Consistency of administrators' and psychologists' actual and ideal perceptions of school psychologists' activities

Questionnaires asking for actual and ideal perceptions of the role of the school psychologist were completed by 80 school psychologists, 37 directors of pupil personnel services, and 29 superintendents in Virginia public schools. Administrators and school psychologists are in substantial agreement regarding the amount of time the psychologist actually devotes to different job activities. Approximately 75% of the psychologist's time is spent in Meyers' Level I activities (Meyers, 1973). All groups desire a reduction in the time spent in assessment, but they differ as to what intervention levels should be increased. Psychologists see the saved time most appropriately spent in interventions at the system level. Discrepancy between actual and desired roles is discussed in terms of the impact of P.L. 94–142. The consistency of psychologists' actual and ideal perceptions correlated significantly and negatively with their job satisfaction. This relationship is discussed in terms of role conflict, and a comparison is made of actual roles with the emphasis in two professional journals.     

Beyond Student Evaluation of Teaching: Identifying and addressing academic staff development needs

Student evaluation of teaching is a commonly accepted means of obtaining feedback on the quality of university teaching. However, its usefulness in contributing to improved teaching performance is dependent on the extent to which staff respond to and apply the information obtained in this way. This paper reports the results of a project designed to extend the application of student evaluations by using them as the basis for staff development. Survey findings from 87 staff and 127 students indicate the priorities for academic and course development perceived by each group. Booklets based on these perceived needs were developed by collaborative staff-student groups and made available to enable staff to improve their teaching in response to student evaluations.     

Upper extremity bone mineral content asymmetries in tennis players: A systematic review and meta-analysis

The aim of this study was to examine the magnitude of upper extremity bone mineral content (BMC) asymmetries in tennis players. Furthermore, the influence of sex (male versus female versus mixed), chronological age (juniors: < 18 years; adults: 18–39 years and seniors: ≥ 40 years) and starting age (early starters: < 14 years and late starters: > 18 years) on these asymmetries were examined. Two databases were searched for scientific articles that examined upper extremity BMC in tennis players. Pooling of the individual study effect sizes was conducted using the random-effects model. Three subgroup analyses were performed based on sex, chronological age and starting age. Out of the 15 included studies 24 effect sizes were extracted resulting in a significant difference in BMC value between the dominant and nondominant upper extremity of the tennis players (Standardised Mean Difference: 0.85 [95% CI: 0.67–1.03]). The three subgroup analyses all showed medium to strong effect sizes and significant intergroup differences. To conclude, BMC was significantly higher in the dominant upper extremity compared to the nondominant upper extremity in tennis players. Nevertheless, the influence of training volume and playing experience on these asymmetries are yet to be examined.     

May I have this dance? Dance participation and attendance in Denmark

Although dancing is considered to be an important arts form, and is associated with various positive externalities, our understanding of the profiles of dancers and dance audiences are limited. We address the gap in the literature by exploiting survey data on cultural preferences and habits in Denmark for 2004. Our approach has allowed us to identify the socio-economic background of dancers, as well as their involvement in other cultural activities. Among other factors, we note that dancers are more frequent attendees at dance performances, than non-dancers; that they have typically lower incomes and tend to read more, play more video games and visit art exhibits more often. We are further able to separate the sample of dancers in relation to various types of dance practised, allowing us to provide insights on the differences between them.     

Associations between physical activity and health-related fitness – volume versus pattern

Approximately 3.2 million people die of non-communicable diseases (NCD) each year due to insufficient physical activity. Physical activity guidelines are possibly perceived as too demanding and might thus pose a barrier. We addressed the question if a more stable physical activity pattern is associated with higher levels of health-related fitness than one with high and low intensities, regardless of the physical activity level (PAL). Physical activity was objectively measured in 296 men and women (53.7 ± 8.94 years) with the SenseWear Pro Armband^®. Using this data, the PAL and a Gini index were calculated to report the physical activity pattern. Health-related fitness was expressed as a fitness index. PAL was weakly correlated to health-related fitness (r = 0.38, P < .0001). The Gini index was also weakly correlated to the fitness index (r = 0.23, P < .0001). Results of the ANCOVA showed that participants in the first quartile of PAL always scored significantly lower for health-related fitness than participants in quartile four, after adjustment for the Gini index. These results suggest that as long as the volume of physical activity is high, health-related fitness will be high as well, independent of the physical activity pattern or variability in intensities throughout the day.     

Identification of red colorants in van Gogh paintings and ancient Andean textiles by microspectrofluorimetry

Red lake pigments and dyes used in works of art were characterized by microspectrofluorimetry, a new tool in the field of cultural heritage. Emission and excitation spectra were obtained with high spatial resolution (8–30 μm) in cross-sections from paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Lucien Pissarro and from millenary Andean textiles. The fluorophores were identified by comparing their spectra with those from historic reconstructions assembled in a database. In the paints, purpurin and eosin lakes were detected. In the Paracas and Nasca textiles, dated from 200 B.C. to A.D.1476, purpurin and pseudopurpurin were the red dyes used. Carminic acid was detected in textiles dated close to the Inca Empire, A.D. 1000–1476. The results obtained with this new technique were confirmed and are in agreement with those obtained with conventional methods, requiring microsampling, such as HPLC-DAD-MS and SEM-EDX.     

A social network perspective on the management of product development programs

Creativity is essential to the performance of product development programs (PDPs). Most PDPs are designed around teams that jointly work together according to the product decomposition into components, the design and development procedure, and the methods of the final integration. Since the creative product development task requires the teams to combine and integrate input from multiple other teams, the team's structure of interaction is an important determinant of their creativity. In research and practice, however, little is known about the social networks of the teams and their creativity within PDPs. In this study we investigate different structural aspects of social networks of such teams and their creativity within two multinational PDPs. The main results of our investigation imply that many direct network contacts around a weekly intensity stimulate the creativity of teams of PDPs, whereas very open networks with a high information variety minimizes the team's creativity.     

Innovation studies—The emerging structure of a new scientific field

The scholarly literature on innovation was for a long time not very voluminous. But as shown in the paper, this is now rapidly changing. New journals, professional associations and organizational units within universities focusing on innovation have also been formed. This paper explores the cognitive and organizational characteristics of this emerging field of social science and considers its prospects and challenges. The research reported in this paper is based on a web-survey in which more than one thousand scholars worldwide took part.     

Changes in the relation between cognitive and metacognitive skills during the acquisition of expertise

This paper focuses on the transformation of general metacognitive skills of novices into domain-specific regulatory procedures of experts, and the relation of those skills to intelligence. Research has shown that the general metacognitive skills of novices, although partly correlated to intelligence, additionally contribute to learning outcome on top of intelligence. The metacognitive skills of experts appear to be domainspecific and unrelated to intelligence. Two experiments were conducted. The objective of the first experiment was to confirm and generalize these earlier results concerning the relation of intellectual ability, metacognitive skillfulness and learning of novices vs. advanced subjects. The objective of the second experiment was to investigate this relation under different conditions of task complexity. It was hypothesized that advanced subjects would regress to more novice-like behavior under very complex learning conditions (i.e., general metacognitive skills and intelligence would re-appear as combined predictors of learning outcome). On the other hand, low intelligent novices, irrespective of their metacognitive skillfulnes, were expected to fail on very complex problems. Results partly confirmed these hypotheses. Implications for the conditions under which metacognitive experiences should be implemented, are being discussed.     

Problem‐based distance learning of energy issues via computer network

Problem‐based learning (PBL) modified for distance education (PBDiL = Problem‐Based Distance Learning) has been used for teaching energy issues at Uppsala University, Sweden. Collaborative learning in groups of seven to eight students was enabled by computer communication and enhanced the use of Internet. Two different teaching methods have been tried and are compared, both being influenced by methods used in conventional face‐to‐face PBL. The problem presentation was entirely built on pictures, and examination through student reports was successful. A student remark, ‘I study on my own but yet not alone’ shows the importance of social contact.