Investigating ambivalence towards organisational change in a Football Championship Subdivision intercollegiate athletic department

To date, few scholars have examined organisational change in the sport industry, with the majority focusing on forces driving change. Only a handful have investigated responses to change, primarily centering upon factors contributing to resistance. Historically, most work in measuring attitudes has placed them on a bipolar continuum ranging from negative to positive. Recently, though, researchers have presented data to support an indifference-ambivalence attitudinal dimension characterised by evaluative tension. There have been few studies, however, that have examined ambivalence towards organisational change. Therefore, this research was undertaken to investigate ambivalence towards organisational change in a Football Championship Subdivision intercollegiate athletic department in the U.S. Through a case study, we demonstrate that ambivalence was a salient response to change, and that intrapersonal conflict, perceived lack of institutional support, managerial turnover, and previous negative experience with change served as antecedents. We then highlight the theoretical and practical significance of our study.     

Extending the Conversation on Visions of Jewish Education: The Danger of Recipes

This articles extends the conversation begun by Levisohn in volume 71:1 of this journal, and continued by a number of respondents in volume 71:2. These articles identify two notable themes among the responses: The first is the issue of pluralism, and the tension between vision and exclusion. Despite the best of intentions, it seems unavoidable that vision-driven institutions must necessarily exclude certain ideas, certain practices, and most painfully, certain people; standing for something must always mean not standing for everything. Second, several respondents are concerned in one way or another with the very nature of an educational vision. Particularly, the question arises whether the construction of a vision around the key question, “What is an educated Jew?”, is limiting, either intellectually or practically. Beyond discussing these two themes, the article extends the conversation about vision in Jewish education by raising a concern, which the author attributes to Franz Rosenzweig, about the way in which a commitment to organizing institutions according to vision may obscure the fundamental need for openness and spontaneity in educational arrangements.     

University Students as Creators of Personal Knowledge: an alternative epistemological view

Abstract

This paper takes the form of a position statement followed by three responses from colleagues located in different institutions of higher education. The resulting colloquium is concerned, among other things, with the role of the academic within higher education and with the notion of freedom as it relates to the definition and development of that role. It sets itself against the traditional notion of ‘academic freedom’ and explores alternative constructions of academic professionalism. Freedom remains central to these constructions; but an outward‐looking emancipatory notion of freedom, not an inward‐looking and self‐interested notion. The practices that are documented in the paper and the issues that these raise are a direct consequence of this preoccupation with reconstructing the moral bases of academic professionalism. The paper reaches no firm conclusions, but highlights a number of key differences within a shared emancipatory project: differences shaped by the institutional and cultural contexts of higher education and, in particular, by the gendering of the academic workplace; differences inscribed in the conditions and divisions of labour within higher education and, more specifically, in the organisational structures of support for professional growth and development; differences of value and purpose that help determine what, for each of the authors, it means to be an academic. The form of the paper, with its emphasis on the examined life as deliberative and public, reflects this preoccupation with achieving principled agreement through the recognition and exploration of difference.     

变相重复发表--一种值得科技期刊界关注的现象

变相重复发表与传统意义的一稿两投和二次发表不同,由于来自期刊、编辑、审稿人、作者、版权、读者等诸多因素的影响,显得更加隐蔽.在总结变相重复发表的5种主要类型的基础上,分析其可能产生的危害,剖析产生此类现象的原因,提出了关于减少并杜绝此类现象发生的建议.     

B-52“同温层堡垒”型战略轰炸机(上)

从50多年前波音公司研制的YB-52首次升空开始,B-52“同温层堡垒”（Stratofortress）型战略轰炸机一直是展示美国军事力量以及美国政府在必要情况下于任何时间和地点使用武力的军事意志的重要标志。目前,美军仍然没有显示出替换这种轰炸机的迹象,作为波音公司研发杰作之一的B-52仍将是美军在21世纪的一种关键性武器装备。     

Constructing normalcy: a qualitative study of parenting children with Asperger's Disorder

Children with Asperger's Disorder present unique challenges due to their impairments in social functioning. In order to better understand the experiences of parents of children with Asperger's Disorder, interviews were conducted with 20 parents. The interviews were taped, transcribed, and coded using the systematic methods of Grounded Theory. The central phenomenon of “constructing normalcy” emerged from the data as a salient construct for participants. Parents interviewed described a process of meaning‐making with respect to standards of “normalcy” and an effort to create adaptive environments for their children.     

Sandcastle competitions

This commentary discusses reasons that lead scholars to feel entitled to make judgements in areas where they have little or no expertise. Three current reports about the future of online learning are considered, issued by the Global Learning Council, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Gates Foundation. Two of these publications contain contradictions and confusion that may simply be due to lack of awareness of distance education (DE) and online learning research. The third report gives good evidence but has been criticized for being too academic. The conflicting standards and criteria evident in such writings may be due to institutional pressures to promote policies and principles despite lack of supportive evidence, and to weaknesses in the DE literature itself. As major institutional policies about online learning are likely to be based on the recommendations of such reports, it is important for DE specialists to challenge them where appropriate.     

Evaluating item response theory linking and model fit for data from PISA 2000–2012

ABSTRACT

Based on concerns about the item response theory (IRT) linking approach used in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) until 2012 as well as the desire to include new, more complex, interactive items with the introduction of computer-based assessments, alternative IRT linking methods were implemented in the 2015 PISA round. The new linking method represents a concurrent calibration using all available data, enabling us to find item parameters that maximize fit across all groups and allowing us to investigate measurement invariance across groups. Apart from the Rasch model that historically has been used in PISA operational analyses, we compared our method against more general IRT models that can incorporate item-by-country interactions. The results suggest that our proposed method holds promise not only to provide a strong linkage across countries and cycles but also to serve as a tool for investigating measurement invariance.     

Technology Knowledge and Use: A Survey of Science Educators

The purpose of this study was to determine the current state of technology use and know-how among members of the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science. A web-based survey site and an e-mail merge invited members to participate in the study. The survey examined the differences between current and desired levels of knowledge about using technology as an instructional tool, to support research, to enhance productivity in classroom applications, and to enhance data collection and analysis. Large mean differences about using technology as an instructional tool were found, including: (1) teaching students at a distance, (2) database applications, and (3) desktop publishing. Small mean differences were found for telecommunications and word processing.