Effect of perceived ease of use on librarians' e-skills: Basis for library technology acceptance intention

Despite the widespread application of technology in the 21st century, making informed decisions regarding its acceptance in organisations is a function of several factors, particularly in developing countries, due to factors such as rising cost of the information technology infrastructure and low technological exposure. A model that incorporated perceived ease of use (PEOU) and e-Skills to examine librarians' intention for actual library technology acceptance was tested. The correlational research design, along with a multistage sampling procedure, was applied to select samples to reduce the sample to a manageable proportion. Professional librarians and library officers in four university libraries provided the data for the study. Results showed that e-Skill is the model's strongest determinant of technology acceptance intention among librarians. Also, PEOU will significantly moderate librarians' intention towards library technology acceptance when e-Skills are insufficient. From these outcomes, the understanding of the determinants of behavioural intention captured in the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAT) is extended and refined.     

Constructing the academic category of teacher educator in universities’ recruitment processes in Aotearoa,New Zealand

An examination of recruitment materials and interviews with personnel involved in the employment of teacher educators to positions in university-based New Zealand initial teacher education (ITE) courses reveals three constructions of teacher educator as academic worker: the professional expert, the dually qualified, and the traditional academic. However, this study’s analysis shows how these constructions allow universities to pursue a bifurcated approach for the employment of teacher educators, an approach that maintains binaries within teacher education and hinders development in the field. Furthermore, as the spectre of a major cultural shift in the provision of New Zealand ITE arises, the extent to which the professional expert and traditional academic constructions of teacher educator might serve the scope of work required of postgraduate ITE going forth is questioned.     

Academic workload: the silent barrier to the implementation of technology-enhanced learning strategies in higher education

The effect of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) strategies in higher education has arguably been transformative despite the not-insignificant barriers existing in this context. Throughout the discourse very little attention has been paid to those primarily responsible for this implementation—academic teaching staff. This paper aims to highlight the impact of academic workload allocations, an often silent barrier to the uptake of TEL strategies in higher education. We will discuss the effects of academic identity and culture, preferential time allocation to associative activities, academic technological capacity, university policies and workload and funding models on the uptake, and implementation on TEL in higher education. Our aim is to highlight the risks to staff, students and institutions should these concerns not be addressed and to propose a model for utilisation by all staff responsible for implementing flexible workload models supportive of further implementation of TEL strategies across the sector.     

The Credential Question: Attitudes of Teaching Artists in Dance and Theatre Arts

How do teaching artists perceive the need and usefulness of a credential program specifically designed for teaching artists in dance and theatre arts?     

How students reason about matter flows and accumulations in complex biological phenomena: An emerging learning progression for mass balance

In recent years, there has been a strong push to transform STEM education at K-12 and collegiate levels to help students learn to think like scientists. One aspect of this transformation involves redesigning instruction and curricula around fundamental scientific ideas that serve as conceptual scaffolds students can use to build cohesive knowledge structures. In this study, we investigated how students use mass balance reasoning as a conceptual scaffold to gain a deeper understanding of how matter moves through biological systems. Our aim was to lay the groundwork for a mass balance learning progression in physiology. We drew on a general models framework from biology and a covariational reasoning framework from math education to interpret students' mass balance ideas. We used a constant comparative method to identify students' reasoning patterns from 73 interviews conducted with undergraduate biology students. We helped validate the reasoning patterns identified with >8000 written responses collected from students at multiple institutions. From our analyses, we identified two related progress variables that describe key elements of students' performances: the first describes how students identify and use matter flows in biology phenomena; the second characterizes how students use net rate-of-change to predict how matter accumulates in, or disperses from, a compartment. We also present a case study of how we used our emerging mass balance learning progression to inform instructional practices to support students' mass balance reasoning. Our progress variables describe one way students engage in three dimensional learning by showing how student performances associated with the practice of mathematical thinking reveal their understanding of the core concept of matter flows as governed by the crosscutting concept of matter conservation. Though our work is situated in physiology, it extends previous work in climate change education and is applicable to other scientific fields, such as physics, engineering, and geochemistry.     

Two societies: Duality,contradictions…and integration: A progress report on South Africa

This paper examines the extent to which the South African Library and Information Science (LIS) agenda maps to the national agenda for the reconstruction and development of the country, which is geared to the elimination of poverty and inequality. The nation has been described as comprising two societies: the one modern and well developed, the other characterised by masses of people living in dire poverty. The mandate of LIS in South Africa includes supporting and stimulating the technological and information development of all communities and providing effective LIS education to meet this goal. The government has embraced the concept of the Information Society, emphasising the link between economic growth and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and has pointed to the need for information literacy education. We present a critique of the fit between LIS policies and practices (including the curriculum) and the needs of an emerging democracy and its development goals, challenged by the duality of globalisation and marginalisation.