House Prices, Disposable Income, and Permanent and Temporary Shocks

This paper specifies a two-variable system of house prices and income for N.Z., U.K. and the U.S., covering periods from 1973:4 through 2008:2. The analysis allows the identification of differences in house priceincome relationships over sub-periods and, using an SVAR approach, compares the responses of house prices when faced with permanent and transitory shocks to income. It continues by decomposing each historical house prices series into their permanent, temporary and deterministic components. Our results suggest that while real house prices have a long-run relationship with real income in all three economies, the responsiveness of house prices to innovations in income will vary over both time and markets depending on whether the income disturbances are viewed as permanent or temporary. The evidence suggests that N.Z. and U.K. housing markets are sensitive to both permanent and transitory shocks to income while the U.S. market reacts to temporary shocks with the permanent component having a largely insignificant role to play in house price composition. In N.Z. the temporary component of house prices has tended to be positive over time, pushing prices higher than they would have been otherwise while in the U.K. both permanent and temporary components have tended to reinforce each other. Overall, there is no clear consistent global pattern regarding the importance of these shocks which implies that housing markets will react differently to the vagaries of global and domestic economic activity driving such shocks

Enterprise and entrepreneurship in English higher education: 2010 and beyond

Objectives This article reports the results of a complete survey of enterprise education in all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in England, undertaken in 2010 by the Institute for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (ISBE) on behalf of the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE). The survey builds on prior work undertaken by the NCGE in England in 2006 and in 2007 (NCGE, 2007; Hannon, 2007). Approach The survey aimed to establish a complete picture of curricular and extra-curricular Enterprise & Enterpreneurship education. The survey uses a similar structure to the previous survey, enabling comparison to be made with enterprise provision over the 2006-2010 period, as well as with the 2008 European survey of entrepreneurship in HE (NIRAS, 2009). Results The results provide a stocktake of enterprise education provision in participating HEIs and highlight the connections in institutional strategies between enterprise education, incubation/new venture support, graduate employability, innovation and academic enterprise. It reveals ‘hotspots’ and gaps in enterprise provision and offers ‘benchmarks’ for the sector. Implications The article offers a summary of the implications for the future development and sustainability of enterprise education in HE, in relation to policy, funding and other changes in the sector. It also considers these issues in relation to recommendations from professional educators and Government policy for future development of enterprise in HE and comments on the policy impact of this work. Value The timing of the survey, in May-July 2010, was important as it reflected the end of a period of over ten years of sustained investment in enterprise in Higher Education by the previous Labour Government in the UK, through a range of funding initiatives. As major public expenditure reductions in support for HE and enterprise activity followed, this represented the ‘high water mark’ of publicly funded enterprise activity in the HE sector, and raised the question of how enterprise education and support activities would become sustainable for the future. The report analyses existing provision, assesses its development over the 2006-2010 period, and provides conclusions and recommendations covering future policy, development, resourcing, and sustainability of enterprise and entrepreneurship provision in Higher Education

Compiling a checklist guide for English Language development curricular programs

The purpose of this study is to create a curricular checklist guide that facilitates quality instruction for elementary level, grades K-6, second language learners

The utility of elaborative interrogation for university students studying expository text in preparation for matching and multiple-choice tests.

The purpose of the present research was to investigate the efficacy of elaborative interrogation for the types of tasks university students confront. The utility of the technique was evaluated for university students studying a university-level text on Canadian physiography in preparation for matching and multiple-choice (MC) tests. Three types of processing were contrasted (elaborative interrogation versus imagery versus self-study). Text information was presented in one of two formats (individually-presented facts or text) (i.e., a 3 x 2 factorial design). Hypotheses concerning the pattern of findings were based on consideration of both the processing used by the students and the processing prompted by the passage. It was expected that for both format conditions, elaborative-interrogation and imagery students would outperform the corresponding self-study controls on the matching and factual MC questions. Overall poor performance on the higher-level MC questions was expected for all groups regardless of format. Contrary to expectation, matching performance did not differ for the processing groups for either format condition. A secondary analysis was conducted including only those elaborative-interrogation and imagery students who ranked in the top half of their respective groups in generation of adequate responses. All self-study students were retained. For this supplementary analysis, the pattern of results changed. Students using elaborative interrogation achieved significantly higher matching scores than their corresponding self-study controls, for both format conditions. For this secondary analysis, it was only for the text-format condition that the imagery students outperformed their self-study controls. Think-aloud data indicated that students in the self-study groups were primarily relying on rote-learning techniques. There was no facilitation of factual MC performance for the elaborative-interrogation or imagery groups relative to the self study controls. For the higher-level MC questions only the elaborative-interrogation text-format students significantly outperformed their self-study controls (for primary and secondary analysis). Findings were discussed in terms of the types of generative processing prompted by elaborative-interrogation and imagery in contrast to the processing used by the self-study students.Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1994 .M3775. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: B, page: 6419. Adviser: A. Kobasigawa. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1994

Creating "Concord:" making a literary tourist town, 1825 -1910

This dissertation examines how Concord, Massachusetts became a heritage town in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Concord-based authors (including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott) at once contributed to Concord’s attractiveness as a location and took advantage of the growing reputation and popularity of the town as a tourist site. Their writings, rooted in Concord, drew attention to the town and to themselves as authors within it, while also elevating the stature of American literature. Linking literature and site-building, Concordians encouraged contemporaneous sightseeing in a curated landscape. This sets the origins of tourism and site-building in Concord earlier than standard academic narratives of Progressive Era preservation in New England. The primary contribution of this interdisciplinary study is to trace the ways in which collective memory was fashioned for an audience of literary “arm-chair travellers” and then employed to endow private houses with literary and historical importance to national heritage, as public locations to be visited and preserved in Concord’s landscape. This work traces the development of spiritualized “places” in Concord from Revolutionary War monument-building to Emerson’s literary community investing the landscape with poetic associations, Hawthorne’s engagement of tourism as an appeal to readers, and George William Curtis’s efforts to market Concord as a national literary retreat. It further examines Thoreau’s literary career in relation to his interest in local history, tourism, and museum-building in his hometown. Finally, the popularity of Alcott’s Little Women boosted tourism in Concord, and the increase of visitors coincided with projects to memorialize Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Transcendentalist movement in the landscape. These efforts culminated in the development of guide books and organized tours for visitors, and the emergence of a local souvenir industry. The study concludes with the institutionalization of historic house museums in the early twentieth century

The influence of parent gender on division of work in families of children with disabilities

This is a qualitative study which examined the influence of parent gender on division of work in families of children with disabilities. Thirty-three interviews were completed with mothers and fathers from ten families over a four year period. The study used a family systems framework to examine child and family characteristics, family perceptions, family interactions, and social roles and family work. Data was obtained through in-depth interviews and family stories and cross-cutting themes were identified and discussed. Results indicated mothers are continuing to assume the majority of the work including direct and indirect child care, and are experiencing role strain over the life cycle. The severity of disability increased the work and role demands placed on mothers. Fathers help out their wives, and both mothers and fathers perceived their relationships to be good. Both mothers and fathers expressed a need to perceive their child and family as normal and to persevere to define quality of life. Many fathers withdrew initially from their children with disabilities and their wives at the time of diagnosis. Fathers perceive their main role as financial manager and leader of the family and most of these parents discussed financial hardship due to disability. Implications are discussed for both future research and practice with families of children with disabilities.*;*Originally published in DAI Vol. 57, No. 4. Reprinted here with corrected author name

Exploration and Validation of the Camp Orientation and Experiences Scale

American summer camps have provided significant life experiences for camp counselors and staff for over 150 years. The purpose of this study was to identify and validate scale measures of philosophy, mission, and vision (PVM) with special regard to any differences in camp affiliation and camp counselor alumni (CCA) PVM manifestation. Preliminary assessment of 83 camp PVM revealed five general constructs in the scale and included: relationships formed, community involvement, environmental ethics, participation in healthful recreation, and religiosity. For the purpose of this study, camp affiliation was chosen as the main effect. This study used purposive sampling to recruit the participants; which consisted of counselors who had worked at a camp for at least 2 summers and had been out of the counselor position for at least one year (n = 213). A survey link to an online survey identified three camp types; Independent, Religious, and multi-camp affiliated. The exploratory Camp Orientation and Experiences Scale (COES) instrument developed for this study shogood internal consistency (.95) and the 5 PVM constructs were all highly correlated. Based on analyses, the COES developed for this effort appears to be a valid and reliable measure of PVM and predictor of the impact of camp experience on CCA lives. The results suggest that PVM differed among camp type. Specifically, the constructs focusing on the relationships formed at camp and environmental ethics were identified based on camp type and are the most meaningful measures of PVM within CCA current lives. In examining if males and females differed in the values they placed on the specific constructs of camp PVM in their daily lives, statistically significant differences were found in women and men on four of the five constructs, with women placing greater importance on relationships, community, environmental ethics, and religiosity. Camp administration may use this instrument to gain a better understanding of how CCA manifest the three camp-type PVM in their professional and personal relationships and that camp type instill strong environmental ethics, especially in women. Initial results indicate that the COES may be used as a tool to determine the level camp PVM affects lives of camp counselors long after their camp experiences and careers have ended. Future testing of the scale using a greater N and using control group comparisons is warranted

The effects of mixed mode survey designs on simple and complex analyses

Survey data can be collected in a number of ways. The survey organisation may use face-toface interviewing or telephone interviewing, or may ask respondents to complete questionnaires themselves, either online or on paper. It is becoming increasingly common for surveys to use a combination of these methods, a so-called “mixed mode” design. However, the choice of mode, or mix of modes, can affect the data that are collected and consequently also the estimates that are made based on those data. This can happen because different kinds of people are more likely to participate in different modes, or because people will give slightly different answers depending on the mode of interviewing. In this paper we compare estimates from surveys that used three different designs. One survey was a single mode survey, carried out entirely through face-to-face interviewing. The other two surveys were mixed mode surveys, involving face-to-face and telephone interviewing as well as online (web) questionnaires. The difference between the two mixed mode surveys was that in one case respondents were offered an explicit choice between the three interview modes, while in the other case respondents were first asked to complete a web questionnaire and only if they were unable or unwilling to do so were they then asked instead for a telephone interview. If the respondent was also unable or unwilling to carry out the telephone interview they were then asked for a face-to-face interview. Our main interest lies in comparing each of the mixed mode designs with the single mode design. An identical questionnaire was administered to each of the three samples, namely the round 4 questionnaire of the European Social Survey. We compare the distributions of answers to each survey question, and we also compare some estimates of regression coefficients from statistical models of the kind often used by political scientists. While many estimates show no significant difference between the survey designs, we conclude that some estimates are affected by the survey design. We find some suggestive evidence that this is likely to be, at least partly, due to differences in how people answer questions in different modes rather than due to different types of people taking part in the survey. We consequently urge caution in comparing estimates based on data collected using different (mixes of) modes and in the use of mixed mode survey designs