Does a satisfying trip result in more future trips with that mode?

Previous studies have indicated that travel satisfaction – the experienced emotions during, and cognitive evaluation of, a trip – can be affected by travel mode choice and other trip characteristics. However, as satisfactory trips might improve a person’s attitudes toward the used mode, persons may be more likely to use that same mode for future trips of the same kind. Hence, a cyclical process between travel mode choice and travel satisfaction might occur. In this paper we analyse this process – using cross-sectional data – for people who engage in walking and cycling for leisure trips in the Belgian city of Ghent. The focus on walking and cycling reflects recent studies indicating that active travel is often associated with the highest levels of travel satisfaction. Results support the idea of a cyclical process; the evaluation of walking and cycling trips positively affects the respondents’ attitude towards the respective mode, which in turn has a positive effect on choosing that mode. Furthermore, results indicate a strong effect of life satisfaction on travel satisfaction, suggesting a strong impact of long-term happiness on short-term satisfaction

Supporting English language teachers doing further degrees at a distance:a web based strategy researched

This thesis explores how the world-wide-web can be used to support English language teachers doing further studies at a distance. The future of education worldwide is moving towards a requirement that we, as teacher educators, use the latest web technology not as a gambit, but as a viable tool to improve learning. By examining the literature on knowledge, teacher education and web training, a model of teacher knowledge development, along with statements of advice for web developers based upon the model are developed. Next, the applicability and viability of both the model and statements of advice are examined by developing a teacher support site (bttp://www. philseflsupport. com) according to these principles. The data collected from one focus group of users from sixteen different countries, all studying on the same distance Masters programme, is then analysed in depth. The outcomes from the research are threefold: A functioning website that is averaging around 15, 000 hits a month provides a professional contribution. An expanded model of teacher knowledge development that is based upon five theoretical principles that reflect the ever-expanding cyclical nature of teacher learning provides an academic contribution. A series of six statements of advice for developers of teacher support sites. These statements are grounded in the theoretical principles behind the model of teacher knowledge development and incorporate nine keys to effective web facilitation. Taken together, they provide a forward-looking contribution to the praxis of web supported teacher education, and thus to the potential dissemination of the research presented here. The research has succeeded in reducing the proliferation of terminology in teacher knowledge into a succinct model of teacher knowledge development. The model may now be used to further our understanding of how teachers learn and develop as other research builds upon the individual study here. NB: Appendix 4 is only available only available for consultation at Aston University Library with prior arrangement

Developing higher order thinking in medical education through reflective learning and research

Reflection in education is not a new concept for as Meiklejohn (1882) enthused, ‘learning is a social act.’ Dewey (1933), a key twentieth century instigator of the concept of reflection, expanded upon the ideas of earlier educators including Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Solomon, and Buddha (Houston, 1988). The preferred reflective model of Perioperative Critical Care pathway students at the University of Bedfordshire has been Reflection-for-Learning. This student-centred model of reflection was developed for their use to meet student identified needs

Impact of the global crisis on the achievement of the MDGs in Latin America

Progress towards the MDGs is expected to slow as a consequence of the global economic downturn. This study applies an economy-wide framework to analyze the impact of the crisis on MDG achievement in six Latin American countries. It finds significant setbacks towards the goals and, in the case of the region’s low-income countries, the cost of achieving these would rise between 1.6 and 3.4 per cent of GDP per year between 2010 and 2015 as compared with a no-crisis scenario. The additional public spending would contribute to economic growth though not sufficiently for full recovery to pre-crisis growth.computable general equilibrium models, distribution, welfare and poverty, foreign aid, macroeconomic analyses of economic development

Mapping the open education landscape: citation network analysis of historical open and distance education research

The term open education has recently been used to refer to topics such as Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Historically its roots lie in civil approaches to education and open universities, but this research is rarely referenced or acknowledged in current interpretations. In this article the antecedents of the modern open educational movement are examined, as the basis for connecting the various strands of research. Using a citation analysis method the key references are extracted and their relationships mapped. This work reveals eight distinct sub-topics within the broad open education area, with relatively little overlap. The implications for this are discussed and methods of improving inter-topic research are proposed

Public Choice: an Overview

Public Choice begins with the observation that in politics, as in economics, individuals and institutions compete for scarce resources and that, therefore, the same methods of analyses used by economists to explain the behaviour of consumers and producers might also serve well to explain the behaviour of governments and other (allegedly) “public-spirited” organisations . As Tullock (1988) succinctly put it, Public Choice is "the invasion of politics by economics". Public Choice derives its rationale from the fact that, in many areas, 'political' and 'economic' considerations interact so that a proper understanding of issues in one field requires a complementary understanding of issues in the other. Although the incursion of the analytical methods of economics into political science - which is the hall-mark of Public Choice - began in the 1950s, it was not until at least three decades later that the trickle became a flood. This chapter provides an overview of this field

The Italian Wage Curve. The Effects of the Recent Labour Market Reforms.

The Italian Wage Curve. The Effects of the Recent Labour Market Reforms The paper examines some effects of the recent reforms aimed at increasing flexibility in the Italian labour market. It shows their incapability to respond to the “inclusion” problem which still characterises the country. New temporary low-skill jobs were created but the reforms have neither enforced industrial competitiveness nor increased productivity. Far from solving the problems of a dual economy, de-regulation of Italian labour market has reinforced them and has concurrently eroded civil rights thereby making a departure form standards of health and morality. Excessive turnover of workers and firms is a major obstacle to human capital accumulation. A hostile territory produces social inequality, poverty and under- consumption that severely compromises growth. Key words: Labor and Demographic Economics; Wages, Compensation and Labor Costs; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials JEL Classification: J, J3, J31 Final version received May 200