Professions Education Research Research Articles

K 1-6: An Asymmetric Planetary Nebula with a Binary Central Star

AbstractWe present new imaging data and archival multiwavelength observations of the little-studied emission nebula K 1-6 and its central star. Narrow-band images inHα (+[N II]) and [O III] taken with the Faulkes Telescope North reveal a stratified, asymmetric, elliptical nebula surrounding a central star which has the colours of a late G or early K-type subgiant or giant. GALEX ultraviolet images reveal a very hot subdwarf or white dwarf coincident in position with this star. The cooler, optically dominant star is strongly variable with a period of 21.312± 0.008 days, and is possibly a high-amplitude member of the RS CVn class, although an FK Com classification is also possible. Archival ROSAT data provide good evidence that the cool star has an active corona. We conclude that K 1-6 is most likely an old bona fide planetary nebula at a distance of ∼1.0 kpc, interacting with the interstellar medium, and containing a binary or ternary central star. The observations and data analyses reported in this paper were conducted in conjunction with Year 11 high school students as part of an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant science education project, denoted Space To Grow, conducted jointly by professional astronomers, educational researchers, teachers, and high-school students.

Students and the Second Ghetto: Federal Legislation, Urban Politics, and Campus Planning at the University of Chicago

In the years after World War II, the University of Chicago (U of C) enjoyed a position as a leader in higher education with the ability to help provide for national economic growth and global security through professional education and scientific research. It also faced a dramatically changing set of neighborhood conditions that threatened its leadership status. University administrators pursued an ambitious agenda of redevelopment and neighborhood management in South East Chicago in order to fight a wave of racial transition. In doing so, the university formed and led a coalition of top urban universities that shared real estate practices and helped create federal policy that made universities integral parts of urban renewal initiatives in the 1960s. This effort to create, manage, and redevelop housing, including student housing, provoked strident opposition from the student body and set the emerging New Left against the university in an early salvo of the student movement.

Tipping the iceberg? The state of arts and health in Canada

The field of arts and health is rapidly gaining momentum in Canada despite the challenges of integration across a vast geography, two official languages and multiple interdisciplinary cultures. Although the field is young, there is a solid foundation of innovative work and great enthusiasm on the part of diverse practitioners about the field's salience and impact. This article provides an overview of the arts and health in Canada and considers work that spans health policy, healthcare practice, individual and community health promotion, health professional education and arts-based health research. A final section offers reflections and recommendations on arts and health in Canada. We provide an online appendix through the journal's website that refers the interested reader to Canadian programs, resources, networks and other materials on the arts and health.

The ever-changing face of breast advocacy

My personal journey into breast cancer advocacy resulted from a diagnosis of low grade DCIS. I joined with others throughout the world in turning adversity into advocacy to support endeavors which further public and professional education, political change and scientific research. This path took me from a mere one woman networking effort to addressing national panels of experts in Washington, D.C. charged with improving quality of breast care. It often became more than a full time job but the rewards were worth it. My family also supported my mission and the potential impact that advocacy could make on both a personal and community level. So I follow in the footsteps of other tenacious advocates and always keep in mind the singular focus of improving standards for quality breast care now and in the future. This paper describes the ever-changing face of advocacy from my viewpoint as a breast cancer survivor.

Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology

This third edition of the Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology is edited by J. Michael Spector (Florida State University), M. David Merrill (Utah State University), Jeroen J.G. van Merrienboer (Open University of the Netherlands), and Marcy P. Driscoll (Florida State University). It is published in 2008 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (ISBN-13: 978-0-8058-5849-5). The book is organized in six major parts: (1) Foundations; (2) Strategies; (3) Technologies; (4) Models; (5) Design and Development; (6) Research Methodologies. These parts reflect fundamental issues and applications involved in deploying information and communications technologies for educational purposes. Each part is led by one of the coeditors with assistance from a second coeditor and several external reviewers. The Handbook is considered to primarily be useful for doctoral students initiating a research review for their dissertation studies, for faculty as an additional resource for teaching courses on related topics, and for researchers seeking a quick review on a specific topic. All chapters have extensive lists of useful references for researchers who are new to a particular area of study and for doctoral students conducting their background research. Professional educators and educational researchers can also benefit particularly from the chapters in Parts I and VI. These chapters, as well as many others in the Handbook, are likely to be useful for those responsible for leading graduate seminars in the areas of educational technology, instructional systems, or learning environment design and development. Part I, led by Marcy P. Driscoll with assistance from J. Michael Spector, includes historical, theoretical, and methodological foundations and perspectives. Part II, led by M. David Merrill, focuses on strategies. Part III, led by J. Michael Spector, focuses on technologies. Part IV, led by Jeroen van Merrienboer, focuses on models. Part V, led by M. David Merrill, focuses on design and development. Part VI, led by Jeroen van Merrienboer, focuses on methodological issues. Let us now examine each part separately in more details.

The Health Professional and Health Sciences Educational Research Symposium 2010, ‘From Educational Research to Educational Practice’

These are the conferences abstracts for oral and poster presentations at the Health Professional and Health Sciences Educational Research Symposium held on the 30th September, 2010 at Peninsula Campus, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Cognitive load theory in health professional education: design principles and strategies

Cognitive load theory aims to develop instructional design guidelines based on a model of human cognitive architecture. The architecture assumes a limited working memory and an unlimited long-term memory holding cognitive schemas; expertise exclusively comes from knowledge stored as schemas in long-term memory. Learning is described as the construction and automation of such schemas. Three types of cognitive load are distinguished: intrinsic load is a direct function of the complexity of the performed task and the expertise of the learner; extraneous load is a result of superfluous processes that do not directly contribute to learning, and germane load is caused by learning processes that deal with intrinsic cognitive load. This paper discusses design guidelines that will decrease extraneous load, manage intrinsic load and optimise germane load. Fifteen design guidelines are discussed. Extraneous load can be reduced by the use of goal-free tasks, worked examples and completion tasks, by integrating different sources of information, using multiple modalities, and by reducing redundancy. Intrinsic load can be managed by simple-to-complex ordering of learning tasks and working from low- to high-fidelity environments. Germane load can be optimised by increasing variability over tasks, applying contextual interference, and evoking self-explanation. The guidelines are also related to the expertise reversal effect, indicating that design guidelines for novice learners are different from guidelines for more experienced learners. Thus, well-designed instruction for novice learners is different from instruction for more experienced learners. Applications in health professional education and current research lines are discussed.

Teachers' workplace learning within informal contexts of school cultures in the United States and Lithuania

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore informal contexts of teachers' workplace professional learning and inform educational researchers, teacher educators, administrators and teachers about ways in which teachers learn to improve their practice. By questioning how teachers learn on‐the‐job to be better teachers and how school cultures position them as learners, this study seeks to generates hypotheses about relationships between the nature of workplace professional learning and its content and informal contexts.Design/methodology/approachAn ethnographic design based on a grounded theory generates analytic categories from interviews, participants' reflective journals and field notes through comparison of learning environments in three contrasting schools in two countries – Lithuania and the USA. Discourse analysis is employed to analyze three cases of the schools' informal learning contexts in order to better understand how teachers learned through everyday interactions.FindingsWithin each case, the findings illuminate three facets of school culture that provide or fail to provide opportunities for teacher learning in informal contexts: school leadership, teachers' professional relationships, and their individual stances as learners.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of the paper derive from its focus on school cultures as learning organizations producing detailed thick descriptions, which are culturally specific and may not necessarily be transferable to other schools.Practical implicationsThe implications underline that teachers and teacher educators could enhance teachers' professional learning by contributing to building and sustaining the opportunities necessary to maintain professional growth at teachers' workplaces.Originality/valueThe value of the paper is in: defining specific cultural features in schools that create or fail to create opportunities for teachers to learn informally; showing how teachers use these opportunities for their learning; calling for re‐evaluation of professional development systems to include informal learning as an important path for professional growth.

Surgeon General’s Conference on the Prevention of Preterm Birth

To address the serious and seemingly intractable problem of preterm birth, the Surgeon General's Conference on the Prevention of Preterm Birth convened many of the country's experts from the public and private sectors of research, public health, and health care delivery to discuss preventive strategies. The purpose of the conference was to increase awareness of preterm birth in the United States, review key findings and reports issued by experts in the field, and establish an agenda for activities in both the public and private sectors to mitigate the problem. The six work groups created focused on biomedical research, epidemiological research, psychosocial and behavioral factors in preterm birth, professional education and training, outreach and communication, and quality of care and health services. Several cross-cutting issues between the work groups were identified, and the conference concluded with the request to the Surgeon General to make the prevention of preterm birth a national public health priority. Reaching this goal through the implementation of the conference recommendations will require new resources to create broad-based research capacity, a vigorous national vital records system, multidisciplinary intervention programs, careful study of factors contributing to racial and ethnic disparities, reinvigorated health professional and consumer education programs, and access to high-quality preconception and perinatal healthcare for all Americans. Clinicians must be adequately informed to initiate activities to prevent this serious problem. Recommendations from this conference will inform Congress and create a national agenda to address the identification of the causes, risk factors, prevention, and treatment of preterm birth.

Health Professional and Health Sciences Education Research Symposium 2009: ‘Building the Culture of Educational Research’

This was the second annual Health Professional and Health Sciences Education Research Symposium and the first time it has been held at the Monash University Peninsula Campus.

The cross-cutting edge: striving for symbiosis between medical education research and related disciplines

The cross-cutting edge: striving for symbiosis between medical education research and related disciplines

Preparation for ethical decision-making: An analysis of research in professional education

The current societal and professional context presents a variety of ethical challenges to decision makers. The importance of educational preparation for ethical decision-making and ethical leadership has been addressed in the literature of library and information science (LIS), among other professions. However, it can be quite difficult to measure the impact of professional ethics education on students. This article is based on an evaluation of published original research related to ethics education in disciplines supported by professional education, including education, nursing, allied health, journalism, social work, public health, engineering, and LIS. The study considers data related to research design, methodologies used, populations studied, approaches to measuring impact, levels of impact, and publication in the journal literature. Results indicate more extensive research in education and nursing as compared with other fields, a lack of baseline data gathering for comparison, a reliance on a limited number of data-gathering techniques, and a tendency toward studying alumni over current students

Understanding the Construction of a Science Storyline in a Chemistry Classroom

The purpose of this study is to consider the ways that video analysis could be used to examine the construction of a science storyline in a chemistry classroom. The participating teacher is part of a professional development group, the Invisible College for Inquiry Science Study. This group is dedicated to learning about science teaching through professional reflection, educational research, and dialogue among members. Video data are a primary tool used to achieve all of these goals. In the science unit selected, the teacher developed a storyline leading to the construction of the chemistry concept of a mole. The video analysis used different conversational units of analysis to examine how science concepts are introduced into the classroom community and evolved through dialogue among teachers and students. This analysis considered the pedagogical moves made through discourse, including dialogue around teacher demonstrations, inscriptional practices, and analogical reasoning. The theoretical approach documents how video analysis provides ways to develop teacher professional vision regarding learning opportunities in everyday classroom life.

Un]disciplined

Despite significant variation in regional approaches to interior design2 nomenclature, regulation accreditation and research, there is global agreement about the contested and problematic nature of the identity of interior design. Even the name of the discipline’s peak international body, IFI, displays the difficulties of identity offering a selection of options in its title – International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers – and struggles to represent the diverse characteristics of its regional member institutions. In recognition of this, IFI initiated a Roundtable discussion to initiate an international discussion on the identity of interior design. The paradigms presented at the Roundtable provide an opportunity to position interior design in Australia in an international context. The Roundtable discussions also provide a useful basis for analysis of interior design as a ‘field’ encompassing professional practice, education and academic theory and research in Australia at the current time.

Toward a successful taxonomy for Croatian academic libraries

PurposeThis paper seeks to investigate the degree to which the unfavourable state of the Croatian higher education system (the lack of vision, goals and objectives, insufficient budgeting and no quality control system) reflects on the organization, development and continuous dedication to quality of academic libraries in Croatia.Design/methodology/approachThe situation is illustrated by a study conducted among academic libraries of the University Josip Juraj Strossmayer in Osijek in 2003. A questionnaire for librarians and one for chief librarians was used and data were processed by software package StatSoft, Statistica 6.0. Next to the descriptive statistics, Mann‐Whitney test, Pearson Chi‐Square, Maximum Likelihood and Fisher exact Chi‐Square test were used. Annual reports were also used.FindingsThis research revealed that the academic libraries of Osijek University are unprepared for performance measurement. It was clear that they are unfamiliar with many elements of evaluation. Librarians are usually excluded from decision making regarding library operations, which results in their low motivation. However, the greatest dissatisfaction of academic librarians of Osijek University comes from their low status. Furthermore, librarians rarely get support from their colleges for their professional education (no travel money, no paid leave, etc.)Research limitations/implicationsOsijek University is a relatively small university. It consists of nine colleges, one institute and one university library. The size of the target sample influenced the choice of research instruments – questionnaire, interviews with chief librarians and analysis of library annual reports.Originality/valueThis was the first such study in Croatia and its main goal was to test theoretical approaches and research methodology, which could be later applied for a study on a nation‐wide level.

“I hope it won’t happen to me!” Hospitality and tourism students’ fear of difficult moral situations as managers

In order to organize ethical education for future managers in the hospitality and tourism industry, an interesting study is to look into how students conceptualize the moral ordeals they think they will meet in their future management positions. Hospitality and Tourism students at the Norwegian School of Hotel Management, Stavanger University, were given a group assignment to write stories (narratives) about managers who were confronted with ethical dilemmas—a situation they could face as future managers. In order to make an explorative study of the narratives, an analytical categorization model based on former research in business ethics was constructed. This model focuses on what types of ethical dilemmas are described, who is involved in the situation, situational factors, individual attributes, and who is to blame for the dilemma appearance. Most of the dilemmas described in the histories were general business ethical issues and the students focused mainly on problems between superiors and subordinates within the organizations. The analyses revealed that the students have a sound conception of how moral dilemmas were elicited and of social reactions within the organization. The students also showed a high degree of self-insight and were generally skeptical of top management's decisions or lack thereof. However, the analyses also revealed that the students’ implicit theories about management included harsh expectations from the organizations and that individualistic and lone managers had to bear all the problems on their shoulders. Possible implications of the findings are discussed in relation to professional practice, education and future research.

Why Study the Educational Policies Commission?

It is an honor to be asked to give this address at GERA. To acknowledge that honor briefly, and with my tongue in my cheek a bit, let me start with a brief account of my own contact with GERA, and its parent organization, AERA. This account is offered to indicate how one like me who does historical research in education has interacted with the movers and shakers in our professional educational research organizations, who largely do not do such research, over the past three decades.

Advancing health care education and practice through research: the University of Toronto, Donald R. Wilson Centre for Research in Education.

The vision of the Wilson Centre for Research in Education at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is "advancing health care education and practice through research." With a core staff of eight PhD researchers, five full-time administrative staff, 150 clinical faculty members, and over a dozen fellows and visiting professors from around the world, the Wilson Centre has become an international leader in health professional education research. Diversity of ideas and research methodologies, a culture of mutual support and mentorship, and strong support from both the university and a major teaching hospital have propelled the Wilson Centre. Challenges such as focusing research priorities, involving the clinical faculty more extensively, and defining productive international collaborations are among the current issues for academic planning.

The transformation of ethnographic practice: past and current challenges

Ethnographic research design was virtually unknown in American educational research until the 1970s. Only in the late 1980s was it recognized by leading professional educational research associations. Using an historical analysis of the gradual evolution and legitimation of ethnographic design in education, this article redefines the principles guiding traditional ethnography. It argues that ethnography was marginalized because it was subversive to positivistic and entrenched conceptions of research rigor, and it privileged alternative ways of thinking, knowing, and viewing the world. Subversion was initiated by non-mainstream scholars who joined the Academy and introduced hitherto unasked or silenced questions about social relationships of power; it also resulted from the failure of experimental approaches to answer critical questions asked about the field. The article further addresses challenges to basic tenets of ethnography, showing how the concepts of culture, population, identity, the study site, and researcher stance traditionally used by researchers must be revised to conform to realities of contemporary technological, global, and multicultural, racial and linguistic existence.

Oral History and the Professor: An Academic Epiphany

The events precipitating me into the then unknown realm of oral history include a happy pair of intellectual coincidences occurring in 1986. At that time I was completing studies at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Colocated with the War College is the U.S. Army Military History Institute, which hosts the Senior Army Oral History Program. Through initial contact as a student, followed by a series of brief tours of duty with the institute, I came to appreciate and value the ongoing work of the oral historians connected with the project. Soon after returning to civilian service as a professor at Virginia Tech, I came in contact with a well-known Harvard professor, Roland Barth, who suggested during a formal presentation to a local Phi Delta Kappa chapter the need for more in-depth and less superficial research in professional education generally, and on the public school principalship in particular. The question then raised in my mind concerned how to go about gathering in-depth information on the principalship. In a flash the answer came-through the use of oral history techniques. This idea appealed to me, since I'd become disenchanted with traditional quantitative data-gathering techniques and was casting about for alternative, and potentially more useful, approaches to the act of research.