Removing the Barriers for Students with Disabilities: Accessible Online and Web‐Enhanced Courses

The concern of this article is the difficulties faced by disabled students as technology grows and expands in academia. Although distance learning, web‐based courses, and hybrid courses, among other venues, have improved the chances for many people suffering disabilities for obtaining degrees and thereby increasing their life chances, we have met new challenges as well. This work will consider the growth of these technologies and some of the difficulties they present to particular groups of students. Also, the article will explore methods of overcoming many of these problems. Finally, a general method of working with these students and their special needs is drawn from existing literature.     

Enhancing Web‐based Courses through a Mutual Aid Framework

Students taking a class together belong to a group where members typically develop a sense of connection to each other by engaging in mutual support and assistance through shared experiences and knowledge. Some have argued that the lack of face‐to‐face interaction precludes such processes and prevents the effective teaching of social work in an online environment. When online students were asked what they liked most and least about their classes, one‐third of the responses referred to ideas that reflected interactions among students and with faculty. These comments were evaluated in the context of Shulman's (1999 Shulman, L. 1999. The skills of helping individuals, families, groups and communities, Itasca, IL: Peacock.  [Google Scholar]) processes of mutual aid. This exploratory study suggests that despite a lack of face‐to‐face contact, mutual aid is relevant to online students and could be used to strategically enhance the delivery of course content in an online environment and facilitate a sense of connection among students.     

Factors Influencing Word-of-Mouth Recommendations by MBA Students: An Examination of School Quality,Educational Outcomes,and Value of the MBA

Word-of-mouth recommendations from current students are an important source of influence when prospective MBA students are selecting a school. Based on a sample of 16,297 graduating MBA students, this paper uses multiple regression analysis to identify the factors that affect a school recommendation and to assess their relative importance. Separate models are developed based on prior research on service quality, educational outcomes, and perceived equity; then, variables from the separate models are combined into an overall model. Implications are discussed for school administrators and the marketing professionals who support them.     

Exploring Student Buy-In: Initial Development of an Instrument to Measure Likelihood of Children's Intervention Usage

It has been suggested that both internal (e.g., acceptability) and external (e.g., feasibility) factors should be taken under consideration in order to fully understand children's usage of interventions designed to improve their behavior. The purpose of this study was to initiate development of a student self-report measure (Children's Usage Rating Profile; CURP) designed to measure such factors. Results indicated that the CURP measures three interconnected aspects of students' perceptions of intervention: personal desirability, understanding, and feasibility. Furthermore, internal reliability analyses suggested that a measure consisting of 23 items may provide a reliable index of these three factors. Although these findings must be replicated across student populations and intervention types, results of the investigation suggest implications for researchers and practitioners interested in issues of intervention usage with children.     

Metadata and Memory: Lessons from the Canon of Memoria for the Design of Content Management Systems

To date, most of the research on usability and content management systems has focused on the end-user products of such systems rather than on the usability for technical communicators of the single-source authoring tools offered within these systems. While this latter research is undeniably important, attention needs to be paid to the plight of technical communicators attempting to use single-sourcing tools. Otherwise, technical communicators in workplaces risk becoming semi-skilled contingent labor rather than empowered knowledge workers. This essay, therefore, attempts to open a debate about the design of content management systems by turning to the rhetorical canon of memory as an appropriate source for insights into how stored information can be flexibly retrieved and used during composing activities.     

Keeping Users at the Center: Developing a Multimedia Interface for Informed Consent

Viewing “informing” as a process to protect patients and support autonomy, we undertook a user-centered design process to develop online support for informed consent in pediatric Phase I research trials. Challenges included (a) delivering accurate information to people unfamiliar with medical terminology; (b) delivering this information humanely under time constraints and heightened emotions; (c) allowing users control over the information, while ensuring availability of legally required information. We addressed these challenges through analyses of audience, task, and information design.     

Relationship between a 14-Day Recall Measure of Leisure-Time Physical Activity and a Submaximal Test of Physical Work Capacity in a Population Sample of Australian Adults

Abstract

This paper reports on the validity of a 14-day recall measure of leisure time physical activity (LTPA) in a sample of Australian adults (N = 986). Submaximal cycle ergometry was used to assess physical work capacity per kilogram of body mass (pwc75/kg). The self-report energy expenditure estimates were used to categorize respondents as vigorously active, moderately active, and low active/sedentary. Multiple regression analyses showed that pwc75/kg increased significantly across energy expenditure categories for adults aged less than 40 years; that the vigorous and moderate activity categories had greater mean pwc75/kg values than the low/sedentary category for 40 to 59-year-olds; and, that there were no differences in pwc75/kg between activity categories for those aged 60 years or older.     

A Human Science for the Study of Movement: An Integration of Multiple Ways of Knowing

Abstract

Although the physical science approach to the study of movement was originally adopted as sufficient for the study of humans, the limitations of this approach are increasingly being recognized. This recognition of limitations has led to the widespread use of an often confusing variety of research methodologies. The variety of research methods can be readily understood when differentiated in two ways: first, according to the level of reality to which they refer and, second, according to the specific interest in the inquiry—whether the interest is technical manipulation, the understanding of meaning, or emancipation. The necessity for this realities-based framework is grounded in the recognition that the human world of movement, in addition to relating to the material realm, also includes meaning. This framework then provides an integration of ways of knowing and methodologies for one of the most profound scientific potentials necessary for a human science—understanding meaning.