Engaging excellence? Effects of faculty quality on university engagement with industry

We investigate how universities’ research quality shapes their engagement with industry. Previous research has predominantly found a positive relationship between academics’ research quality and their commercialization activities. Here we use industry involvement measures that are broader than commercialization and indicate actual collaboration, i.e. collaborative research, contract research and consulting. We hypothesise that the relationship between faculty quality and industry engagement differs across disciplines, depending on complementarities between industrial and academic work, and resource requirements. Using a dataset covering all UK universities, we find that in technology-oriented disciplines, departmental faculty quality is positively related to industry involvement. In the medical and biological sciences we find a positive effect of departmental faculty quality but establish that this does not apply to star scientists. In the social sciences, we find some support for a negative relationship between faculty quality and particularly the more applied forms of industry involvement. The implication for science policy makers and university managers is that differentiated approaches to promoting university-industry relationships are required.     

A Preliminary Examination of Burnout Among Counselor Trainees Treating Clients With Recent Suicidal Ideation and Borderline Traits

Treating suicidal clients with borderline traits can be conducive to burnout. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) may assuage this burnout in counselors. As part of a DBT treatment outcome study, 6 counselors in training collected their own salivary cortisol samples and completed self‐report measures of burnout and well‐being for 1 year. Findings indicate a significant interaction for cortisol levels by treatment condition, such that DBT counselors experienced less physiological stress over time relative to a control group of counselors. There were no group differences in self‐reported burnout or well‐being. DBT may have a salutary effect on trainees' physiological stress levels over time.     

Computer-based learning of spelling skills in children with and without dyslexia

Our spelling training software recodes words into multisensory representations comprising visual and auditory codes. These codes represent information about letters and syllables of a word. An enhanced version, developed for this study, contains an additional phonological code and an improved word selection controller relying on a phoneme-based student model. We investigated the spelling behavior of children by means of learning curves based on log-file data of the previous and the enhanced software version. First, we compared the learning progress of children with dyslexia working either with the previous software (n = 28) or the adapted version (n = 37). Second, we investigated the spelling behavior of children with dyslexia (n = 37) and matched children without dyslexia (n = 25). To gain deeper insight into which factors are relevant for acquiring spelling skills, we analyzed the influence of cognitive abilities, such as attention functions and verbal memory skills, on the learning behavior. All investigations of the learning process are based on learning curve analyses of the collected log-file data. The results evidenced that those children with dyslexia benefit significantly from the additional phonological cue and the corresponding phoneme-based student model. Actually, children with dyslexia improve their spelling skills to the same extent as children without dyslexia and were able to memorize phoneme to grapheme correspondence when given the correct support and adequate training. In addition, children with low attention functions benefit from the structured learning environment. Generally, our data showed that memory sources are supportive cognitive functions for acquiring spelling skills and for using the information cues of a multi-modal learning environment.     

Using virtual microscopy to scaffold learning of pathology: a naturalistic experiment on the role of visual and conceptual cues

New representational technologies, such as virtual microscopy, create new affordances for medical education. In the article, a study on the following two issues is reported: (a) How does collaborative use of virtual microscopy shape students’ engagement with and learning from virtual slides of tissue specimen? (b) How do visual and conceptual cues scaffold students’ reasoning? Fifteen pairs of medical students participated in two sessions in which the students used a virtual microscope as a diagnostic tool in the context of learning pathology. The slides provided the students with varying levels of visual and conceptual cueing. The sessions were videotaped, and the students’ reasoning while using the microscope was analysed. The students’ written answers were analysed in terms of the findings they made and the diagnoses suggested. At a general level, the results show that students engage actively in this kind of virtually-mediated environment. The visual and/or conceptual cues improve students’ performance, and guide the students’ perception and reasoning in a manner that is productive from the point of view of learning to make clinically relevant observations. Scaffolding students’ reasoning process through cues furthermore assists the students in avoiding the most obvious pitfalls such as overlooking critical areas of a specimen. Overall, visual and conceptual cues improve students’ reasoning in perceptual and cognitive terms, while still allowing space for the making of “relevant mistakes” that may further the students’ diagnostic skills.     

Mobilitätskonzept in Sporttherapie und -wissenschaft

The international classification of functioning, disability and health (ICF) is a concept developed for the healthcare sector by the World Health Organization, which considers the health problems of a person with respect to functional ability, impairments and context factors. Mobility is an important basic functional element, central health criterion and an important prerequisite for participation in social life. In addition to all routinely relevant daily movements (e.g. walking, lifting and carrying), activities at the workplace and sport-related activities are also taken into consideration. Because mobility is internationally established as a central criterion of health by the World Health Organization, this results in a series of interesting connecting factors from sport scientific and kinesthesiological perspectives: movement is the central object of kinesthesiology and exercise therapy. Mobility is of exceptional importance for human existence and dealing with the world at large. Analogous to the discussion on basic motor competences with respect to compatibility in educational sciences, utilization of the ICF can be the basis for a common language in the medical-therapeutic milieu. The orientation to mobility allows the targets, contents and methods of exercise therapy to be addressed for the context-related importance in individual cases. This article presents possible perspectives for sport scientific disciplines, sport and exercise therapy with respect to mobility. The importance of mobility for health is emphasized and the relevance is discussed based on the development of diagnostic procedures and application of therapy.     

The Education of Students with Immigrant Background in Iceland: Parents’ and Teachers’ Voices

In recent years Icelandic schools have seen an increase in students with immigrant background. These changes require schools and teachers to respond to the educational needs these students may have. The aim of this article is to examine these changes by looking at the experience of teachers and parents of immigrant students regarding their education. As part of this qualitative research, 38 teachers were interviewed in focus groups with a view to the challenges and experiences of teaching immigrant students. Ten parents were also interviewed individually about their experiences of Icelandic schools and their children’s education. The findings revealed that teachers are unsupported in their quest for understanding and managing multicultural education and that the Icelandic school system challenges foreign parents’ understanding of school as a traditional place for learning. It is suggested that addressing the lack of collaboration and discussion between both parties on students’ needs and parents’ expectations could improve the education of immigrant students.     

Active on Facebook and Failing at School? Meta-Analytic Findings on the Relationship Between Online Social Networking Activities and Academic Achievement

The popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) among adolescents and young adults has raised concerns that the intensity of using these platforms might be associated with lower academic achievement. The empirical findings on this issue, however, are anything but conclusive. Therefore, we present four random-effects meta-analyses including 59 independent samples (total N = 29,337) on the association between patterns of SNS use and grades. The meta-analyses identified small negative effects of \( \widehat{\rho} \) = ??.07, 95% CI [??.12, ??.02] for general SNS use and \( \widehat{\rho} \) = ??.10, 95% CI [??.16, ??.05] for SNS use related to multitasking. General SNS use was unrelated to the time spent studying for school (\( \widehat{\rho} \) = ??.03, 95% CI [??0.11, 0.06]) and no support for the time displacement hypothesis could be found in a meta-analytical mediation analysis. SNS use for academic purposes exhibited a small positive association, \( \widehat{\rho} \) = .08, 95% CI [.02, .14]. Hypotheses with regard to cross-cultural differences were not supported.