To preserve or enhance precious memories: a segmented market analysis of the history museum in Singapore

This study examines the value placed on museums by patrons and non-patrons and investigates the factors that affect this valuation with a view to boost visitorship. The total economic value of Singapore’s History Museum is at least US$57 million, and this is high relative to other countries, a fact which can be used to justify increased government funding towards museums as cultural capital. Females and high income people are the target groups for increased visitation, while among the non-patrons, the ethnic majority is another potential clientele. Somewhat surprising is the finding that neither patrons nor non-patrons see the museum as having significant tourist value, and contrary to prospect theory, there is a preference for enhancing the museum’s services over keeping the museum. These findings provide some direction for the management of the museum to improve its visitor appeal.     

Factors related to a college student's career optimism and their perception of career services

A student's expectation for a positive outcome for their future career development is referred to as career optimism. Career Services, a common university department, utilizes the social cognitive career theory (SCCT) to understand how students form career interests and make educational and vocational choices. Then Career Services can assist students in finding a career that matches their interests. We hypothesize that students' perception of the assistance provided by the Career Services department when the SCCT is applied, impacts the student's career optimism. In addition, we hypothesize, and results support, that different factors, such as a student's chosen major, impact student perception of Career Services and career optimism.     

In search of systemic innovation for sustainable development: A design praxis emerging from a decade of social learning inquiry

Processes of designing for systemic innovation for sustainable development (SD) through the lens of three long-term case studies are reported. All case studies, which originated from the SLIM (Social Learning for the Integrated Management and Sustainable Use of Water at Catchment Scale) Project, funded within the EU Fifth Framework Program (2001–2004), constitute inquiry pathways that are explored using a critical incident approach. The initial starting conditions for each inquiry pathway are compared; significant pathway dependencies are identified which foster the development of social learning processes locally, but constrain their uptake and embedding across the wider system of interest. In the first case study, in England & Wales, promising developments in the application of social learning approaches to river basin planning over an initial 3-year period were subsequently marginalised, only to resurface towards the end of the 10-year period of study. In the second, South African case study, significant spaces for social learning and innovation in integrated water resources management were opened up over a five year period but closed down again, primarily as the result of lack of policy support by national government. The third, Italian, case study was designed to assess options for adapting to climate change by opening up new learning spaces between researchers, stakeholders and policy makers. A case for investing in local level systemic innovation through social-learning praxis design approaches and in learning processes around well contextualised case-studies is supported. However, concomitant investment by policy makers in social learning as an alternative, but complementary, governance mechanism for systemic innovation for SD is needed.     

In Their Own Voices: An Ethnographic Perspective on Student Use of Library Information Sources

A medium-sized academic library system conducted a multi-year (2012–2016), large-scale ethnographic study using a survey, observations, and in-depth interviews. The goal of the project was to better understand how students conduct research and study in the library. The analysis of the large pool of data resulted in various reports of theoretical and practical nature. This article addresses one aspect of the findings: undergraduate and graduate student use of library resources. The findings offer an array of considerations for designing effective library services and provide a more nuanced understanding of how student use the library website, libguides, and library databases as well as print and electronic collections.     

Revisiting disposition assessment in teacher education: broadening the focus

Today's teacher education programmes across the world strive to equip future teachers with the high‐quality knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to teach students. The assessment of teacher dispositions has thus become essential to cultivate those qualities. However, the current approach to disposition assessment in the United States focuses on personal characteristics and character‐related dispositions and is frequently used as a sorting device to identify those who appear to be inadequately disposed to teaching. Expanding on earlier work by the author and colleagues, this paper examines the issue of whether more efforts should be made to incorporate elements to assess competence‐related dispositions in conjunction with the character‐related dispositions across assessment tools and, if so, how this could be accomplished. In addition, this paper will clarify some dispositional concepts and terms used interchangeably that actually differ from one another and can confuse the consistency of disposition assessment. Finally, a framework for assessing technology disposition as an example of competence‐related disposition and for broadening the focus of disposition assessment is suggested.