Every year several thousand female cadets participate in the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) in the UK, but little is known about the impact that this experience has on the subsequent…
Abstract
Purpose
Every year several thousand female cadets participate in the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) in the UK, but little is known about the impact that this experience has on the subsequent employability of the female cadets. This study aimed to understand the perceptions of academic teenage girls from one all-female unit of their participation in CCF and the personal benefit or otherwise in relation to their ultimate employability.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to explore the experiences of 10 young women who had participated in CCF for at least three years. Data were analysed using a thematic analysis.
Findings
Participants were effusive about the transformative effects of CCF in relation to personal confidence, recognising transferable skills and raising personal aspiration, all key elements to employability, particularly for women. They also considered they had gained future workplace advantage having had opportunity to trial leadership strategies in mixed gender teams, an experience unavailable elsewhere to them. Loyalty to the contingent pervaded every discussion and the importance of team goals, although this level of selfless commitment may be detrimental to employability, subsuming their personal interests to the greater good.
Originality/value
Research into the benefit or otherwise of teenage girls' extra-curricular activities is scarce, and this is the first study, to the authors' knowledge, that explores the perceptions of the impact their time in CCF had on their graduate employability skills.
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This paper develops a theoretical perspective on gender and information technology (IT) by examining socio‐cultural influences on women who are members of the information…
Abstract
This paper develops a theoretical perspective on gender and information technology (IT) by examining socio‐cultural influences on women who are members of the information technology profession in Australia and New Zealand. In‐depth interviews with both practitioners and academics give evidence of a range of socio‐cultural influences on the professional development and working lives of women IT professionals. The paper rejects the essentialist view of women and their relationship to IT that has been put forth in the information systems literature arguing, instead, the primacy of societal and structural influences. The particular contribution of this paper is a theoretical perspective of individual differences which is presented to characterize the way individual women respond in a range of specific ways to the interplay between individual characteristics and environmental influences. This perspective contributes to a better understanding of women’s involvement in the IT sector and suggests areas for proactive policy response.
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This chapter considers some of the divergent outcomes of youth mobilization and participation in offline spaces, particularly in the youth nonprofit. Critics of youth online…
Abstract
This chapter considers some of the divergent outcomes of youth mobilization and participation in offline spaces, particularly in the youth nonprofit. Critics of youth online political participation detail several shortcomings of online activism as compared to offline activism, but in so doing, these critics venerate offline activism as a utopic alternative. Based on qualitative research in three organizations that mobilize youth around issues of education reform, this chapter demonstrates that the offline youth activist nonprofit fosters political power among some youth while burning out other youth. For teenage activists, these nonprofit organizations offer political education, institutional leverage, and foster political efficacy. At the same time, older youth organizers who are paid staff in these same organizations struggle with having to reign in the radicalism of the youth they mentor, while performing invisible labor around the demands of their organizational funders. These organizational pressures work to burn out youth organizers and steer them away from politics. Online forms of youth activism bring about outcomes that both enhance the political capacities of youth as well as hinder their potential to transform social injustices. Far from utopic, offline movement contexts also foster these contradictory outcomes and should be considered more critically in the debates over the merits of offline versus online activism.
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value of French School Regulation theory for questions of relevance to researchers and practitioners working in the field of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value of French School Regulation theory for questions of relevance to researchers and practitioners working in the field of information policy in general and public librarianship in particular.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is divided into two parts. Part one outlines Regulation theory's twin analytic tools of Fordism and post‐Fordism and its value for questions about the evolution of the public library. Part two provides an example of the approach's explanatory potential when applied to a series of public library planning documents produced by the Government of Ontario, Canada from the 1950s.
Findings
An interpretation of the evolution of the identity of the library user from patron to customer to information producer‐consumer is proposed at the intersection of the neoliberal state's austerity in social spending, the ubiquity of the new information and communication technologies, and fundamental changes in libraries as sites of waged‐work.
Research limitations/implications
The research facilitates the development of a political economy of the contemporary public library of potential value to the international public library community. Also, conceiving of the public library as first and foremost a site of productive work forces one to re‐engage with the meaning of shifting relations between the library user and the institution on working conditions.
Originality/value
The applicability of a relatively under‐utilized theoretical framework is modelled that enables one to ask new questions of relevance to the field of library and information science.
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Robert S. Martin, Michael Clark‐Madison, Elizabeth Crabb, Lisa deGruyter, Jean Hamrick, George E. Huffman, Toni Lambert, Gloria McClanahan, C. Rooks and Mary Kay Snell
The challenge of connectivity in Texas, between libraries and between citizens, is complicated by the state's size—both geographic and demographic—and its diversity—ethnic…
Gayla Byerly, Annie Downey and Lilly Ramin
The paper seeks to provide an empirical study demonstrating the value of one‐shot instruction assessment, and student learning, with the software, LISA.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to provide an empirical study demonstrating the value of one‐shot instruction assessment, and student learning, with the software, LISA.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an outcome‐based quantitative study, using performance‐based software for assessment.
Findings
The University of North Texas librarians developed Library Instruction Software for Assessment (LISA) to assess one‐shot library instruction sessions. The study used a pre‐test, post‐test and post‐post‐test to test freshmen in English classes. The pre‐test revealed that students had more difficultly using some tools more than others, namely the catalog. The post‐test showed that student performance searching the catalog and Academic Search Premier improved with library instruction. However, students' ability to find the “Help page” decreased. This decreased number was attributed to the importance of teaching navigation skills in library instruction sessions. The post‐post‐test taken at the end of the semester demonstrated that students were retaining the skills taught.
Research limitations/implications
One‐shot library instruction sessions are valuable and can be assessed using LISA. The study shows LISA can provide meaningful results about students' library skills.
Originality/value
The paper introduces a unique software tool, Library Instruction Software for Assessment (LISA), which can be used for assessing instruction sessions – even one‐shot sessions. The findings indicate that one‐shot library instruction can have a positive effect on the information literacy level of students, and offers insight into areas of improvement for instruction sessions.
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Amy Sweeny, Lisa van den Berg, Julia Hocking, Julia Renaud, Sharleen Young, Richard Henshaw, Kelly Foster and Tegwen Howell
The purpose of this paper is to describe the structure and impact of a Queensland Research Support Network (RSN) in emergency medicine (EM).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the structure and impact of a Queensland Research Support Network (RSN) in emergency medicine (EM).
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a descriptive summary of EM networks, network evaluations and the structure and development of the Emergency Medicine Foundation’s (EMF) RSN in Queensland, including an observational pre- and post-study of research metrics.
Findings
In two years, the RSN supported 33 Queensland emergency departments (EDs), of which 14 developed research strategies. There was an increase in research active clinicians, from 23 in 2015 to 181 in 2017. Collaborator engagement increased from 9 in 2015 to 276 in 2017 as did the number of research presentations, from 6 in 2015 to 61 in 2017. EMF experienced a growth in new researchers, with new investigators submitting approximately 60 per cent of grant applications in 2016 and 2017. EMF also received new applications from a further three HHS (taking EMF-funded research activity from 8 to 11 HHS).
Research limitations/implications
This paper describes changes in KPIs and research metrics, which the authors attribute to the establishment of the RSN. However, it is possible that attribution bias plays a role in the KPI improvements.
Social implications
This network has actively boosted and expanded EM research capacity and capability in Queensland. It provides services, in the form of on-the-ground managers, to develop novice clinician-researchers, new projects and engage entire EDs. This model may be replicated nationwide but requires funding commitment.
Originality/value
The RSN improves front-line clinician research capacity and capability and increases research activity and collaborations with clear community outcomes. Collaborations were extended to community, primary health networks, non-government organisations, national and international researchers and academic institutions. Evaluating and measuring a network’s benefits are difficult, but it is likely that evaluations will help networks obtain funding.
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Library and Information Science Abstracts have successfully completed a pilot project, with SilverPlatter Information Limited, that has resulted in a one‐year file of Lisa for…
Abstract
Library and Information Science Abstracts have successfully completed a pilot project, with SilverPlatter Information Limited, that has resulted in a one‐year file of Lisa for 1984 being recorded onto CD‐ROM (Compact Disk — Read Only Memory). Plans are now well under way for providing the complete Lisa database on CD‐ROM commercially by mid‐1986.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of documentation on the educational experiences, college readiness and aspirations of undocumented Latinx migrant and seasonal…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of documentation on the educational experiences, college readiness and aspirations of undocumented Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers.
Design/methodology/approach
This ethnographic study was conducted in a High School Equivalency Program at a large university in the Midwest. Data was collected during two semesters across a three-year span. Participants included six Mexican migrant and seasonal farmworkers who were preparing to earn their General Educational Development (GED) diploma. Using the grounded theory, data was collected and analyzed simultaneously where initial and focused coding took place, followed by cross-case analysis.
Findings
Analysis of student interviews, participant observations and in-depth fieldnotes that include the K-12 educational experiences, experiences during and after the High School Equivalency Program reveal that undocumented Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers aspire to earn a GED diploma to access a better future inclusive of college. However, the legal liminality, the uncertainty and ambiguity of being undocumented, impacts their educational journey prior to, during and beyond the High School Equivalency Program. Furthermore, undocumented Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers are unable to change their material conditions with a GED because of their documentation status.
Originality/value
Although researchers have studied the education experiences of Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers, analysis and consideration of documentation status is missing. This study contributes much needed findings about the impact of documentation status on the educational experiences, college readiness, and aspirations of Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers.