Shifting the Perspective of the Research Librarian: A CoResearch Paradigm

This article proposes the coresearch engagement model (CoRE), which addresses how the academic research librarian can become a coresearch partner with any patron. The CoRE model is an interpersonal process and is founded upon the concepts of mutual respect, collaboration, reciprocity, and empowerment. Grounded in Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory, Malcolm Knowles’ andragogical model, and guidelines from the Reference and User Services Association, CoRE has the potential to result in engagement for the librarian and patron. The CoRE model can be utilized in many ways including self-awareness and development for those who need and want to expand their abilities as a research librarian. It provides a theoretical framework and a knowledge base, in addition to giving a context for further development by expanding, comparing the related theories for further research, and implementing various applications suggested by this article.     

Challenges in embedding numeracy throughout the curriculum in three Queensland secondary schools

The Australian Curriculum identified seven General Capabilities, including numeracy, to be embedded in all learning areas. However, it has been left to individual schools to manage this. Whilst there is a growing body of literature about pedagogies that embed numeracy in various learning areas, there are few studies from the management perspective. A social constructivist perspective and a multiple case study approach were used to explore the actions of school managers and mathematics teachers in three Queensland secondary schools, in order to investigate how they meet the Australian Curriculum requirement to embed numeracy throughout the curriculum. The study found a lack of coordinated cross-curricular approaches to numeracy in any of the schools studied. It illustrates the difficulties that arise when teachers do not share the Australian Curriculum cross-curricular vision of numeracy. Schools and curriculum authorities have not acknowledged the challenges for teachers in implementing cross-curricular numeracy, which include: limited understanding of numeracy; a lack of commitment; and inadequate skills. Successful embedding of numeracy in all learning areas requires: the commitment and support of school leaders, a review of school curriculum documents and pedagogical practices, professional development of teachers, and adequate funding to support these activities.     

The risks of ‘university speak’: relationship management and identity negotiation by mature students off campus

Research finds that participation in higher education is generally empowering for mature students but that it can also create tensions in their off-campus relationships. This article reports on findings from an ongoing study of the experiences of mature students at university in Ireland and draws from interviews with 15 such students in the final year of their studies. Following similar research by Baxter and Britton in the UK, the article considers how mature students experience and represent changes in identities and social relationships brought about by entry to higher education. Specifically, the article focuses on the risks associated with using newly acquired academic language (or ‘university speak’) off campus. The findings reported here complement existing research and offer support for Baxter and Britton’s suggestion that mature students often experience compartmentalisation and fragmentation in their self-identities.     

Decolonising curriculum practice: developing the indigenous cultural capability of university graduates

Higher Education - The pedagogical urge to decolonise student thinking has been at the heart of the drive to embed Indigenous knowledge in universities throughout the western world. Despite ongoing...     

Employment and further study outcomes for care-experienced graduates in the UK

Higher Education - Life outcomes for people who spent time in the care of the state as children (‘care-experienced’) are known to be significantly lower, on average, than for the...     

Population differences in constructive memory

An experiment was conducted to evaluate constructive memory in fourth-grade low-SES black and middle-SES white children. The children were read nine short passages; each passage was composed of two premise statements and a filler sentence. The children were tested by a recognition procedure. Thirty-six test sentences were presented randomly. Four sentences were associated with each passage (true premise, false premise, true inference, and false inference). Subjects were asked to make yes/no recognition decisions based on whether the test sentence was identical to a sentence presented at study. Middle-SES white children made few errors, except to true inference test sentences. This pattern of performance is consistent with the constructive view of memory. Low-SES black children also had a high error rate to true inference items. However, this outcome may not reflect constructive memory because they also had a high error rate to some of the other types of test sentences.