Fields and pathways: Contrasting or complementary views of information seeking

This research contrasts two different conceptions, fields and pathways, of individual information behavior in context. These different approaches imply different relationships between actors and their information environments and, thus, encapsulate different views of the relationship between individual actions and contexts. We discuss these different theoretical views, then empirically compare and contrast them. The operationalization of these conceptions is based on different analytic treatments of the same raw data: a battery of three questions based on respondent’s unaided recall of the sources they would consult for information on inherited cancers, a particularly rich information seeking problem. These operationalizations are then analyzed in a nomological network of related concepts drawn from an omnibus survey of 882 adults. The results indicated four clusters for fields and 16 different pathways, indicating increased fragmentation of information environments, with different underlying logics and active ingredients, although the use of the Internet appears to be an emerging common theme. The analysis of the nomological network suggests that both approaches may have applications for particular problems. In the implications, we compare and contrast these approaches, discussing their significance for future methodological, analytical, and theoretical developments.     

Cultural discourses of privacy: Interrogating globalized workplace relationships in Japan

Using Carbaugh’s (2005. Cultures in conversation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; 2007. Cultural discourse analysis: Communication practices and intercultural encounters. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 36(3), 167–182) cultural discourse analysis and Petronio’s (2002. Boundaries of privacy: Dialectics of disclosure. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press) Communication Privacy Management (CPM) Theory, this study highlights four cultural premises that garner intercultural privacy management between foreign English language teachers (ELTs) and Japanese coworkers (JCWs) in Japan. The analysis revealed that ELTs: (a) expected not to be a “free space” for privacy inquisition by JCWs, and (b) expected voluntary reciprocity in (egalitarian) workplace relationships. JCWs viewed: (a) privacy inquisitions as acts of kindness/caring and (b) soliciting help from a supervisor as providing opportunities for better care. This study calls for attention to intercultural privacy management and enhances CPM’s cultural criteria.     

Chemistry,Green Chemistry,and the Instrumental Valuation of Sustainability

Using the Public Value Mapping framework, I address the values successes and failures of chemistry as compared to the emerging field of green chemistry, in which the promoters attempt to incorporate new and expanded values, such as health, safety, and environmental sustainability, to the processes of prioritizing and conducting chemistry research. I document how such values are becoming increasingly “public.” Moreover, analysis of the relations among the multiple values associated with green chemistry displays a greater internal coherence and logic than for conventional chemistry. Although traditional chemistry research has successfully contributed to both economic and values gains, there have been public values failures due to imperfect values articulations, failure to take a longer-term view, and inertia within a system that places too much emphasis on “science values.” Green chemistry, if implemented effectively, has potential to remedy these failures.     

Women,Philosophy, and Sport: A Collection of New Essays

Sport and Religion by Shirl J. Hoffman, Editor (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1992)

Religion and Sport: The Meeting of Sacred and Profane by Charles S. Prebish, Editor (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993)     

Functional hamstrings: quadriceps ratios in elite women's soccer players

Abstract

We compared starters and non-starters for various isokinetic strength variables in elite women’s soccer players. A convenience sample of 10 starters (mean ± s; age = 20 ± 2 years; height = 170 ± 4 cm; body mass = 65 ± 5 kg) and 7 non-starters (age = 20 ± 1 years; height = 164 ± 3 cm; body mass = 63 ± 4 kg) performed maximal voluntary muscle actions of the leg extensors (concentric) and flexors (eccentric) on an isokinetic dynamometer in order to measure concentric peak torque for the leg extensors, eccentric peak torque for the leg flexors, and the functional hamstrings:quadriceps (H:Q) ratio at 1.047 rad · s^-1 and 4.189 rad · s^-1 concentric peak torque for the leg extensors was not different between starters and non-starters. However, it was greater at 1.047 rad · s^-1 than at 4.189 rad · s^-1 in both groups. Eccentric peak torque for the leg flexors was greater for the starters versus non-starters at 4.189 rad · s^-1. Eccentric strength of the leg flexors at fast movement velocities may be used as an effective physiological profile and may discriminate between playing status in elite women’s soccer players.     

Even after thirteen class exams,students are still overconfident: the role of memory for past exam performance in student predictions

Students often are overconfident when they predict their performance on classroom examinations, and their accuracy often does not improve across exams. One contributor to overconfidence may be that students did not have enough experience, and another is that students may under-use their knowledge of prior exam performance to predict performance on their upcoming exams. To evaluate the former, we examined student prediction accuracy across 13 exams in an introductory course on educational psychology. For the latter, we computed measures that estimate the extent to which students use the prior exam score when predicting performance and whether students should use the prior exam scores. Several outcomes are noteworthy. First, students were overconfident, and contrary to expectations, this overconfidence did not decline across exams. Second, students’ prior exam scores were not related to subsequent predictions, even though prior exam performance showed little bias with respect to predicting future performance. Thus, students appear to under-use prior performance despite its utility for improving prediction accuracy about future exam performance.