This report on the second year of data collection in the Understanding Consequential Assessment Systems of Teaching (UCAST) study describes administrators' learning during the first year that Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) observations were part of a consequential teacher evaluation system for teachers. Drawing on mixed methods, the…

This book, written for both seasoned and novice researchers, presents a theory of what is called Basic and Higher Language Cognition (BLC and HLC), a theory aimed at making some fundamental issues concerning first and second language learning and bilingualism (more) empirical. The first part of the book provides background for and explication of…

Much previous research has pointed to the need for a unified framework for language contact phenomena -- one that would include social factors and motivations, structural factors and linguistic constraints, and psycholinguistic factors involved in processes of language processing and production. While Contact Linguistics has devoted a great deal…

If properly installed, optimized geoexchange systems can be one of the most cost effective, powerful options to accomplish the goal of improved energy efficiency and reduced carbon emissions. Accurately quantifying field performance is an important step in designing a system that is the proper size and capacity. The authors share the real life…

A very high proportion of librarians are neither required to publish nor rewarded if they do. The would-be librarian/writer would be well advised to take a brief self-examination before developing a research and publication plan. The author provides a list of questions to consider and also suggests consultation with a colleague with greater…

This chapter provides guiding principles for designing and implementing successful multicultural initiatives. A rationale for why these elements transcend both higher education and student affairs settings is presented. In addition to providing guiding principles, this chapter includes advice for socially and politically conscious-minded…

This study examines the ways in which different research perspectives have tended to problematize global university rankings (GURs). An analytical framework is applied to help articulate four distinct research discourses that have been applied to GURs. The framework distinguishes research problems which are locally defined and "emergent" from…

This narrative review describes the available scientific evidence regarding promising school-based strategies to increase physical activity of adolescents. We conducted a literature search for studies published up to 2011, regarding adolescent physical activity intervention studies that resulted in increased physical activity (regardless of…

For over 150 years Australia has exported bulk, undifferentiated, commodities such as wool, wheat, meat and sugar to the UK and more recently to Japan, Korea, and the Middle East. It is estimated that, each year, Australia's farming system feeds a domestic population of some 22 million people, while exporting enough food to feed another 40…

People have strong intuitions about the influence objects exert upon one another when they collide. Because people's judgments appear to deviate from Newtonian mechanics, psychologists have suggested that people depend on a variety of task-specific heuristics. This leaves open the question of how these heuristics could be chosen, and how to…

This supplement contains documentation on the explicit and implicit stratification variables included in the TIMSS 2011 data files. The explicit strata are smaller sampling frames, created from the national sampling frames, from which national samples of schools were drawn. The implicit strata are nested within the explicit strata, and were used…

We investigate whether the serotonin transporter-linked polymorphic region ("5HTTLPR"), a gene associated with environmental sensitivity, moderates the association between smoking and drinking patterns at adolescents' schools and their corresponding risk for smoking and drinking themselves. Drawing on the school-based design of the National…

The majority of mothers in Ireland provide formula milk to their infants during the initial weeks postpartum; however, data are lacking on their formula feeding practices and support needs. This prospective Dublin-based observational study, which included 450 eligible mother-term infant pairs recruited and followed up to six months postpartum,…

Students often bring considerable prior information about the Holocaust to their study of the event, with much of that knowledge being inaccurate or incomplete. In addition, the Shoah's complexity necessitates that teachers establish a well-defined framework as they introduce the topic to their students. This article outlines an opening lesson for…

Quality design and appropriate space organization in preschool settings can support preschool children's educational activities. Although the relationship between the well-being and development of children and physical settings has been emphasized by many early childhood researchers, there is still a need for theoretical design guidelines that are…