. Students also lack the metacognitive skills associated with a deep approach to learning. Within this mark‐driven culture, it is important to attempt to move students away from such a superficial approach to learning and assessment. Worldwide, self‐assessment practice has been gaining recognition, and it has been linked to the adoption of a deep approach to learning; self‐regulated learning and the development of metacognitive skills. In the biology module of the Programme, students are given two essay assignments, tasks that are routinely performed very poorly. In attempt to improve SFP students’ essay writing abilities, a self‐assessment scheme to accompany the essay tasks was instituted, hoping that this would get the students to engage with the assessment criteria. It was intended that students would not only fulfil the requirements of the task better, but also achieve the valuable skill of self‐assessment. The results provide overwhelming evidence that SFP students cannot accurately self‐assess. Their naivety and inexperience in fulfilling assessment criteria was also revealed. Overall, marks awarded by staff were significantly lower than those awarded by students, and there was no evidence to suggest that any one category of students based on academic ability were better able to self‐assess than another. Marker inconsistencies were revealed, but this was shown to have no effect on findings. In spite of these results, a case for pursuing self‐assessment is made and proposals for improving student self‐assessment practice in the SFP are suggested.     

Organisational Change and the Institutionalisation of University Patenting Activity in Italy

As universities are increasingly called by their national governments for a more entrepreneurial management of public research results, they started to develop internal structures and policies to take a proactive role in the commercialisation of university research. For the first time, this paper presents a detailed chronicle of how country-level reforms on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) were translated into organisation-level mechanisms to regulate university-patenting activity. The analysis is based on the complete list of patent policies issued between 1993 and 2009 by the population of Italian universities. Our evidence suggests that universities first dealt with legislative changes on IPRs by enacting isomorphic behaviours, then by creating a community of practices, and finally by leveraging on such community to influence government reforms on IP-related matters. We discuss our results in the light of institutional theory and public policy.     

Confidence and Expectations About Caring for Older People With Dementia: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Student Nurses

Older people who are living with dementia often need healthcare, including hospital admissions, due to additional health conditions. Caring for older people who are living with dementia is, therefore, a core nursing role. This study investigated student nurses’ expectations of, and confidence about, caring for older people with dementia and the effect of students’ age, precourse experience, and their academic year. The design was a cross-sectional survey using questionnaires to collect data. The participants (n = 328), based at one university in England, had all had at least one practice learning placement. Most student nurses (n = 202; 62%) had precourse contact with older people with dementia and had cared for them during the course (n = 291; 89%). The student's academic year significantly affected confidence about caring for older people with dementia (p = .006), but still only 52% (n = 26) of third-year students felt “generally confident.” Precourse contact with older people with dementia had a significant impact on expectations (p = .001) and confidence in caring for people with dementia (p = .002). Students who were >25 years were significantly more likely to have had precourse contact with older people with dementia (p = < .001). Nurse educators should ensure that students entering nurse education appreciate that caring for older people who are living with dementia will be a core part of their role. They must proactively prepare nursing students to care for people with dementia, recognizing that some students have no previous contact, which may affect their confidence and experiences.     

FROM COVERT PROCESSES TO OVERT OUTCOMES OF REFUTATION TEXT READING: THE INTERPLAY OF SCIENCE TEXT STRUCTURE AND WORKING MEMORY CAPACITY THROUGH EYE FIXATIONS

This study extends current research on the refutation text effect by investigating it in learners with different levels of working memory capacity. The purpose is to outline the link between online processes (revealed by eye fixation indices) and off-line outcomes in these learners. In science education, unlike a standard text, a refutation text acknowledges readers’ alternative conceptions about a topic, refutes them, and presents scientific conceptions as viable alternatives. Lower and higher memory span university students with alternative conceptions about the topic read either a refutation or a non-refutation text about tides. Off-line measures of learning revealed that both groups of refutation text readers attained higher knowledge gains. During the reading process, refutation text readers fixated for longer on the refutation segments while reading the parts presenting the scientific information (look-froms). Non-refutation text readers looked back to the informational parts for longer. Look-froms (positively) and reading time (negatively) predicted learning from refutation text, indicating that the quality, not quantity, of reading was related to it. In contrast, learning from non-refutation text was predicted only by working memory capacity. The refutation effect is discussed and educational implications are drawn.     

Policy into practice in Hong Kong pre-primary kindergartens: the impact of a reform agenda viewing early childhood as the foundation for lifelong learning

In this paper we outline the provision of pre-primary education in the Hong Kong SAR and discuss how the educational reform initiatives of 2000 (Learning to Learn) and global imperatives provided the impetus to reshape a new educational approach to early childhood education. We use the example of a half-day pre-primary (kindergarten) programme to illustrate the ways in which policy and guidelines are enacted and how they appear to reflect all the attributes of the reform movement that have adopted contemporary ideas from the international educational arena. We highlight the interpretations and enactments of these new educational imperatives in a system that has a long history of different cultural pedagogical traditions that often do not resonate with western pedagogical approaches.