Autumn Term Research Articles

Yielding and nutritional value of Japanese bunching onion in relation to the date of planting and type of flat cover

ABSTRACT During a three-year field experiment, the possibilities of cultivating the ‘Performer’ cultivar of Japanese bunching onion for early harvest bunching were assessed through the use of autumn and spring planting terms. The seedlings, produced in multi-pots, were planted in the open field on 8-10 September, 9-10 October and 6-12 April, and covered with a perforated foil and agrotextile in mid-November or directly following the spring planting. The covers were removed at the end of April, and the harvest of Japanese bunching onion was conducted at the end of May. The percentage of plants that survived the winter, how many produced flowering stems and the height of the total and marketable yield of plants with a pseudostem diameter >10 mm were determined. We evaluated the content of selected components with a nutritional value in samples of edible plant parts. The results of the study showed that it is possible to obtain a high yield of plants harvested for bunches following an early spring term seedling planting. The majority of plants planted in the autumn froze during the winter, while those that were overwintered produced flower stems, especially if planted in September. The application of flat covers increased the percentage of plants that survived the winter, though in spite of this fact, the obtained marketable yield of Japanese bunching onion planted in the autumn was very low. Plants from the spring planting were characterised by a lower content of dry matter, chlorophyll a+b and volatile oils, while their content of K, Ca and Mg showed enhanced levels. Covering plants with a perforated foil positively influenced the content of total sugars and volatile oils, while negatively influencing the amounts of vitamin C, potassium and calcium as compared to those cultivated without covers.

Political cycle and fiscal policy in the countries of the European Union

The efforts of politicians in power to affect the decisions of voters through expansive fiscal policies in pre-election periods are still topical. This article determines whether governments in European Union countries initiate the political-budget cycle. We analyse 23 EU member states in the period 1995–2008. We pay attention to four institutional factors that can contribute to the creation of the political-budget cycle: length of democracy, type of parliamentary election, term of election and ideology. We find that the political-budget cycle was present throughout European Union countries in this period. The factor of the length of democracy had a small impact on the statistical significance of the results. However, ideology turned out to be the most important factor in our analysis. Current revenues were used as a tool of fiscal policy in the years of elections predominantly by ideologically mixed governments. Left-wing governments used rather the expenditure side of the budget to win the favour of the electorate. The type of election (regular or early) became relevant only in specific cases and in combination with other institutional factors. Finally, the new EU member governments consider the spring or autumn term of the election as a criterion co-determining their pre-election fiscal policies.

One site fits all? A student ward as a learning practice for interprofessional development

Interprofessional training wards (IPTWs), aiming to enhance interprofessional collaboration, have been implemented in medical education and evaluated over the last decade. The Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University has, in collaboration with the local health provider, arranged such training wards since 1996, involving students from the medical, nursing, physiotherapy, and occupational therapy programs. Working together across professional boundaries is seen as a necessity in the future to achieve sustainable and safe healthcare. Therefore, educators need to arrange learning contexts which enhance students’ interprofessional learning. This article shows aspects of how the arrangement of an IPTW can influence the students’ collaboration and learning. Data from open-ended questions from a questionnaire survey, during autumn term 2010 and spring term 2011 at an IPTW, was analyzed qualitatively using a theoretical framework of practice theory. The theoretical lens gave a picture of how architectures of the IPTW create a clash between the “expected” professional responsibilities and the “unexpected” responsibilities of caring work. Also revealed was how the proximity between students opens up contexts for negotiations and boundary work. The value of using a theoretical framework of professional learning in practice within the frames of healthcare education is discussed.

U.Ü. GSF Sahne Sanatları’nda neden Tavtatikütüpati? Bir oyunun sahnelenme süreci

Tavtatikutupati, written by Atilla ALPOGE, is a play formed during the process of Young Actors’ efforts to settle an original theatre. The play which has influences of our traditional type and absurd theatre, has been studied and brought to audience during the education year of 2011-2012, at the course of Scene Practice, at Uludag University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Performing Arts. Tavtatikutupati has been preferred because of the following reasons: it is suitable for a team-work, it has influences of traditional and absurd theatres, its essence is valuable from the point of the historical and the universal, it is written through Open Style and Demonstrative Theatre, it is appropriate for the economic conditions of a theatre school. Staging (acting attitude at the base of comment, decor, costume, music, dance, light and effect), settling and strengthening of the play, which has been evaluated through organic point of view in Autumn term and as consistent with the programme of Scene Practice, has been realized through a certain rehearsal order. And the play came together with the audience in May 2012. Application period, which has been checked in courses of Traditional Turkish Theatre and Theatre Management beside the course of Scene Practice, has been completed successfully. Further, the process of acting and directing strating from play selection to the Premier has been told during the application of Tavtatikutupati and the student has learned this process through practice.

Forming Professional Skills of a Primary School Teacher in the Reflection of Practical and Didactical Teaching

A learner in the teacher training has a vision, which can often be in conflict with ambivalent expectations of the society. The renewing role of the teacher has also to correspond to the new perspectives of the society. The education and professional development of every teacher is regarded as a lifelong task, which starts with being formed as a teacher in teacher training. The forming process is long and many-sided in the course of which the person changes, develops, learns from their experience, i.e. their practical experience is turned into knowledge and the knowledge is applied and turned into professional skills during the studies of didactics already – this is the start of the teacher's sustainable career.The objective of the study is to explain what factors influence the preparation of primary school teaching students for the teaching practice during their didactics studies in the school environment and how these factors influence the preparation process. The main problem of the study is how the didactics studies in the school environment influence the preparation of students for their teaching practice.The combined research strategy has been used in the study in which questionnaires, students’ blogs and lecturers’ class diaries were used as research methods. This is a case study. The study was carried out in the autumn term in years 2010 and 2011. The purposeful sample consisted of 56 students and four lecturers of didactics. In the questionnaires, the learners were asked to provide their assessments on the entirety of the teaching process, preparation for the job as teachers, meeting their personal challenges in the teaching practice. In their blogs the students wrote about changes in the teaching process during their learning in a free form as their weekly self-reflections; there were assessments on their motivation, learning experience, knowledge of the job as teachers, and on the cooperation in learning and teaching practice. The lecturers kept weekly class diaries making entries about carrying out the teaching process presenting their assessments on the learners’ motivation and learning writing self-reflections as didactics specialists and supervisors. The basis for the analysis of the database under study is the theory of the principles of a successful teaching practice by I. F. Goodson (2003).The main study results were as follows: Didactics studies carried out in the school environment confirm the students’ successful managing with their teaching practices, because the students, teachers and lecturers have emphasised the following essential aspects: matters learned- experienced in the school environment help to keep students interested in the matters they are learning, to see concrete examples of the studying process in real situations; based on matters seen at school students acquire the skill to reflect, which in turn offers them a possibility to construct their knowledge. Some bottlenecks were pointed out: During the didactics studies – being at school – lessons supervised by the didactic specialist could be given already. The volume of the work of primary school teaching students during their teaching practice should also be considered. The lecturers stated that the things they saw at school offered enough material for discussions on the agreement of theory and practice.Primary school teaching students stated that the didactics studies in the school environment had given them better image of everyday routines of the teacher's job, self-confidence and courage to pass the teaching practice, and preparedness to reflect their job every day, which is the basis for the success of the teacher's job. It was stressed that such learning arrangement trains very good cooperation skills.

Behavioural and weight status outcomes from an exploratory trial of the Healthy Lifestyles Programme (HeLP): a novel school-based obesity prevention programme

ObjectivesTo assess the behavioural and weight status outcomes in English children in a feasibility study of a novel primary school-based obesity prevention programme.DesignExploratory cluster randomised controlled trial of the Healthy...

Getting a Bigger Picture in Less Time: Viewing Curriculum Reform in a Chinese Graduate Chemistry Program through the Lens of an Organic Structure Analysis Course

As China’s university enrollment has been rapidly expanding since 1999, along with a steady increase in graduate enrollment, graduate-level chemistry education is confronted with many challenges, such as how to enhance the connection between fundamental knowledge and advanced frontier knowledge, and how to encourage students to do self-directed study with creativity and passion. In the 2009–2010 autumn and spring terms, the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences undertook curriculum reform; one change made reduced the instructional time for most courses to 40 hours from the previous practice of 60 hours, with the intention of freeing up more time for students to do self-directed study. This paper reports on curriculum reform efforts implemented in one fundamental graduate course, Organic Structure Analysis, identifying changes in teaching topics, assessment results (including students’ feedback), and the syllabus (guest lectures were added). During the teaching process, greater efforts were made to introduce new spectra developments as well as broad “practical” applications gathered from top research papers or related to daily life, which are highly welcomed by the students. Students’ feedback data were analyzed and used to guide adjustments to curriculum reform.

Tuzlu sulama suyu uygulamalarının bazı biber saf hatlarının verimleri üzerine etkisi

Irrigation water of sufficient quantity and quality from natural sources for agricultural production are becoming increasingly difficult. Growing area of pepper which is susceptible to salinity and irrigation water is negatively affected increasing salinization. In this study, the performance of the yield of pure lines of some pepper plants irrigated with irrigation water containing different levels of salt was compared. In the experiment, 6 lines each year, a total of 18 pepper lines were tested as pure line. Lines were tested in the spring and fall growing periods, including two terms per year. Growing was carried out in the pots containing a mixture of soil + peat + perlite. The experiment was established as a randomized block design with three replications and totally 24 plants used in each repetition. Plants irrigated with water of four different EC, such as fertilizer + irrigation water = 1.5 mS cm-1 (control), fertilizer + irrigation water + NaCl = 2.5 mS cm-1, fertilizer + irrigation water + NaCl = 3.5 mS cm-1 and fertilizer + irrigation water + NaCl = 4.5 mS cm-1,. Each group were subjected to statistical analysis in itself. As a result, no: 34 pure line with 3.5 mS cm-1 in autumn term and with 2,5 mS cm-1 in spring term, were in the same group with control. This kind of revealed pepper lines will be used in problem areas and were transferred to pepper breeding gene pool.

Problems of career choice and personality traits

Many young people are faced a certain amount of indecision related to making career choice. This study investigates how the personality traits are related to career indecision and what psychological factors impede the career choice. Data were collected twice, 4 months apart, to study the possible changes in decision status. For the autumn term, 200 participants were 10th-grade and 182 12th-grade students from two gymnasiums (in Jonava and Vilnius). For the spring term, 70 percent of participants were 12th-grade students and 84 percent 10th-grade students who filled in the questionnaires in the autumn term. The career indecision was assessed by the Career Decision Scale (Osipow et al., 1976), the personality traits by the Big Five Adjective Test (Gintilienė and Standikė, 2009; Zdanevičiūtė, 2003), and a 28-item scale was devised for assessing indecisiveness. The vocational choice questionnaire was constructed for assessing some psychological factors of vocational choice. The results of this study demonstrated no differences in career indecision according to grade level. The means of indecision significantly decreased over time only for 10th-grade students from Vilnius. Upon analyzing the difficulties in career decision-making, the conclusion was that the lack of information about the occupation, the self and about the ways of deciding was an obstacle. During the career decision making process, students with a serious level of indecision paid more attention to the external factors such as financial resources. Students with a low level of career indecision paid more attention to the internal factors such as a hobby. Within this sample, career indecision was positively and significantly related to such personality trait as indecisiveness (girls, r = 0.513, boys, r = 0.451; p < 0.01). Career indecision was found to be negatively related to emotional stability and extraversion for schoolgirls (respectively r = –0.253, r = –0.224; p < 0.01). Participants with a low level of indecision were found to be more decisive and emotionally stable as compared with the participants with a middle and a high levels of indecision, more extraverted and intellectual being the schoolgirls’ sample.

Prospective teachers’ skills in problem posing with regard to different problem posing models

It is significant that prospective teachers, who are supposed to assess problems posed by their students and guide them about this issue, should be knowledgeable about their own problem posing performances and the difficulties they could encounter during this process. In this study, it was aimed to determine prospective teachers’ problem posing skills appropriate to selecting, translating, comprehending and editing models and possible difficulties they could encounter during this process. This study was realized with 80 senior student teachers in the department of primary education in mathematics during 2010-2011 autumn term in a state university. A test with four items about fractions appropriate to problem posing models was used for data gathering. Each problem statement's appropriateness to problem posing models was analyzed. In the study, the results indicated that prospective teachers’ success in problem posing is found low, besides, they had the highest difficulty in “comprehending” problem posing model.

Yield and Nutritional Value of Swiss Chard Grown for Summer and Autumn Harvest

Seeds of 5 Swiss chard cultivars were sown on 20 April or 15 July, and single harvest of leaf rosettes wasconducted on early July or half of October, respectively. Results of the study indicate the possibility of growingthe Swiss chard both in spring and autumn term, but yield of leaves obtained in the spring was double as high asin the autumn cultivation. Among tested cultivars Green White Ribbed and Bresanne provided the highest, whileVulcan the lowest yield in spring growing. However, the choice of cultivar had not a significant meaning inautumn season cultivation. Spring season culture caused a significant reduction of nitrates accumulation and waspreferable for the content of P, while autumn term for dry matter, K and Ca in both parts of leaves, vitamin C inleaf blades, and Mg in petioles. Irrespective of the term of growing and cultivar, leaf blades contained higherlevel of dry matter and Mg, while leaf petioles - nitrates, potassium and calcium.

SPECIAL TREASURES

‘HERE WE go again,’ grimaced Mrs Footfinger, as she flipped through the ‘Autumn Term Diary’ that was pinned up on the parents’ noticeboard. ‘Only a few more weeks until the Nativity play and the Christmas Fayre! As soon as we have stacked away the bags of straw and kings’ crowns it’s time to get them out again. I’m sure the year passes quicker for teachers than for anyone else.’

The Fixation Of Science Teacher Candidates’ Undearstanding Levels About Light And Atom Concepts

This study has been conducted to determine the university students’ undear- standing levels and misconceptions about light and atom concepts. This study has been practiced to 62 students of science teacher program on 2003–2004 education session’s autumn term. The study data’s have been obtained from a test which occurs 16 item (for 62 students) and an interview which occurs 12 items (for 12 students). The findings from the test and the interview showed that students’ undear- standing levels are respectively 26% and 84% and students’ misconceptions about these concepts are respectively 34% and 6%. Some of the misconceptions about light concept; “light is a substance which illuminates wherever it devolves,” “light is a beam which breaks outs from a source and outgoing endless”. And about atom con- cept; “atom is the smallest and undividable piece of a substance”. This study shows that students have a nominal learning level about light concept and have a lot of mis- conceptions about light and atom concepts. We believe that this study can be benefi- cial if same studies execute in other education faculties.

Effect of directorial intervention on web‐based student feedback

The Medical Faculty of the University of Helsinki decided to employ a web-based evaluation system as an integral and essential part of all courses beginning in the autumn term of 2006. To analyse the effects of the intervention on dental students' web-based responses at the University of Helsinki, Finland. A previously developed web-based tool was used for all preclinical and clinical courses from the beginning of the 2006-2007 academic year. We analysed data sets of student feedback for all courses before (2005-2006) and after (2006-2007) the intervention. We then compared the quantity and quality of the students' feedback for the six standardised questions used in the evaluation, and calculated the means and standard deviations of values obtained with a Likert scale. The students' assessments in the open questions were categorised according to key issues. Implementation of the system resulted in a considerable increase in student feedback: the mean response rate for the preclinical phase rose from 59% (SD 15.0; range 25-80) before the intervention to 90% (SD 9.6; range 72-100) after it. In the clinical phase, the response rates more than doubled from 34% (SD 15.9; range 9-69) to 73% (SD 12.9; range 45-100). The students' assessments showed no significant change despite the marked rise in response rates. The educators' positive attitude towards the students was appreciated (4.2-4.3) whereas the general goals for the courses in the clinical phase seemed unclear to the students (3.4) (P < 0.05). Web-based evaluation as an integral part of all courses in the dental curriculum proved successful: shortly after the intervention, we observed a considerable increase in student feedback with no significant change in quality.

Emotional intelligence and perceived stress in healthcare students: a multi-institutional, multi-professional survey.

BackgroundEmotional intelligence (EI) is increasingly discussed as having a potential role in medicine, nursing, and other healthcare disciplines, both for personal mental health and professional practice. Stress has been identified as being high for students in healthcare courses. This study investigated whether EI and stress differed among students in four health professions (dental, nursing, graduate mental health workers, medical) and whether there was evidence that EI might serve as a buffer for stress.MethodThe Schutte Emotional Intelligence and the Perceived Stress scale instruments were administered to four groups of healthcare students in their first year of study in both the autumn and summer terms of the 2005-6 academic year. The groups were undergraduate dental, nursing and medical students, and postgraduate mental health workers.ResultsNo significant differences were found between males and females nor among professional groups for the EI measure. Dental students reported significantly higher stress than medical students. EI was found to be only moderately stable in test-retest scores. Some evidence was found for EI as a possible factor in mediating stress. Students in different health profession courses did not show significant differences in Emotional Intelligence.ConclusionWhile stress and EI showed a moderate relationship, results of this study do not allow the direction of relationship to be determined. The limitations and further research questions raised in this study are discussed along with the need for refinement of the EI construct and measures, particularly if Emotional Intelligence were to be considered as a possible selection criterion, as has been suggested by some authors.

Raising Expectations: Talent Development in Belfast

A unique talent development project took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland over the autumn (fall) term of 2007 that developed 60 young people from ten diverse schools (Special, Secondary, Grammar, Controlled (state schools) and Catholic Maintained). The project culminated in Manchester on 3 December 2007 when the Young People undertook a journey from Belfast to Manchester following in the footsteps of George Best – the famous Manchester United and Northern Ireland professional footballer. The event attracted a huge media interest – being covered by Northern Ireland's Ulster Television News programme, the leading Northern Ireland Nl newspaper - The Belfast Telegraph, The Manchester Evening News, Manchester United Television – Sky channel, Manchester Evening News and BBC Manchester. A research study was undertaken in parallel with the project to quantify the young people's self-image, abilities and belief in achievement before, during and after the project.

The effects of online and face to face problem based learning environments in mathematics education on student's academic achievement

This study aims at finding out the effects of the online and face to face problem based learning environments in mathematics education on student's academic achievement. The study was conducted at Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies, Faculty of Education, Hacettepe University. The subjects were 42 freshman students attending to this department at the Autumn term of 2006-2007 academic year. These students were put into two groups as online problem-based learning and face-to-face problem-based learning. The research was conducted on Mathematics-I while implementing the topic of ‘derivation’. The rubric for the students’ performance to evaluate their problem-based skills is used as data collection tool. .The statistical techniques used are ranked mean, Mann-Whitney U test. According to the results, the ranked mean scores (7.70) of achievement level of the students at the online problem-based learning group had higher than the students in the face-to-face problem-based learning group (3.30), which was also statistically significant (U=1,500, p<0,05).

Nutritional compositions and yield of sweet fennel cultivars - Foeniculum vulgare Mill. ssp. vulgare var.azoricum (Mill.) Thell

In two-year trials taking place at the Faculty of Horticulture in Lednice (Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry in Brno), three cultivars of sweet fennel (&lt;I&gt;Foeniculum vulgare&lt;/I&gt; Mill. ssp.&lt;I&gt;vulgare&lt;/I&gt; var.&lt;I&gt; azoricum&lt;/I&gt; [Mill.] Thell) – Precoce di Bologna, Rudy F1 and Zefa Fino have been evaluated. The trials were conducted in two terms in each of the trial years (summer and autumn term). In the harvest time, nutritional value was evaluated: content of vitamin C, minerals (K, Na, Ca, Mg), dietary fibre, dry matter and nitrates. Besides, the weights of pseudobulbs and its yield have been evaluated. The content of the monitored substances ranged in the following intervals: vitamin C 87–347 mg/kg, K 4,241–5,851 mg/kg, Na 77–512 mg/kg, Ca 56–363 mg/kg, Mg 82–389 mg/kg, dietary fibre 5.75–7.59 g/kg, dry matter 61–75.8 g/kg, nitrates 650 to 3,767 mg/kg, weight of pseudobulb 199–383 g. A significant influence of cultivar on K content has been observed; furthermore, growing term markedly influenced the content of vitamin C, K, Na, Ca, Mg, dietary fibre, nitrates and on weight of pseudobulb. A significant influence of year on the content of vitamin C, Ca, Mg, dietary fibre, dry matter, nitrates and weight of pseudobulb has been recorded as well. From the three tested cultivars, Zefa Fino showed significantly higher average yield (331 kg/100 m&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;) in summer terms and Rudy F1 (267 kg/100 m&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;) in autumn terms.

Attitude of Students and Parents towards the Teaching of Sex Education in Secondary Schools in Cross Rivers State.

This paper has been developed on the basis of research conducted in two projects. A special emphasis is however given to one of the projects concerning an evaluation of a drama pedagogical project. The evaluation is specifically aimed at the efficiency, intensity and depth of the educational drama input in mediating cultural messages from the play, The hat is Yours played by a professional Theatre group. The play was shown to all students of a junior high school during the autumn term of 2002. Data were gathered from 16 students (7 girls and 9 boys), 6 teachers, 5 performers, the director of the play and the playwright. Classroom observations were conducted during post play/performance sessions held at the specified school in classroom settings with all in all 60 students. The findings suggest that both the play and the project were viewed positively. All the students interviewed loved the performance and appreciated the efforts to instil drama as a discipline and broaden understandings of ‘cultural messages’ through imaginative learning and perspective taking and from the students’ responses and active engagement in the sessions it may be safely inferred that some form of emotional and intellectual processes are being triggered, sparked by the unique nature of the play itself. However, the pedagogical reconstructions of the play in classroom sessions also offer moments for reflection and the students’ voices are unanimously supportive of the educational drama efforts in the classroom. There were mixed opinions among the professional actors/actresses about moralising dramatic scenes and solving problems in a manner believed to be ‘right’ by one group of people or ‘civilisation. This is a thorny issue that should be debated further as should the number of issues that the play purposely left unsolved. We are also of the opinion that the effort should be further nurtured and extended to actively engage the whole school community on a regular basis. Our observation of several schools in Goteborg where the majority of the students are minority pupils and socially disadvantaged children testifies to the fact that these groups of students may genuinely benefit from drama not only as a form of aesthetic expression but also as a medium to interest them in other subjects. Key words: Honour crimes (murder), drama pedagogy, alienation, segregation, intercultural mediation.

The Effects of Reciprocal Teaching on Reading Comprehension in Mainstream and Special (SLI) Education

Reading comprehension of fourth and sixth graders was promoted with reciprocal teaching in three mainstream classes, and three special classes for pupils with specific language impairment (SLI). Four cognitive strategies were used to enhance these pupils' reading comprehension skills. Six coordinated, 5‐week interventions were held during regular class sessions in the spring and autumn terms of 2003. These interventions, which varied in length from 10 to 15 lessons, were given to all students attending fourth‐grade and sixth‐grade science classes in general science and sixth‐grade history lessons. A control group/experiment group design was used. According to pre‐, post‐ and retention tests the intervention proved to be beneficial, especially to the mainstream fourth‐grade class. Some positive development could also be noticed in the SLI groups. The results of children improved mostly in expert‐designed tests on reading comprehension. According to the interviews, children and teachers were pleased to have had the opportunity to participate in the interventions and to learn a new method of improving reading comprehension.