Writing Fables: Genre and Creativity

This article explores the relationship between genre and creativity with particular reference to children's writing. It is argued that, although the programme may have been implemented too rigidly, a key emphasis on genre within the National Literacy Strategy is potentially positive. The fable is offered as a particular example, demonstrating that, although too rigid a conception of a genre's formal characteristics may inhibit children's creative engagement, an understanding in depth of the range of purposes to which a particular form may be put is helpful both in providing a good range of models and in responding sensitively to children's writing.     

Reflections on the Academic Policy Analysis Process and the UK Identity Cards Scheme

There is an increasing rhetoric from politicians for universities to become more involved in policy analysis and policy research. In this article, we reflect on our experiences of the analysis we conducted into the legislation to introduce biometric identity cards in the United Kingdom. We highlight how our work had direct consequences for the ongoing policy deliberation around this controversial piece of legislation. In particular, we highlight our role in the debate surrounding the government's figures for identity fraud and the concerns about the likely cost of the scheme to the government and taxpayer. We end the article by discussing some of the practical realities of such a foray into real politik.     

Combining Economic and Conjoint Analysis to Determine Optimal Academic Services

In today's era of global competition, organizations must manage their functions and activities in a manner such that they are responsive to customers' needs and can provide excellence in service to the customer while also being efficient and cost conscious. These issues are extremely common in corporate organizations, but such concerns are equally relevant in service industries, including institutions of higher education. This study is conducted at a private, undergraduate institution of higher education. We utilize focus group evaluation and conjoint analysis combined with economic analysis in the form of a newly designed preferred utility economic cost diagram to pick the ideal services that should be provided to enrolled students at the institution. The package of ideal services accounts for preferred utility expressed by students and a new methodology (preferred utility function) to balance these against financial considerations to optimize services and financial gains for a college adult education program. This combination of focus groups and mathematical techniques can be easily employed by educational institutes.     

Influence of Three Different Training Programs on Strength and Speed of a Limb Movement

Abstract

The experiment was designed to compare the effects of isometric-isotonic (A), dynamic-overload (B), and free swing (C) exercise programs on the speed and strength of a lateral arm movement The 26 college men in each group—three experimental and one control—were given pre- and post-training speed and strength trials. Each experimental group performed its assigned exercise twice a week during the 10-week training period. Reliability coefficients for both strength and speed of movement measurements were found to be high. Following training there were significant speed increases in both the isometric-isotonic and dynamic-overload groups (t=10.06 and 8.10; however, the difference in speed gain between conditions was nonsignificant (F=.10). Also, strength increases in both of these groups were significant (t=8.81 and 3.08), with that of the isometric-isotonic group significantly greater than the dynamic-overload group (F=5.11). No significant speed or strength gains were registered by either the free swing or control group.     

A New Motor Learning Task: The Foot-Twist Tracking Task

Abstract

Sixty college men were tested on a new motor learning task: the foot-twist tracking task. They were given 35 one-min. trials; each consisted of 30 sec. of work followed by 30 sec. of rest. A 5-min. rest period was interpolated between trials 25 and 26 to allow for the dissipation of reactive inhibition accrued during prerest performance. The results supported the expectation that practice on the new task would result in significant amounts of learning. However, the improvement in performance, while fairly large (21%), is substantially less than that found on the pursuit rotor and other large muscle motor coordination tasks. The expectation of reliable learning scores is also supported by the present results (r = .77). This learning reliability is relatively high when compared with those obtained on other large muscle motor learning tasks.     

The Impact of Changing Funding and Authority Relationships on Scientific Innovations

The past three decades have witnessed a sharp reduction in the rate of growth of public research funding, and sometimes an actual decline in its level. In many countries, this decline has been accompanied by substantial changes in the ways that such funding has been allocated and monitored. In addition, the institutions governing how research is directed and conducted underwent significant reforms. In this paper we examine how these changes have affected scientists’ research goals and practices by comparing the development of three scientific innovations (one each in physics, biology, and educational research) in four European countries, namely Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden. We find that the increased number of actors exercising authority over research goals does not necessarily lead to a greater diversity of interests funding research. A narrowing of goals and frameworks is especially probable when the increasing importance of external project funding is combined with reductions in state financing of universities and public research institutes. Finally, the growing standardisation of project cycle times and resource packages across funding agencies and scientific communities make it more difficult for researchers to pursue projects that deviate from these norms, especially, if they challenge mainstream beliefs and assessment criteria.     

Sharing Stories: Parents' Involvement in Reading with Inner-City Nursery Children

Recent research has underlined both the benefits of parents reading stories to their children before they start school and of parental involvement in the early reading stages. A one-year project was carried out in the nursery class of an inner-city primary school to set up a regular book borrowing service to enable and encourage parents to read regularly to their pre-reception class children. The level of parental and child interest was monitored throughout. An attempt to measure the effect of the input was made by testing the children involved in the project at the end of their reception class year. Although the results do not show any significant difference in the level of achievement between the experimental school and the two control schools, the project did reveal an unexpectedly high level of parental interest in orienting children towards literacy.     

Changing Governance and Authority Relations in the Public Sciences

Major changes in the governance of higher education and the public sciences have taken place over the past 40 or so years in many OECD countries. These have affected the nature of authority relationships governing research priorities and the evaluation of results. In particular, the increasing exogeneity, formalisation and substantive nature of governance mechanisms, as well as the strength and extent of their enforcement, have altered the relative authority of different groups and organisations over research priorities and evaluations, as well as creating some new ones. These shifts in authority have occurred to different degrees in differently organised public science systems. As a result, the diversity and longevity of many research projects, the intensity of competition for disciplinary reputations and the coordination of research goals and outcomes across universities and national boundaries have changed to different degrees in different countries.     

Effects of perceptual type and presentation mode in a visual location task

Research has shown that people differ in their psychological orientations toward sensory perception. Opposite perceptual types are extreme Haptics-normal-sighted individuals who use their eyes only when compelled to do so and otherwise depend on touch and kinesthesis — and extreme Visuals — those who depend entirely on visual experiences and would be completely lost in the dark. Since Haptics have been shown to have particular difficulty retaining visual images mentally, materials presented in a linear format may be ineffective for them. This study explored the possibility that Haptics would perform better on a visual location task when the materials were presented in a multiple image format.