Reciprocal peer coaching: A constructivist methodology for enhancing formative assessment strategy in tertiary education

Reciprocal peer coaching (RPC) as a form of peer-assisted learning has an important part to play in formative assessment strategy. The primary objective of this article is to evaluate the effective use of RPC as a formative assessment strategy. A multi-method phenomenological research design was employed using purposive sampling. Seventy students completed a qualitative focused questionnaire survey asking them to reflect on their experiences of reciprocal peer-coaching relationships. Content analysis of student perceptions resulted in the emergence of key themes including; RPC relationship process, the learning process and cognitive skills development. Powerful learning gains were reported by participants, and were characteristic of a successful RPC relationships. Overall the RPC relationship can greatly enhance deep level learning and aid the transfer of theory into practice to inform academic debate on the use of constructivist methodology for enhancing the use of formative assessment strategy within undergraduate business education

Using Biographical Texts as Linked Data for Prosopographical Research and Applications

This paper argues that representing texts as semantic Linked Data provides a useful basis for analyzing their contents in Digital Humanities research and for Cultural Heritage application development. The idea is to transform Cultural Heritage texts into a knowledge graph and a Linked Data service that can be used flexibly in different applications via a SPARQL endpoint. The argument is discussed and evaluated in the context of biographical and prosopographical research and a case study where over 13 000 life stories form biographical collections of Biographical Centre of the Finnish Literature Society were transformed into RDF, enriched by data linking, and published in a SPARQL endpoint. Tools for biography and prosopography, data clustering, network analysis, and linguistic analysis were created with promising first results.Peer reviewe

Metamoderni minuus ja postmoderni romanssi Pajtim Statovcin teoksessa Tiranan sydän

Tiivistelmä. Pro gradu -tutkielmassani tarkastelen, millä tavoin Pajtim Statovcin teoksen Tiranan sydän (2016) vastakohtaiset ja ristiriitaiset piirteet ilmentävät identiteetin ja kertomuksen yhteyttä sekä minuuden kokemusta nykykulttuurissa ja -yhteiskunnassa. Tiranan sydämestä löytyy sekä romanssille tyypillisiä ominaisuuksia että postmoderneja piirteitä, joiden keskinäisen ristiriitaisuuden näen heijastelevan erityisesti 2000-luvulla esille noussutta käsitystä kertomuksesta ja identiteetistä, jossa kertomus on saanut yhä suuremman, mutta samalla kiistanalaisen roolin. Lähestyn tutkimuksen kysymyksiä hyödyntäen metamodernia heilurimaista luentaa, jossa käytetään vuorotellen sekä kerronnan muotoihin liittyvää teoriaa että kriittistä tulkintaa. Toisaalta käytän metamodernismia myös kulttuurista tunnerakennetta kuvaavana käsitteenä, jolloin sovellan erityisesti Robin van den Akkerin ja Timotheus Vermeulenin käsitystä metamodernismista. Toisen tärkeän teoreettisen viitekehyksen tutkielmaani luo erityisesti Diane Elamin ja Heidi Hanssonin hyödyntämä postmodernin romanssin käsite, jota käytän Tiranan sydämen vastakohtaisten ja ristiriitaisten piirteiden analysoimiseen. Romanssin piirteiden hahmottamiseen käytän pääasiassa Northrop Fryen romanssiin liittyvää teoriaa sekä Carl Jungin arkkityyppeihin perustuvaa käsitteistöä. Hyödynnän tutkielmassani myös yleisemmin jälkistrukturalistisia teorioita ja käsitteitä, joista keskeisimpiä ovat Stuart Hallin postmoderni subjekti, Judith Butlerin performatiivisuuden käsite, queer-teoria sekä liminaali tila. Tutkielmassani osoitan, että Tiranan sydän kuvaa osuvasti mitä merkitsee olla ihmisyksilö nykyhetken yhteiskunnallisessa ja kulttuurisessa ilmapiirissä. Tätä kokemusta nimitän tutkielmassani metamoderniksi minuudeksi, jonka käsitän nykykulttuuriin paikannettavaksi ristiriitaiseksi yksilökokemukseksi. Analyysini perusteella Tiranan sydän kuvaa metamodernia minuutta sekä yleisemmin nykykulttuurin tunnerakennetta juuri ristiriitaisten piirteidensä, mutta myös henkilöhahmokuvaustensa kautta. Tulen myös siihen tulokseen, että Tiranan sydämen sisältämät erilaiset kertomukset ja erityisesti niiden suhde identiteettiin heijastelevat kertomuksen uuden aallon mukaista kertomuksen merkityksen ja arvon palautumista. Osoitan tämän luovan sekä positiivisia että negatiivisia ilmiöitä. Havaitsen uuden kertomuksellisuuden muovaavan lisäksi uudenlaista identiteettikäsitystä, joka nousee postmodernin subjektikäsityksen rinnalle. Tiranan sydän osoittaakin, että kertomuksen merkityksen voimistuminen ei välttämättä horjuta postmodernia, konstruktiivisuuden tiedostavaa ymmärrystä maailmasta. Yleisemmällä tasolla osoitan tutkielmassani, että romanssin sekä postmodernin kaltaiset kirjalliset ilmaisutavat ja kulttuuriset ilmiöt voivat toimia yhdessä ja luoda uudenlaista, ylirajaista kuvaa kertomuksesta, identiteetistä ja yksilöstä

Long-Term Reward Patterns Contribute to Personal Goals at Work Among Finnish Managers

The research addresses the impact of long-term reward patterns on contents of personal work goals among young Finnish managers (N = 747). Reward patterns were formed on the basis of perceived and objective career rewards (i.e., career stability and promotions) across four measurements (years 2006 –2012). Goals were measured in 2012 and classified into categories of competence, progression, well-being, job change, job security, organization, and financial goals. The factor mixture analysis identified a three-class solution as the best model of reward patterns: High rewards (77%); Increasing rewards (17%); and Reducing rewards (7%). Participants with Reducing rewards reported more progression, well-being, job change and financial goals than participants with High rewards as well as fewer competence and organizational goals than participants with Increasing rewards. Workplace resources can be in a key role in facilitating goals towards building competence and organizational performance

The stellar content of low redshift radio galaxies from near-infrared spectroscopy

We present medium spectral resolution near-infrared (NIR) HK-band spectra for 8 low redshift (z<0.06) radio galaxies to study the NIR stellar properties of their host galaxies. As a homogeneous comparison sample, we used 9 inactive elliptical galaxies that were observed with similar resolution and wavelength range. The aim of the study is to compare the NIR spectral properties of radio galaxies to those of inactive early-type galaxies and, furthermore, produce the first NIR HK-band spectra for low redshift radio galaxies. For both samples spectral indices of several diagnostic absorption features, SiI(1.589microns), CO(1.619microns), NaI(2.207microns), CaI(2.263microns), CO(>2.29microns), were measured. To characterize the age of the populations, the measured EWs of the absorption features were fitted with the corresponding theoretical evolutionary curves of the EWs calculated by the stellar synthesis model. On average, EW(CO 2.29) of radio galaxies is somewhat greater than that of inactive ellipticals. Most likely, EW(CO 2.29) is not significantly affected by dilution, and thus indicating that elliptical galaxies containing AGN are in a different stage in their evolution than inactive ellipticals. This is also supported by comparing other NIR features, such as CaI and NaI, with each other. Absorption features are consistent with the intermediate age stellar population, suggesting that host galaxies contain both an old and intermediate age components. It is consistent with previous optical spectroscopy studies which have shown evidence on the intermediate age (~2 Gyr) stellar population of radio galaxies, and also in some of the early-type galaxies. The existence of intermediate age population is a link between the star formation episode, possibly induced by interaction or merging event, and the triggering of the nuclear activity.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

The International Trade Network: weighted network analysis and modelling

Tools of the theory of critical phenomena, namely the scaling analysis and universality, are argued to be applicable to large complex web-like network structures. Using a detailed analysis of the real data of the International Trade Network we argue that the scaled link weight distribution has an approximate log-normal distribution which remains robust over a period of 53 years. Another universal feature is observed in the power-law growth of the trade strength with gross domestic product, the exponent being similar for all countries. Using the 'rich-club' coefficient measure of the weighted networks it has been shown that the size of the rich-club controlling half of the world's trade is actually shrinking. While the gravity law is known to describe well the social interactions in the static networks of population migration, international trade, etc, here for the first time we studied a non-conservative dynamical model based on the gravity law which excellently reproduced many empirical features of the ITN.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

The quasar M_bh - M_host relation through Cosmic Time I - Dataset and black hole masses

We study the M_bh - M_host relation as a function of Cosmic Time in a sample of 96 quasars from z=3 to the present epoch. In this paper we describe the sample, the data sources and the new spectroscopic observations. We then illustrate how we derive M_bh from single-epoch spectra, pointing out the uncertainties in the procedure. In a companion paper, we address the dependence of the ratio between the black hole mass and the host galaxy luminosity and mass on Cosmic Time.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Structure and tie strengths in mobile communication networks

Electronic databases, from phone to emails logs, currently provide detailed records of human communication patterns, offering novel avenues to map and explore the structure of social and communication networks. Here we examine the communication patterns of millions of mobile phone users, allowing us to simultaneously study the local and the global structure of a society-wide communication network. We observe a coupling between interaction strengths and the network's local structure, with the counterintuitive consequence that social networks are robust to the removal of the strong ties, but fall apart following a phase transition if the weak ties are removed. We show that this coupling significantly slows the diffusion process, resulting in dynamic trapping of information in communities, and find that when it comes to information diffusion, weak and strong ties are both simultaneously ineffective.Comment: 30 pages (manuscript + supplementary material), 11 figure

Near-infrared spectroscopy of stellar populations in nearby spiral galaxies

We present high spatial resolution, medium spectral resolution near-infrared (NIR) H- and K-band long-slit spectroscopy for a sample of 29 nearby (z < 0.01) inactive spiral galaxies, to study the composition of their NIR stellar populations. These spectra contain a wealth of diagnostic stellar absorption lines, e.g. MgI 1.575 micron, SiI 1.588 micron, CO (6-3) 1.619 micron, MgI 1.711 micron, NaI 2.207 micron, CaI 2.263 micron and the 12CO and 13CO bandheads longward of 2.29 micron. We use NIR absorption features to study the stellar population and star formation properties of the spiral galaxies along the Hubble sequence, and we produce the first high spatial resolution NIR HK-band template spectra for low redshift spiral galaxies along the Hubble sequence. These templates will find applications in a variety of galaxy studies. The strength of the absorption lines depends on the luminosity and/or temperature of stars and, therefore, spectral indices can be used to trace the stellar population of galaxies. The entire sample testifies that the evolved red stars completely dominate the NIR spectra, and that the hot young star contribution is virtually nonexistent.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures. Accepted to MNRAS. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:astro-ph/040313