The decision to enter higher education: The case of polytechnic sociology students

This paper examines the decision to enter higher education by students who entered British polytechnic degree courses in sociology/social studies. It is concerned with the extent to which occupational considerations affect the decision to enter and with relating these findings to theories of occupational choice. The paper commences with an examination of three models of occupational choice and summarises the findings of studies that have focused on the entry into higher education and occupational decision-making. The results of our own study, based on questionnaire and interview data, indicate that occupational considerations are of limited importance in the decision to enter sociology/social studies courses at polytechnics. Rather our data favours a model emphasizing the role of socio-cultural background of home and school creating expectations for higher education. Data on past decisions which affect educational careers indicated that entry into higher education was seen in terms of an automatic process rather than a conscious decision made for particular goals. In our population there was, however, a small vocationally oriented group who differed from other students, in which females and those under 18 years of age were over-represented, and who were predominantly from two colleges which offered vocational training in their courses. Our results, we conclude, lend support to a fortuitous model of occupational choice in respect of the decision to enter higher education. Expectations derived from socio-cultural backgrounds of the students were more important in determining entry than conscious occupational goals.The research on which the paper is based is located in the Department of Social Science, Polytechnic of the South Bank, and supported by the Social Science Research Council.Work on this project has also been carried out by Dr I. C. Cannon and Ms. A. Scambler. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Standing Conference of The Sociology of Further Education, London, June 1975.     

THE DESIGN,CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF STANDARDISED TESTS ‐ Part 1

This paper contains an account of three patterns of induction and some of their effects on the teachers involved. Two experimental groups of probationers were released from teaching duties for the equivalent of one day per week for the autumn term of their first year in post. One group was subject to supervision during its release‐time, the other was not but took advantage of any resources available to construct its own ‘programme’. A control group consisted of probationers who were not released from teaching duties. The ways the probationers spent their release‐time and their ‘spare’ time during the rest of the week are described. An instrument designed to measure the probationers’ ‘adjustment’ was used to compare the effects of treatments with each other and with the control group. In general, the case for giving probationers 20 per cent release is supported.     

Why are they not accessing it? User barriers to clinical information access

The Medical Library Association''s InSight Initiative provides an open and collaborative environment for library and industry partners to discuss vexing problems and find solutions to better serve their users. The initiative''s fifth summit, continuing work from the previous summit, focused on understanding how users discover and access information in the clinical environment. During the summit, participants were divided into working groups and encouraged to create a tangible product as a result of their discussions. At the end of the summit, participants established a framework for understanding users'' pain points, discussed possible solutions to those points, and received feedback on their work from an End User Advisory Board comprising physicians, clinical researchers, and clinical faculty in biomedicine. In addition to the pain point framework, participants are developing MLA InSight Initiative Learning content with modules to educate librarians and publishers about critical aspects of user behavior. The 2020 Insight Initiative Fall Forum will serve as a virtual home for constructive dialogue between health sciences librarians and publishers on improving discovery and access to information.     

LENGTH OF SCHOOLING AND ITS EFFECT ON PERFORMANCE IN THE JUNIOR SCHOOL

Friendship patterns in an urban girls’ secondary comprehensive school with nearly 30 per cent immigrant pupils were studied by a sociometric technique. Pupils were found to choose their friends most frequently from their own ethnic groups, but this was more marked in the lower streams and older age groups than in the upper streams and younger age groups. In the upper streams and the sixth form some preference was found, but immigrant pupils tended to be well integrated with British girls in complex friendship groups.     

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BASIC ATTAINMENTS

The purpose of the experiment described in this paper was to see if teachers, in their assessment of children's essays, were influenced by the quality of the handwriting style. Ten essays were chosen from a large number written by 11‐year‐old children on the theme ‘The day of the big fog’. A range of 10 contrasting handwriting styles was chosen from those of other children, and the 10 handwriters reproduced each of the 10 essays, thus giving 100 combinations of content and handwriting styles.

Groups of teachers to assess the essays were chosen as follows: there were ten judging groups of five teachers each, each group representing one school; five of the schools were primary and five secondary. The teachers’ instructions were to ‘impression mark’ and to rank the essays. There was no indication of the fundamental purpose of the experiment.

Analysis of variance was used to determine the results. These indicated, firstly, that the handwriting did have a significant influence on the teachers’ marking (p=0.001), and secondly, that there may be a primary/secondary difference of attitude towards handwriting.     

Reading improvement with tinted lenses: a report of two cases

There have been numerous anecdotal reports of an improvement in reading in dyslexic children fitted with tinted spectacle lenses. Few of these cases have been subjected to any sort of scientific scrutiny. We report the findings in two dyslexic brothers each of whom showed a marked improvement in reading facility when reading print material either through a semi-transparent tinted plastic sheet (overlay) or through tinted spectacle lenses. Other observed effects of the tinted overlays and/or tinted lenses were improved visual acuity, improved figure/ground perception and reduction in apparent distortions and fragmentation of print. Such improvements were noted in either one or both of the boys. A speculative explanation for this effect is that the lenses act by altering the transmission of impulses along the primary visual pathway.     

The Value of a “Core” Business‐‐a Case Study of the Involvement of an Australian University in Vietnam: 1993‐1998

This article describes how two dovetailing processes led Swinburne University of Technology of Melbourne, Australia, to the setting up of business studies programmes in Vietnam. One of the processes was the increasingly felt need in Australia to make higher education more cost efficient that stimulated the identification and the exploitation of non‐governmental sources of funding. The other one was the decision, taken in 1986 by the Vietnamese government, to move progressively to a market‐based economy. Thus the Vietnamese government created a demand for increasing numbers of professional workers schooled in Western concepts of business management, accounting, administration, etc. The Swinburne University of Technology responded to this demand in a number of creative ways by setting up collaborative course programmes in some of the major cities of Vietnam.