Elementary Statistics with Minitab

Computer packages are available which can take much of the tedium out of the computational aspects of statistics and, we hope, thereby improve comprehension of the concepts. This article describes how the software package Minitab was incorporated into two elementary statistics courses, one at Kingston Polytechnic in England, the other at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in the United States.     

Maori word-processing for indigenous New Zealand young children

We argue that there is an important and as yet unmet need for software that allows each cultural group to express the written word in an indigenous character set. As an example, we present a word-processing system, Ta Kupu, designed for use in teaching the Maori language to children. The program simplifies the input task by taking advantage of the structural features of the Maori language. The system also includes a data logging, evaluation, and analysis tool, Tirohia, that permits teachers to evaluate a child's familiarity with the word-processor. The main features of the evaluation software include: the ability to replay a record of a child's interaction in real time; facilities for summarising a child's consistency of use and level of performance; and the capability of examining interaction log files at a fine-grained level. We also address the application of these data logging and evaluation techniques to the areas of human factors research, interface design and interface evaluation.     

The relationship between term specificity in MeSH and online postings in MEDLINE

Hierarchically structured thesauri--including MeSH--were studied to test the assumption of an inverse relationship between term specificity and the number of postings in online databases. It was suggested that this assumption holds only for peripheral terms and that the opposite is true for the central terms of a discipline. The Environment tree structure of MeSH was used to test the "peripheral" hypothesis, which was supported at a .05 level of significance, but the scattergram on the Endocrine Diseases tree, which was run to test the "central" hypothesis, had an even better level, .02. The commonly held belief that specific terms are added to a thesaurus when more general ones get too many postings was also tested. The relationship between specificity and dates was supported in MeSH (.015). The corollary--that terms with later dates have fewer postings--was supported at a .001 level of significance. The results for MeSH were much more significant than for other hierarchically structured thesauri, which indicates that thesaurus development at NLM involves interaction with MEDLINE to preclude an excessive number of postings to any one term.     

Assessing the effect on high school teachers of direct and unrestricted access to the internet: A case study of an east central florida high school

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect direct and unrestricted access to the Internet had on a group of high school teachers. Based on the naturalistic inquiry paradigm, this study explored the barriers these teachers encountered when using the Internet, how and when they elected to use the Internet, the factors that influenced their continued use of the Internet, and the transitions they experienced from using the Internet. Data collection was based on Patton's (1990) three approaches to interviewing; data analysis was based in part on Miles and Huberman's (1984) model of data reduction and display and on Spradley's (1979) task of domain analysis. Findings suggested: that teachers require ongoing Internet training, technical support, home Internet access, and time in which to learn and incorporate the Internet into their classes; that Internet use can increase teachers' self-esteem and improve their attitudes toward computers and education; and that use of the Internet by teachers encourages them to restructure their classes and schedules to accommodate Internet resources within their classrooms.     

The ‘Third Wave’: education and the ideology of parentocracy

In this paper it will be argued that we are entering a ‘third wave’ in the socio‐historical development of British education and that similar trends are also evident in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. The ‘first wave’ can be characterised by the rise of mass schooling for the working classes in the late nineteenth century. The ‘second wave’ involved a shift from the provision of education based upon what Dewey called the “feudal dogma of social predestination” to one organised on the basis of individual merit and achievement. What is distinct about the ‘third wave’ is the move towards a system whereby the education a child receives must conform to the wealth and wishes of parents rather than the abilities and efforts of pupils. In other words, we have witnessed a shift away from the ‘ideology of meritocracy’ to what I will call the ‘ideology of parentocracy’. This paper will consider the evidence to support this conclusion and examine its sociological significance.