The way in which the media report on school violence influences public perceptions, gives rise to particular attitudes and can influence decisions by policy makers. The more frequently an issue is presented in a specific way, the more likely it is for readers to perceive the media's version as the truth. Although news is assumed to be reliable,…

This conversation was prompted by a blog entry posted by Tim Dracup in January 2012. The subsequent e-exchange between Tim and Barry Hymer explored a number of issues central to the nature and aetiology of giftedness, confronting these issues from contrasting ontological and epistemological stances. As a result, their conversation includes…

I write this article in an attempt to establish my own view upon gifted and talented education and as an attempt to review and analyse the perspectives and opinions of others in the field of education. I will examine how people believe gifts and talents are created in an attempt to establish and affirm my own viewpoint. I will look at what I…

Mathematics continues to be an enabling discipline for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)-based university studies and related careers. Explanatory models for females' underrepresentation in higher level mathematics and STEM-based courses comprise learner-related and environmental variables--including societal beliefs. Using…

The use of human tissue is critical for gross anatomy education in the health professions. Chinese medical colleges have faced a shortage of anatomical specimens over the past decade. While body donation plays an important role in overcoming this gap, this practice has only recently been introduced in China, and the donation rate is relatively low…

This article highlights the discourses of children and leisure-time pedagogues regarding ways the activity at two different Swedish school-age educare centres are mutually constructed. Two different topics are stressed: children's perspectives and school-age educare centres as a social and educational practice. Data was constructed through…

Despite hazing being illegal in South African education institutions since December 2002 and post 2002, newspapers and research reveal that it is still practised. It seems as if popular, rather than elitist opinion and debate or research findings perpetuate hazing practices. The aim of this article is to identify popular discourses on hazing in…

By investigating the general public's views, we can better understand the cultural milieu in which mathematics teaching and learning take place. This study, part of an international research project, investigated the Canadian general public's views of gender and mathematics. Using a brief survey, people on the street and in public spaces in four…

Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated how well experts can adjust the settings of a commercial noise-reduction system to optimize the intelligibility for naive normal-hearing listeners. Method: In Experiment 1, 5 experts adjusted parameters for a noise-reduction system while aiming to optimize intelligibility. The stimuli consisted of…

In "How Is Testing Supposed to Improve Schooling," Haertel describes seven broad mechanisms whereby testing is used to improve schooling (this issue). The first four are direct mechanisms, meaning that "test scores are taken as indicators of some underlying construct and on that basis scores are used to guide some decision or draw some…

The outcomes of national assessments in many countries provide "qualifications" or "credentials" that may be used to define the levels of students' knowledge and skills, for their own use and that of employers, higher education institutions and others. Qualification users, such as students, parents and teachers, arguably need…

We develop a theoretical model of social influence in n-person groups. We argue that disagreement between group members introduces uncertainty into the social situation, and this uncertainty motivates people to use status characteristics to evaluate the merits of a particular opinion. Our model takes the numerical distribution of opinions and the…

Australian Government participation targets recommended in the Review of Australian Higher Education (Bradley In Review of Australian higher education: Final report, Commonwealth of Australia 2008) presented a complex public communication challenge to higher education participation. This research discusses the content of communication messages…

Objective: To examine how parents' beliefs about beverage attributes and exposure to sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) advertising are associated with parents' and their children's SSB consumption. Design: Cross-sectional representative telephone survey of Philadelphia parents in households with children between the ages of 3 and 16 years.…

The columnist weighs in on the most recent PDK/Gallup poll. The real value of the poll, the author says, comes from looking at each response and then thinking about the connective tissue between and among them. The poll's 47-year history adds yet another layer of rich context. Uniquely, the poll provides not a snapshot of public opinion, rather an…