Student and tutor perceptions of effective tutoring in distance education

Questionnaire responses of 457 students and 602 tutors were used to investigate conceptions of a 'good tutor.' In each case, factor analysis identified scales that reflected key constructs; cluster analysis identified subgroups with different patterns of scale scores; and discriminant analysis determined the scales that contributed the most to differences among the clusters. Both sets of data yielded conceptions of tutoring that were described as task-oriented and student-oriented, respectively. The students' data yielded an additional, career-oriented conception. The tutors' data yielded two additional conceptions that were described as knowledge-oriented and impersonal, respectively. The distribution of the tutors' conceptions (but not that of the students' conceptions) varied across different faculties, suggesting that tutors from different disciplines have different beliefs about effective tutoring. The study suggests that both tutors and students would benefit from having a better appreciation of the importance of support in facilitating learnin

GPSM2 Mutations Cause the Brain Malformations and Hearing Loss in Chudley-McCullough Syndrome

Autosomal-recessive inheritance, severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss, and partial agenesis of the corpus callosum are hallmarks of the clinically well-established Chudley-McCullough syndrome (CMS). Although not always reported in the literature, frontal polymicrogyria and gray matter heterotopia are uniformly present, whereas cerebellar dysplasia, ventriculomegaly, and arachnoid cysts are nearly invariant. Despite these striking brain malformations, individuals with CMS generally do not present with significant neurodevelopmental abnormalities, except for hearing loss. Homozygosity mapping and whole-exome sequencing of DNA from affected individuals in eight families (including the family in the first report of CMS) revealed four molecular variations (two single-base deletions, a nonsense mutation, and a canonical splice-site mutation) in the G protein-signaling modulator 2 gene, GPSM2 , that underlie CMS. Mutations in GPSM2 have been previously identified in people with profound congenital nonsyndromic hearing loss (NSHL). Subsequent brain imaging of these individuals revealed frontal polymicrogyria, abnormal corpus callosum, and gray matter heterotopia, consistent with a CMS diagnosis, but no ventriculomegaly. The gene product, GPSM2, is required for orienting the mitotic spindle during cell division in multiple tissues, suggesting that the sensorineural hearing loss and characteristic brain malformations of CMS are due to defects in asymmetric cell divisions during development

The role of scientists and clinicians in raising public support for animal research in reproductive biology and medicine

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