Developing Research Skills for Civil Engineers: A Library Contribution     

C.S. Bruce  G.H. Brameld 《高等教育研究与发展》1990,9(2):151-160

A cowse‐integrated programme of library instruction has been developed for the School of Civil Engineering at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia; library instruction being one of the means selected to improve the research efforts of fourth year project students. The programme has been developed through consultation between the Civil Engineering Research Project Coordinator and the Civil Engineering Reference Librarian. Its aims are derived from those established for the fourth year research projects. Attention is focussed on the nature of the programme and the impact of instruction on fourth year research project students. Students who had received extended library instruction were compared with students from the previous year. Evidence suggests that the instruction has improved the information seeking behaviour of the students and their literature reviews.  相似文献   

How do instructional designers evaluate? A qualitative study of evaluation in practice     

David D. Williams  Joseph B. South  Stephen C. Yanchar  Brent G. Wilson  Stephanie Allen 《Educational technology research and development : ETR & D》2011,59(6):885-907

This study employed a qualitative research design to investigate how instructional designers use evaluation in everyday design practice. While past research has examined how designers spend their time, how they generally make decisions, and expert-novice differences, little attention has been paid to use of context, input, process, or product evaluation, from the perspective of practicing designers. Based on interviews of practitioners, our findings included ten themes regarding how designers use evaluation to improve their products. While these results substantiate to some degree the claim that practitioners believe clients will not pay for formal evaluations, they also suggest that practitioners use evaluation in important but less formal ways. Other conclusions regarding the role of evaluation in design are provided and future directions for training and research are discussed.  相似文献   

Socioeconomic strata, mobile technology, and education: a comparative analysis     

Paul Kim  Teresita Hagashi  Laura Carillo  Irina Gonzales  Tamas Makany  Bommi Lee  Alberto Gàrate 《Educational technology research and development : ETR & D》2011,59(4):465-486

Mobile devices are highly portable, easily distributable, substantially affordable, and have the potential to be pedagogically complementary resources in education. This study, incorporating mixed method analyses, discusses the implications of a mobile learning technology-based learning model in two public primary schools near the Mexico-USA border in the state of Baja California, Mexico. One school was located in an urban slum and the other in a rural village community. Empirical and ethnographic data were collected through a series of achievement tests, observations, surveys, and interviews involving 160 s grade school children recruited by convenience sampling. The general technology infrastructure, distinctive features of mobile learning to supplement literacy development, profound contextual phenomena arising from the two uniquely underserved communities, and social factors possibly influencing the educational experiences are discussed. The findings suggest that students in the rural village, seriously lacking educational resources and technology exposure, may have benefited substantially more from mobile technologies than urban school students possibly due to their relatively higher socio-economic status and higher parental involvement and interest in education. In contrast, there was no evidence of interaction with parental education levels, the experience of teachers or school principals, or the teacher’s perception or preparation of the technology. Overall, the mobile learning technology adoption was rapid, seamless, and actively driven by the students rather than the teacher. The challenges of the phenomenal migratory nature of most families in this unique geographical region are also discussed to benefit future studies.  相似文献   

Bringing text display digital radio to consumers with hearing loss     

Sheffield EG  Starling M  Schwab D 《Journal of deaf studies and deaf education》2011,16(4):537-552

Radio is migrating to digital transmission, expanding its offerings to include captioning for individuals with hearing loss. Text display radio requires a large amount of word throughput with minimal screen display area, making good user interface design crucial to its success. In two experiments, we presented hearing, hard-of-hearing, and deaf consumers with National Public Radio stories converted to text and examined their preferences for and reactions to midsized and small radio text displays. We focused on physical display attributes such as text color, font style, line length, and scrolling type as well as emergency alert messages and emergency prompts for drivers, announcer identification schemes, and synchronization of audio and text. Results suggest that midsized, Global Positioning System (GPS)-style displays were well liked, synchronization of audio and text was important to comprehension and retrieval of story details, identification of announcers was served best with a combination of name change in parenthesis and color change, and a mixture of color and flashing symbols was preferred for emergency alerting.  相似文献   

Effect of postsecondary education on the economic status of persons who are deaf or hard of hearing     

Schley S  Walter GG  Weathers RR  Hemmeter J  Hennessey JC  Burkhauser RV 《Journal of deaf studies and deaf education》2011,16(4):524-536

This article examines the effect that postsecondary education has on earnings and the duration of time spent in the Social Security disability programs for young persons who are deaf or hard of hearing. Our hypothesis is that investments in postsecondary training increase the likelihood of employment for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing and thus reduce dependency on disability-related income support programs. A longitudinal data set based upon records from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and Social Security administrative records is used for this analysis. We find that those who graduate, even those who graduate with vocational degrees, experience significant earnings benefits and reductions in the duration of time spent on federal disability programs when compared with those who do not graduate with a degree. This finding suggests that reductions in the duration of time spent on Social Security programs are not limited to those with the highest level of scholastic aptitude and that investments in post-secondary education can benefit a broad group of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons. In addition, the data show that individuals who attend college, but withdraw before graduation, fair no better economically than individuals who never attended college.  相似文献   

Reclaiming Kindergarten: Part II: Questions About Policy     

Dominic F. Gullo  Kim Hughes 《Early Childhood Education Journal》2011,38(6):393-397

Part II of “Reclaiming Kindergarten” continues the discussion related to responding to the crisis in today’s kindergarten. In Part II, two policy questions are posed, the answers to which seek to respond to this continuing crisis. The questions center on issues related to engaging families in kindergarten and the need to consider a new early childhood paradigm where kindergarten is part of a continuous and seamless educational experience spanning prekindergarten through third grade. As in Part I, examples of classroom practice are used to illustrate the effective implementation of these principles in a kindergarten classroom.  相似文献   

A Qualitative Examination of the Challenges, Resources, and Strategies for Serving Children Learning English in Head Start     

Emily Worthington  Susan Maude  Kere Hughes  Gayle Luze  Carla Peterson  Mary Jane Brotherson  Katherine Bruna  Molly Luchtel 《Early Childhood Education Journal》2011,39(1):51-60

The dramatic growth in the number of children learning English as a second language in our country has led to a corresponding increase in the need to understand how teachers and schools can effectively teach children who are learning English as a second language. Many teachers report not feeling prepared to meet the needs of these children (National Center for Education Statistics, Teacher preparation and professional development: 2000. , 2002). The current study used focus group interviews to examine how Head Start teachers in one program addressed the special learning needs of children learning English in their classrooms. Key challenges involved communicating with children and their families in their home language. Teachers used other staff, parents, and children in the classroom to interpret. Strategies involved visual aids, pictures, gestures, and a welcoming classroom environment. Resources used by teachers were professional development and language skills of other staff. However, available resources were often underutilized and limited for teachers to use in meeting the challenges the teachers faced in the classroom. Suggestions are presented for overcoming the challenges and limited resources encountered by teachers, such as changes in preservice and inservice training opportunities, and second language learning opportunities for teachers. Further implications for training and research are discussed.  相似文献   

Project Cheddarfield: Supporting Co‐Curricular Themes Through Creative Use of Video Course‐Casting     

Natalie C. Simpson  Philip G. Hancock 《Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education》2011,9(2):235-253

This article chronicles the coordination and better integration of existing institutional resources to support cocurricular themes embedded in the provision of a large enrollment, video‐mediated undergraduate operations management (OM) course. The name Project Cheddarfield refers to a 2008 initiative in which two professors team‐taught an OM course to over 600 undergraduates on two different continents through the repeated rapid exchange of digital video between the United States and Singapore. Simultaneously infused in this core curricular delivery were themes of global awareness and study‐abroad, including the promotion of one particular opportunity that bridged the two campuses. This action research narrative spans over 5 years of related activity leading up to the initiative, as this project is best understood as a trajectory, or the evolving result of design adapting to unfolding realities.  相似文献   

Gender Adeptness Among Educational Administrators for Leading Innovative Initiatives in Public Education     

James L. Morrison  ;G. Titi Oladunjoye  ;Cynthia Onyefulu 《美中教育评论》2011,(2):213-219

It may be concluded that female administrators are perceived as being more adept than their male counterparts for leading innovation in schools and leveraging resources into productive outputs. It may be concluded that both genders of administrators perceive such efforts similarly. The only two skills where gender is significant are the two eornpetencies identified as being alert for new opportunities and synthesizing ideas into focused projects. For the other eight skills indicated in the survey, gender did not play a significant role in such perceptions.  相似文献   

The Perceptions of Administrators Concerning the One Florida Initiative     

Adriel A. Hilton  ;Patricia A.Green-Powell  ;Crystal L. Joseph  ;Linda G. Knight 《美中教育评论》2011,(2):233-238

The purpose of this study was to discover the perceptions of Florida law school administrators on the impact of the OFI （one Florida initiative） and the addition of two MSI （minority serving institution） law schools on diversity in Florida＇s legal profession. This research explored the impact of Governor Bush＇s EO （executive order） on diversity within the SUS （state university system） of Florida law schools. Further, this study examined the impact of the creation of two MSI law schools after implementation of the OFI, as perceived by the administrators. The concept of CRT （critical race theory） provides modern legal debates outlining the usefulness of historical civil rights policies in opinionated climates. This study will examine the role of CRT in relation to affirmative action and desegregation case law. CRT forms the framework for examining the impact of the creation of two MSI law schools in the state of Florida. In conclusion, this study found that minority representation in law schools has improved in Florida as a result of the OFI as well as the addition of two MSI law schools. Black representation, however, continues to lag behind other races, particularly the Hispanic population. This study concluded that the OFI has helped improve minority representation in the legal profession.  相似文献