Understanding University Library Users' Mistreatment of Books

This paper analyses university library users' attitudes towards book vandalism in order to develop a basis for intervention. Using a customer oriented approach data was collected from users who attended an academic library exhibition on vandalized books at a University campus. Respondants were asked both for their reactions to the vandalism as well as to suggest measures to solve this problem. Punishment and surveillance were most frequently mentioned as preventative measures although users also recognized the utility of the exhibition in increasing awareness of book mutilation. Further implications of social marketing for libraries are also discussed.     

A school-based motivational intervention to promote physical activity from a self-determination theory perspective

The authors analyzed the effects of a multidimensional intervention to promote physical activity (PA) in school, based on self-determination theory. The study involved 88 students, between 14 and 17 years old, who were divided into a control group (n = 59) and an experimental group (n = 29). In the experimental group, a 6-month intervention was conducted, applying a teaching unit of fitness and health in physical education (PE) classes, an extracurricular program of healthy PA, and meetings with families. Questionnaires were administered to measure different motivational variables and PA levels at four time points. Significant differences were found in favor of the experimental group in parental and peer autonomy support; integrated regulation in PE; autonomy, intrinsic, and identified regulation in leisure-time PA; moderate, hard, and very hard PA; and physical self-worth. Motivational effects were maintained over time but the effects on PA levels disappeared at 6 months.     

How Should Energy Be Defined Throughout Schooling?

The question of how to teach energy has been renewed by recent studies focusing on the learning and teaching progressions for this concept. In this context, one question has been, for the most part, overlooked: how should energy be defined throughout schooling? This paper addresses this question in three steps. We first identify and discuss two main approaches in physics concerning the definition of energy, one claiming there is no satisfactory definition and taking conservation as a fundamental property, and the other based on Rankine’s definition of energy as the capacity of a system to produce changes. We then present a study concerning how energy is actually defined throughout schooling in the case of France by analyzing national programs, physics textbooks, and the answers of teachers to a questionnaire. This study brings to light a consistency problem in the way energy is defined across school years: in primary school, an adapted version of Rankine’s definition is introduced and conservation is ignored; in high school, conservation is introduced and Rankine’s definition is ignored. Finally, we address this consistency problem by discussing possible teaching progressions. We argue in favor of the use of Rankine’s definition throughout schooling: at primary school, it is a possible substitute to students’ erroneous conceptions; at secondary school, it might help students become aware of the unifying role of energy and thereby overcome the compartmentalization problem.     

A Theater-Based Device for Training Teachers on the Nature of Science

Science & Education - This article presents and discusses an innovative pedagogical device designed for training pre-service teachers on the nature of science. We endorse an approach according...     

A neo-Schumpeterian model of health services innovation

The paper presents and empirically applies a neo-Schumpeterian model of innovation capable of studying interactions between service providers, patients and policy makers, and how these complex interactions determine the timing, direction, and success of innovations in the public sector. The model is tested using a case study that traces the introduction and development of ambulatory surgery in a Spanish hospital. The multi-agent model applies the ideas of Schumpeter to services, encompassing Schumpeter's five types of innovation, and re-introducing the policy-maker as a key agent in the innovation process. The model has a number of advantages over previous, reduced form models. First, it can analyse the interactions between the economic, social and political spheres that make up the complex selection environment of innovations. Second, it captures the recursive impact of radical innovations on agents’ competences and preferences, and their relative power. This brings politics, power, and rhetorical persuasion to the fore. Third, it provides an improved set of definitions for radical and incremental innovation. These are not only important for understanding the sources and drivers of innovation, but also for the accurate measurement of innovation.     

Creative adaptation: the role of new technology based firms in Portugal

This paper reviews two recent research studies on Portuguese New Technology Based Firms (NTBFs). Attention is given to the role and contribution of NTBFs to innovation. The main argument is that, by and large, NTBFs are less concerned with the introduction of major innovations and more with creative adaptive improvements to products and services based upon new technologies first introduced elsewhere. The empirical research found that Portuguese NTBFs are a recent phenomenon associated with diffusion of Electronics and Information Technologies (EIT) during the late 1980s. They perform a wide variety of knowledge-intensive activities, which enhance local users' adoption processes and they are associated with different forms of technology transfer through external linkages. Overall, NTBFs undertake a frequently unobserved role as technology searchers and acquirers that, pushed by idiosyncratic local niche market opportunities, selectively choose among and enhance technologies developed elsewhere, introducing them into the local market.     

The effects of self-efficacy,hope, and engagement on the academic achievement of secondary education in the Dominican Republic

Achievement in the academic settings has long lasting positive outcomes. In this study, hope, self-efficacy, and engagement are linked to academic success. The aims of this study were to test a model which predicts academic success in the Dominican Republic while testing for the mediator role of engagement. The sample was composed of 614 middle-school students. Scales of Dispositional Hope, Academic Self-Efficacy, Academic Self-concept, and Engagement were used. Academic performance was measured with students' grades in Spanish and Mathematics. Three structural equation models were tested. The retained model stated hope and self-efficacy as antecedents, engagement dimensions as mediators and grades and academic self-concept as final outcomes. There were significant effects of hope and self-efficacy on engagement, and behavioral engagement was the best predictor of academic success. These results point out that interventions should target variables, such as hope or engagement to increase academic success.