Surfing for health: user evaluation of a health information website. Part one: Background and literature review

The Government in Britain is set on using the Internet to expand the provision of health information to the general public. Concerns over the quality of the health information have preoccupied commentators and organizations rather than the way users interact with health information systems. This report examines the issues surrounding the provision of electronic health information, and describes an evaluation undertaken of a commercial health website-that of Surgerydoor (http://www.surgerydoor.co.uk/), and comprises two parts. Part one outlines the literature on electronic health information evaluation. It discusses quality issues, but also redresses the imbalance by exploring other evaluative perspectives. Part two describes an evaluation of a health information Internet site in terms of its usability and appeal, undertaken as part of a Department of Health funded study on the impact of such systems.     

Do Museum Exhibitions Have a Future?

Abstract A 50‐year retrospective return to the first volume of Curator: The Museum Journal suggests that colleagues half a century ago were vitally aware of the cultural potential of museums, the well‐being of visitors, the need for interpretation and learning, and even the appeal of staying open 24 hours a day. So the more things change, the more they stay the same? The question leads to others: Are exhibitions an obsolete medium? Can museums keep pace with the interactions available elsewhere: virtual games, video arcades, jazz clubs, even a good Chinese restaurant? Is the glass half full of optimism or pessimism?     

Perceptions of the Impact of Meditation on Learning

This paper is about teachers and primary school pupils who have led or taken part in meditation classes at school. It discusses their perceptions of the relationship between meditation and learning. Three different categories of perceived benefit are examined; readiness for learning, enhanced creative expression, and spiritual development. After this a case is made for the use of experiential learning models as a structure for enhancing the benefit gained through meditation. The paper concludes with some observations about the potential of meditation in the school setting. Much of what is said could apply to the secondary setting.     

Supported playgroups in schools: bonding and bridging family knowledge about transition to formal schooling

Supported Playgroups in Schools (SPinS) are a new initiative in the Australian early childhood education landscape. SPinS are playgroups hosted by a playgroup coordinator co-located on a local school site. Research has identified positive benefits of playgroup participation for children and families. However, little is known about the potential for SPinS to contribute to families’ knowledge about transition to formal schooling. This paper uses the social capital concepts of ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ to examine caregivers’ perspectives on their participation in a SPinS with potential to build parental knowledge about their child’s transition to formal schooling. Three main elements of caregivers’ participation in SPinS with such potential are identified, and these elements are mapped into a continuum of low-to-high bonding and bridging relationships to illustrate the potential for SPinS to contribute to the development of increased knowledge about transition to formal schooling by families of young children.     

Learning with and from: positioning school students as advisors in pre-service teacher education

This article reports on an innovative pedagogical approach within the Learning Partnerships program in which school students help to ‘teach the teachers’ within pre-service teacher education. Classes of school students join with classes of pre-service teachers to provide input on how teachers can enhance school students’ engagement and wellbeing. The article draws on data collected from 125 students (aged 13–16) and 120 pre-service teachers in these workshops. Findings generated from a mixed methods study combining pre-workshop focus groups (n = Students: 38, Teachers: 33) and post-workshop focus groups (n = Students: 69, Teachers: 15) and post-workshop surveys (n = Students: 96; Teachers: 101) demonstrated that the workshops were mutually beneficial for both students and pre-service teachers. Participants found that workshopping together enhanced their belief in the possibility of positive student–teacher relationships. The pre-service teachers reported greater confidence in communicating with young people about the issues that affect student engagement and wellbeing. The school students reported that they were more willing to use teachers as a source of help. Implications include the need for increased attention to a ‘third space’ for learning in teacher development which provides opportunity for learning with and from young people about how to foster their engagement and wellbeing.     

This is the way to teach: insights from academics and students about assessment that supports learning

In this study, assessment and learning is reconceptualised as an integrated and dialogic process. Positioned in a sociocultural framework, the experiences of academics and students at an Australian university were examined to understand how they think about and participate in formative assessment to support learning. Semi-structured interviews and document analysis were used to investigate the lived experience, individual meanings and context of participants. The sociocultural issues that participants emphasised were highlighted through a power, risk and reconceptualisation analytical framework. Findings showed that academics and students give high value to dialogue as a device of trust and power for building learner capacity through assessment, and that academics’ familiarity with students’ individual learning reinforces student trust in the integrity and reliability of assessment. This study contributes to understandings of learning and assessment by offering their reconceptualisation as an integrated and dialogic whole when considered from sociocultural perspectives of the lived experience and context. Importantly, the study proposes that the design of intended learning experiences in assessment can also facilitate development of specific dispositions for thinking and being in students as learners and future citizens.     

Qualitative research as a method for making just comparisons of pedagogic quality in higher education: a pilot study

Systems designed to ensure that teaching and student learning are of a suitable quality are a feature of universities globally. Quality assurance systems are central to attempts to internationalise higher education, motivated in part by a concern for greater global equality. Yet, if such systems incorporate comparisons, the tendency is to reflect and reproduce inequalities in higher education. Highlighting the European context, we argue that, if higher education is to play a part in tackling social inequalities, we must seek alternative methods to explore pedagogic quality in institutional settings. The sociologist Basil Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing provide an illustration of the potential of sociologically informed, qualitative approaches for exploring and improving higher education pedagogy and also for addressing social justice issues: these two concepts are used to analyse documentation about undergraduate sociology in two universities that have quite different reputations within the English and Northern Irish higher education system.     

The porous structure of paper in relation to drying and impregnation

It is shown that water adsorbed by paper cannot be completely removed by pumping while immersed in an impregnating compound which wets the paper.A theory which explains this effect is presented, according to which the equilibrium moisture content of paper pumped under these conditions does not correspond to the external pressure but to one $\text{2λ}\text{R}$ greater than this where λ is the surface tension of the impregnant and R the effective pore radius.The application of these findings and the theory to the preparation of experimental samples of impregnated paper of controlled moisture content; to the determination of moisture in impregnated paper; to the drying and impregnation of paper and to the investigation of the pore structure of solids is discussed.