Facilitating Intercultural Communication in Parent–Teacher Conferences: Lessons From Child Translators

In this article Abraham Lincoln is considered as an alternative to the usual type of patriot's hero. He reminds us of our great historical failings. He remains a figure of controversy, a national hero in only some corners of society. He is the heroic President who serves as the first compassionate defender of the downtrodden, and he is a hero in those subcultures as well. Lincoln's treatment in the movies is discussed, focusing particularly on the recent movie Lincoln. Lincoln is seen as a match for the usual movie hero. His famous immunity to casual treatment in popular culture is discussed as well.     

Impact of peer mediation programmes to prevent bullying behaviours in secondary schools / El impacto de los programas de mediación entre iguales para prevenir conductas de acoso escolar en los centros de secundaria

The aim of the study was to determine the impact of peer mediation programmes at a secondary school, as compared to another centre that did not have any such programme. The impact would be evaluated by means of three levels of variables: pro-victim attitudes, the roles adopted by the youngsters and the school climate (this last item was analysed from two perspectives: that of the pupils and that of the teachers). In order to attain this goal, students from 12 to 14 years old (N = 323) and 17 teacher-tutors were administered different questionnaires in Time 1 (baseline, prior to intervention) and Time 2 (after programme intervention). Results highlight the validity of peer mediation programmes when it comes to fostering pro-victim attitudes, preventing the increase of negative roles and improving the school climate.     

LGBTQ+ health research guides at North American health sciences libraries: a survey and content analysis

Objectives:Current literature recommends online research guides as an easy and effective tool to promote LGBTQ+ health information to both health care providers and the public. This cross-sectional study was designed to determine how extensive LGBTQ+ health guides are among hospital and academic libraries and which features are most prevalent.Methods:In order to locate LGBTQ+ health guides for content analysis, we searched for guides on the websites of libraries belonging to the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL). Additionally, we searched the Springshare interface for LibGuides with the word “health” and either “LGBT” or “transgender.” Content analysis was performed to identify major characteristics of the located guides, including target audience and the information type provided.Results:LGBTQ+ research guides were identified for 74 libraries. Of these, 5 were hospital libraries, and the rest were academic libraries. Of 158 AAHSL member libraries, 48 (30.4%) had LGBTQ+ guides on their websites. Nearly all guides (95.9%) provided general LGBTQ+ health information, and a large majority (87.8%) also had information resources for transgender health. Smaller percentages of guides contained information on HIV/AIDS (48.6%) and women''s health (16.2%).Conclusions:Even though literature recommends creating LGBTQ+ health guides, most health sciences libraries are missing an opportunity by not developing and maintaining these guides. Further research may be needed to determine the usage and usefulness of existing guides and to better identify barriers preventing libraries from creating guides.     

The belief revision model: asymmetrical effects of noncontingency on human covariation learning

A noncontingent experience affects the subsequent detection of positive and negative contingencies between the same events. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that such preexposure can produce both an impairment in the detection of subsequent positive contingency and a facilitation of a negative one, independent of the level of contingency during the contingent phase. Experiment 3 raised difficulties for a model that assumes that associations to the context can explain this asymmetrical effect. Experiment 4 suggested that the different weights usually assigned to the different types of trials when computing the contingency between events can change as a result of a noncontingent experience with the same events. This change supports an account of the asymmetrical effect by a belief revision model based on a mechanism that updates the weights of the different trial types as a function of previous experience. More generally, the belief revision model is a statistical (i.e., nonassociative) model of learning that is capable of accounting for trial-order effects, which have long posed problems for statistical models.     

Assessment of collaborative learning experiences by graphical analysis of wiki contributions

The widespread adoption of computers and Internet in our life has reached the classrooms, where computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) based on wikis offers new ways of collaboration and encourages student participation. When the number of contributions from students increases, traditional assessment procedures of e-learning settings suffer from scalability problems. In a wiki-based learning experience, automatic tools are required to support the assessment of such huge amounts of data. In this work, we present StatMediaWiki, a tool that collects and aggregates information that helps to analyze a MediaWiki installation. It generates charts, tables and different statistics enabling easy analysis of wiki evolution. We have used StatMediaWiki in a Higher Education course and present the results obtained in this case study.     

Book Clubs: Not Just for Public Libraries

While recreational reading is often seen as the purview of public libraries, academic libraries can also reap the benefits of hosting book clubs. This article discusses the steps the St. Catherine University library took to create a book club on campus. The article includes an overview of the St. Catherine University's book club, the benefits of hosting a book club, and suggestions for starting a book club in an academic library.     

The effect of technological knowledge assets on performance: The innovative choice in Spanish firms

The aim of this article is to examine the relationship between Technological Knowledge Assets (TKAs) and performance, in the light of making the ‘innovative choice’ that involves short-term costs of acquiring or generating the assets but aims at longer term benefits through innovation. To that end, a study of 1267 industrial firms in Spain was carried out over a period of 5 years, 1998-2002. The results show that TKAs have a positive indirect effect on financial performance mediated through innovation. They also reveal that TKAs have a negative direct effect on performance, except licences. Thus, the combined effect of TKAs on performance urges the need for innovation to obtain a positive payoff.     

Perception of conflict in university students. The importance of initial training / La percepción del conflicto en alumnos universitarios. La importancia de la formación inicial

This article analyses the perception of conflict held by students in the Faculty of Education at the three campuses of the University of Granada, and evaluates the different notions held by those who have received specific training in this subject and those who have not during their initial training process. An ad hoc questionnaire has been developed, with an empirical-analytical study and Ex Post Facto correlational design. The sample covers 1,281 subjects. The results indicate a negative perception and conceptualization, poor realization of the educational guides on subjects that include competences related to the theme of Conflict and/or the Culture of Peace, and the influence of previous experiences.