Platform War vs. Platform Synergy? A Longitudinal Analysis of Media Substitution between Personal Computers and Mobile Devices

ABSTRACT

Research on media substitution theory has examined substitutional and/or complementary relationships between new and existing media. This study focuses on the growth of mobile platforms and investigates the relationship between mobile devices and personal computers. Using Nielsen’s panel data that provide electronically recorded media usage (N = 2,396), this study analyzes yearly changes in time allocation to mobile devices and PCs at total and content-specific usage levels during mobile 4G transition. Results suggest a complementarity dynamic between mobile devices and PCs; however, the patterns were more nuanced in light of the role of individual and structural factors when determining media choice.     

Profiles of Childhood Maltreatment: Associations with Sexual Risk Behavior during Adolescence in a Sample of Racial/Ethnic Minority Girls

This study examines associations between childhood maltreatment and developmental trajectories of sexual risk behaviors (SRBs) in a sample of 882 sexually active adolescent girls, predominantly Hispanic or Black, assessed every 6 months between 13 and 23 years. Latent profile analyses revealed four distinct maltreatment profiles: Low Maltreatment (76%), Moderate Emotional Neglect Only (15%), Severe Physical/Emotional Abuse (3%), and Severe Sexual Abuse (6%). Multilevel growth analyses showed the Moderate Emotional Neglect Only and Severe Sexual Abuse profiles exhibited more SRBs starting in late adolescence, and the Severe Sexual Abuse profile also exhibited a faster increase than the Low Maltreatment profile. Understanding heterogeneity within maltreated populations may have important implications for healthy sexual development.     

Understanding and enabling marketplace literacy in subsistence contexts: The development of a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program in South India

To function in the economic realm, two important resources that individuals need are finances and know-how. Whereas there has been considerable attention on microfinancing, we describe an educational program that focuses on enabling generic skills about the marketplace and complements these important efforts. We conducted research aimed at understanding lives and marketplaces in subsistence contexts in urban and rural parts of a state in South India. We used the research as a basis for developing a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program. This program uses the “know-why”, or an understanding of marketplaces, as a basis for the know-how of being an informed buyer or seller. Despite the difficulties with abstract thinking that low-literate individuals experience, we enable deeper understanding of marketplaces by leveraging the social skills that participants bring to the program and relating educational content back to their lived experiences. Such understanding can enable individuals to place themselves on a path to lifelong learning. Implications of this work for research and practice in non-formal education are discussed.     

Not Just a Specimen: A Qualitative Study of Emotion,Morality, and Professionalism in One Medical School Gross Anatomy Laboratory

Medical schools are increasingly integrating professionalism training into their gross anatomy courses, teaching ethical behavior and humanistic attitudes through the dissection experience. However, many schools continue to take a traditional, technical approach to anatomical education while teaching professionalism in separate courses. This interview-based study explored how students viewed the body donor and the professional lessons they learned through dissection at one such medical school. All students oscillated involuntarily between seeing the cadaver as a specimen for learning and seeing the cadaver as a person, with some students intentionally cultivating one of these ways of seeing over the other. These views shaped students’ emotional and moral responses to the experiences of dissection. The “specimen” view facilitated a technical, detached approach to dissection, while the “person” view made students engage emotionally. Further, students who intentionally cultivated a “specimen” view generally felt less moral distress about dissection than students who intentionally cultivated a “person” view. The concept of respect gave students permission to perform dissections, but “person-minded” students developed more complex rules around what constituted respectful behavior. Both groups of students connected the gross anatomy experience to their professional development, but in different ways. “Specimen-minded” students intentionally objectified the body to learn the emotional control physicians need, while “person-minded” students humanized the body donor to promote the emotional engagement required of physicians. These findings support efforts to integrate professionalism teaching into gross anatomy courses, particularly content, addressing the balance between professional detachment and concern.     

Vocational Education and Training: Singapore and other Third World Initiatives

This paper examines the underlying reasons for the formulation of policies and practices to abate the growing problem of the ‘educated’ unemployed through the initiative of vocational education and training schemes. The paper outlines the main reasons why in Singapore there is a convergence between its vocational education and training strategy and work while this is not generally so for many other Third World countries. It then focusses its discussion on the reasons why there is a mismatch between vocational education and training and work in many Third World countries. The paper concludes by suggesting an alternative strategy for Third World countries through which they may be better able to interface education and work.     

Higher education co-operation and Western dominance of knowledge creation and flows in Third World countries

This paper outlines the Western models of university development with its accompanying Eurocentric knowledge systems adopted by Third World countries. It discusses the various productive and counterproductive effects of these alien features to Third World universities, their research institutions and the knowledge output of their academic communities. It goes on to discuss the possible contributions that can be made within the ambit of South-South educational interchange for the development of a self-reliant higher education system among Third World nation states accompanied by an interdependent and more equitable world knowledge order. The final part of the paper examines the prospect of a self-reliant higher education and knowledge-generation system, developing in Third World countries, in the light of rapidly growing information technology which is dividing the world into information-rich and information-poor countries.This article is a revised and expanded version of a paper presented by the author at the 20th Annual Conference of the British Comparative and International Education Society held at the University of Hull in September 1985. The author acknowledges the critical comments and useful suggestions offered by S. Gopinathan, S.N.R. Kazmi and Peter Worsley on earlier drafts.     

A dynamic intranet-based online-portal support for Computer Science teaching

This paper addresses the issue of effective content-delivery of Computer Science subjects taking advantage of a university intranet. The proposal described herein for teaching a subject like Combinatorics and Graph Theory (CGT) is to supplement lectures with a moderated online forum against an associated intranet portal, which is referred to as a CGT-portal. The contents of a CGT-portal in a university intranet is required to be assembled by moderators and students during the progress of the CGT course. When completed at the end of a CGT course, a CGT-portal may be seen as a restricted view of the Online Encyclopaedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS: see http://oeis.org—the restriction can be with respect to sequences in OEIS that are directly relevant to say CGT). In the context of OEIS, an integer- sequence enthusiast experiences this cycle: understand a page in OEIS-ponder over the contents-read afresh/refresh related content-suggest new additions to OEIS-wait for approval or rejection– repeat this cycle. This experience can be imparted to students of a CGT course with the help of a CGT-portal. For organizing a CGT course, a first task is to partially create a miniature OEIS-like instructor-moderated CGT-portal in a university intranet. During the course of lectures and tutorials in CGT, students are asked to explore/contribute to the CGT-portal and these may be critically augmented/approved by instructors suitably, to find a place in the portal. Moderation also includes feedbacks (in many sense, a form of guidance) to students using/contributing to, the portal. By this, many concepts can be conveyed to the students in an interesting way with the desired results. It is pointed out that the dynamic nature of a CGT-portal promotes active learning philosophy, the success of which depends on understanding the background and psychology of the student population. Some design guidelines associated with the building-up of a CGT-portal e.g., grouping of prerequisites of a logical page, knowledge-representation related observations, useful interfaces to the portal are also presented.     

Student Mobility within the Commonwealth: Growing Constraints,New Initiatives*

This article examines the forces which have constrained student mobility and educational co-operation within the Commonwealth and the new developments which are seeking to improve the situation. Economic imperatives and political pressures in both receiving and sending countries are seen as the major causes of the decline in mobility. The new developments dandified are preparatory courses, split-site courses and distance education. The paper argues the need for a coherent constituent approach to increase student mobility in place of the rhetoric which has characterized policy to date.