Group work as a strategy for attribution retraining in the Asian educational context of Singapore

The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of group work as a strategy for attribution retraining and improving students’ motivational styles. Students were first categorised into one of three motivational styles: learned helplessness, self-worth motivation and mastery orientation. In the intervention procedure, selected students from each of these three categories were subjected to an intervention procedure requiring the students to work in groups, with the emphasis on personal effort as the major contributor to group success. Post-intervention assessment of motivation showed an improvement in the motivation of self-worth motivated students although there was generally a decrease in mastery orientation amongst students in both the control as well as the experimental groups.     

International collaboration in science and the formation of a core group

International collaboration as measured by co-authorship relations on refereed papers grew linearly from 1990 to 2005 in terms of the number of papers, but exponentially in terms of the number of international addresses. This confirms Persson et al.'s [Persson, O., Glänzel, W., & Danell, R. (2004). Inflationary bibliometrics values: The role of scientific collaboration and the need for relative indicators in evaluative studies. Scientometrics, 60(3), 421–432] hypothesis of an inflation in international collaboration. Patterns in international collaboration in science can be considered as network effects, since there is no political institution mediating relationships at that level except for the initiatives of the European Commission. Science at the international level shares features with other complex adaptive systems whose order arises from the interactions of hundreds of agents pursuing self-interested strategies. During the period 2000–2005, the network of global collaborations appears to have reinforced the formation of a core group of fourteen most cooperative countries. This core group can be expected to use knowledge from the global network with great efficiency, since these countries have strong national systems. Countries at the periphery may be disadvantaged by the increased strength of the core.     

Moving an Evidence‐Based Parenting Program Into the Community

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch‐up (ABC) is a parenting program developed to enhance sensitivity among parents of infants who experience early adversity. In several randomized clinical trials, the intervention's efficacy has been demonstrated. Moving interventions into the community with adequate fidelity is challenging, though, and intervention effects are often much smaller than when tested in randomized clinical trials. To enhance the likelihood that ABC is delivered with high fidelity, a microanalytic fidelity assessment was developed. Using this fidelity tool as a central component of training, supervision, and certification, changes in parent sensitivity for 108 families with children ages 6 months to 2 years were as large as those seen in laboratory settings. These findings are discussed with regard to implications for moving other evidence‐based interventions into the community.     

The way we were: health library life seen through the pages of the Medical Library Bulletin of the Thames Regions, 1974-94

The Medical Library Bulletin of the Thames Regions reflected the development of health-service libraries over the 20 years it existed. Originally begun as a practical aid to improving services by encouraging co-operation, improving communication and giving instructive advice, it charted the work of health-service librarians and the growth of their services. The articles contained in it covered professional developments and wider political issues as they occurred, and illustrated the extension of the librarians' knowledge and skills. Leslie Morton, Library Adviser to the British Postgraduate Medical Federation, edited almost every issue, starting at a time when there was little guidance or professional literature available for health-service librarians.     

Assessing more than you teach: the difficult case of transfer

We conducted two case studies to evaluate the effectiveness of individualized remedial reading instruction linked to direct measures of student learning and transfer. The participants were two first grade children at serious risk of reading failure. The instruction targeted decoding of one syllable short vowel words and first emphasized onset-rimes and then phoneme manipulation. Forty words organized into 10 rime patterns were targeted for instruction. Probes consisting of all the instructional words were administered before each instructional session to monitor student progress. We also administered transfer probes to determine if the children could apply their knowledge more broadly. Instruction with onset-rime units yielded excellent maintenance and near transfer (novel words containing instructed rimes) but not far transfer (novel words derived from uninstructed rimes). The instructional change to phoneme manipulation yielded better far transfer for one of the two children. We consider the importance of administering measures that assess more than what is taught to get an accurate portrait of children’s responsiveness to instruction.     

The University: Industry Interface in the Generation of Intellectual Property

This involves effective relations with the corporate sector, within an adaptive, evolving, bargaining framework. Based on an extensive interview programme, this paper explores the nature of that relationship in the context of the organisation and objectives of both partners and in the light of the developing competitive environment. It identifies the key elements on which bargaining tends to be focused and, in the light of organisational and market analysis which is ultimately developed into a bargaining model, offers predictions as to the likely outcomes of the bargaining.     

Wer liegt am Ende der Grundschulzeit vorn?

The number of students enrolled in private schools has been growing continuously in the past years, especially in elementary schools. There is a variety of reasons for this development. Among other expectations, parents anticipate a superior education for their children and hope for bigger academic success. However, empirical results on the effectiveness of private schools are inconsistent and ambiguous, partly because many studies used cross-sectional data. Longitudinal studies investigating the development of elementary school students are especially lacking.The present study compares academic achievement gains of students enrolled in public schools to students who learned in the so-called BIP-creativity elementary schools. BIP schools are private schools that aim to promote the development of the talent, intelligence and personality of their students. This study investigates the development of students in mathematics, reading and orthography over a 4-years period.As the group of BIP-students is selected in terms of their socio-economic background, analyses were run in two ways. First, multilevel analyses controlling for student and class characteristics were performed. Second, a Propensity Score Matching based on school enrollment data was used in order to select a comparable group of students from public schools. Each BIP-student was matched to a student from the public schools that had a comparable socio-economic background and similar cognitive characteristics. Neither multilevel analyses nor mean comparisons of the matched samples could reveal any differences between the two groups of students in the three domains of academic achievement at the end of fourth grade.     

Word-reading and word-spelling styles of French beginners: Do all children learn to read and spell in the same way?

This article explores the styles of word reading and word spelling used by beginning readers in the French language. The aim of the study was to find out whether sub-lexical and lexical styles of reliance, which has been observed in children learning to read and spell in English, exists in French, a language with a more transparent orthography. A sample of 159 subjects were assessed on their reading and spelling of regular words, irregular words and nonwords. Cluster analyses on reading/spelling performances led us to identify various profiles, among which sub-lexical and lexical styles could be discerned. These profiles were then compared across a set of linguistic tasks in order to look for factors that might be related to individual differences in reading/spelling styles. Overall, our findings suggest that quantitative level differences explain most individual variation in literacy. These results are discussed in relation to developmental models of reading and spelling in different orthographic systems.     

The Belt and Road Initiative and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in Kenya: The Kenya-China TVET Project

This study explores the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative on improving vocational education quality and employment rates in Kenya through a collaborative educational program known as the Kenya-China Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) project. The opinions and narratives of teachers and students with vibrant knowledge of the project were analyzed through the theoretical lenses of globalization and vocationalism. The results show that the Kenya-China TVET Project has improved Kenyan TVET classrooms with modern equipment to meet industrial standards and allowed essential skills to be developed through various collaborative opportunities with Chinese corporations. Despite minor challenges and obstacles, early evidence suggests benefits brought by the project including increased self-employment, a growth in Kenya’s manufacturing, and more mutual understanding between the two countries.