Auto-Graph: considering the utility of student behaviour self-monitoring for inclusive schools

This paper reports the outcomes of a small-scale exploratory study that examined the utility of a novel computer-supported student behaviour self-monitoring procedure called Auto-Graph. The Auto-Graph procedure is a universal classroom behaviour management strategy for responding to disruptive antisocial behaviours. It was designed to provide up-to-date information on student behaviours over time that might alert students and school staff to emerging problematic behavioural patterns. This strategy is consistent with an interest in school-based early intervention. Furthermore, the Auto-Graph design assumes generalised benefits of a continuous cycle of monitoring and feedback/reflection that might inform understandings regarding goodness-of-fit between student needs and educational provision. The present study explored basic questions pertaining to the utility of Auto-Graph as a universal procedure in two 'inclusive' mainstream primary school classrooms. Results suggest a potential utility of the procedure in terms of supporting teachers and students in efforts directed at reducing disruptive antisocial behaviours, and by effect mediating the inclusion of potentially disruptive students in mainstream schools particularly when considering those identified with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD).     

Successful and less-successful research performance of junior faculty

In academic medical centers, there is increasing concern about the diminishing supply of clinical investigators and the amount of clinical investigation being conducted. This study developed and evaluated an instrument designed to measure characteristics of a successful researcher. All assistant professor faculty in the tenure track at this research university were sent a two-page survey. Analyses revealed that 50 percent of the items significantly discriminated successful and less-successful researchers. A factor analysis of these items produced four stable factors: research activities, mentoring, local networks, and scholarly habits. A backward stepwise discriminant analysis revealed that only two of the four factors were needed to effectively identify successful researchers. These two factors were research activities and scholarly habits. The rate of correct classification of the two-factor equation was such that 92 percent of the successful researchers were correctly identified. Testing this instrument in other academic settings would help to determine its generalizability.     

Cortisol in Neonatal Mother's Milk Predicts Later Infant Social and Cognitive Functioning in Rhesus Monkeys

Milk provides not only the building blocks for somatic development but also the hormonal signals that contribute to the biopsychological organization of the infant. Among mammals, glucocorticoids (GCs) in mother's milk have been associated with infant temperament. This study extended prior work to investigate rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) mother–infant dyads (N = 34) from birth through 8 months postpartum. Regression analysis revealed that cortisol concentrations in milk during the neonatal period predicted impulsivity on a cognitive task, but not global social behaviors, months later. During this time period, sex‐differentiated social behavior emerged. For female infants, milk cortisol concentrations predicted total frequency of play. Collectively, these findings support and extend the “lactational programming” hypothesis on the impact of maternal‐origin hormones ingested via milk.     

Toward leadership in professional education: Vocations for the future

Professional education in the future will require a different kind of relationship between the non-traditional student, the professional school, and the employer. Central to this new relationship is a recognition of the importance of acknowledging the areas of collaboration and institutionalizing these elements without ignoring the critical strengths of both institutions. This integration is most important in the professions of the future and especially the professions of human services.where his major commitment is to broaden the education and practice skills in each of the five undergraduate and graduate programs. He was formerly Dean of the College of Human Services in New York.     

Languages discourses in Australian middle-class schools: parent and student perspectives

Much of the literature on social class and language study in schools argues that for middle-class parents and their children, languages are chosen for their capacity to offer forms of distinction that provide an edge in the global labour market. In this paper, we draw on data collected from interviews with parents and children in middle-class schools in Australia to demonstrate how a complex amalgam of elite, cultural identity and/or trade language discourses came into play to explain the choice (or not) to study a language and the choice of specific languages. For many of the parents languages provided a limited form of ‘civic multiculturalism’, as a means of better understanding and respecting the ‘other’. We argue that the value attributed to high status languages via this discourse, means their continued presence in schools hoping to attract middle-class parents, but their relative absence in schools with largely working-class populations, where more ‘practical’ concerns dominate.     

Education,knowledge and the network society

The ‘development of individual capacities’, in addition to the ‘education of responsible citizens’ and the ‘preparation for work’, constitutes one of the most important objectives to be achieved by education systems and, in this sense, makes up one of the main planks of that which Dale terms ‘mandates for the education system’, i.e. projects for education based on ‘conceptions of what it is desirable and legitimate for the education system to bring about’. In a previous work we tried to map out, on the basis of the objectives ‘preparation for work’ and ‘education of responsible citizens’, the outlines of a new mandate for European education policy that appears to be in the making in accord with recent socio‐economic, political and educational developments. In this article, we centre our attention on the ‘development of individual capacities’ in an attempt to map out the effects of the simultaneous pressure, top‐down and bottom‐up, that has been increasingly brought to bear on the nation state and on the education system. With regard to the first, it is argued that what is at stake is the transformation of knowledge itself into money (i.e. pure performance), while with regard to the second, there appears to be taking place a movement of knowledge from the school (national level) to the local community in which this latter is interpreted as the ‘educative city’ (where a ‘transparent’ communicational pedagogy holds sway). This work aims at challenging the dichotomy constructed by way of an analysis of the implications, for both pedagogy and the development of individual capacities, of the development and consolidation of a network state and society.     

The relationship of teacher ratings of executive functions to emergent literacy in Head Start

Reading and Writing - The purpose of this study was to investigate the concurrent relationships between selected teacher-rated executive function (EF) and a comprehensive array of emergent literacy...     

The influence of organisational identification on employee attitudes and behaviours in multinational higher education institutions

In order to operate effectively and efficiently, most higher education institutions depend on employees performing extra-role behaviours and being committed to staying with the organisation. This study assesses the extent to which organisational identification and employee satisfaction are antecedents of these two important behaviours. Key objectives of the research were to identify possible antecedents of organisational identification and to discover whether the consequences of organisational identification vary among the employees of multinational universities at home and foreign campuses. We developed a model that was tested using structural equation modelling, which assesses the influences of organisational identification on employee satisfaction, extra-role behaviours and turnover intentions. All of the paths in our model were significant, but employee identification, satisfaction and extra-role behaviours were lower at foreign branches than at the home campuses of universities, and turnover intentions were higher. These results suggest that higher education institutions need to implement different human resource strategies at home and foreign branches, with a focus on improving organisational identification at the foreign subsidiaries.