Impact of an Overt Response System on Staff Performance and Maintenance of Computer-Based Instruction

Interactive Computer Based Instruction (CBI) systems involve teaching strategies to facilitate greater response opportunities during training in an effort to improve learner performance. The current study investigated the effect of online staff training videos with and without overt response requirements on posttest and maintenance test scores across six block-randomized instructional modules for four employees of a university located in the southeastern region of the United States. The overt response consisted of multiple-choice questions administered throughout select teaching modules using an alternating treatment design. Findings suggest that learning occurred as a result of the CBI training; however, the effectiveness of the overt response system varied across individuals, with no discernible differentiation between learning gains associated with response requirements. Other areas of research for expanding the efficacy of CBI and overt response systems are highlighted.     

Valdemar’s Abjection: Poe,Kristeva, Masculinity,and Victim-Monsters

This article explores intersections between Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 tale “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” and Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1982). Highly influential, Kristeva’s work illuminates Poe’s depiction of a man mesmerized on the point of death, his vibrating tongue the only indication of life. In his liminal condition between life and death, Valdemar transforms into a spectacle witnessed over time by a male group whose members remain intimately tied to yet always distant and aloof from him. As a spectacle of body horror, Valdemar evokes many of the attributes of Kristevan abjection theory, especially the fluids and waste materials associated with the maternal body. Challenging the maternal focus of abjection theory and its reception, I track the ways in which Poe’s tale locates abject affect in the fears of the male body and in the male group’s relationship to the expulsed, isolate male. Another antebellum author, the health reformer Sylvester Graham, provides a striking point of comparison in his focus on the young male onanist. Through Kristeva’s and Poe’s works, I develop a theory of the victim-monster, a being whose suffering initially incites sympathy but ultimately repels the spectator; the victim becomes monstrous, his or her suffering the true site of a horror that must be transcended to ensure the survival of the spectator. The victim-monster of Poe’s tale intersects with the figure of the grotesque and anti-Semitic caricature.     

Enacting reflective and deliberative practices in action research

ABSTRACT

We consider action research as a form of deliberative policy analysis. This analysis explores a “reconstruction clinic” in which stakeholders and public officials engaged memories, hopes and obligations as they sought to resolve controversies over details of policy implementation. We ask how institutional design shaped participants’ reflective and deliberative progress. Reflection in action can prompt not only changes in cognitive frames, but new behavioural capacities for action. Deliberative practices can shape new relationships between parties through the work of apology, recognition, appreciation, and emergent collaboration.     

“Homosexualization” revisited: an audience-focused theorization of wartime male sexual violence

This paper builds upon and challenges existing literature regarding the causes of wartime male sexual violence (particularly Sivakumaran’s concept of “homosexualization”). The author argues that norms about sexuality and the intended audience of violence motivate male sexual violence in three ways. First, perpetrators choose to express power over the individual victim through the weaponization of masculinity, bodily integrity and/or sexual identity. Second, sexual violence can be used to reaffirm group belonging and hetero-masculinity among perpetrators. Third, sexual violence sends a message to a larger community or nation regarding supremacy and power hierarchies. Two examples (Abu Ghraib and Nazi concentration camps) are presented to illustrate the framework’s concepts.     

Funding Civil Society? Bilateral Government Support for Development NGOs

Research on the determinants of foreign aid tends to focus on the relationship between donor country priorities and recipient state characteristics, but donors also make decisions about which organizations and programs within countries will receive assistance. Although NGOs increasingly have been recipients of foreign aid, few data are available to investigate which organizations within a given country receive that funding. Donors may prioritize structural characteristics of NGOs or their local ties—or they may seek a combination that blends concern about efficiency and accountability with an interest in developing national civil society. We use original data from Cambodia to explore whether aid is likely to go to managerial organizations (professionalized NGOs and NGOs that utilize modern management tools) or to organizations that are embedded in the domestic context. We argue that managerialism provides legitimacy for NGOs by signaling capacity and accountability to donors, increasing the likelihood of government funding. We argue that local embeddedness also confers legitimacy by aligning community ties and networks to rights-based development, increasing the likelihood of government funding. We find general support for the managerialism argument, but donor agencies do not prioritize direct funding for “indigenous” NGOs—not even among those with high levels of managerialism.     

Production systems and supplier selection: a multi-phase process model

Abstract

Purpose: This paper presents a combined multi-phase supplier selection model. The process repeatedly revisits the criteria and sourcing decision as the development process continues. This enables a structured adoption of product and production system innovation from strategic suppliers, where previously the literature purely focuses on product innovation or cost reduction. Design/methodology/approach: The authors adopted an embedded researcher style, inductive, qualitative case study of an industrial supply cluster comprising a focal automotive company and its interaction with three different strategic stamping suppliers. Findings: Our contribution is the multi-phased production and product innovation process. This is an advance from traditional supplier selection and also an extension of ideas of supplier-located product development as it includes production system development, and complements the literature on working with strategic suppliers. Specifically, we explicitly articulate the previously unreported issue of whether a supplier chosen for its innovation capabilities at the start of the new product development process will also be the most appropriate supplier during the production system development phase, when an ability to work collaboratively may be the most important attribute, or in the large-scale production phase when an ability to manufacture at low unit cost may be most important. Originality/value: The paper identifies a multi-phase approach to tendering within a fixed body of strategic suppliers which seeks to identify the optimum technological and process decisions as well as the traditional supplier sourcing choice. These areas have not been combined before and generate a valuable approach for firms to adopt as well as for researchers to extend our understanding of a highly complex process.     

Is Over-Education a Problem in Spain? Empirical Evidence Based on the EU-SILC

Spain is suffering an important economic slowdown which affects significantly to unemployment rises. For this reason, many individuals are considering to increase their educational level. However, this decision can lead to get worse labor market indicators. In this paper, we analyze the problem of over-education in Spain and its effect on earnings. Using the last four waves (2009–2012) of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC, 2009–2012) this study analyses over-education situation of employed people and compares over-education rates and earnings of these individuals. Cross-sectional analysis (focused on a recent period of time) is performed. We apply different matching techniques based on propensity score methods to evaluate the impact of over-education on personal earnings. The results obtained in this paper add more empirical evidence supporting the effect of education on earnings together with occupational placement because over-education could be a great problem for many countries. In Spain, there exists a problem of over-education which varies among occupations. Overeducated workers are most likely to be found among “Service workers and shop and market sales workers” and “Elementary occupations”. Also, the majority of individuals working as “Professionals” are adequately educated. Besides, over-education has a significant negative impact on earnings. Although the results depend on the way we define over-education (interval or modal method), those individuals over-educated receive less earnings than they correspond to. In fact, the decrease can reach about 5000 euro per year.     

Cognitive distortions predict future gambling involvement

Disordered gambling is best conceptualized as a continuum of severity. Previous research has demonstrated the utility of studying individuals at all points of this spectrum. The sequence of the development of gambling problems and change in gambling involvement along this continuum of severity is not well understood. The present study examined the interplay between cognitive distortions and gambling involvement in a population sample recruited in Alberta, Canada. Data from 1372 participants over 4 assessment waves (5 years) were used to generate a 2-factor latent structure using gambling fallacies and gambling involvement measurements. Structural equation modelling showed that cognitive distortions more strongly predicted future gambling involvement than the reverse relationship, using the comparative fit index (CFI) and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) to assess the models. In addition, cognitive distortions declined over time, whereas gambling involvement remained stable. The results of the study suggest that focusing primarily on cognitive mechanisms in public health initiatives for gambling disorders may be a more effective strategy than focusing on behavioural solutions.     

Reconsidering ethnic media research: An argument for a diasporic identity framework

Since Robert Park’s foundational work on the ethnic press, the assimilation-pluralism paradigm has dominated research. This article proposes a new framework that combines ethnic media and diasporic media literatures to advance future scholarship. Ethnic media research can provide direction in better conceptualizing media of ethnic groups/diasporas and can reinforce the importance of racial context, and diasporic media research can address the limitations of the assimilation-pluralism framework and its inability to incorporate globalization, transnationalism, and hybridity. This article submits that ethnic media be conceptualized as specific to media produced by a diasporic or indigenous ethnic population within the host society and that future textual research on ethnic media engage a diasporic identity framework. The framework would (a) call attention to transnationalism; (b) call attention to local/transnational, ethnic/race, and inter-generational tensions; (c) focus on race as a salient and important local context for diasporic meaning; and (d) consider the site of production.