Special education placement decisions made by teams and individuals: A cross-cultural perspective

The present study looked at whether special education placement decisions made by teams are superior to those made by individuals. The investigation was conducted in Puerto Rico to determine whether the benefits of the cooperative group process exist in another culture. Results indicated that teams in Puerto Rico generated significantly less variability (i.e., errors) in their placement decisions than did the same specialists acting independently.     

African American college students excelling in the sciences: College and postcollege outcomes in the Meyerhoff Scholars Program

This paper describes and assesses the effectiveness of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). The Program is designed to increase the number of underrepresented minorities who pursue graduate and professional degrees in science and engineering. Until 1996 the program admitted African American students exclusively, and the current study focuses only on students from that group. The Meyerhoff students have achieved higher grade point averages, graduated in science and engineering at higher rates, and gained admittance to graduate schools at higher rates than multiple current and historical comparison samples. Student survey and interview data revealed that a number of program components were viewed as being especially important contributors to students' academic success: Program Community, Study Groups, Summer Bridge Program, Financial Support, Program Staff, and Research Internships and Mentors. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 629–654, 2000     

“Unskilled Laborers”

Advancement of knowledge and progress in technology drives the need for protecting inventions, new ideas, writings, music, and other media. While abundant, intellectual property and copyright issues are not simple, and the United States has adopted multiple rules via treaties worldwide. Academia has been fortunate with regard to the freedom provided by the fair use doctrine. Despite the freedoms, however, some feel that liberty is now limited by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) and other rules being placed on intellectual property use (Carlson 2004).     

Deploying a Corporate Learning System at the Innovative Startup

The article discusses an empirical study that was conducted by the authors, in which they surveyed focus groups of young innovative entrepreneurs who are at different stages of creating their own projects. The authors devote particular attention to how training programs for the founders and staff should be implemented as the startup develops from its early phases into a sustainable-growth business.     

The spiritual component of children’s lives: the role of media

Drawn from a larger study of Canadian children’s sense of self and media habits, this study explores the role of religiosity and/or spirituality within 535 children’s (281 girls, 254 boys; 5–13 years of age) self‐reported media preferences and habits over a three‐year period. Results indicate that the theme of spirituality and/or religiosity emerged most frequently within the context of after‐school activities, music listening habits and the reading habits of participants’ mothers. Aside from children in Grade 1 (five–six years), girls were more likely than boys to mention issues of spirituality and religiosity, particularly during preadolescence (10–13 years). Younger children reported more issues of spirituality than older children. Results are discussed in terms of educational implications for critical media literacy.     

Disciplinary and gender differences among higher education students in self‐regulated learning strategies

This study explores how university students representing diverse disciplines and gender differ in their self‐regulation in learning. The definition of self‐regulated learning (SRL) in the present study is based on Pintrich’s and Zimmerman’s theories of SRL and comprises motivational and learning strategies. The sample consisted of 1248 undergraduate students at several Finnish universities. The data were retrieved from the IQ Learn online self‐assessment and tutoring system. Female students scored moderately higher than male students on help‐seeking strategies, utility value and on performance anxiety. Among the diverse disciplines, minor mean differences emerged on all the sub‐dimensions of SRL, though no clear regularity on any discipline’s favour was perceived. However, male and female students of behavioural sciences and female students of sciences scored highest consistently, and the technology students, especially the male students, scored lowest. In the future, the relations between the students’ self‐regulation in learning and instructional approach should be studied further.     

Investigating Critical Friendship: Peeling Back the Layers

ABSTRACT

This self-study documents two teacher educators’ professional inquiry into the notions of critical friendship. Specifically, we asked: How does our interactive inquiry on the topic of critical friendship lead us to new understandings of critical friends? Three theoretical perspectives framed this study – More Knowledgeable Others, Thought Collective, and reflection. Data sources included (a) artifacts from the self-study scholarship/literature, (b) written and real-time (audio recorded) dialogue, and (c) critical friend response memos. We systematically analyzed our data, linking the initial themes to our theoretical frame. These themes led to three findings about critical friendship: flexible definitions, complex characteristics, and multiple learning phases. Based on these findings, we created two research tools useful for researchers enacting critical friendship – the Critical Friend Definition Continuum and the Critical Friend Guide for Quality Assurance. Ultimately, we assert that we, along with our colleagues, must be responsible brokers of critical friendship by explicitly explaining our purposes, definitions and uses of critical friendship within our work as self-study researchers.     

Evaluating electronic resources: Personal Development Planning resources at the Open University,a case study

This paper discusses the evaluation of Web‐based tools to support Personal Development Planning (PDP) in order to illustrate issues associated with the introduction and assessment of the effectiveness of online resources. The aims of the evaluation were based on concerns about the very complex situation that offering online resources including PDP poses for part‐time off‐campus students. In this paper the authors utilize a modified RUFDATA framework (Saunders, 2000 Saunders, M. 2000. Beginning an evaluation with RUFDATA: theorising a practical approach to evaluation planning. Evaluation, 1: 7–21.  [Google Scholar]) and consider the benefits a range of methods, including surveys and observational studies, can offer evaluations of electronic resources. They found that students used and valued some aspects of the provision but that even with best efforts of instructional designers, and user testing at the draft stage, students do not always behave as intended. This evaluation highlighted the need for a range of strategies for evaluating online resources and that regardless of student attitude there are real worries about eLearning imposing extra workload burdens on ‘time poor’ adults.