Criminal Justice Education: Are We Missing One-third of the Crime Triangle?

Theoretical explanations, systemic response, and policy work on offenders and specific crime types are the backbone of criminal justice curricula in the United States. However, a similar breadth and depth of education on crime victims appear to be lacking in traditional criminal justice curricula, despite voluminous research on victims of crime. In this exploratory study, the authors conducted a content analysis of 679 programs from the Academy of Criminal Justice (ACJS) website directory. Departmental and course-level variables were included in the analysis. Results indicate that while more than half of the programs have faculty with expressed interests in victimization, only 11% of programs studied required coursework on crime victims and/or victimization. Implications of the results are discussed.     

A Behind‐the‐Scenes Guide to School‐Based Research

Schools are an important context for both basic and applied scientific research. Unlike the laboratory, however, the physical and social conditions of schools are not under the exclusive control of scientists. In this article, we liken collecting data in schools to putting on a theatrical production. We begin by describing the large cast of characters whose collaborative efforts make school‐based research possible. Next, we address the critics, including the university Institutional Review Board (IRB) and school administrators, whose feedback often improves the final study design. We then turn our attention to set building, stage directions, and rehearsals—key steps in the iterative process of refining study procedures. We end with a discussion of the day of data collection itself and activities that take place after the curtain drops. Throughout, we make recommendations based on our recent experience collecting data at several high schools.     

A retrospective look at replacing face‐to‐face embryology instruction with online lectures in a human anatomy course

Embryology is integrated into the Clinically Oriented Anatomy course at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. Before 2008, the same instructor presented embryology in 13 face‐to‐face lectures distributed by organ systems throughout the course. For the 2008 and 2009 offerings of the course, a hybrid embryology instruction model with four face‐to‐face classes that supplemented online recorded lectures was used. One instructor delivered the lectures face‐to‐face in 2007 and by online videos in 2008–2009, while a second instructor provided the supplemental face‐to‐face classes in 2008–2009. The same embryology learning objectives and selected examination questions were used for each of the three years. This allowed direct comparison of learning outcomes, as measured by examination performance, for students receiving only face‐to‐face embryology instruction versus the hybrid approach. Comparison of the face‐to‐face lectures to the hybrid approach showed no difference in overall class performance on embryology questions that were used all three years. Moreover, there was no differential effect of the delivery method on the examination scores for bottom quartile students. Students completed an end‐of‐course survey to assess their opinions. They rated the two forms of delivery similarly on a six‐point Likert scale and reported that face‐to‐face lectures have the advantage of allowing them to interact with the instructor, whereas online lectures could be paused, replayed, and viewed at any time. These experiences suggest the need for well‐designed prospective studies to determine whether online lectures can be used to enhance the efficacy of embryology instruction. Anat Sci Educ 7: 234–241. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.     

Fictitious Academic Expertise and Processing Resources

A previous study showed that pairs of students interacting in a second language produced more words when they were assigned a fictitious expert position in a specific competence dimension than when they were assigned a nonexpert position. It has also been shown that the usual level of expertise has an impact on the assigned fictitious expertise effect. The present study was designed to determine whether the processing capacity allotted to the current task could partly determine performance. A given position of expertise may demand a large or small attentional capacity. Two experiments were conducted using a dual-task paradigm. As expected, the different expertise positions led to different reaction times on the secondary task. The second experiment showed that the impact of assigning a position of expertise to students depends on their usual academic standing. This study supports the idea that in interactive situations, performance variations as a function of the expertise position can be partially explained by differences in the processing resources allocated to the task. Implications for teaching are discussed.     

Implementation planning and progress on physical activity goals: the mediating role of life-management strategies

This 4-week prospective study examined whether the use of life-management strategies mediates the relationship between implementation planning and short-term progress on physical activity goals. In particular the strategies of elective selection, compensation, and loss-based selection were disentangled to assess their specific mediating effects. Results from a sample of 131undergraduate students showed that, as a composite, life-management strategies fully mediated the relationship between planning and goal progress. More specifically, decomposing the effects demonstrated that only elective selection and compensation mediated the association between planning and greater progress on a personal physical activity goal. Results are discussed in light of their practical implications and contributions to the personal goal literature.     

Freedom of information and its impact in the United Kingdom

The UK Parliament passed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in November 2000 after 3 years of government White Papers, consultation papers, and various Bills. The author served as special adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration which oversaw the Government proposals for legislation and the progress of the Bill into the House of Commons. The FOIA introduced pro-active publication of information via Publication Schemes, which were introduced on a staggered basis across the public sector and on January 1, 2005, rights of individual access were granted to individuals. The Act covers well over 100,000 public authorities in the UK and includes both Houses of Parliament. There is a power to add private bodies to the Act's coverage. The Act covers UK, English, Welsh, and Northern Irish public authorities. Scotland has its own FOIA which was enacted by the Scottish Parliament in 2002. The paper will examine the operation of the UK legislation and the role of the Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal which deal with complaints of refusal and appeals respectively. The jurisprudence has been voluminous and now the English courts are beginning to hear appeals from the tribunal. The article will examine the major trends of the legislation and the problems presented by the legislation. The Government has already issued vetoes under the Act overriding the Commissioner's decision to grant access to the Cabinet papers relating to the Cabinet discussion on entering into war with Iraq and then on devolution of power to Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. The decisions to open up the files on MPs expenses have caused one of the major constitutional crises in the UK in the last 75 years. As well as examining the way the Act has been interpreted, the author will essay some preliminary analyses of the impact of the Act on the realization of government objectives in passing the Act. The FOIA does sit alongside other legislation allowing access to personal files and access to environmental information and the whole information debate is set in the context of heightened sensitivity and secrecy in time of the war on terror and the state's increasing capacity to demand, store, and share information. The UK experience of the information debate will be examined.