Placing Facebook

Facebook is challenging professional journalism. These challenges were evident in three incidents from 2016: the allegation that Facebook privileged progressive-leaning news on its trending feature; Facebook’s removal of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Napalm Girl” photo from the pages of prominent users; and the proliferation of “fake news” during the US presidential election. Using theoretical concepts from the field of boundary work, this paper examines how The Guardian, The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review and Poynter editorialized Facebook’s role in these three incidents to discursively construct the boundary between the value of professional journalism to democracy and Facebook’s ascendant role in facilitating essential democratic functions. Findings reveal that these publications attempted to define Facebook as a news organization (i.e., include it within the boundaries of journalism) so that they could then criticize the company for not following duties traditionally incumbent upon news organizations (i.e., place it outside the boundaries of journalism). This paper advances scholarship that focuses on both inward and outward conceptions of boundary work, further explores the complex challenge of defining who a journalist is in the face of rapidly changing technological norms, and advances scholarship in the field of media ethics that positions ethical analysis at the institutional level.     

Examining the “Blanket of Protection” Conferred by Inoculation: The Effects of Inoculation Messages on the Cross-protection of Related Attitudes

Although the effectiveness of inoculation as a strategy for promoting resistance to attitude change is fairly well established, the potential of inoculation messages to offer cross-protection for related, but untreated, attitudes warrants additional attention from scholars. The reported study tested the “blanket of protection” conferred by inoculation. Participants (N = 118) were randomly assigned to read an inoculation message addressing a target topic and subsequently had their attitudes toward three related, but untreated, topics attacked. The results offer some evidence that inoculation messages can confer cross-protection for related attitudes. Participants in the inoculation condition reported greater perceptions of threat, greater counterarguing, and less attitude change in response to attacks than participants in the control condition for two of the three untreated topics. Counterarguing in response to attacks on untreated attitudes appears to be primarily responsible for cross-protection.     

Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation: An Approach/Avoidance Reformulation

The main purpose of this article is to advance an alternative perspective on the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and in particular to examine critically the assertion that these processes are antagonistic such that the will to learn for its own sake is inhibited by the presence of extrinsic, tangible rewards and incentives such as school grades. The presumption of an antagonistic relationship largely depends on the theoretical perspective adopted. An alternative interpretation based on need achievement theory leads to distinctly different conclusions. Exploring this new perspective allows one to identify both the conditions under which intrinsic motives may coexist with extrinsic motives as well as to consider some of the means by which intrinsic motives and caring about learning can be stimulated in their own right in school settings.     

Memories of reward events and expectancies of reward events may work in tandem

A common assumption is that expectancies of reward events in instrumental tasks are established on the basis of Pavlovian conditioning. According to the tandem hypothesis, tested in the four runway investigations reported here employing rats, memories of reward events may serve as the conditioned stimuli eliciting expectancies. In Experiments 1–3, rats were trained under a schedule of partial reward (P), which did not produce increased resistance to extinction, and subsequently shifted to consistent reward (C). According to the tandem hypothesis, the shift to the C schedule should result in increased resistance to extinction if, as hypothesized, under the P schedule the memory of reward, S^R, came to elicit the expectancy of nonreward,_EN. This hypothesis was confirmed under a variety of conditions. It was shown that increased resistance to extinction could not be attributed to the P schedule alone, to the rats receiving two schedules, P and C, to stimuli other than S^R eliciting E_N, or to the rats forgetting reward-produced memories when expecting nonreward (Experiment 4). It was shown that the tandem hypothesis could explain the divergent findings obtained in prior studies employing a shift from P to C as well as in the present study.     

Evaluating a technology supported interactive response system during the laboratory section of a histology course

Monitoring of student learning through systematic formative assessment is important for adjusting pedagogical strategies. However, traditional formative assessments, such as quizzes and written assignments, may not be sufficiently timely for making adjustments to a learning process. Technology supported formative assessment tools assess student knowledge, allow for immediate feedback, facilitate classroom dialogues, and have the potential to modify student learning strategies. As an attempt to integrate technology supported formative assessment in the laboratory section of an upper‐level histology course, the interactive application Learning Catalytics^TM, a cloud‐based assessment system, was used. This study conducted during the 2015 Histology courses at Cornell University concluded that this application is helpful for identifying student misconceptions “on‐the‐go,” engaging otherwise marginalized students, and forming a new communication venue between students and instructors. There was no overall difference between grades from topics that used the application and grades from those that did not, and students reported that it only slightly helped improve their understanding of the topic (3.8 ± 0.99 on a five‐point Likert scale). However, they highly recommended using it (4.2 ± 0.71). The major limitation was regarding the image display and graphical resolution of this application. Even though students embrace the use of technology, 39% reported benefits of having the traditional light microscope available. This cohort of students led instructors to conclude that the newest tools are not always better, but rather can complement traditional instruction methods. Anat Sci Educ 10: 328–338. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists.     

Developing a virtual engineering management community

The paper reviews the lessons of planning and running an Engineering Management practitioner development programme in a partnership between BP and the University of Manchester. This distance-learning programme is for professional engineers in mid-career experienced in the engineering and support activities for delivering safe, compliant and reliable projects and operations worldwide. The programme concentrates on the why and how of leadership and judgement in managing the engineering of large and small projects and operational support. Two intensive residential weeks are combined with a virtual learning environment over one year. Assessed assignments between and after the residential weeks provide opportunities for individual reflective learning for each delegate through applying concepts and the lessons of case studies to their experience, current challenges and expected responsibilities. This successful partnership between a major global company and a university rich in research and teaching required a significant dedication of intellectual and leadership effort by all concerned. The rewards for both parties and most importantly for the engineers themselves are extensive.