Metacognition and the influence of polling systems: how do clickers compare with low technology systems

Recent research suggests that clickers (electronic feedback devices) influence metacognition. This article reports qualitative findings from a quasi-experimental study comparing clickers and low technology polling. We sought to establish how clickers influence metacognition and whether differences exist in how each response system influences metacognition. The qualitative data collected includes an open-ended survey administer to all study participants (n = 198), informal observations, and interviews conducted using purposeful sampling. While low technology polling appears to elicit more metacognition than clickers, negative feelings and conformity affect also increase. Clickers result in positive feelings and reduction of the conformity effect. In addition to significantly higher performance outcomes, findings indicate polling systems result in different qualities of metacognition, meaning either more or less productive, and either self-reflective or group reflective. These differences contribute to the degree to which the environment is learner centered.     

Preparing preservice English teachers and school counselor interns for future collaboration

The authors believe that by working together, teachers and school counselors can better support students and more effectively work for their success. In this article, we present our efforts in creating a collaborative class for preservice English teachers and school counselor interns. While offering an overview of English teachers and school counselors in their daily interactions with adolescents, we focus on the university preparation of both groups, specifically the preparation at our university, a large research institution in the Midwestern United States. We provide a look at the collaborative class created for the preservice English teachers and school counselor interns, offering examples of their interaction and feedback from the students. Lastly, we close with a consideration of the meaning of such collaboration at the university level for both English teachers and school counselors.     

Erfassung und Struktur berufswahlrelevanter Faktoren für die Lehrerausbildung und den Lehrerberuf in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz

The career choice motivations of potential teachers, their interests and other factors relevant to their choice of career are studied in order to achieve the best possible recruitment of new entrants to the teaching profession. However, the research and findings which are already available in this field are inadequate. The article is the first study which aims to analyse the structure and applicability of the internationally accessible FIT-Choice instrument to detect the relevant factors for teaching as a career choice in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the basis of representative samples (n = 6,601) in order to create a data basis which will enable the previously unconnected research initiatives in German-speaking countries to be combined. In addition, teaching experience is taken into account and used to check how valid the career choice motives stated by the students are. The overall objective is to explore the extent to which measurements of career choice motives and teaching experience and analysis of two areas can be generalised across different institutions and countries and can go beyond the limited significance of the previously available findings, and eventually to formulate generalisable assumptions about the ideas which influence teaching as a career choice, and especially the motivation which leads to this career choice.     

The relationship between parental traits and open family communication: Affective orientation and verbal aggression

This study examined haw the parental traits of affective orientation and verbal aggressiveness were associated with openness in family communication patterns. Responses were obtained from 133 college‐aged children and their parents.

Parental affective orientation was positively related to their children's perceptions of more open family communication patterns, while verbal aggressiveness was negatively related. Parents’ and children's levels of trait affective orientation were moderately correlated (r=.45) with children's AO levels being higher than their parents’.     

Content analysis of shyness portrayals in television advertising

This study tested the hypotheses that shyness is under‐represented in television advertising and that among shy characters, women and children are over‐represented. Network commercials were content‐analyzed for their characterizations of inhibited behaviors. Results indicated that shyness was rarely exhibited and, within the shy portrayals, men and children were more likely to be depicted as shy.     

Public and Academic Library Cataloging Collaboration in Ohio's NACO Funnel Project

Catalogers at The Ohio State University (OSU) Libraries, Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML), and Cleveland Public Library (CPL) are collaborating through the Ohio Name Authority Cooperative (NACO) funnel to create personal name authority records that directly benefit library patrons. Although OSU provides training and review, all three libraries receive value from the collaboration. There have been obstacles, however, such as cataloging training and workflow differences between public and academic libraries. This article will discuss the challenges and benefits of this inter-library cataloger collaboration from the point of view of all three libraries, plans for the future, and best practices for other libraries that are interested in public/academic library collaborations of this kind.     

Synthetic Ethos: The Believability of Collections at the Intersection of Classification and Curation

This article explores the rhetorical notion of ethos, or a believable character, in the context both of classification schemes, or means of organizing documents, and of the resource collections that make use of those schemes. Ethos, the article contends, explains how a particular audience is more or less likely to accept the interpretive frame that classification or collection inscribes on its contents. Two case studies, one of a classification and one of a resource collection that incorporates a classification, show how these communicative artifacts can generate ethos despite their lack of typical textual mechanisms, such as linear narrative. The article concludes by suggesting that properties of collections—their synthesis of multiple, often independent parts, their continuous versioning—stretch the basic idea of ethos itself, and the notion of synthetic ethos is proposed to better encompass these properties.     

Drama, narrative and early learning

Melanie Peter is a lecturer in early childhood studies and special needs at Suffolk College, Ipswich, and a freelance consultant in arts education and inclusive/special education. Her recent research has focused on the value of pretence, particularly for children with autistic spectrum disorders. In this article, based on a paper given to the conference 'Innovation, Research and Good Practice in the Education of Pupils with Severe, Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities' at the University of London in April 2002, she presents an approach to developing drama with severely socially challenged children, underpinned by a rationale founded in the importance of early experiences of make–believe and narrative. In drama, children at early stages of learning can begin to explore and understand social narratives from the inside – a vital route to developing social competence. Melanie Peter concludes that while play–drama intervention is aimed especially at children with autistic spectrum disorders, it can also benefit a wider range of children with severe and complex learning needs and help them to participate more effectively in a social world.