The object of the unorthodox and popular course is to teach students how to be innovative and entrepreneurial, take intelligent risks, and be creative. Students must create a consumer product or service and market it, using academic and personal experience of successes and failures for insight. (MSE)

Data suggest that human newborns are capable of making a chromatic discrimination within the spectral region above 540 nm (the Rayleigh region), but their ability is limited to chromatic stimuli of very wide spectral separation and of very large size. Possible neurological bases underlying this immaturity are discussed. (RH)

Offers detailed "instructions" on how to fail at multimedia: make it unintelligible, ugly, and big and slow; limit the number of users; assemble a dysfunctional team; violate copyrights; and make it noninternational. (SR)

When viewed dynamically, organizational change can be both adaptive and disruptive. When viewed over time, same forces rendering organizations inert also make them more malleable. These ideas are supported by dynamic models of organizational failure and change estimated on population of 1,011 Finnish newspaper organizations over 193 years. Change…

A marketing concept was applied to college registration procedures in an experiment, focusing on degree of "escalation" of effort of students who had failed twice to register in desired courses, type of registration used (formal or informal) on each of three tries, and student characteristics (time until graduation, major, gender). (MSE)

Contains a theoretical discussion and an empirical test of Stinchcombe's "liability of newness" hypothesis, which assumes higher failure risks for young organizations than for older ones. This hypothesis does not adequately represent mortality hazards of German business organizations. A "liability of adolescence" concept…

Although the trend is for less documentation, this article argues that more is needed to help in the analysis of design failure in instructional design. Presents arguments supporting documented design, including error recognition and correction, verification of completeness and soundness, sharing of new design principles, modifiability, error…

Case study of a manufacturing firm that implemented total quality management (TQM) found that the initiative may have failed because the company was undergoing rapid, radical structural change. Other problems included short-term focus, communication problems, and employee concerns about job security. TQM may be more compatible with continuous…

Investigated the relationship between academic procrastination due to fear of failure and task aversiveness, and library anxiety at the graduate level. Results of the Library Anxiety Scale, Procrastination Assessment Scale-Students, and Pearson product-moment correlations showed procrastination was related to affective barriers, comfort with the…

Explores how heterosexism and homophobia contribute to the construction of a school failure, making the point that what is considered a "private" problem is in reality a socially constructed issue that needs to be addressed at a level beyond that of the individual. (SLD)

Factors contributing to the failure of a community wellness center in rural Alberta included arbitrary choice of the community by regional health authorities, power issues, lack of leadership, and different interpretations of what a wellness center is. Solutions include having community members identify community needs and finding a project…

Examines the performance of Australia's three federated network universities from an inter-organizational relations perspective. Investigates the influence of the political economy--network members' pursuit of funds and power--on the network's relationships and its performance. Describes how the strength of the network's political economy and the…

This study examined learned helplessness and its effect on test taking. Students were given one of two tests; the first began with extremely difficult questions and the other started with easy questions. The researchers hypothesized that those who took the test beginning with difficult questions would become easily frustrated and possibly doubt…

In this article, the author talks about his personal experience and the lessons he learned from failing in his endeavors. He further emphasizes that testing a hypothesis and putting oneself on the line require an emotional readiness to take a fall. The most important skill students can develop is the willingness to put themselves on that line…

The issue of stress associated with higher education and its impact on markers of student health is explored in three experiments looking at blood pressure levels in college students. All participants were full-time undergraduate students of psychology. In Experiment 1, academic fear of failure, assessed using psychometric testing, was found to be…