Report on Grouped Peer Review of Scholarly Journals in Education

CITE: Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) (2020) ‘Report on Grouped Peer Review of Scholarly Journals in Education’. [Online] DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/assaf.2019/0062The peer review report entitled Report on Grouped Peer Review of Scholarly Journals in Education is the tenth in a series of discipline-grouped evaluations of South African scholarly journals. This is part of a scholarly assurance process initiated by the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf). The process is centered on multi-perspective, discipline-based evaluation panels appointed by the Academy Council on the recommendation of the Academy’s Committee on Scholarly Publishing in South Africa (CSPiSA). This detailed report presents the peer review panel’s consolidated consensus reports on each journal and provides the panel’s recommendations in respect of DHET accreditation, inclusion on the SciELO SA platform and suggestions for improvement in general. The main purpose of the ASSAf review process for journals is to improve the scholarly publication in the country that is consonant with traditional scholarly practices.Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf

All Emotions Matter: A Literature-Based Exploration into the Value of Emotions that can have Negative Connotations in Today’s World

This research explores the value of integrating all emotions for well-being, including those that can have negative connotations in today’s world. Contemporary Western culture, possibly influenced by the positive psychology movement, has placed emphasis on the pursuit of happiness. Emotions that may be classified as negative can be rejected, distorted or denied as they may be viewed as undesirable or harmful. This study has the potential to contribute to the understanding of the vital functions that emotions with negative connotations can serve. The basic emotions of anger and sadness are highlighted for closer examination. The study is literature-based using thematic analysis as the qualitative research method. The key findings indicate support for emotions with negative connotations such as anger and sadness making a constructive contribution to the maintenance of healthy, close interpersonal relationships. Influences on how emotions are experienced and expressed are diverse and can include the following: biological, historical, cultural, social and gender role stereotypes. Assertively expressing emotions can be beneficial whereas chronic suppression may be detrimental to health and well-being. The ability to choose flexibly between both expression and suppression of emotions is the most valuable approach, depending on the context, relationship and the individual. The main conclusion drawn from the study is that the experience and expression of emotions that can have negative connotations can contribute to our health and well-being, when used intelligently. This dissertation recommends promoting the potential value of emotions that can have negative connotations through emotional intelligence competencies, emotion regulation and therapy

Making sense of assessment feedback in higher education

This article presents a thematic analysis of the research evidence on assessment feedback in higher education (HE) from 2000 to 2012. The focus of the review is on the feedback that students receive within their coursework from multiple sources. The aims of this study are to (a) examine the nature of assessment feedback in HE through the undertaking of a systematic review of the literature, (b) identify and discuss dominant themes and discourses and consider gaps within the research literature, (c) explore the notion of the feedback gap in relation to the conceptual development of the assessment feedback field in HE, and (d) discuss implications for future research and practice. From this comprehensive review of the literature, the concept of the feedback landscape, informed by sociocultural and socio-critical perspectives, is developed and presented as a valuable framework for moving the research agenda into assessment feedback in HE forward

Investigation into How Best to Disseminate Research Evidence to Teachers

Recent decades have witnessed world-wide recognition of the value of using research evidence in education contexts. However, despite extensive efforts and progress made to date, teachers’ use of research evidence in practice remains limited in the majority of countries, including the UK. Consequently, there has been a surge of interest in how best to promote teachers’ use of research evidence in schools. In particular, the issue of how to effectively disseminate research evidence to educators to facilitate the utilisation of research evidence has received considerable attention in recent years. Although the literature is replete with suggestions on various routes of dissemination, insufficient attention has been directed towards causal evidence concerning how to best disseminate research evidence to teachers. Therefore, this study set out to investigate how to resolve this challenge by evaluating a promising dissemination approach to getting evidence into use in schools. The study first considered existing evidence on the most effective ways of disseminating research evidence to teachers. To achieve this, a large-scale systematic review was conducted. The review initially identified 68,817 records, 24 of which were eventually included in the analysis. However, only a few studies in the review generated high-quality evidence. Descriptive and narrative analyses were performed to present the findings. The results from the review support the rationale of the current study, and demonstrate a lack of robust research evidence on the various approaches for disseminating research evidence to teachers. The review findings indicated that passive dissemination approaches, such as simply making research summaries and evidence-based resources available to teachers, were not an effective means to get evidence into use and improve student attainment. Compared to other approaches in the review, embedding evidence in the curriculum, technology-supported routes and active multi-component approaches were found to be more promising. For the impact evaluation component of the study, workshop training with supporting evidence-based resources, classified as an active multi-component dissemination approach in the review, was chosen as an intervention to disseminate research evidence to teachers. A randomised controlled trial (RCT) was conducted to investigate the impact of this intervention on teachers’ attitudes towards research evidence, and their use of research evidence in practice. The researcher recruited nine primary schools located in England, to be randomly allocated for the treatment (n=4) and a control group (n=5). A total of 46 teachers (treatment 25, control 21) from these schools participated in the evaluation at the outset. Data was collected via a pre- and post-survey consisting of 15 questions regarding attitudes and 18 questions regarding research use. The survey also involved additional questions about the teachers’ demographic characteristics to ascertain whether the results differed by subgroup. All teachers (n=46) completed a pre-survey at the outset. The evaluation was then unexpectedly subject to considerable dropout between the pre-survey and post-survey phases due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns. Of the original 46 teachers, 25 completed both the pre- and post-surveys. Therefore, readers should interpret the trial results with caution, particularly in relation to the subgroups. The data from the pre-post survey was analysed item by item. The study presented gain scores for each item, based on changes in the pre- to post-survey mean scores. The differences in the changes between the treatment and control groups are shown as effect sizes. The study also examined teachers’ attitudes towards research evidence, and their (self-reported) use of research evidence in practice prior to the intervention. Analysis of the pre-survey results was undertaken for all 46 teachers. The results from the pre-survey demonstrated that although teachers’ general attitudes towards research evidence may be considered positive, their (self-reported) use of research evidence was comparatively limited. The results provided by the subgroups indicated that headteachers/principals were more likely than classroom teachers to report using research evidence in schools in all areas. The results of the impact evaluation were not encouraging in terms of teachers’ attitudes towards research evidence. After the treatment, teachers made positive improvements in their (self-reported) use of research in some respects. From an overall perspective, however, there was no convincing evidence of any beneficial impact on teachers (self-reported) use of research evidence following the intervention. The training undertaken by the intervention groups emphasised the importance of judging the quality of research evidence, which may have led the teachers to be increasingly sceptical of all research evidence, rather than encouraging discrimination between robust and weak evidence. The training might be better on how to use robust research evidence rather than how to identify it. The intervention approach should ideally be evaluated by further studies involving a large-scale RCT, with lower dropout. The results of the impact evaluation among the small subgroups were found to be mixed. However, the results by experience and age were stronger, compared to the other subgroups. The intervention improved less experienced teachers’ attitudes towards research evidence in some respects. In terms of research use, the intervention had a bigger harmful, or less beneficial impact on older teachers than younger teachers in most respects. This shows that the effectiveness of a dissemination approach may differ according to teachers’ demographic characteristics. Given this finding, and the pre-survey results indicating that teachers’ use of research evidence in practice may differ according to subgroups, researchers and educators should account for teachers’ demographic characteristics more than happens currently, while addressing issues in evidence-based practice. Overall, there is a need for further research on how best to disseminate research evidence to teachers. Further studies may benefit from the findings of the current study, particularly the systematic review. They should test the effectiveness of the following dissemination approaches: embedding evidence in curriculum, technology-supported routes, and active multi-component approaches. In conclusion, this thesis demonstrates that educators should be aware that getting research evidence into use is not a straightforward process. Research providers and funders should focus on more comprehensive and advanced dissemination approaches, such as embedding evidence into curriculum and technology-supported routes. Educators may also address whether we can reasonably ask teachers to judge the quality of the research evidence provided. Teachers may instead be given evidence whose quality has already been judged, perhaps by research centres or intermediates, and found to be robust, and then implement these

Report on Grouped Peer Review of Scholarly Journals in Other Disciplines

192 pagesThe peer review report entitled Report on Grouped Peer Review of Scholarly Journals in Other Disciplines is the 14th in a series of discipline-grouped evaluations of South African scholarly journals. This is part of a scholarly assurance process initiated by the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf). The process is centered on multi-perspective, discipline-based evaluation panels appointed by the Academy Council on the recommendation of the Academy’s Committee on Scholarly Publishing in South Africa (CSPiSA). This detailed report presents the peer review panel’s consolidated consensus reports on each journal and provides the panel’s recommendations in respect of DHET accreditation, inclusion on the SciELO SA platform and suggestions for improvement in general. The main purpose of the ASSAf review process for journals is to improve the scholarly publication in the country that is consonant with traditional scholarly practices.Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf

Sensitivity analysis in a scoping review on police accountability : assessing the feasibility of reporting criteria in mixed studies reviews

In this paper, we report on the findings of a sensitivity analysis that was carried out within a previously conducted scoping review, hoping to contribute to the ongoing debate about how to assess the quality of research in mixed methods reviews. Previous sensitivity analyses mainly concluded that the exclusion of inadequately reported or lower quality studies did not have a significant effect on the results of the synthesis. In this study, we conducted a sensitivity analysis on the basis of reporting criteria with the aims of analysing its impact on the synthesis results and assessing its feasibility. Contrary to some previous studies, our analysis showed that the exclusion of inadequately reported studies had an impact on the results of the thematic synthesis. Initially, we also sought to propose a refinement of reporting criteria based on the literature and our own experiences. In this way, we aimed to facilitate the assessment of reporting criteria and enhance its consistency. However, based on the results of our sensitivity analysis, we opted not to make such a refinement since many publications included in this analysis did not sufficiently report on the methodology. As such, a refinement would not be useful considering that researchers would be unable to assess these (sub-)criteria

The information-seeking behaviour of distance learners: a case study of the university of London International programmes

Understanding the information-seeking behaviour of distance learners will lead to better-designed distance learning libraries that effectively support the information and learning needs of distance learners. It will also inform a debate on how national guidelines for distance learning library provision in the UK might be formulated. This study explores the information-seeking behaviour of distance learners registered with the International Programmes of the University of London, which is the second largest distance learning provider in the UK. The population includes both postgraduate and undergraduate students registered on six different social sciences and humanities programmes. All participants were registered library users. The study discusses possible influencing factors and barriers that distance learning students may encounter while seeking, accessing and, to some extent, using information needed to complete their university studies. The kind of information activities that students engage in, the kind of information sources they use including those not provided by the library, the reasons why they use them, the challenges they face and the strategies they adopt to overcome these challenges are all explored. The study methodology comprised preparatory desk research including a thorough literature review in the areas of Information-Seeking Behaviour, including existing models, and an assessment of existing distance library provision in the UK. The research uses a combination of quantitative (questionnaires both online and by post) and qualitative (laboratory-based observational study using think-aloud protocol) methods and one-to-one interviews using open-ended semi-structured questions. Statistical analysis using the chi-square test for independence revealed that the significant factors which influenced distance learners' information-seeking behaviour first of all directly relate to the learner him or herself, the individual context in which they work and the barriers that stem from that specific context, such as those imposed by time, distance and instructional approaches (pedagogy) as well as ease of access to required information sources. These are the variables that Wilson (1999) calls 'person-in-context' and 'intervening variables'. They include demographic, role-related / interpersonal, psychological, environmental and logistical variables as well as sources and their characteristics, the student's social networks and the student's information literacy skills. This leads to the construction and proposition of a new model of information-seeking behaviour that directly relates to distance learners. The study makes a series of recommendations for supporting the library and information needs of distance learners in the electronic age effectively. They include the following: the role of electronic provision; design for ease of access and ease of use; the need for access to physical libraries; the need for technical support; the need for student support in the broadest sense; the responsibility of the institution for full provision of information resources and for the provision of information literacy skills; the design of distance learning programmes with integral information design rather than merely a translation of on-campus programmes; the need for a communications strategy; and the role of the institution in education literacy skills for a better understanding and appreciation of the purpose of study

A realist synthesis and evaluation of the role and impact of occupational therapists in reablement services

Reablement services aim to improve the ability of people experiencing poor health or disability to complete daily living tasks. Existing studies of reablement have identified the primary role of occupational therapists as providers of equipment. This study proposed that occupational therapists have a broader role working with both service users and carers, and reablement support workers. The study aimed to evaluate the role of occupational therapists in reablement from the perspective of occupational therapists in practice and managers and reablement support workers who work with them.A realist approach was taken, commencing with a realist synthesis review of the literature that identified four programme theories concerning occupational therapists in reablement services. These included: the recognition of occupational therapists by others; holistic approaches to assessment and goal setting; the provision of equipment; and working with support workers. The programme theories were tested, refined and expanded using a qualitative case study design. Each of the three case studies consisted of a reablement service that comprised two organisations. Methods of the study included observations and interviews with occupational therapists in practice, interviews with managers and focus groups with reablement support workers. This study contributes to knowledge of occupational therapists in reablement services with the presentation of a conceptual framework for practice, incorporating the original programme theories and two new theories identified in the case study phase, concerning a team approach to reablement. Findings conclude that occupational therapists make a positive contribution to reablement services. Advanced clinical reasoning skills support occupational therapists to undertake assessments, person centred goal setting and select from their toolbox of interventions to support service users. Occupational therapists’ informal and formal training with support workers encourages a reabling ethos. Effective policies, good communication and co-location were identified as factors supporting team working and a shared purpose of reablement