Superteachrs: From Policy Towards Practice

This article is concerned with the origins and evolution of the Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) initiative from its announcement in 1995 to the end of 1999. It examines the Government rationale and the contributions of the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) and the School Teachers' Review Body (STRB).     

Finding Common Ground: The Role of Preventive Conservation in Response to the Expectations of Contemporary Audiences at the National Gallery,London

ABSTRACT

Like many museums and galleries following a prolonged period of austerity, the National Gallery has increased its public, private and corporate activities on an unprecedented scale and embarked on an extensive building programme to develop the site and its heritage-listed building. Together with an expanding loans and exhibitions programme, institutional attention has been drawn towards using the collection and building in ways not done before, both to attract new audiences and to develop new income sources. However, such new and escalating activities have the potential to expose the collection to risks not previously considered and are increasing cumulative exposure to certain environmental factors. A new group, the Preventive Conservation Working Group (PCWG), working at an operational level, has recently been established as a forum for discourse, collaboration and innovation at this time of transformation, and its activities and areas of current focus are presented. The role of this group in safeguarding the collection while helping the institution to respond to the expectations of modern life and the contemporary audience are discussed, as well as some of the other positive benefits resulting from the group's formation.     

When style obscures substance: Visual attention to display appropriateness in the 2012 presidential debates

As with the first televised debates in 1960, the 2012 US presidential debates accentuated the importance of nonverbal behavior in political competition, with President Obama receiving widespread criticism for his disengaged and arguably inappropriate communication style in the first debate. To investigate the perceptual impact of such nonverbal expectancy violations, this study first employs an experimental design to examine the consequence of inappropriate leader displays, operationalized as nonverbal behaviors that are incongruent with the rhetorical setting. Theoretical explanations about the evaluative consequences of inappropriate leader displays are described in light of expectancy violations theory. Results of a repeated measures eye-tracking experiment find support for the prediction that inappropriate facial expressions increase visual attention on the source of violation, prompt critical scrutiny, and elicit negative evaluations. These findings are further explored with qualitative analysis of focus group responses to key moments from the first and third presidential debates. The discussion considers the broader implications of nonverbal communication in politics and how expressive leader displays serve as meaningful cues for citizens when making sense of televised political encounters.     

The prediction of academic and clinical performance in medical school

Prior studies have suggested the importance of distinguishing between performance in the earlier and later years of medical education. Factor analysis of grades by year and faculty ratings of clinical and general medical competence for 661 medical students identified two uncorrelated factors clearly reflecting this distinction. The clinical performance factor, accounting for 48% of the communality of the matrix, was more or less unpredictable from aptitude and premedical academic achievement indices; it was marginally predictable from scales on the Adjective Check List. The academic performance factor, accounting for 31% of the variance among criteria, was forecast with acceptable accuracy (cross-validated R=0.43) by equations based on the Medical College Admission Test and premedical grade point average. Future study should stress the clinical performance factor; this criterion appears to be more important than academic attainment, and it is also less accurately predicted by current measures.     

What do prospective students look for in higher degrees by research? A scale development study

ABSTRACT

This empirical investigation was aimed at conceptualizing, developing and validating a scale for the measurement of the quality of higher degrees by research (HDR-QUAL). For that purpose, this study specifically measured perceptions of higher degrees by research (HDR) students about the constituents of HDR quality in Pakistani tertiary education institutions. Following the 7-step process of scale development, three studies were conducted in order to develop an initial pool of scale items, establishing proposed scale validity and reliability, and assessing nomological behavior of the proposed scale. The principal component analysis with Varimax rotation method resulted in a 3-factor solution, subsequently proposing a 15-item scale. The model fit indices of measurement and the higher-order model indicated a satisfactory fit to data. Finally, the resultant three factors, i.e. financial assistance, supervisory expertise, and infrastructural support, converged into a unidimensional HDR-QUAL scale that was found positively associated with student satisfaction, thus, confirming nomological validity as well. Important policy measures and directions for future research are proposed at the end.     

Open admissions does not kill colleges

This article establishes an understanding of social cohesion in general and discusses organizations and activities that are known to promote social cohesion before introducing organizations that claim to work toward social cohesion as one of their main priorities. The Council of Europe's Directorate General of Social Cohesion represents a political organization seeking to promote social cohesion. The Jaboya Project and Field Band Foundation are social organizations with social cohesion as a priority. Although these organizations are likely to contribute to it, they cannot achieve social cohesion directly; rather, they work toward establishing conditions that are favorable to building social cohesion and anticipate the probable long-term effects of their work.