Reports of Conferences, Institutes, and Seminars

The Scholarly Communication Interest Group of the New England Chapter of the Association of College and Research Libraries sponsored a workshop titled “Partnering with Faculty: Scholarly Communication Conversations,” held on July 29, 2010, at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts. Partnering with EBSCO and the North American Serials Interest Group, Mississippi State University (MSU) Libraries hosted the ninth MidSouth eResource Symposium at MSU's Mitchell Memorial Library in Starkville, Mississippi, on Thursday, September 16, 2010. ITHAKA Sustainable Scholarship was a two-day meeting at the Westin Times Square, New York City, September 27-28, 2010. Finally, published herein is a summary of the NISO Webinar “It's Only as Good as the Metadata: Improving OpenURL and Knowledge Base Quality,” held October 13, 2010.     

Examining the Impact of Speed of Quality Improvement on Quality-Related Costs

The Fine (1986) quality-based learning curve model is extended to include the consideration of speed of quality improvement. The model demonstrates that under different circumstances rapid quality improvement effects are either beneficial or detrimental to improvement in quality-related costs. Hypotheses are developed from the analysis of this speed of quality improvement model. The hypotheses are tested in an automotive parts manufacturing company with five similar plants. Results show that with an increase in the speed of quality improvement, the rate of growth in prevention and appraisal costs decrease and the rate of growth in failure costs are unaffected. Rapid speed of quality improvement does yield lesser decreases in failure costs than slower, steadier improvement. However, rapid speed of quality improvement does not yield the predicted lesser decrease in prevention and appraisal costs than slower, steadier improvement. Rapid speed of quality improvement might or might not benefit the organization, perhaps an explanation for some Total Quality Management (TQM) failures. A more deliberate, learning organization is suggested from this research.     

Relationship of Patriotism Measures to Critical Thinking and Emphasis on Civil Liberties versus National Security

Students in a large undergraduate course (N = 236) at a major state university in the Southeastern United States took a standardized critical thinking test and four short sociopolitical scales (constructive patriotism, blind patriotism, respect for civil liberties, and emphasis on national security) at the beginning of the fall semester 2007. Although numerous published studies have addressed relationships between types of patriotism and various sociopolitical variables, these studies typically have not targeted respect for civil liberties and emphasis on national security. Also, negligible attention has been given to the relationships between types of patriotism and cognitive variables (e.g., critical thinking, problem solving). The current study found that both constructive and blind patriotism were significantly related to measures of critical thinking, respect for civil liberties, and emphasis on national security but in opposing directions. The article concludes with implications of the findings for public policy and practice.     

Habitat Maintenance and Local Economic Ethics in Rural Atlantic Canada

Inspired by Jane Jacobs's writing on “habitat maintenance,” this paper seeks to identify the ethics that sometimes compel rural residents to act in ways that preserve their communities in the long run, despite short‐term incentives to do otherwise. Data from focus groups in four rural Atlantic Canadian communities suggest shared ethics around entrepreneurship, market competition, buying local, and subsistence, some of which underlie the rural practices and perspectives that appear, to some outsiders, as irrational and “backwards.” Understanding these ethics and the practices they incite as components of habitat maintenance—and judging them by their situated pragmatism rather than their fit with the placeless ideologies of growth‐centric global capitalism and competitiveness—highlights their rationality and utility. Findings could help direct discussions of rural economic development toward notions of prosperity, sustainability, and economy that fit better with rural realities.     

Women millennials’ perceptions of pension savings through the use of autoenrollment in the UK pension system

There has been concern about younger people, and women in particular, not saving enough for retirement and how to encourage further saving. Therefore, this study—partly funded by the Fawcett Society in association with Scottish Widows—explores female millennials’ attitudes and motivations toward pension saving and automatic enrollment through the use of 40 semistructured interviews and a focus group. The findings show that although the introduction of autoenrollment pensions is generally positively received, pensions knowledge is still limited, and this intensifies the risk of undersaving for retirement among millennial women, particularly given women’s diverse work histories.     

Another Look at Accuracy and Confidence in Social Judgments

This study examined the relationship between accuracy and confidence on the Interpersonal Perception Task (IPT-15). This version of the IPT contains 15 brief, real-life scenes on videotape for which there are objectively correct answers to questions about status, intimacy, kinship, competition, and deception. A total of 241 participants were run in a 2 (high vs. low cognitive demand) × 2 (first impression vs. nonverbal cues strategy) × 2 (sex of participant) design. Overall, no significant relationship was found when accuracy scores were correlated with two between-participant measures of confidence. There was, however, a significant relationship within-participants between accuracy and confidence. Thus, participants' rated confidence for each of the 15 scenes did predict accuracy in judgments about the scenes. In addition, a 2 × 2 × 2 ANOVA on participants' transformed accuracy-confidence correlations revealed a small, significant effect of strategy. Specifically, the accuracy-confidence correlations were higher when participants were instructed to attend to specific nonverbal cues in making their judgments than when they were told to rely on their first impressions. Although there were no differences between men and women in either their accuracy or their accuracy-confidence correlations, men rated their confidence significantly higher than did women. The factors affecting the accuracy-confidence relationship and their role in automatic judgments are discussed.     

Willingness to have unprotected sex

Little is known about people's willingness to engage in sex without protection from unwanted pregnancy. This study surveyed 1,497 women and men at 75 clinics and physician offices across California after their reproductive health care visits in late 2007 and early 2008. When asked if they would have sex without contraception, 30% said definitively that yes, they would have unprotected sex, and 20% indicated they would "sometimes" or "maybe" engage in unprotected sex. In multivariate models, compared to non-Latino White respondents, Latinos who responded to the survey in English were 52% more likely and African Americans were 75% more likely to report willingness to have unprotected intercourse. Wanting a child within the next three years was associated with increased willingness to have unprotected sex. Age, gender, parity, and relationship status were not significant in multivariate models. A considerable proportion of women and men may be willing to have unprotected sex, even with access to subsidized contraceptive services and even when recently counseled about birth control. The dominant behavioral models of contraceptive use need to acknowledge the widespread likelihood of occasional unprotected sex, even among people motivated to usually use contraceptives. Findings underscore the need to make contraceptive methods accessible, easy to use, and even pleasurable.     

Gender and proposed Auto‐enrolment in the Republic of Ireland: Lessons from the UK

The introduction of “soft” compulsion in the form of Auto‐enrolment into non‐state pensions has been seen as a key policy response to the challenges presented by an ageing population and concerns about under‐saving for retirement in the UK. Since its introduction in 2012, amongst eligible employees in the private sector, pension participation had risen by over 31 percentage points to 73% of eligible employees in 2016. Despite these trends, Auto‐enrolment in the UK has not been without criticism, particularly in terms of its exclusion of certain groups, including carers, amongst whom females are over‐represented. The Republic of Ireland (ROI) has recently announced its intention to implement an Auto‐enrolment pension scheme. As such, this article examines the UK's experience of rolling out Auto‐enrolment policy and considers lessons that could be learned by the ROI from the UK in its pursuit of Auto‐enrolment, with a particular focus on women's pensions. Initially it outlines the current Irish pension system, the gendered nature of pensions, and the proposed Auto‐enrolment system in ROI. Then it discusses the UK's experience of Auto‐enrolment, with a particular focus on gender, before examining the lessons the ROI can learn from the UK's Auto‐enrolment policy in relation to women and pensions. Finally, it concludes that Auto‐enrolment alone will not resolve the gendered nature of pensions in the ROI and calls for a gender‐based assessment of the proposed policy of Auto‐enrolment in the ROI.     

Parental emotion regulation strategies and parenting quality predict child internalizing symptoms in families experiencing homelessness

Adaptive emotion regulation (ER) in parents has been linked to better parenting quality and social–emotional adjustment in children from middle‐income families. In particular, early childhood may represent a sensitive period in which parenting behaviors and functioning have large effects on child social–emotional adjustment. However, little is known about how parent ER and parenting are related to child adjustment in high‐risk families. In the context of adversity, parents may struggle to maintain positive parenting behaviors and adaptive self‐regulation strategies which could jeopardize their children's adjustment. The current study investigated parents' own cognitive ER strategies and observed parenting quality in relation to young children's internalizing and externalizing problems among families experiencing homelessness. Participants included 108 primary caregivers and their 4–6‐year‐old children residing in emergency shelters. Using multiple methods, parenting and parent ER were assessed during a shelter stay and teachers subsequently provided ratings of children's internalizing and externalizing difficulties in the classroom. Parenting quality was expected to predict fewer classroom internalizing and externalizing behaviors as well as moderate the association between parent ER strategies and child outcomes. Results suggest that parenting quality buffered the effects of parent maladaptive ER strategies on child internalizing symptoms. The mediating role of parenting quality on that association was also investigated to build on prior empirical work in low‐risk samples. Parenting quality did not show expected mediating effects. Findings suggest that parents experiencing homelessness who use fewer maladaptive cognitive ER strategies and more positive parenting behaviors may protect their children against internalizing problems.