Precariously Employed Watchdogs?

A growing share of the media content we encounter as consumers and investigate as scholars is produced by journalists in non-standard employment situations. Researching the labour conditions of freelancers and interns can help us to understand important aspects of contemporary journalism—as well as the role it may or may not be able to perform in postmodern democracies. This article presents results from a research project that explores this growing yet understudied segment of atypical labour in journalism. The analysis is based on a review of recent literature on news production and working conditions in the media as well as 18 in-depth interviews conducted with interns and freelancers in Germany.     

Library involvement in an autism support program: A case study

Abstract

The Students with Autism Transitional Education Program (STEP) at Eastern Illinois University is one of the few of its kind and is a leader in supporting college students with autism. Eastern Illinois University Library Services teamed up with the STEP in order to provide support to the students in the program. Students were interviewed about their experiences in the library in order to determine what their impressions of the library were and what potential needs they had. Students largely viewed the library as a safe haven and a great place for quiet study. Based on feedback, this case study also offers suggestions for improvement to make college and university libraries more welcoming to people with autism.     

‘No One Should Destroy the Forest': Using photo-based vignette interviews to understand Kenyan teachers' views of the environment

In the midst of the current environmental crisis, scientists, academics, authors, and politicians worldwide are urging citizens to create sustainable communities. However, there is little capability to build a sustainable society without an informed, active, and engaged populous. This requires more than just environmentally knowledgeable citizens. It requires a society that understands the principles of the environment and can also exemplify them in daily life. In order to create a more environmentally literate world, there has been a push for environmental education integrated into schools. This qualitative study sought to examine Kenyan teachers’ perspectives on the human–nature interaction by conducting vignette focus-group interviews. It is a subject not widely explored but vital for conservation not only in this area, but also other areas that seek to have an ecological informed populous. The vignettes were created using photographs and explanations of the photographs that the participants collected and emailed to the authors. For the focus-group vignette interviews, there were a total of 55 participants (30 females and 25 males). After InVivo analysis, we had 6 codes (resentment, pride, perils, blame, pragmatism, and self-interested) within 3 major themes. This study has implications for informing science education to combat these traditions of subjecting students to a science curriculum that demotes Kenyan cultural heritage and lifestyle. By incorporating local knowledge such as the ideas discussed in this paper into Kenyan science education, Kenyans can reach one of most challenging objectives of education, which is to produce children who are fundamentally aware of their environment.     

How school leaders search for and use evidence

Background: Often, a principal’s responsibilities include making decisions about the appropriateness of educational programmes to adopt in their school. Recommendations about programmes can be conflicting; so, a principal may need to search for evidence to inform their decision.

Purpose: The purpose of this small-scale study was to clarify how school leaders search for, and use, evidence to inform programme adoption. We sought to answer three research questions: (1) how do principals search for evidence, (2) how do they use common sources and (3) what sources do they consider most useful?

Sample: Twelve elementary school principals or vice-principals in Ontario, Canada participated in the study.

Design and methods: In telephone interviews, the participants described how they would respond to a fictional decision-making scenario and rated different sources of evidence. Responses were analysed in depth, using a mixed-method approach, which involved coding principals’ interview responses for themes and conducting a dual scaling analysis of their ratings of the usefulness of possible sources.

Results: Principals report valuing formal sources of evidence such as reports and articles. However, in practise, findings indicated that they would turn to people first.

Conclusions: School leaders prefer curated evidence from local educators to inform their decisions about the appropriateness of educational programmes for potential adoption.     

Swiss Elementary School Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Forest Education

This article investigates benefits and challenges of forest education in view of 257 Swiss elementary school teachers (1st–3rd grade), by means of a written questionnaire and 15 in-depth interviews. Two thirds of the teachers carried out forest education during normal lesson hours (mean visits = eight per year). Forests were clearly considered as an educational setting, and especially suitable for the enhancement of personal and social skills. Setting rules was seen as indispensable for successful forest education and a must to communicate to “novice” teachers. Moreover, the didactic of forest education should be implemented in teacher education curricula.     

Latino expectations of communicative competence: A focus group interview study

Drawing on Martin, Hammer, and Bradford's (1994) work on intercultural communicative competence, this investigation explored Latino expectations of communicative competence using focus group interviews. Like the Martin et al. (1994) study, communicative competence was examined in four contexts — intracultural‐social, intracultural‐task, intercultural‐social, and intercultural‐task. Results indicated overall support for seven of Martin et al.’s (1994) eight behavioral categories. Data from focus group interviews in this study suggested an additional competence category specific to task contexts as well as some emic behaviors not identified in the Martin et al. (1994) investigation.     

论结构化面试在高校干部选拔中的应用

结构化面试与传统面试相比,有较高的信度、效度和社会公认度,是目前较为广泛使用的一种面试测评技术,在高校干部选拔中得到了越来越多的关注和重视。要提高结构化面试在高校干部选拔工作中的实施效果,应重点把握好工作方案制定、测评要素设计、试题编制、考官选调及培训、程序实施、面试质量评估等环节的工作。     

Coping with stressors in elite sport: A coach perspective

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to supplement previous work that identified the stressors experienced by coaches and examine the coping strategies that elite-level coaches employ to overcome stressors. Three elite coaches were interviewed and were required to identify three prominent stressors that they had experienced before discussing how they attempted to cope with them. The selected stressors included both performance and organizational types, and the associated coping attempts included strategies conforming to problem-, emotion-, avoidance-, appraisal-, and approach-focused dimensions. While specific forms of coping were identified, findings also highlighted that coping strategies were employed across performance and organizational stressors, rather than being employed for one or the other. Implications for future research opportunities within the area are presented.     

Precarious Balance

This article explores how journalists negotiate notions of autonomy in their daily exchanges with politicians. Based on qualitative data analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted in Chile, this article argues that, when analysed from the perspective of journalists, notions of autonomy appear to be negotiated in three distinct dimensions. First, a professional narrative built upon news values firmly grounded in commercial considerations; second, an organizational narrative that rests upon editorial lines that occasionally become explicit editorial biases, and third, a sense of belonging to an encapsulated community inhabited by journalists, politicians and communication officers. Data analysis suggests that core claims of autonomy in political reporting stem from values of newsworthiness greatly influenced by a commercial logic of audience maximization. This professional autonomy, though, has to be upheld at the organizational and the relational level, and appears tensioned by the appearance of new media and political actors who push journalists towards a public-oriented role. The implications of these findings for journalistic practice are discussed.