School Climate Development Survey

Over the last twenty-five years the Consortium on Chicago School Research has engaged in systematic study of more than 400 Chicago Public Schools to determine organizational traits that are related to improvement in student learning. This effort was designed to help explain widely divergent levels of student success between very similar schools in the Chicago system. Initial discussions with educators at all levels, reviews of previous research, pilot studies, and field studies led to the identification of five school contextual factors – the 5Essential Supports – determined to be critical to school success: (1) effective leaders, (2) collaborative teachers, (3) involved families, (4) supportive environment, and (5) ambitious instruction. The framework of the 5Essential Supports served as a theoretical basis for a survey effort designed to measures and report on facets of school culture that could then be used by school leaders and practitioners to guide school improvement efforts. Research related to the 5Essential Supports consistently demonstrates a strong relationship between the presence of these supports and gains in student achievement. Led by Dr. James McMillan and Dr. Charol Shakeshaft from VCU’s School of Education, the purpose of this MERC study was (1) to develop a shortened version of the 5Essentials staff climate survey for the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium schools, (2) to pilot test the new survey with teachers and administrators, and (3) to determine effective methods of dissemination to support schools use f the survey data for school improvement purposes. The piloting and validation phase of the study demonstrated that the core constructs underlying the 5Essentials maintained high levels of validity and reliability in the shortened version. MERC also piloted and received feedback from school leaders on formats for reporting school climate results

The politics of emergency and the demise of the developing state: problems for humanitarian advocacy

This article discusses the dilemmas of humanitarian advocacy in the contemporary world. First the article considers the crisis of humanitarianism within the wider crisis of meaning in international politics which encouraged humanitarian advocacy. Humanitarian advocacy in the last fifteen years has drawn attention to how humanitarian crises have been precipitated by state policies and has sought international intervention to protect people. Accordingly humanitarian advocacy has become associated with challenging the national sovereignty of the developing state. However rather than the strong sovereign state lying behind today’s humanitarian crises, the article contends that the weak state is the problem. The article suggests that the existing humanitarian advocacy paradigm risks legitimising further erosion of weak states. Humanitarian advocacy has arguably complimented neoliberal economic policies hollowing out the developing state and abandoning national development. The article concludes that humanitarian advocacy should prioritise reasserting the importance of humanitarian relief without conditionality and how to regain humanitarian access on the basis of consent. A later revised and proofed version of this article was published as follows :- Vanessa Pupavac (2006) ‘The politics of emergency and the demise of the developing state: problems for humanitarian advocacy.’ Development in Practice, Special Issue on Current Issues in International Humanitarianism, Vol. 16, Nos. 3&4, June, 2006, pp. 255-269 (first article in special issue). Article reprinted in Tony Vaux (ed.) Development and Humanitarianism: Some Practical Issues. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press, 2007, pp. 27-49

Computer-Assisted Language Learning and the Revolution in Computational Linguistics

For a long period, Computational Linguistics (CL) and Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) have developed almost entirely independently of each other. A brief historical survey shows that the main reason for this state of affairs was the long preoccupation in CL with the general problem of Natural Language Understanding (NLU). As a consequence, much effort was directed to fields such as Machine Translation (MT), which were perceived as incorporating and testing NLU. CALL does not fit this model very well so that it was hardly considered worth pursuing in CL. In the 1990s the realization that products could not live up to expectations, even in the domain of MT, led to a crisis. After this crisis the dominant approach to CL has become much more problem-oriented. From this perspective, many of the earlier differences disadvantaging CALL with respect to MT have now disappeared. Therefore the revolution in CL offers promising perspectives for CALL

Exploring students’ experience and perceptions of the Somatology extended curriculum programme at the Durban University of Technology

The South African higher education had faced scrutiny in recent years due to the low participation and high attrition rates. In an attempt to address this, institutions have introduced additional programmes such as Extended Curriculum Programmes (ECP). In this study, an interpretive research paradigm was followed to explore students' experiences and perceptions of the Somatology ECP programme at the Durban University of Technology. A semi-structured were conducted with 69 graduates of the Somatology ECP programme. The participants hold the view that social integration, reduce academic workload contributed to their academic performance.  It emerged that identity crisis, lack of awareness was the cause why some of the students had drop-out. The participants perceive that supports the subject, the staff and mentors supports influences their academic success through the programme. The study suggests that ECP is a successful programme in the Somatology programme with the potential to significantly increase the academic success of students.      &nbsp

Facilitators and Impediments to Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating Risk-Based Policing Strategies Using Risk Terrain Modeling: Insights from a Multi-City Evaluation in the United States

The contemporary policing literature contains numerous examples of partnerships between academic researchers and police agencies. Such efforts have greatly contributed to evidence-based policing by increasing the knowledge base on effective strategies. However, research has demonstrated that successful collaboration between researchers and practitioners can be a challenge, with various organizational and inter-agency factors presenting difficulties at various stages of the process. Additionally, applied research can oftentimes face implementation challenges when the time comes to convert research into practice. The current study contributes to the literature by discussing researcher/practitioner partnerships and program implementation in the context of a multi-city risk-based policing project in the United States. We conceptualize police interventions as contingent on four distinct phases: 1) problem analysis, 2) project design, 3) project implementation, and 4) project evaluation. In this project, the research partners were able to successfully complete each phase in certain cities while the project experienced difficulty at one or more phases in other cities. We discuss these disparate experiences, identifying factors that facilitate or impede successful completion of each step. Policy implications and recommendations for future risk-based policing interventions are discussed

Faculty Socialization of Graduate Students’ Attitudes and Perceptions Toward the IRB

Graduate student mistrust and fear of the institutional review board (IRB) is an issue that is commonly encountered at academic institutions. Research has shown that students emulate and are vulnerable to assuming the norms of faculty, which is supported by research that shows that students who have difficult relationships with the IRB often have faculty mentors who also have difficult relationships with the IRB. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how novice researchers’ perceptions of the IRB changed through their research submission and IRB interactions required during the IRB approval process, as well as to identify the factors that influenced their attitudes or attitude changes. Novice researchers were recruited from Facebook groups geared toward doctoral students and completed questionnaires to explore participants’ expectations and perceptions, as well as to identify the factors that influenced their attitudes or attitude changes. The findings from this small sample suggest that optimistic and positive messages are being conveyed to students by influencers but may not be treated in the same way that negative or cautionary tales are. Further, there are sources of influence on the IRB experience other than faculty that may dilute the faculty’s influence