Teacher stance as reflected in feedback on student writing: An empirical study of secondary school teachers in five countries

This study examines the feedback practices of 110 EFL teachers from five different countries (Cyprus, France, Korea, Spain, and Thailand), working in secondary school contexts. All provided feedback on the same student essay. The coding scheme developed to analyse the feedback operates on two axes: the stance the teachers assumed when providing feedback, and the focus of their feedback. Most teachers reacted as language teachers, rather than as readers of communication. The teachers overwhelmingly focused on grammar in their feedback and assumed what we called a Provider role, providing the correct forms for the student. A second role, Initiator, was also present, in which teachers indicate errors or issues to the learner but expect the learner to pick this up and work on it. This role was associated with a more even spread of feedback focus, where teachers also provided feedback on other areas, such as lexis, style and discourse.

The effects of scene heterogeneity on soil moisture retrieval from passive microwave data

The s–x model of microwave emission from soil and vegetation layers is widely used to estimate soil moisture content from passive microwave observations. Its application to prospective satellite-based observations aggregating several thousand square kilometres requires understanding of the effects of scene heterogeneity. The effects of heterogeneity in soil surface roughness, soil moisture, water area and vegetation density on the retrieval of soil moisture from simulated single- and multi-angle observing systems were tested. Uncertainty in water area proved the most serious problem for both systems, causing errors of a few percent in soil moisture retrieval. Single-angle retrieval was largely unaffected by the other factors studied here. Multiple-angle retrievals errors around one percent arose from heterogeneity in either soil roughness or soil moisture. Errors of a few percent were caused by vegetation heterogeneity. A simple extension of the model vegetation representation was shown to reduce this error substantially for scenes containing a range of vegetation types.

A comparison of three different models for estimating relative risk in meta-analysis of clinical trials under unobserved heterogeneity

We focus on the comparison of three statistical models used to estimate the treatment effect in metaanalysis when individually pooled data are available. The models are two conventional models, namely a multi-level and a model based upon an approximate likelihood, and a newly developed model, the profile likelihood model which might be viewed as an extension of the Mantel-Haenszel approach. To exemplify these methods, we use results from a meta-analysis of 22 trials to prevent respiratory tract infections. We show that by using the multi-level approach, in the case of baseline heterogeneity, the number of clusters or components is considerably over-estimated. The approximate and profile likelihood method showed nearly the same pattern for the treatment effect distribution. To provide more evidence two simulation studies are accomplished. The profile likelihood can be considered as a clear alternative to the approximate likelihood model. In the case of strong baseline heterogeneity, the profile likelihood method shows superior behaviour when compared with the multi-level model. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Driving places - Marc Augé, non-places, and the geographies of England's M1 motorway

In this article I provide a critical account of the 'placing' of England's M1 motor-way. I start by critiquing Marc Auge's anthropological writings on 'non-places' which have provided a common point of reference for academics discussing spaces of travel, consumption and exchange in the contemporary world. I argue that Auge's ethnology of supermodernity results in a rather partial account of these sites, that he overstates the novelty of contemporary experiences of these spaces, and that he fails to acknowledge the heterogeneity and materiality of the social networks bound up with the production of non-places/places. I suggest that, rather than focusing on the presences and absences associated with the polarities of place and non-place, academics should examine the multiple, partial, dynamic and relational 'placings' which arise through the diverse performances and movements associated with travel, consumption and exchange. I then trace the topologies of England's M1 motorway, examining some of the different ways in which the motorway has been assembled, performed and placed over the past 45 years.

Meta-analysis of individual patient data from randomised trials: a review of methods used in practice

Background: Meta-analyses based on individual patient data (IPD) are regarded as the gold standard for systematic reviews. However, the methods used for analysing and presenting results from IPD meta-analyses have received little discussion. Methods We review 44 IPD meta-analyses published during the years 1999–2001. We summarize whether they obtained all the data they sought, what types of approaches were used in the analysis, including assumptions of common or random effects, and how they examined the effects of covariates. Results: Twenty-four out of 44 analyses focused on time-to-event outcomes, and most analyses (28) estimated treatment effects within each trial and then combined the results assuming a common treatment effect across trials. Three analyses failed to stratify by trial, analysing the data is if they came from a single mega-trial. Only nine analyses used random effects methods. Covariate-treatment interactions were generally investigated by subgrouping patients. Seven of the meta-analyses included data from less than 80% of the randomized patients sought, but did not address the resulting potential biases. Conclusions: Although IPD meta-analyses have many advantages in assessing the effects of health care, there are several aspects that could be further developed to make fuller use of the potential of these time-consuming projects. In particular, IPD could be used to more fully investigate the influence of covariates on heterogeneity of treatment effects, both within and between trials. The impact of heterogeneity, or use of random effects, are seldom discussed. There is thus considerable scope for enhancing the methods of analysis and presentation of IPD meta-analysis.

A comparison of the active surveillance of scrapie in the European Union

The abattoir and the fallen stock surveys constitute the active surveillance component aimed at improving the detection of scrapie across the European Union. Previous studies have suggested the occurrence of significant differences in the operation of the surveys across the EU. In the present study we assessed the standardisation of the surveys throughout time across the EU and identified clusters of countries with similar underlying characteristics allowing comparisons between them. In the absence of sufficient covariate information to explain the observed variability across countries, we modelled the unobserved heterogeneity by means of non-parametric distributions on the risk ratios of the fallen stock over the abattoir survey. More specifically, we used the profile likelihood method on 2003, 2004 and 2005 active surveillance data for 18 European countries on classical scrapie, and on 2004 and 2005 data for atypical scrapie separately. We extended our analyses to include the limited covariate information available, more specifically, the proportion of the adult sheep population sampled by the fallen stock survey every year. Our results show that the between-country heterogeneity dropped in 2004 and 2005 relative to that of 2003 for classical scrapie. As a consequence, the number of clusters in the last two years was also reduced indicating the gradual standardisation of the surveillance efforts across the EU. The crude analyses of the atypical data grouped all the countries in one cluster and showed non-significant gain in the detection of this type of scrapie by any of the two sources. The proportion of the population sampled by the fallen stock appeared significantly associated with our risk ratio for both types of scrapie, although in opposite directions: negative for classical and positive for atypical. The initial justification for the fallen stock, targeting a high-risk population to increase the likelihood of case finding, appears compromised for both types of scrapie in some countries.

Developmental trends in lexical diversity.

This article discusses issues in measuring lexical diversity, before outlining an approach based on mathematical modelling that produces a measure, D, designed to address these problems. The procedure for obtaining values for D directly from transcripts using software (vocd) is introduced, and then applied to thirty-two children from the Bristol Study of Language Development (Wells 1985) at ten different ages. A significant developmental trend is shown for D and an indication is given of the average scores and ranges to be expected between the ages of 18 and 42 months and at 5 years for these L1 English speakers. The meaning attributable to further ranges of values for D is illustrated by analysing the lexical diversity of academic writing, and its wider application is demonstrated with examples from specific language impairment, morphological development, and foreign/second language learning.

Television and the popular: viewing from the British perspective

The academic discipline of television studies has been constituted by the claim that television is worth studying because it is popular. Yet this claim has also entailed a need to defend the subject against the triviality that is associated with the television medium because of its very popularity. This article analyses the many attempts in the later twentieth and twenty-first centuries to constitute critical discourses about television as a popular medium. It focuses on how the theoretical currents of Television Studies emerged and changed in the UK, where a disciplinary identity for the subject was founded by borrowing from related disciplines, yet argued for the specificity of the medium as an object of criticism. Eschewing technological determinism, moral pathologization and sterile debates about television's supposed effects, UK writers such as Raymond Williams addressed television as an aspect of culture. Television theory in Britain has been part of, and also separate from, the disciplinary fields of media theory, literary theory and film theory. It has focused its attention on institutions, audio-visual texts, genres, authors and viewers according to the ways that research problems and theoretical inadequacies have emerged over time. But a consistent feature has been the problem of moving from a descriptive discourse to an analytical and evaluative one, and from studies of specific texts, moments and locations of television to larger theories. By discussing some historically significant critical work about television, the article considers how academic work has constructed relationships between the different kinds of objects of study. The article argues that a fundamental tension between descriptive and politically activist discourses has confused academic writing about ›the popular‹. Television study in Britain arose not to supply graduate professionals to the television industry, nor to perfect the instrumental techniques of allied sectors such as advertising and marketing, but to analyse and critique the medium's aesthetic forms and to evaluate its role in culture. Since television cannot be made by ›the people‹, the empowerment that discourses of television theory and analysis aimed for was focused on disseminating the tools for critique. Recent developments in factual entertainment television (in Britain and elsewhere) have greatly increased the visibility of ›the people‹ in programmes, notably in docusoaps, game shows and other participative formats. This has led to renewed debates about whether such ›popular‹ programmes appropriately represent ›the people‹ and how factual entertainment that is often despised relates to genres hitherto considered to be of high quality, such as scripted drama and socially-engaged documentary television. A further aspect of this problem of evaluation is how television globalisation has been addressed, and the example that the issue has crystallised around most is the reality TV contest Big Brother. Television theory has been largely based on studying the texts, institutions and audiences of television in the Anglophone world, and thus in specific geographical contexts. The transnational contexts of popular television have been addressed as spaces of contestation, for example between Americanisation and national or regional identities. Commentators have been ambivalent about whether the discipline's role is to celebrate or critique television, and whether to do so within a national, regional or global context. In the discourses of the television industry, ›popular television‹ is a quantitative and comparative measure, and because of the overlap between the programming with the largest audiences and the scheduling of established programme types at the times of day when the largest audiences are available, it has a strong relationship with genre. The measurement of audiences and the design of schedules are carried out in predominantly national contexts, but the article refers to programmes like Big Brother that have been broadcast transnationally, and programmes that have been extensively exported, to consider in what ways they too might be called popular. Strands of work in television studies have at different times attempted to diagnose what is at stake in the most popular programme types, such as reality TV, situation comedy and drama series. This has centred on questions of how aesthetic quality might be discriminated in television programmes, and how quality relates to popularity. The interaction of the designations ›popular‹ and ›quality‹ is exemplified in the ways that critical discourse has addressed US drama series that have been widely exported around the world, and the article shows how the two critical terms are both distinct and interrelated. In this context and in the article as a whole, the aim is not to arrive at a definitive meaning for ›the popular‹ inasmuch as it designates programmes or indeed the medium of television itself. Instead the aim is to show how, in historically and geographically contingent ways, these terms and ideas have been dynamically adopted and contested in order to address a multiple and changing object of analysis.

Connections between concepts revealed by the electronic structure of carbon monoxide

Different models for the electronic structure of carbon monoxide are suggested in influential textbooks. Therefore, this electronic structure offers an interesting subject in teaching because it can be used as an example to relate seemingly conflicting concepts. Understanding the connections between ostensibly different methods and between different concepts, related or conflicting, is important in academic studies. The related reactivities of CO, O2, and N-2 and the notations of molecular orbitals are topics of interest and are discussed in detail.

Proceedings of the inaugural construction management and economics ‘Past, Present and Future’ conference CME25, 16-18 July 2007, University of Reading, UK

This conference was an unusual and interesting event. Celebrating 25 years of Construction Management and Economics provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the research that has been reported over the years, to consider where we are now, and to think about the future of academic research in this area. Hence the sub-title of this conference: “past, present and future”. Looking through these papers, some things are clear. First, the range of topics considered interesting has expanded hugely since the journal was first published. Second, the research methods are also more diverse. Third, the involvement of wider groups of stakeholder is evident. There is a danger that this might lead to dilution of the field. But my instinct has always been to argue against the notion that Construction Management and Economics represents a discipline, as such. Granted, there are plenty of university departments around the world that would justify the idea of a discipline. But the vast majority of academic departments who contribute to the life of this journal carry different names to this. Indeed, the range and breadth of methodological approaches to the research reported in Construction Management and Economics indicates that there are several different academic disciplines being brought to bear on the construction sector. Some papers are based on economics, some on psychology and others on operational research, sociology, law, statistics, information technology, and so on. This is why I maintain that construction management is not an academic discipline, but a field of study to which a range of academic disciplines are applied. This may be why it is so interesting to be involved in this journal. The problems to which the papers are applied develop and grow. But the broad topics of the earliest papers in the journal are still relevant today. What has changed a lot is our interpretation of the problems that confront the construction sector all over the world, and the methodological approaches to resolving them. There is a constant difficulty in dealing with topics as inherently practical as these. While the demands of the academic world are driven by the need for the rigorous application of sound methods, the demands of the practical world are quite different. It can be difficult to meet the needs of both sets of stakeholders at the same time. However, increasing numbers of postgraduate courses in our area result in larger numbers of practitioners with a deeper appreciation of what research is all about, and how to interpret and apply the lessons from research. It also seems that there are contributions coming not just from construction-related university departments, but also from departments with identifiable methodological traditions of their own. I like to think that our authors can publish in journals beyond the construction-related areas, to disseminate their theoretical insights into other disciplines, and to contribute to the strength of this journal by citing our articles in more mono-disciplinary journals. This would contribute to the future of the journal in a very strong and developmental way. The greatest danger we face is in excessive self-citation, i.e. referring only to sources within the CM&E literature or, worse, referring only to other articles in the same journal. The only way to ensure a strong and influential position for journals and university departments like ours is to be sure that our work is informing other academic disciplines. This is what I would see as the future, our logical next step. If, as a community of researchers, we are not producing papers that challenge and inform the fundamentals of research methods and analytical processes, then no matter how practically relevant our output is to the industry, it will remain derivative and secondary, based on the methodological insights of others. The balancing act between methodological rigour and practical relevance is a difficult one, but not, of course, a balance that has to be struck in every single paper.

Diverging from the dominant discourse- some implications of conflicting subject understandings in the education of teachers

This paper addresses beginning teachers thinking about the nature and purposes of their subject and the impact of this on their practice. Individual qualitative interviews were undertaken with 11 history teachers at the beginning of their teaching careers. Data was analysed using writing as the method of analysis and revealed that teachers whose thinking was at odds with dominant discourses, for example in the form of a national curriculum, encountered difficulties embracing pedagogies and aspects of the curriculum that do not accord with their own deep-seated beliefs, demonstrating a need for the initial training and professional development of teachers to forefront consideration of subject understandings.