Selecting gifted children with the Slosson Intelligence Test: 1981 vs. 1961 norms

The Slosson Intelligence Test (SIT) for Children and Adults protocols for 683 gifted students ranging in age from 6 to 12 years were scored using both 1961 and 1981 norms. The average 1981 norm score was 5.17 points lower than the 1961 norm score. The differences increase with the age of the child. Implications for using the SIT for selecting gifted children are discussed.     

Implementing MTSS in Beginning Reading: Tools and Systems to Support Schools and Teachers

Multi‐tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) frameworks are designed to directly support students with, and at risk for, disabilities by providing timely, aligned, and coordinated supports, with the goal of preventing or ameliorating the effects of early risk. Yet developing and implementing MTSS in beginning reading is a complex process. Many schools encounter common barriers to achieving full and sustained implementation of MTSS systems and practices. The purpose of this article is to describe a state K‐3 reading initiative that resulted in improved reading outcomes for K‐3 students, including students at risk for reading disabilities. Specifically, this article describes a series of tools (i.e., activity timeline, whole group and small group templates, data grouping workbook) that helped teachers in the initiative to overcome barriers in order to ensure that tiered instruction met the needs of all students, including students with, and at risk for, reading disabilities.     

Short-Term Leadership Development: Meeting a Need for Emerging Community College Leaders

With retirements looming in the ranks of senior leadership, the need for short-term, intensive, focused leadership development targeting midlevel administrators has become acute. Through survey responses and in-depth interviews, this study examines leadership development needs of midlevel community college administrators who aspire to higher leadership positions. The plethora of short-term programs currently available through local colleges, states, and professional associations—while well-intentioned—are most often serendipitous and without clear focus or theoretical underpinning. This study suggests a framework for providing coherent, high impact, short-term leadership development opportunities to assist emerging leaders meet the challenges of today's increasingly complex colleges.     

Capturing business intelligence required for targeted marketing,demonstrating value,and driving process improvement

The University of Wollongong (UOW) in New South Wales, Australia, has undertaken an innovative and collaborative research project to demonstrate the value that can be provided by academic libraries through a tool called the “library cube”. The library cube consists of two major components: a backend system containing a multidimensional data warehouse linking student borrowing and use of electronic resources to students' academic marks (grades); and a frontend system that allows users to quickly and easily create cross tabulated data views, such as average student marks by frequency of library resource usage and gender. The project is different from the efforts of other institutions to link usage to student outcomes, in that the library cube is not an isolated research project, but is now an ongoing part of UOW's systems and performance reporting. The library cube represents a fundamental shift in evaluating the student experience through the integration of discrete systems and datasets. It has revealed a very strong relationship between student library usage and academic performance. This information will improve UOW library's ability to demonstrate value to clients and stakeholders. The library cube has also delivered some anticipated and unexpected findings on the relationship between social variables, such as gender, age, and citizenship, and library usage behaviors; and in doing so has also identified potential target audiences for library promotions and engagement strategies.     

Physiological Changes in Middle-Aged Men following a Ten-Week Jogging Program

Abstract

Twenty-one middle-aged males who participated in a jogging program performed a 6-minute submaximal exercise bout on a bicycle ergometer to determine if any differences existed between the results of heart rate and blood pressure tests taken before and after 10 weeks of training. Heart rates were obtained from electrocardiograph tracings and blood pressures were measured by a manual sphygmomanometer. The t test for differences between the means of related measures of heart rates and blood pressures was used with the .01 level selected for significance. Differences between the means of pre-and post tests of heart rate, under pre-exercise, submaximal exercise, and postexercise conditions, were all statistically significant. The jogging program did not produce any significant change in either systolic or disastolic blood pressure. It was concluded that 10 weeks of participation in a systematic jogging program will produce reductions in heart rates for middle-aged men at rest, during submaximal exercise, and during the recovery period following exercise.     

Effectiveness of fieldwork at an information desk: A prototype for academic library-library school collaboration

This article presents a model of how academnic libraries and schools of library and information studies (LIS) may collaborate to provide useful educational experiences to LIS students and reliable reference service to library users. LIS students staff an information desk for s fieldwork component of a basic reference course. Research shows that the students provide accurate services at the desk.     

Information Literacy Follow-Through: Enhancing Preservice Teachers’ Information Evaluation Skills Through Formative Assessment

An investigation into preservice teachers’ information evaluation skills at a large university suggests that formative assessment can improve student achievement. Preservice teachers were asked to apply information evaluation skills in the areas of currency, relevancy, authority, accuracy, and purpose. The study used quantitative methods to assess preservice teachers’ evaluation skills as demonstrated within the context of a final project, or summative assessment, in an elementary education course. The authors compared the preservice teachers’ and researchers’ evaluations to analyze final projects from two semesters. When asked to evaluate the sources cited in a final project for an education methods course, preservice teachers who received formative feedback from librarians improved in most information evaluation areas. Formative assessment is explored as a tool for improving information literacy instruction.     

From closed to open: Job role changes,individual predispositions,and the adoption of commercial open source software development

When trying to attain the benefits of open source software (OSS), proprietary closed source software (PCSS) firms are struggling to adopt this radically different practice of software development. We approach these adoption challenges as a problem of gaining support for organizational innovation. Through a mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative interviews and a survey of employees of a large telecommunications firm, we find that the organizational innovation to commercially engage in OSS has different impacts on technical and administrative dimensions of different job roles. Accordingly, individuals enacting different job roles are—on average—more or less well aligned with the OSS practice and OSS processes per se. We find that individual-level attributes can counterbalance the job role changes that weaken support for adopting OSS, while perceived organizational commitment has no effect. Suggestions for PCSS firms are presented and implications for innovation literature are discussed.