Cosmopolitan tensions: religious diversity in an Australian university

This paper examines ideas of cosmopolitanism, particularly social theorists’ interests in a cosmopolitan ‘disposition’, to consider how religiously diverse students experience campus life in a multi-faith Australian university. We draw on data from focus-group interviews conducted with students from Muslim, Christian, Spiritual, and Atheist student-groups to contribute empirical insights into theoretical debates about cosmopolitanism. We show how students understand religious relations in a university campus in multiple ways; moving back and forth between relations of religious openness and tension in different institutional scenarios. In light of these findings, we reflect on the possibilities of fostering ‘cosmopolitan religiosity’ in higher-education settings and demonstrate the limits of a liberal multicultural approach to religious diversity.     

Design lessons about participatory self-directed online learning in a graduate-level instructional technology course

This article reports on a case of participatory self-directed online learning within the context of a graduate-level instructional technology course. The course was about online learning environments and relied on both asynchronous and synchronous technologies. In this case, the instructor and students engaged in collaborative course design through one of the assignments where student teams and the instructor led one week’s worth of course activities and discussions. This article begins with a discussion of the literature on participatory self-directed online learning. Then, the article presents an overview of the course design, detailed discussion of the assignment that framed student participatory self-directed learning and two examples of student assignments. The framing question for organising this case was as follows: What lessons can a team of graduate students and the instructor learn about self-directed participatory online learning from a collaborative design project? The article ends with the overall lessons learned from the case and implications to future design of online activities.     

The hypothesis testing knowledge blend

The creation of several forms of knowledge that would enable organizations to ask and say the right things during complex diagnoses is proposed. Based on the concept of knowledge combustion, the hypothesis testing knowledge blend (HTKB) is the cognitive equivalent of petrol for the combustion engine. The HTKB requires the creation of a knowledge hybrid that uses existing technologies to ask and say the right things. In addition to timing mechanisms and problem space maps, two forms of declarative knowledge (directions and explanations) are integrated to create the HTKB. These directions and explanations would be obtained directly from the video recordings of diagnosticians conducting teleconsultations. By providing these profound dialogues during the conduct of complex diagnoses, the HTKB should increase the knowledge capital of organizations. Formal analyses are beginning to validate the conceptual structure (blue print) presented in this paper, and the results will be provided in the future.     

Ethics for things

This paper considers the ways that Information Ethics (IE) treats things. A number of critics have focused on IE’s move away from anthropocentrism to include non-humans on an equal basis in moral thinking. I enlist Actor Network Theory, Dennett’s views on ?as if’ intentionality and Magnani’s characterization of ?moral mediators’. Although they demonstrate different philosophical pedigrees, I argue that these three theories can be pressed into service in defence of IE’s treatment of things. Indeed the support they lend to the extension of moral status to non-human objects can be seen as part of a trend towards the accommodation of non-humans into our moral and social networks. A number of parallels are drawn between philosophical arguments over artificial intelligence and information ethics.     

Peer Group Norms and Accountability Moderate the Effect of School Norms on Children's Intergroup Attitudes

The present study examined the interactive effects of school norms, peer norms, and accountability on children's intergroup attitudes. Participants (n = 229) aged 5–11 years, in a between‐subjects design, were randomly assigned to a peer group with an inclusion or exclusion norm, learned their school either had an inclusion norm or not, and were accountable to either their peer group, teachers, or nobody. Findings indicated, irrespective of age, that an inclusive school norm was less effective when the peer group had an exclusive norm and children were held accountable to their peers or teachers. These findings support social identity development theory (D. Nesdale, 2004, 2007), which expects both the in‐group peer and school norm to influence children's intergroup attitudes.     

Measuring Pharmacy Student Attitudes Toward Prayer: The Student Prayer Attitude Scale (SPAS)

The objective of this study was to develop and validate an instrument to assess the attitude of student pharmacists toward prayer in general and in particular as it relates to their academic performance. To fulfill the study objective, faculty from seven colleges of pharmacy located at Christian universities collaboratively developed the Student Prayer Attitude Scale (SPAS). The items were used to assess the attitudes of student pharmacists toward prayer as well as the effects of prayer on personal lives and academic performance. Faculty investigators asked 1,563 students to complete the survey and received 677 valid responses. A principal components analysis with promax rotation was conducted and revealed a two-factor structure: (a) general attitude toward prayer and (b) specific attitude regarding the impact of prayer on academic performance. Analysis of variance was used to compare student responses by religious identity. Students identifying as atheist or agnostic were significantly different in their responses than students from theistic religions; however, the responses of students from various theistic religions were not significantly different from one another. Faculty concluded that SPAS is a reliable tool for measuring student attitudes toward prayer. The use of such a tool could help faculty tailor educational opportunities to allow pharmacy students to explore prayer more fully and be aware of its impact on the patients they serve.     

UK university part-time higher education: a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of undergraduate prospectuses

ABSTRACT

In the UK, higher education (HE) policy discourse over the past 60 years has advocated flexible part-time HE for social mobility, personal development, economic advantage and leisure. However, part-time undergraduate HE in the UK is in steep decline. Against this backdrop, we were interested in how universities promote, or fail to promote, part-time study options today. We built a corpus of 90 UK undergraduate prospectuses for 2018 entry (5,673,799 words). Using a corpus-assisted discourse analysis approach, we found significant mismatch between policy discourse and marketing discourse regarding part-time study. In particular, we found that UK university marketing discourse positions full-time study as the dominant mode of study and writes of part-time study as ‘second-best’. This discourse mismatch is particularly marked when it comes to the elite Russell Group of universities. Viewing the absence of strong promotional discourse relating to part-time study alongside other factors such as increased tuition fees and the rise of global online education platforms adds a new perspective to the decline of flexible part-time undergraduate HE at campus-based universities in the UK.     

Preschool writing and premathematics predict Grade 3 achievement for low-income,ethnically diverse children

The present study was designed to explore the association between preschool academic skills and Grade 3 achievement among a sample of ethnically diverse children from low-income families. Data were collected from a sample of 1,442 low-income, ethnically diverse children in preschool and associated with Grade 3 achievement in reading and mathematics 4 years later. Mixed-effects modeling indicated that preschool skills significantly predicted Grade 3 achievement measures while controlling for various child-level factors and random school effects. While several preschool factors were predictive of Grade 3 achievement, writing/copying and counting/premathematics skills were consistently strong predictors of Grade 3 achievement across all measures and domains suggesting these are important foundational skills for academic success in midelementary school among low-income, ethnically diverse children. Findings also replicate studies demonstrating that writing plays an important role in learning and achievement. Findings have implications for early education policy and practice intended to support academic development among low-income, ethnically diverse children.