Use of rich-media resources by engineering undergraduates

The ability to develop and distribute digital teaching resources in higher education has developed rapidly over the last decade but research into how students use such resources has received limited attention. This study uses questionnaire results, Internet analytic data and semi-structured interviews to examine the use of three types of rich-media teaching resources – lecture podcasts, key-concept videos and tutorial solution videos – by engineering undergraduates. It is found that students value all three types of resource, especially for revision and as a supplement to lectures. Students find short, focused resources more useful than longer ones. Non-native English speakers and those with disabilities derive particular benefits from the resources. The effect of rich-media resources on lecture attendance is found to be small, and two-way.     

Mechanisms for turn alternation in woodlice (Porcellio scaber): The role of bilaterally asymmetrical leg movements

Angles of free turn were observed in woodlice (Porcellio scaber) after they had been forced to turn left or right in runways. Alternation angles were increased by greater forced-turn angles and number of successive forced turns in one direction. Removal of one or both antennae had no effect on alternation. It was also repeatedly observed that the closer a woodlouse remained to the far wall while traveling along the exit alley of a runway, the greater was its angle of alternation. However, orientation toward this far wall bore no relation to alternation. When given three successive left or right forced turns followed by a fourth in the opposite direction, woodlice moved further away from the exit-alley far wall and repeated the last forced turn at the choice area. Along with results of the other experiments, this result in particular supported an explanation for woodlouse alternation based on bilaterally asymmetrical leg movements (BALM) arising from the negotiation of forced turns. Such asymmetry is seen as biasing an animal to turn in the opposite direction to a preceding forced turn.     

In‐Place and In‐Time

This article presents parallel and collaborative research and teaching practices that expand approaches to encountering site through the lenses of observation and performative drawing. These drawing practices record phenomena, whilst in their presence, through a designed temporal framework. This asks the drawer to observe over a duration of time and to record the world in motion. By spending an extended period of time in the presence of the phenomenon of our study, with active receptivity, our capacity to see shifts. Rather than the drawn outcomes of this observation recording a past time, the notion of experiential time – and an expanded present – is embedded in the act of drawing. These processes of observation and performative drawing allude to Edmund Husserl’s expression of a ‘thickened present’. The outcomes of this drawing practice demonstrate that observational techniques are embodied, relational, temporal and generative and so offer an alternative approach to site analysis. How this approach sits within the larger domain of spatial temporal relationships and forms of drawing are also considered.     

Coloured overlays and their benefit for reading

Children in mainstream schools compared text on white paper with identical text covered in turn by each of ten differently‐coloured plastic overlays. More than 50% reported improved perception with one or more colours, and were given the best colour to use. About half used the overlays for more than three months and their reading speed increased when the overlays were used. In Study I children were examined twice using different methods and examiners. 47% chose the same colour on both occasions, and showed the greatest improvement in reading fluency, reliable at retest. In Study II children were issued with a random colour, and the greatest improvements in reading speed occurred when the random colour was the same as that previously chosen. Phonological reading strategies were not related to visual symptoms, or the benefit from overlays. Across individuals, reading speed varied by a factor of more than three, for good and poor readers. Study III provided estimates of the prevalence of improvements based on a sample of 426 children from 12 schools: 5% of children read more than 25% faster with a coloured overlay.     

Complicating methodological transparency

A historical indicator of the quality, validity, and rigor of qualitative research has been the documentation and disclosure of the behind-the-scenes work of the researcher. In this paper, we use what we call methodological data as a tool to complicate the possibility and desirability of such transparency. Specifically, we draw on our disparate attempts to address calls for transparency about methodological processes in our respective dissertation studies in order to examine how novice researchers can explore transparency as a situated, ongoing, and philosophically informed series of decisions about how, when, and if to be transparent about our work. This work contributes to conversations about how qualitative researchers in education can understand, discuss, and teach qualitative inquiry while continuing to push the boundaries of the field.     

Does Parental Mind‐Mindedness Account for Cross‐Cultural Differences in Preschoolers’ Theory of Mind?

This study of 241 parent–child dyads from the United Kingdom (N = 120, M_age = 3.92, SD = 0.53) and Hong Kong (N = 121, M_age = 3.99, SD = 0.50) breaks new ground by adopting a cross‐cultural approach to investigate children's theory of mind and parental mind‐mindedness. Relative to the Hong Kong sample, U.K. children showed superior theory‐of‐mind performance and U.K. parents showed greater levels of mind‐mindedness. Within both cultures parental mind‐mindedness was correlated with theory of mind. Mind‐mindedness also accounted for cultural differences in preschoolers’ theory of mind. We argue that children's family environments might shed light on how culture shapes children's theory of mind.     

A Dual Inheritance: The Politics of Educational Reform and PhDs in Art and Design

This paper examines the changing relationship of art practice to academic research in higher education since 1960. Whereas art practice was often conceived of as divorced from any notion of academic or theoretical work in the post 1960 art school, by the 1990s the ground had changed to such a degree that it was possible to pursue doctoral study in art practice. This emergence of practice‐based PhDs can be considered as part of a larger shift in art education and its acceptance of theory.     

Rhymes and phonemes in the common unit task: replications and implications for beginning reading

Theorists and practitioners in the field of reading development are currently debating the importance of rhymes and phonemes in beginning reading. In a recent study, Duncan, Seymour and Hill (1997) provided evidence that explicit or meta- awareness of sound is closely linked to reading strategy. Meta-awareness was measured by asking beginning readers to identify the ‘common unit’ shared by two spoken words. Results showed that meta-awareness of phonemes emerged prior to meta-awareness of rhyme, and that reading strategy followed a similar small-to-large progression. This study reports on a replication of the ‘common unit’ task which includes modifications to the original procedure (randomisation of conditions, increased practice, removal of positional references from instructions). The results confirm the pattern observed in the original study. Beginning readers learning by a mixed method can identify shared phonemes but not shared rimes in the common unit task. The implications of this and similar replications are discussed.