This study aimed to evaluate a new automatic tracheostoma valve: the Provox FreeHands HME (manufactured by Atos Medical AB, Sweden). Data from four laryngectomee participants using automatic and also manual occlusion were subjected to acoustic and perceptual analysis. The main results were a significant decrease, from the manual to automatic…

This commentary discusses 4 issues relevant to interpretation of A. S. Green, E. Rafaeli, N. Bolger, P. E. Shrout, and H. T. Reis's (2006) article: (a) Self-reported compliance in medical settings has generally been substantially higher than verified compliance, suggesting that this is not a rare phenomenon; (b) none of the studies reported in…

The importance of examining health behaviors, such as physical activity, among Filipino Americans is highlighted by their higher rates of chronic disease. As physical inactivity has been linked to chronic diseases (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1996), this study investigated the physical activity levels of older Filipinas. This…

Dialogue journals, which involve teachers and students writing and exchanging their writing in mutual response, are often cited as a powerful tool for promoting reflection in teacher education. According to Bean and Zulich (1989), dialogue journal writing is a good way to model the process of reflective practice for preservice teachers. However,…

In its most basic form, a blog is simply a Web-based journal in reverse chronological order. It allows the writer to post ideas and thoughts quickly using conversational language for many to read. It allows the writer to link easily to other sites for support as well as for examples. And it provides a repository for such items. Also, both readers…

Teaching social studies with historical maps allows teachers and students not only to examine a historical event or place, but to analyze the story behind the map. Historical maps can provide insight into the people and cultures of earlier times. Studying these historic maps may help students challenge the notion that people of earlier time…

Teacher diaries have wide-ranging applications for professional development, as they give teachers an increased sense of responsibility and seek new ways of improving their teaching. This article shares my personal experience of undertaking three teacher diary studies at two-year intervals and reveals how my teaching methodologies and philosophies…

DRACON (DRAma for CONflict management) is an interdisciplinary and comparative action research project aimed at improving conflict handling among adolescent schoolchildren through the use of educational drama. The main purpose of our research has been to develop an integrated programme using conflict management as the theory and practice, and…

In this article, the author begins by discussing relevant research in nineteenth-century women's literacy on intimacy and community building. The author then describes how missionary women stationed in Hawai'i maintained some rhetorical expression and autonomous meaning making through the letters they wrote home to the States, the letters they…

The incorporation of diaries and journals as learning and assessment vehicles into programmes of study within higher education has enabled the further growth of reflection, creative writing, critical thinking and meta-cognitive processes of students' learning. However, there is currently little research that aims to compare how different types of…

First- and second-born adolescent siblings from 21 families completed a daily diary on each of 7 days. The frequency and content of siblings' conversations are described and the relationship between the content of siblings' discussion and their perceived academic, athletic, and peer competency is explored. Siblings most often talked about…

This study explored how Thai learners of English as a foreign language, engaged in English activities outside of classrooms to learn and practice the English language. Three research questions of this study include: (a) How do the participants perceive access and availability of out of class English activities in local environments?, (b) How do…

This study began in the Spring of 2003, when the Canterbury Adult Basic Education Research Network (CABERN), an informal cross-sector network of local adult literacy researchers and practitioners, sent out a questionnaire. The questionnaire addressed potential respondents by asking: "Are you a tutor engaged in any aspect of adult…

Using daily diary data to document involvement with infants at 6-8 months of age (n = 142) and 6 months later (n = 95), we examined relations between reported childrearing attitudes and resident fathers' relative (as compared to mothers') involvement with children. Fathers' authoritarian views related negatively to their relative involvement on…

Opportunities for and limits upon diary writing in one second/third-grade classroom are examined with the purpose of stimulating critical thinking about two issues: (1) the diary's potential within the school writing curriculum, and (2) the classroom as an environment for the teaching and learning of writing. Field notes, teacher journal entries,…