A Cross‐Cultural Comparison of East Asian and American Higher Education Criminal Justice Student Learning Preferences Using the VARK Questionnaire

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between learning preferences of East Asian and American higher education students. A review of the literature revealed a body of qualitative studies suggesting a stereotypical perception of an Asian learning preference influenced by cultural variables and the historical roots of Confucianism. The pedagogical implications of this stereotypical perception are obvious to faculty engaged in teaching and learning with Asian international students in America or abroad. The authors surveyed 233 higher education students from Hong Kong and America using the VARK Questionnaire. The authors used a two‐way contingency table analysis and chi‐square statistical tests to conduct their cross‐cultural comparison on their variables of interest including age, gender, and country.     

Drunk and Alone in a K‐Mart Parking Lot: The Pedagogy of Simulations and Contemporary Attitudes Toward Drinking and Driving

This article introduces readers to the philosophy and design of team-based learning (TBL), a method developed by Dr. Larry Michaelsen that was influenced by literature in organizational psychology and pedagogy documenting what actually motivates adults to learn and how they master higher order learning skills. We describe how TBL was implemented in several criminal justice courses and illustrate how this method has drastically reduced student apathy, increased attendance, improved performance, and eliminated frustration for both instructors and students. Additionally, we reflect on how this method has reshaped our roles as educators.     

Resampling and Distribution of the Product Methods for Testing Indirect Effects in Complex Models

Recent advances in testing mediation have found that certain resampling methods and tests based on the mathematical distribution of 2 normal random variables substantially outperform the traditional z test. However, these studies have primarily focused only on models with a single mediator and 2 component paths. To address this limitation, a simulation was conducted to evaluate these alternative methods in a more complex path model with multiple mediators and indirect paths with 2 and 3 paths. Methods for testing contrasts of 2 effects were evaluated also. The simulation included 1 exogenous independent variable, 3 mediators and 2 outcomes and varied sample size, number of paths in the mediated effects, test used to evaluate effects, effect sizes for each path, and the value of the contrast. Confidence intervals were used to evaluate the power and Type I error rate of each method, and were examined for coverage and bias. The bias-corrected bootstrap had the least biased confidence intervals, greatest power to detect nonzero effects and contrasts, and the most accurate overall Type I error. All tests had less power to detect 3-path effects and more inaccurate Type I error compared to 2-path effects. Confidence intervals were biased for mediated effects, as found in previous studies. Results for contrasts did not vary greatly by test, although resampling approaches had somewhat greater power and might be preferable because of ease of use and flexibility.     

Relationships Among Cortical Thickness,Reading Skill,and Print Exposure in Adults

This study investigated relationships among cortical thickness in the left-hemisphere reading network, and reading skill and experience in adult nonimpaired readers. Given the relationship between print exposure and reading, it is possible that print exposure is related to cortical structure. The pattern of correlations indicated that individuals with higher print exposure had better reading skills and thicker cortices. Furthermore, print exposure accounted for unique variance in cortical thickness in part of the left-hemisphere reading network after accounting for reading skill. This suggests that some of the variation in cortical thickness in adults might be attributable to reading experience, independently of reading skill.     

Using the I² Intervention Matrix to Select the Best Course of Action

The I² intervention selection matrix is a useful tool that will help in the selection of appropriate interventions based on the level of impact and invasiveness of the intervention. It is a two‐axis grid that places interventions in one of four quadrants. Based on which quadrant the intervention falls in, a practitioner can decide which interventions to use, not use, or use with caution. It is a simple yet elegant way to determine appropriateness.     

Learning,Testing, and the Evaluation of Learning Environments in Medicine: Global Performance Assessment in Medical Education

Changes in the profession of medicine are creating the demand for a substantive reexamination of current practices in medical education. Many of the major issues in addressing this challenge are structural and political rather than scientific; here we address one critical scientific issue that will be important to (though not by itself adequate for) guiding such changes. The factor we address is the development of a global performance assessment: a standardized mechanism to assess individual skills and abilities that can be used to evaluate alternative educational interventions. We discuss the issues involved in developing such a system, and describe a set of principles for defining desired outcomes and developing assessment tools, including (a) wide clinical scope, (b) direct relationship to actual clinical performance, (c) reliability and repeatability, and (d) non-longitudinal measurement. We discuss the role of simulation, reflective practice, and portfolios of work in developing such a system, and argue that whatever form such metrics take, a system of global performance assessment will develop from close collaboration between clinicians and educators with innovative ways of thinking about performance and expertise.     

Islands of Detroit: Affect,Nostalgia and Whiteness

Abstract

‘Islands of Detroit’ explores the possibilities for an ‘everyday, oppositional whiteness’, a thoughtful randomness, as a corrective to ‘reactionary’ and ‘evasive’ forms of whiteness which often embed themselves in populist media sites for nostalgia. Drawing on the theoretical work of Svetlana Boym, Uday Singh Mehta and Roland Barthes, this essay looks in particular at a coffee table book, The Way it Was (2004 Bulanda, G., ed. 2004. The Way It Was: Glimpses of Detroit’s History from the Pages of Hour Detroit Magazine, Royal Oak, MI: Momentum.  [Google Scholar]), and its generic sentimentalism, to understand how certain white visual representations of Detroit affectively generate nostalgia, which can in turn conceal pasts and racial tensions. Looking at the history of Detroit (with particular attention on how the two infamous race riots are and are not negotiated), Islands examines visual images of the city – as opposed to the city itself – through the discursive lenses of nostalgia, modernity and affect, while positing that the histories and identities of Detroit remain irreducible to the images which attempt to capture them.