The school-based work experiences of student teachers

The increased responsibility now given to schools for initial teacher training (ITT) in partnership with training institutions has led to questions about how prepared and confident teachers are to assume their new role, and the support they provide for students to teach the arts. This research enquires into the situation and found the development of students' subject knowledge in the arts to be a matter of concern. As time on ITT courses is cut and teachers acknowledge the need to enhance their own knowledge-base in the arts, there is uncertainty about the quality and adequacy of training for student teachers in the arts.     

Can Turnitin be used to provide instant formative feedback?

New students face the challenge of making a smooth transition between school and university, and with regards to academic practice, there are often gaps between student expectations and university requirements. This study supports the use of the plagiarism detection service Turnitin to give students instant feedback on essays to help improve academic literacy. A student cohort (n = 76) submitted draft essays to Turnitin and received instruction on how to interpret the ‘originality report’ themselves for feedback. The impact of this self‐service approach was analysed by comparing the writing quality and incidence of plagiarism in draft and final essays, and comparing the results to a previous cohort (n = 80) who had not used Turnitin formatively. Student and staff perceptions were explored by interview and questionnaire. Using Turnitin formatively was viewed positively by staff and students, and although the incidence of plagiarism did not reduce because of a worsening of referencing and citation skills, the approach encouraged students to develop their writing. To conclude, students were positive of their experience of using Turnitin. Further work is required to understand how to use the self‐service approach more effectively to improve referencing and citation, and narrow the gap between student expectations and university standards.     

Probable Pasts and Possible Futures

This article examines the ways in which the news of the siege and fall of Heidelberg in 1622 was conveyed, both in printed news pamphlets and in the regular letters of news written by the Cambridge scholar Joseph Mead. Through this, it investigates the ways in which contemporaneity (to use Brendan Dooley’s term) is produced, and complicated, by the time taken to transport international news in the early modern period. Reports of the fall of Heidelberg arrived in England some time behind events, and often unconfirmed, promising confirmation and further crucial details to follow. The awareness of contemporaneity across European space fostered by the availability of foreign news was complicated by its belatedness. Furthermore, as Mead’s letters demonstrate, international and domestic news networks could be subject to disruption and delay, making the forward projection of serialised news texts fraught with uncertainty.     

The incidence of severe physical child abuse in Wales

OBJECTIVES: The purposes of this study were: (1) to ascertain the incidence and nature of severe physical child abuse in Wales; (2) to ascertain the incidence of all physical abuse in babies under 1 year of age; and (3) to determine whether child protection registers (CPR) accurately reflect the numbers of children who are physically abused. METHODS: This is a population-based incidence study based in Wales, UK, for 2 years from April 1996 through March 1998. Children studied were under the age of 14 with severe physical abuse consistent with the criminal law level of Grievous Bodily Harm. This included seven categories of injury (death; head injury including subdural hemorrhage; internal abdominal injury; physical injury in Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy including suffocation; fracture; burn or scald; adult bite). Cases were ascertained by a pediatrician surveillance reporting system (WPSU). A criterion for inclusion was multidisciplinary agreement that physical abuse had occurred (at case conference, strategy meeting, or Part 8 Review). The incidence of all babies under 1 year of age with physical abuse was also studied. Ascertainment of babies under the age of 1 year was undertaken from CPR as well as the WPSU. RESULTS: Severe abuse is six times more common in babies [54/100,000/year (95% CI +/- 17.2)] than in children from 1 year to 4 years of age [9.2/100,000 (95% CI +/- 3.6)]. It is 120 times more common than in 5- to 13-year-olds [0.47/100,000 (95% CI +/- 0.47)]. This is mainly because two types of serious abuse (brain injury including subdural hemorrhage and fractures) are more common in babies under the age of 1 year than older children. Using data from two sources (the WPSU and CPRs), the incidence of physical abuse in babies is 114/100,000 (CI 114 +/- 11.8) per year. This equates to 1 baby in 880 being abused in the first year of life. The largely rural Health Authority area in Wales had incidence figures for abuse in babies that were 50% of the three other predominantly urban Health Authority areas. Boys throughout the series were more at risk of being severely abused than girls (p < .025). Only 29% of the babies under 1 year of age on the CPR had actually been injured. Thirty percent of abused babies under the age of 1 year and 73% of severely abused children over the age of 1 year had caused previous concern to health professionals regarding abuse or neglect. Conclusions: Physical abuse is a significant problem in babies under the age of 1 year. Very young babies (under 6 months old) have the highest risk of suffering damage or death as a result of physical abuse. Severe abuse, in particular subdural hematoma and fracture, is much more common in babies than in older children. There is evidence of failure of secondary prevention of child abuse by health professionals, with a greater need to act on concerns regarding abuse and neglect. Interagency child protection work in partnership with parents should focus more on protecting babies under age 1 year from further abuse than on maintenance of the infant within an abusive home. The CPR is not intended as an accurate measure of children suffering abuse. It is a record of children requiring a child protection plan and must not be used as a measure of numbers of abused children.     

University Strategy in an Age of Uncertainty: The Effect of Higher Education Funding on Old and New Universities

This paper explores the effects of changes in funding arrangements, and particularly in tuition fees, on universities and their strategic responses to these changes. Using data from interviews with senior managers in four universities, it finds the most prestigious, pre‐1992, university largely unaffected by tuition fees and the others responding to changes in application patterns and intake. However, the effects of tuition fees on university strategy are not easily separated from other changes in the funding of Higher Education, and universities’ strategies were strongly influenced by the need to reduce costs and to generate income. A second major concern of all four universities was quality, both of inputs such as students and staff and of outputs, in degree results and ratings in employability, research, teaching and other activities. Marketing was assuming a position of increasing importance, with universities striving to develop a ‘brand’ to attract students, staff and funding.     

Child abuse: An operational longitudinal study

A one-year longitudinal study was conducted of the medical, social and legal status of 102 (65%) of 156 abused children identified during 1975. The data revealed that the prognosis is grave with almost half of the sample showing indication of repeated abuse or residual effects of the Initial incident. Most of the abused children were returned to their homes with minimal supervision by an otherwise active Division of Family Service of the State Welfare Agency. Children under three years of age were at higher risk than older patients. Improvement was associated most frequently with separation of the perpetrator and the victim or by receipt of appropriate supportive measures. The data emphasize the therapeutic importance of interagency and Interprofessional communication and cooperation.Since the syndrome of the battered child was established,^(1,2) considerable advances have been made in the diagnosis, treatment and protection of the abused children.(3) The prognosis is still grave. A retrospective study showed that the majority of the abused children were developmentally retarded⁽⁴⁾ and a prospective study confirmed this finding.⁽⁵⁾Those seeking to promote the welfare of the identified abused child are confronted with severely limited therapeutics alternative, a grave prognosis and a paucity of data to guide them in their decisions.The present one-year longitudinal study of abused children seen during 1975 at Cardinal Glennon Memorial Hospital for Children was undertaken with the goal of providing Information on the current system of managing the Identified abused child.     

Serious games for learning: games-based child sexual abuse prevention in schools

In spite of research demonstrating conceptual weakness in many child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention programmes and outdated modes of delivery, students continue to participate in a diversity of initiatives. Referring to the development of a games-based approach to CSA prevention in Australia, this paper examines empirically based attributes of effective CSA prevention programmes for schools including contemporary pedagogies for learning. The paper draws on findings to inform the conceptual development phase of Orbit, an online, free and equal-access, games-based educational approach to CSA prevention for children aged 8–10 years. First, the paper provides a review of CSA prevention in schools and games-based approaches to key learnings in prevention. Second, an overview of Orbit (the Feeling Safe sexual abuse prevention project) is provided. Finally, implications for the development of games-based prevention programmes are offered and an argument is made for the advancement of games-based prevention resources.     

A microdevice for the creation of patent, three-dimensional endothelial cell-based microcirculatory networks

Microvascular network formation is a significant and challenging goal in the engineering of large three-dimensional artificial tissue structures. We show here the development of a fully patent, 3D endothelial cell (microvascular) microfluidic network that has a single inlet and outlet, created in only 28 h in a microdevice involving fluid flow equivalent to natural vasculature. Our microdevice features a tailored "multi-rung ladder" network, a stylized mimic of an arterial-to-venous pedicle, designed to also allow for systematic and reproducible cell seeding. Immunofluorescence staining revealed a highly contiguous endothelial monolayer (human umbilical vein endothelial cells) throughout the whole network after 24 h of continuous perfusion. This network persisted for up to 72 h of culture, providing a useful template from which the effects of surface chemistry, fluid flow, and environmental conditions on the development of artificial vascular networks ex vivo may be rapidly and robustly evaluated.