Information technology in pre-service teacher education within a New Zealand College of Education : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education at Massey University

This thesis examines the use of Information Technology (IT) by lecturers and pre-service student teachers at the Auckland College of Education to provide a basis for future development of policy and programmes. The concept of IT is examined and the term defined in terms of a broad range of artefacts, knowledge and skills which includes the use of computers, but also other technologies for handling and storing information. Information skills are also identified as being an important component of IT. The development of IT use in pre-service teacher education is examined in New Zealand, and for comparison in the United Kingdom, the U.S.A. and Australia. The survey demonstrates that the place of IT in pre-service teacher education was originally ignored by education authorities in those countries in favour of in-service teacher education, but in recent years has has become the subject of official concern and, overseas, action. The establishment of goals and standards for pre-service IT teacher education is one reflection of this concern in a number of countries. The literature indicates a number of issues that need to be addressed if pre-service teacher education institutions are to successfully prepare teachers to work in IT- enhanced schools. These include the development of teacher education programmes which integrate IT and emphasise its pedagogical use, the. provision of adequate IT teaching experience for student teachers, the provision of resources and staff development for teacher educators. A survey of lecturers, first and final year primary student teachers, and graduating secondary student teachers indicates that, while all groups have a high degree of access to computers and many have basis skills in using software, the use of computers and other information technologies within the College curriculum is limited. All groups believe that skills in using IT are important for beginning teachers but most lecturers do not model its use or teach its use in schools. Students have limited experience in using IT during practicum sessions, and lecturers, themselves, have limited practical experience of IT in education. The importance of strategies indicated by the literature for improving this aspect of pre-service teacher education is supported by the findings of the research. The various factors identified as influencing pre-service teacher education are summarised in a model which draws attention to the different sites in which students develop a range of skills, knowledge and attitudes, all of which affect their understanding and capacity to use IT in their teaching roles. In the light of these findings, and the absence of any previous New Zealand research in this area, the study identifies areas where there is a need for further research. It is argued that such research is urgently needed in view of growing concern at the ineffectiveness of pre-service teacher education in this area

Optimal sliding scale regulation: An application to regional electricity distribution in England and Wales

This paper examines optimal price (i.e. ‘sliding scale’) regulation of a monopoly when productivity and managerial effort are not observed. We show how to operationalise this model of incentive regulation and use actual data from electricity distribution in England and Wales to make welfare comparisons of sliding scale regulation with a stylised price cap regime and the First-Best (the full information case). Our method enables us to quantify technical uncertainty as faced by the electricity regulator in the 1990s and shows that there are significant welfare gains from a sliding scale relative to the stylised price cap regime.Sliding scale, regulation, electricity distribution

Blind Admission? The ability of NSC maths to signal competence in university commerce courses as compared to the former SC Higher Grade maths

Mathematics is an important signal used for admission into commerce courses in South African universities. In 2008 the new National Senior Certificate replaced the former Senior Certificate. This new exam no longer had different grades and thus created a structural break in the ability of the mathematics mark to signal preparedness for university. Although the Department of Education provided a “translation” key between the two Certificates, the University of the Witwatersrand (and other universities) admitted many more students in 2009 that met the entry requirements than previously. However, this cohort has lower average test and exam scores than previous years. This suggests that marks obtained for mathematics in the new National Senior Certificate are inflated when compared to the former Senior Certificate. This paper uses similar tests, for two commerce subjects, written by students in 2008 and 2009 to create a comparison between the mathematics marks under the two different certificates. The results suggest that marks in the range of 40-100% for Higher Grade mathematics for the Senior Certificate are now compressed into the 70-95% range for the new National Senior Certificate. This significantly weakens the ability of the school-leaving mathematics mark to signal the ability of students to cope with first year commerce courses.Mathematics, National Senior Certificate, Economics 1, first year, Commerce courses, South Africa

Nonviolent Protest and Third Party Public Opinion: A Study of the June 1978, Seabrook, New Hampshire, Antinuclear Power Protest

Political protest and nonviolent struggle have had a long history in the United States, dating back to colonial times. During the nineteenth century, nonviolence was associated with such causes as abolition, temperance, antimilitarism, and women\u27s suffrage. More recently, the nonviolent tactics and strategies used in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1950s and 1960s spawned similar activity on a diverse array of issues, including urban poverty, Native American rights, welfare reform, homosexuality, women\u27s rights, and environmental pollution. Although many of these movements have been chronicled and protest has been recognized as an effective method for influencing political and social policy, less is known about the ways by which protest operates to exert such effects. One aspect of this process, the ability of protesters to influence third-party observers, forms the focus of the present study. Surveying the data collected shortly after the 1978 demonstration against the construction of the Seabrook, New Hampshire, nuclear power plant provides an opportunity to examine the views of local townspeople toward the antinuclear protesters. Specifically, this research addresses the following four groups of questions: 1. How did third-party observers view construction of the Seabrook nuclear power plant and how did they view demonstrations against construction in terms of legitimacy and appeal? 2. Did third parties perceive the protesters as immature troublemakers or as responsible citizens, and did third parties view the protest as mostly violent or mostly peaceful? 3. To what extent did the protest group\u27s ability to contact the public and legitimize its issue increase its appeal ? Furthermore, how were the protest group\u27s abilities to contact the public, to legitimize its issue, and to generate public appeal interrelated? 4. How did the social and ideological backgrounds of third-party observers relate to the ways in which they perceived protest?https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hcas_dcrs_facbooks/1016/thumbnail.jp

Does distrust in providers affect health-care utilization in China?

How trust affects health-care utilization is not well-understood, especially in low- and middle-income countries. This article focuses on China, a middle-income country where low trust in health-care settings has become a prominent issue, but actual levels of distrust and their implications for utilization are unknown. We conducted a nationally representative survey of the Chinese population (November 2012 to January 2013), which resulted in a sample of 3680 adult men and women. Respondents rated their trust in different types of health-care providers. Using multivariate logistic and negative binomial regression models, we estimated the association between distrust in clinics and respondents' hospital visits in the last year; whether they had sought hospital treatment first for two common symptoms (headache, cold) in the last 2 months; and whether they said they would go first to a hospital if they had a minor or major illness. We analysed these associations before and after adjusting for performance evaluations of clinics and hospitals, controlling for sex, age, education, income, insurance status, household registration and self-assessed health. We found that distrust in hospitals is low, but distrust in clinics is high and strongly associated with increased hospital utilization, especially for minor symptoms and illnesses. Further research is needed to understand the reasons for distrust in clinics because its effects are not fully accounted for by poor evaluations of their competence. © 2016 The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved

A Data Cube Extraction Pipeline for a Coronagraphic Integral Field Spectrograph

Project 1640 is a high contrast near-infrared instrument probing the vicinities of nearby stars through the unique combination of an integral field spectrograph with a Lyot coronagraph and a high-order adaptive optics system. The extraordinary data reduction demands, similar those which several new exoplanet imaging instruments will face in the near future, have been met by the novel software algorithms described herein. The Project 1640 Data Cube Extraction Pipeline (PCXP) automates the translation of 3.8*10^4 closely packed, coarsely sampled spectra to a data cube. We implement a robust empirical model of the spectrograph focal plane geometry to register the detector image at sub-pixel precision, and map the cube extraction. We demonstrate our ability to accurately retrieve source spectra based on an observation of Saturn's moon Titan.Comment: 35 pages, 15 figures; accepted for publication in PAS

Adding dynamics to structure/function studies in microbiology two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy

Microbiology is a pioneering discipline. Many of the fundamental processes of biology were first elucidated in microbial systems - deciphering the genetic code, the one gene-one enzyme hypothesis, the mRNA hypothesis, the first genome sequences, and many more key biological breakthroughs were all the result of microbiologists! In an age where interdisciplinary projects are encouraged it is easy to be cynical. However, true collaborations between biologists and physicists can lead to fascinating insight into biological systems, especially when exciting new techniques can be applied to biology