Moths,candles and fires: examining dance as creative practice research in a Master's degree

This article reflects on the purposes and functions of examination criteria for Masters' research degrees with creative practice components. With a particular focus on dance projects that incorporate both a performed and a written expression of the research, we consider how a rubric for creative practice research degrees might address formative and summative assessment purposes and clarify goals for learners, supervisors, examiners and academic institutions. Our discussion is situated within a South Pacific postgraduate learning context and is informed by post-colonial and post-Cartesian concerns over how dance knowledge is recognized in global academia. Much current literature has argued how particular research methods and diverse approaches to the presentation of research outputs can destabilize dominant, logocentric methods of valuing knowledge. Our queries extend this argument into the actual quantifiable measuring and evaluation of such knowledge, which Masters' grading necessitates in order to maintain its value as an institutional currency. This leads to the reflections on the rubric for Masters' degrees with Creative Practice components that is currently used within the Dance Studies programme of the University of Auckland, and how this rubric might be seen as contributing to an evolving ‘cultivated’ community of practice within postgraduate examination. The rubric continues to grow through ongoing consultation with postgraduate students, supervisory staff, internal and external examiners and international experts in creative arts academia. Our reflections extend the argument for how creative practice might be further rationalized within academia.     

An Action Research Project on Preparing Teachers to Meet the Needs of Underserved Student Populations

The focus of this action research study was on the initial stage in reforming our teacher preparation programs. We designed, conducted, evaluated, and revised the components of our teacher preparation programs that were aimed at providing preservice teachers with the confidence and knowledge needed to meet the needs of youth populations underserved in science education. The conceptual framework of this study predicted that providing preservice teachers with experiences in teaching science to at-risk youth in a nonformal educational setting and that exploring these experiences in a seminar setting will increase the teachers’ confidence and knowledge in regard to teaching science to children from underserved populations. The community-based experience allowed for an experience in which 20 preservice teachers taught in a situation in which at-risk youth were the majority, thus spotlighting their needs in a manner traditionally not experienced by these prospective teachers. A two-phase methodological design (J. Creswell, 1994) was utilized to answer the questions: (a) Did the plan lead to the desired outcomes? and (b) What strategies fostered or hindered progress toward the desired outcomes? The findings of this study were utilized to develop our next action step in preparing teachers to foster science literacy for All Americans.     

Elite Interaction

While a good deal of research has examined the uses of Twitter in journalism, comparably few research projects employ comparative research designs in order to provide new insights. The present study details Twitter use by public service broadcasters (PSBs) during recent national elections in Norway and Sweden. Utilizing quantitative analysis of social media content in tandem with qualitative interviews with key PSB journalists, the main results indicate that while the PSB organizations—the Norwegian NRK and the Swedish SVT—are both frequently contacted by “regular” citizens on Twitter, they seem to prefer to retweet and interact with journalists, politicians or other “elite” users. Compared with the interviews performed, the study uncovers an interesting tension as journalists often talk about the need to engage with “regular” users—a practice that is arguably in line with PSB regulations, but that is seldom adhered to in the contexts studied here.     

Protection Motivation Theory as an Explanatory Framework for Proenvironmental Behavioral Intentions

Environmental issues have become important topics in the 21st century. Communication practitioners and scholars struggle with effectively communicating the threat of climate change and other changes to the natural world, partially due to the lack of concern by the general public. We present Protection Motivation Theory as a framework for explaining proenvironmental behavioral intentions among a college sample. Participants (N = 607) responded to an online survey, and the results indicate support for the proposed model, with severity (H1), vulnerability (H2), response efficacy (H3), and self-efficacy (H4) positively predicting proenvironmental behavioral intentions and response costs (H5) negatively predicting intentions. Implications for practitioners and scholars are discussed, and areas of future exploration in this domain are identified.     

Resources allocation in Chinese universities: hierarchy,academic excellence,or both?

Scholars are aware that the higher education sector in China is highly affected by its administrative system, but the questions of how and to what extent the Chinese administrative system impacts academic resources allocation have yet to be answered. By examining the empirical data from 2003 to 2010 of China’s National Excellent Doctoral Dissertations Award, this article finds that the hierarchical position of doctoral advisors who hold a university or college post will have an important influence on academic resources allocation, although these advisors are professors with high academic ability. This article also finds an interaction effect between advisors’ hierarchical position and students’ academic abilities in influencing the decisions on the award. Overall, the Chinese case digs rather deep into the increasing hierarchisation of academic life and science.     

Creating connections: Library instruction across campus

The Library Outreach Program Committee at Western Washington University serves as a coordinating body for outreach activities to the non-departmental campus community. Successful projects include collaboration with New Student Services/Family Outreach, Academic User Technology Services, and Residential Life. A database of outreach activities assists in tracking and assessing outreach activities.     

Deviating glucose results in an international dual-center study. A root cause investigation

During a dual-center study on obese and normal weight children and adolescents, focusing on glucose metabolism, we observed a marked difference in glucose results (N = 16,840) between the two sites, Salzburg, Austria and Uppsala, Sweden (P < 0.001). After excluding differences in patient characteristics between the two populations as cause of this finding, we investigated other preanalytic influences. Finally, only the tubes used for blood collection at the two sites were left to evaluate. While the Vacuette FC-Mix tube (Greiner Bio-One, Kremsmünster, Austria) was used in Uppsala, in Salzburg blood collections were performed with a lithium heparin tube (LH-Monovette, Sarstedt, Germany). To prove our hypothesis, we collected two blood samples in either of these tubes from 51 children (Salzburg N = 27, Uppsala N = 24) and compared the measured glucose results. Indeed, we found the suspected bias and calculated a correction formula, which significantly diminished the differences of glucose results between the two sites (P = 0.023). Our finding is in line with those of other studies and although this issue should be widely known, we feel that it is widely neglected, especially when comparing glucose concentrations across Europe, using large databases without any information on preanalytic sample handling.