The Effects of a Summary Writing Strategy on the Literacy Skills of Adolescents with Disabilities

Many adolescents, particularly adolescents with disabilities, have difficulty with literacy tasks such as reading and writing. Yet research has found that when students with disabilities receive appropriate instruction, they typically are able to improve their overall writing outcomes. This study explored the effectiveness of a summary writing strategy taught through a mnemonic device (WINDOW) with prompts for self-regulation on the summary writing and reading comprehension of high school students with disabilities. Results indicated that the students who received the intervention wrote longer and higher quality summaries and improved their reading comprehension scores after learning the strategy when compared to a control group. These outcomes indicate that the WINDOW strategy may have the potential to improve reading and writing outcomes for high school students with disabilities. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Regulating global capitalism amid rampant corporate wrongdoing—Reply to “Three frames for innovation policy”

Despite progress in science and technology and the economic prosperity achieved by numerous countries over the past century, contemporary global capitalism has left us with severe grand challenges for the future including rising inequality, global warming, modern slavery, child labor and several other human rights struggles. How can we fix them? For many years, scholars and policy makers alike have believed that economic growth (fueled by innovation) would fix institutional failures and lift people out of human misery. We now know that this story creaks. I would suggest that the current grand challenges are related in a non-trivial way to companies’ wrongful business conduct, especially that of large multinational corporations which have grown to rival governments in size, and have proven to be powerful agents capable of shaping the global governance agenda. I challenge technological determinism and ‘transformative change’ frameworks by arguing that the regulation of global capitalism needs to put powerful private actors at center stage since neglecting them will give rise to yet another generation of dysfunctional development and innovation policies.     

Children's insecure representations of the interparental relationship and their school adjustment: the mediating role of attention difficulties

This study examined the role of attention difficulties as a mediator of associations between children's insecure representations of the interparental relationship and their school adjustment in a sample of two hundred and sixteen 6-year-old children. Consistent with hypotheses, findings from structural equation models indicated that observer ratings of children's insecure representations of interparental relationships in a story completion task predicted computerized task assessments and parent reports of children's attention difficulties 1 year later. Children's attention difficulties, in turn, were associated with concurrent levels of school problems and increases in school problems over a 1-year period as indexed by teacher reports. Attention difficulties accounted for an average of 34% of the association between insecure internal representations and school problems.     

The micro-determinants of meso-level learning and innovation: evidence from a Chilean wine cluster

Most analyses of the relationship between spatial clustering and the technological learning of firms have emphasised the influence of the former on the latter, and have focused on intra-cluster learning as the driver of innovative performance. This paper reverses those perspectives. It examines the influence of individual firms’ absorptive capacities on both the functioning of the intra-cluster knowledge system and its interconnection with extra-cluster knowledge. It applies social network analysis to identify different cognitive roles played by cluster firms and the overall structure of the knowledge system of a wine cluster in Chile. The results show that knowledge is not diffused evenly ‘in the air’, but flows within a core group of firms characterised by advanced absorptive capacities. Firms’ different cognitive roles include some—as in the case of technological gatekeepers—that contribute actively to the acquisition, creation and diffusion of knowledge. Others remain cognitively isolated from the cluster, though in some cases strongly linked to extra-cluster knowledge. Possible implications for policy are noted.     

Social Class Dialogues and the Fostering of Class Consciousness

How do critical pedagogies promote undergraduate students’ awareness of social class, social class identity, and social class inequalities in education? How do undergraduate students experience class consciousness-raising in the intergroup dialogue classroom? This qualitative study explores undergraduate students’ class consciousness-raising in an intergroup dialogue on social class at a large, private Northeastern university. Analyses of weekly student journals are offered to expand upon our knowledge of undergraduate students’ social class experiences in higher education contexts, as well as illuminate positive impacts that intergroup dialogue pedagogy has on students’ class consciousness-raising in the intergroup dialogue classroom.     

Degrees of co-creation: an exploratory study of perceptions of international students’ role in community engagement experiences

Increased competition for the international student market has motivated universities to modernize their marketing strategies. Community engagement is an important component of students' international university experience and represents a potential point of competitive advantage. Developing marketing strategies around university–student–community engagement (U–S–CE) requires an understanding of the perspectives of international students, the university and the community. We anchored our study in value co-creation which is a principle of the service dominant logic framework found in the marketing literature. With limited research in the area, a qualitative approach was appropriate. Interviews were undertaken with key university members (n?=?4) and community members (n?=?5) concurrently with focus groups of international students (n?=?22) at a single university. Based on the degree of co-creation by international students in U–S–CE, three groups emerged: consumers, collaborators and co-designers. This study offers theoretical and practical insight, providing a platform for further research into U–S–CE.     

The impact of childhood abuse on inpatient substance users: Specific links with risky sex,aggression, and emotion dysregulation

Adults with substance use disorders (SUDs) report a high prevalence of childhood abuse. Research in the general population suggests specific types of abuse lead to particular negative outcomes; it is not known whether this pattern holds for adults with SUDs. We hypothesized that specific types of abuse would be associated with particular behavioral and emotional outcomes among substance users. That is, childhood sexual abuse would be associated with risky sex behaviors, childhood physical abuse with aggression, and childhood emotional abuse with emotion dysregulation. 280 inpatients (M age = 43.3; 69.7% male; 88.4% African American) in substance use treatment completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), HIV Risk-Taking Behavior Scale, Addiction Severity Index, Difficulties with Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS), and Affect Intensity and Dimensions of Affiliation Motivation (AIM). Consistent with our hypotheses, the CTQ sexual abuse subscale uniquely predicted exchanging sex for cocaine and heroin, number of arrests for prostitution, engaging in unprotected sex with a casual partner during the prior year, and experiencing low sexual arousal when sober. The physical abuse subscale uniquely predicted number of arrests for assault and weapons offenses. The emotional abuse subscale uniquely predicted the DERS total score, AIM score, and DTS score. Among substance users, different types of abuse are uniquely associated with specific negative effects. Assessment of specific abuse types among substance users may be informative in treatment planning and relapse prevention.     

Balancing supportive relationships and developing independence: an activity theory approach to understanding feedback in context for master’s students

Abstract

Master’s students are expected to be self-regulating and independent learners. Dialogic feedback has been identified as one way of promoting such independence. There continues to be concern about the extent to which master’s students are achieving this level of functioning. This study aimed to identify feedback practices and contexts which facilitated student engagement and independence. Working with students as co-researchers, interviews were conducted with 27 master’s students from three programmes. Activity theory was used as an analytical tool to generate understanding of feedback in the social context of each programme. Findings indicate there can be tension between factors which promote dialogical feedback and those which promote independence, and that active dialogic feedback with staff may limit student engagement with peer feedback.     

Innovative activities for teaching anatomy of speech production

Courses in anatomy have traditionally relied on lectures and cadaver dissection laboratories. In speech and hearing sciences, there tends to be less access to cadavers than in medical schools and other allied health professions. It is more typical to use anatomical models, diagrams and lecture slides. Regardless of the resources available, anatomy is a subject that lends itself to hands‐on learning. This article briefly reviews teaching methods and describes a variety of innovative activities to enhance learning of anatomical concepts and clinical relevance of anatomy for speech production. Teaching strategies and activities were developed to capitalize on students' multimodal learning preferences as revealed by responses to a survey administered to 49 undergraduates in the beginning of an anatomy of speech production course. At the end of the semester, students completed a second survey. A five‐point Likert scale was used to assess the usefulness of each activity as a learning tool or level of clinical relevance and the level of enjoyability. The responses were overwhelmingly positive with level of usefulness and level of clinical relevance rated higher on average than the level of enjoyment. Anat Sci Educ 3:234–243, 2010. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.