Temporal effects of leadership style on state communication anxiety in small task‐oriented groups

This investigation reports a typology of maintenance behaviors that were derived through inductive analyses of papers students wrote about their strategies for maintaining various relationships. Ten major strategies were inductively derived: positivity; openness; assurances; sharing tasks; social networks; joint activities; cards/letters/calls; avoidance; anti‐social; and humor. These strategies extend the previous research on relational maintenance strategies. More specifically, the latter five strategies and the subcategories of all the strategies are additions to Stafford and Canary's (1991)typology. In addition, analyses revealed the positivity, openness, assurances, sharing tasks, and cards/letters/calls differed in their frequency of use among lovers, relatives, friends and others.     

The role of assertiveness,personal control,and participation in the prediction of nurse Burnout

The research reported here considered a critical problem facing today's hospital: burnout and commitment of nurses. A review of the literature revealed that nurse communication, particularly participation or collaboration in patient care decisions, had rarely been considered in models of nurse commitment. A model was proposed in which nurse participation and assertiveness were key predictors of emotional exhaustion, commitment and intent to remain, and the theoretical construct of personal control was used as a moderating variable in predicting these outcomes. The model was tested on a sample of nurses from a large hospital Results were generally supportive of the proposed model. Implications of the model for theory were discussed in terms of the role of personal control and the importance of nurse assertiveness, and applications for nurse and physician training were considered.     

Cultural differences in cognitive responding to ads: a comparison of young American and Chinese consumers

This study explored the differences in young consumers' cognitive responses to visual ads across two cultures. In an experiment, 120 college students from the USA and 120 college students from China were exposed to different types of visual ads, and subsequently participants were instructed to recall objects from the ads, and to list thoughts regarding the product/brand meanings. It was found that compared with Chinese participants, participants from the USA recalled more salient objects and generated more product/brand thoughts elicited by salient objects from the ads. Moreover, Chinese participants were more likely to assign a social role to a person recalled from the ads than their American counterparts. These findings suggested that young Americans attended more to salient objects in the ads, and therefore are more analytic than their Chinese participants. Implications for international advertising were provided.     

Play For All at Chicago Children's Museum: A History and Overview

In 2004, Chicago Children's Museum founded the Play For All initiative, which creates a community where play and learning connect for visitors of all abilities. The Play For All team discovered that families with children with disabilities were looking for an opportunity to explore and enjoy the museum without limitations and the fear of being judged. CCM also learned that being ADA compliant was not enough; being accessible and inclusive meant going above and beyond the ADA. Children's museums are a rare treat where almost everything should be interactive and ready to be played with. The Play For All team has made significant changes to the exhibits, staff training, and programming at Chicago Children's Museum by working with local families with disabilities and partner organizations. A culture shift has taken place within CCM. Play For All is now a top priority when decisions are being made.     

Books,Children, Dogs,Artists: Library Programs for the Entire Family

The promotion of library resources and services is a continuous process for all libraries, especially hospital family resource center libraries. Like public libraries, a family resource center can utilize programs as a pathway for connecting with and developing awareness of library resources and services available to patient families. This column describes the programs currently offered for All Children's Hospital Johns Hopkins Medicine patient families, marketing initiatives to promote these programs, and utilization of grant funding to supplement a program.     

Focused Library Instruction for Occupational Therapy,Physical Therapy,and Respiratory Care Students and Faculty: Library Instruction in Allied Health

The integration of librarians into allied health programs presents many exciting opportunities for collaboration. This column will describe how a library instruction program is integrated into the occupational therapy, respiratory care, and physical therapy curricula at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The allied health faculty have welcomed and recognized the librarians’ expertise in teaching evidence-based practice and library research skills.     

New “Starting Points” for Resources by Subject

The objective of the Starting Points Web page series at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT HSC) Libraries is to provide specialized information resources in an organized online format. Highlighted resources include databases, journals, UT HSC campus information, funding sources, PubMed® RSS article feeds, and information about professional associations. This paper discusses the development process, planning, challenges, and outcomes of the Starting Points series.     

Reading expressively and understanding thoroughly: An examination of prosody in adults with low literacy skills

The purpose of the current study was to explore the relationship between prosody, which is the expressive quality of reading out loud, and reading comprehension in adults with low literacy skills compared to skilled readers. All participants read a passage orally, and we extracted prosodic measures from the recordings. We examined pitch changes and how long readers paused at various points while reading. Finally, for the adults with low literacy skills, we collected information on decoding, word recognition, and reading comprehension. We found several interesting results. First, adults with low literacy skills paused longer than skilled readers and paused at a substantially greater number of punctuation marks. Second, while adults with low literacy skills do mark the end of declarative sentences with a pitch declination similar to skilled readers, their readings of questions lack a change in pitch. Third, decoding and word recognition skills were related to pauses while reading; readers with lower skills made longer and more frequent and inappropriate pauses. Finally, pausing measures explained a significant amount of variance in reading comprehension among the adults with low literacy skills.     

‘Does it answer the question or is it French fries?’: an exploration of language supports for scientific argumentation

ABSTRACT

Reform initiatives around the world are reconceptualising science education by stressing student engagement in science practices. Yet, science practices are language-intensive, requiring students to have strong receptive and productive language proficiencies. It is critical to address these rigorous language demands to ensure equitable learning opportunities for all students, including English language learners (ELLs). Little research has examined how to specifically support ELL students’ engagement in science practices, such as argumentation. Using case-study methodology, we examined one middle school science teacher's instructional strategies as she taught an argumentation-focused curriculum in a self-contained ELL classroom. Findings revealed that three trends characterized the teacher’s language supports for the structural and dialogic components of argumentation: (1) more language supports focused on argument structure, (2) dialogic interactions were most often facilitated by productive language supports, and (3) some language supports offered a rationale for argumentation. Findings suggest a need to identify and develop supports for the dialogic aspects of argumentation. Furthermore, engaging students in argumentation through productive language functions could be leveraged to support dialogic interactions. Lastly, our work points to the need for language supports that make the rationale for argumentation explicit since such transparency could further increase access for all students.