The effect of the spatial arrangement of simple diagrams on the interpretation of english and nonsense sentences

In two experiments, subjects received problem sets consisting of a simple diagram accompanied by two sentences and were asked to select the sentence that best expressed the meaning of the diagram. Each diagram showed a relationship between two concepts. The relationships were category membership, possession of a property, and causality. The relative placement of the concepts was varied. In the first experiment, the concepts were given nonsense names. Significant biases in response frequencies were found, suggesting that, in the absence of semantic content, the interpretation of the diagrams was largely determined by syntactic rules of English. In the second experiment, similar biases were found for diagrams whose concepts were given English names. However, the biases were less evident when the diagrams violated the rules of English syntax. This suggested that conflict between the sense of English and a diagram's spatial arrangement makes consistent interpretation unlikely. Conclusions are drawn concerning the relationships between the spatial arrangement of diagrams and the meaning of relationships among concepts stated in sentences. Suggestions for diagram design are offered.     

Three Walks Through Fictional Fens: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on <Emphasis Type="Italic">Gaffer Samson’s Luck</Emphasis>

The paper discusses the children’s novel Gaffer Samson’s Luck (1984), by Jill Paton Walsh, from three different perspectives; those of a cultural geographer, a literary scholar and an English teacher. It is part of a larger research project on children’s perception of their place-related identities through reading and writing. The novel is used as a case study to develop a multidisciplinary approach, drawing upon theories of literature and reading, and a conceptualisation of space in cultural geography. Employing ideas from different disciplines, the paper offers an original interpretation of the text as well as innovative analytical tools for future research and for classroom application.     

Writing like writers in the classroom: free writing and formal constraint

This paper considers how ‘free writing’, derived from the automatic writing of the surrealists, can be used with students in writing poetry in order to emulate the successful practice of established writers. The paper considers how form can be taught, specifically line breaks and stanza breaks, both in relation to free writing and in relation to drafting, and argues that drafting should be considered an extension of the creative act of writing rather than as something which is done afterwards ‘to’ preexisting work.     

Discourse communities: A framework from which to consider professional development for rural teachers of science and mathematics

This paper explores aspects of professional development for teachers of science and mathematics in schools in rural Australia. The study identified a range of issues including tensions between government, school and individual professional learning priorities and their respective responsibilities; the shaping of professional development by rurality; and issues of generic versus subject-specific professional learning. The paper will focus on the needs of teachers, particularly secondary teachers, for subject-specific professional development and the capacity of different professional development approaches for satisfying these needs. The notion of discourse communities is proposed as a framework for considering this issue.     

Using shared online blogs to structure and support informal coach learning. Part 2: the participants' view and implications for coach education

In part one of this paper, Stoszkowski and Collins showed that shared online blogs were a useful tool to structure and support the informal learning of a cohort of final year undergraduate sports coaching students. The aim of the present study was to offer insight into student coaches' perceptions of their use and experiences of structured group blogging for reflection and learning. Twenty-three student coaches (5 females, 18 males), purposely sampled from the original study, took part in four semi-structured focus group interviews. Interview data were inductively analysed. Student coaches were generally very positive about their learning experiences and the pedagogical approach employed. This was especially apparent in terms of perceived increases in levels of reflection, knowledge acquisition and improvements in coaching practice; changes corroborated by the data presented in part one. A range of reasons emerged for these outcomes, alongside several potential limiters of engagement in shared group blogging as a learning endeavour. Whilst these findings support recent, and growing proposals to systematically incorporate Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs into coach education pedagogy, several key considerations for the process of using such tools are outlined. Finally, the implications for coach educators are discussed.     

Ethnicity and crime: Perceptual differences among blacks, Mexican Americans, and Anglos

Perception is affected by culture. Since there are subcultural differences among blacks, Mexican Americans, and Anglos, it may be expected that perceptual differences would exist among them. Statistics indicate that ethnic differences appear in virtually every aspect of crime. Therefore, it was speculated that perceptual differences would exist in relation to crime. Results of the present study conducted among college students and adult nonstudents revealed that there were significant differences among the three ethnic groups in perception of seriousness of crimes, personally threatening crimes, perception of most common crimes committed in their city, and imputation of responsibility for crimes. Members of all three ethnic groups showed a distorted perception of the criminal activity that was occurring around them.