Improving access to and understanding of regulations through taxonomies     

Chin Pang Cheng  Gloria T. Lau  Kincho H. Law  Jiayi Pan  Albert Jones 《Government Information Quarterly》2009

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Evaluating municipal websites: A methodological comparison of three think-aloud variants     

Maaike J. van den Haak  Menno D.T. de JongPeter Jan SchellensAuthor Vitae 《Government Information Quarterly》2009

Usability methods have received relatively little methodological attention within the field of E-Government. This paper aims to address this gap by reporting on a usability test of the municipal website of Deventer (the Netherlands), carried out by means of three variants of the think-aloud method (concurrent/retrospective think-aloud protocols and constructive interaction). These three methods had proved successful in a previous evaluation of a different municipal website, yet we decided to replicate our study in order to investigate whether the three methods would reveal different results when applied to another municipal website with a different information architecture. The results of our study showed that, as in the previous municipal website evaluation, the three evaluation methods were largely comparable in terms of output. Nevertheless, we did find a number of differences between the present and previous municipal website evaluation regarding the workings of the three methods—differences that could be explained by the different information architectures of the municipal websites tested. This suggests that the three evaluation methods might indeed work differently depending on the nature of the website that is being evaluated, and calls for more research into the effect of task type on the validity of evaluation methods.  相似文献   

Snippets of physics     

T. Padmanabhan 《Resonance》2009,14(9):907-915

Variational principles play a central role in theoretical physics in many guises. We will discuss, in this instalment, some curious features associated with a couple of variational problems.  相似文献   

Snippets of physics     

T. Padmanabhan 《Resonance》2009,14(5):499-507

The fact that an accelerated charge radiates energy is considered an elementary textbook result in electromagnetism. Nevertheless, this process of radiation (and its reaction on the charged particle) raises several conundrums about which technical papers are written even today. In this installment, we will try to understand why an accelerated charge radiates in a simple, yet rigorous, manner.  相似文献   

Snippets of physics     

T. Padmanabhan 《Resonance》2009,14(8):799-806

We continue our exploration of random walks with some more curious results. We discuss the dimension dependence of some of the features of the random walk, describe an unexpected connection between random walks and electrical networks and finally discuss some remarkable features of random walk with geometrically decreasing step-length.  相似文献   

Snippets of physics     

T. Padmanabhan 《Resonance》2009,14(10):934-943

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The role of ethnicity in the attainment and experiences of graduates in distance education   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

John T. E. Richardson 《Higher Education》2009,58(3):321-338

In the UK, the attainment of White graduates (as measured by the class of honours that they have been awarded) tends to be higher than that of graduates from other ethnic groups. This is apparent, in particular, in graduates who have taken courses by distance learning with the Open University. Analysis of data from Open University graduates over three successive years yielded no evidence that the latter trend could be attributed to confounded demographic variables. A postal survey found little variation in perceptions of academic quality or reports of personal development among Open University graduates from different ethnic groups. Quantitative variations in the attainment of graduates from different ethnic groups are not necessarily reflected in qualitative variations in their experience of distance education.  相似文献   

Undergraduates’ learning experience and learning process: quantitative evidence from the East   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Beverley J. Webster  Wincy S. C. Chan  Michael T. Prosser  David A. Watkins 《Higher Education》2009,58(3):375-386

This article examines the construct validity of the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) in Hong Kong and investigates the similarities and differences in the process of learning among students in different disciplinary studies. It is based on a survey of 1,563 undergraduate students in two disciplines, humanities and sciences, and of principally Chinese ethnicity. Findings from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses support the scale structure of the four subscales of a modified version of the CEQ (good teaching, clear goals and standards, appropriate work, and appropriate assessment) in a non-Western context and could provide a basis for cross cultural research and international benchmarking. While there was variation across subgroups, there was a genuine pattern of relationships between the perceptions of learning environment and learning strategies shown by structural modeling. This information could be used to inform the design of discipline-specific programs in the new curriculum.  相似文献   

Momentum and kinetic energy: Confusable concepts in secondary school physics     

T.G.K. Bryce  K. MacMillan 《科学教学研究杂志》2009,46(7):739-761

Researchers and practitioners alike express concerns about the conceptual difficulties associated with the concepts of momentum and kinetic energy currently taught in school physics. This article presents an in‐depth analysis of the treatment given to them in 44 published textbooks written for UK secondary school certificate courses. This is set against some of the more contentious issues apparent in the literature concerned with the underlying physics and pedagogical arguments about how best to help students understand. The research evolved a set of criteria which were used to scrutinize how texts explain ideas and exemplify their applications. Despite the evident merits of many textbooks, the findings suggest that incomplete explanations are surprisingly prevalent, with several fundamental issues likely to be unclear to student readers, particularly those relating to when and where conservation might apply. Confusion exists between these difficult and somewhat overlapping ideas, arguably through the neglect of constructivist considerations. The commonly emphasized mechanistic, number‐crunching approach to the analysis of simple collision problems is judged to be un‐profitable, underlining the more general point that prevailing, accepted content and pedagogy may be the source of many misunderstandings. Implications are discussed and suggestions made for alternative treatments of these deceptively complex topics. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 739–761, 2009  相似文献   

Foreign Universities in China: a case study     

CHRISTINE T. ENNEW  & YANG FUJIA 《European Journal of Education》2009,44(1):21-36

The international dimension of higher education has expanded rapidly in recent decades and private provision is becoming increasingly widespread in response to the diverse pressures of globalisation, rapid expansion in demand and increased pressures on public finances. As higher education has become marketised, opportunities for international providers have increased dramatically. Foreign providers may opt for delivery locally or remotely and via a variety of different legal and organisational arrangements. The focus of this article is on foreign provision of HE with specific reference to China and the UK. In the period post-Mao, the policy environment for higher education in China has changed dramatically, culminating in 2003 in the decision to allow foreign universities to formally establish partnerships with Chinese universities for the delivery of higher education. The development and operation of the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China, is discussed in order to provide more detailed insights into the nature and challenges of delivering foreign HE provision in a Chinese context.  相似文献