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The purpose of this paper is to examine student performance on both criterion- and norm-referenced measures, linked with teacher and student communication orientations.

The study used a pre-post design. During the pre-study phase, teachers underwent three days of intensive training in the Process Education Model®. In total, 21 middle and high school teachers at an independent school were the subject group. Each teacher identified ten students, five of whom they classified as “easy to communicate with” and five others whom they classified as “difficult to communicate with.” Approximately, 200 students participated in the study. Teachers and students provided communication preferences via the Kahler Personality Pattern Inventory® (1996). Performance data were gleaned from student grade point averages (GPAs) and grade-appropriate versions of ACT instruments.

The PPI reveals, in part, perceptual preferences in an assessing matrix. Intrinsic and extrinsic orientations were one set of distinctions. Most (more than 85 percent) of the teachers had intrinsic orientations, compared with 63 percent of the “easy” students and 47 percent of the “difficult” students. Both GPA and ACT comparisons were significantly different (p<0.001) on both pre- and post-measures, with the easy students outstripping their difficult counterparts. No significant differences were observed on the ACT Aspire, taken by students in grades 6–9.

The study was conducted at one site.

Student performance appears to be linked with connecting with teachers’ preferred delivery and communication styles. The more like their teachers the students are, the better their performance. Reinforcing new knowledge and skills was recognized as an important component of training.

If connecting better with students is tied with performance, teachers who learn how to shift their delivery methods may foster better outcomes. Also, attention should be paid on how distress may impact teacher performance, especially as they interact with students whose communication preferences may differ from theirs.

Fraud has a significant effect on society. It has been estimated to cost the UK economy more than £50bn annually. The Government have signalled their determination to tackle these losses through a range of preventative, enforcement and collaborative activities. Diminishing police resources allocated to fraud means that this activity will need to be delivered by both law enforcement and civilian counter fraud teams. This paper aims to establish whether UK central government organisations have the legal powers, skills and regulation needed to tackle fraud effectively.

This research was based upon a literature review, which included academic and other material, a semi-structured interview programme and a survey of counter fraud champions.

Empirical data suggested that the effectiveness of central government civilian counter fraud teams is hampered by a fragmented legal landscape and a lack of skills, and that further professionalisation and regulation is needed to protect professional standards and individual legal rights.

Postal survey had 50 per cent response rate – below gold standard of 70 per cent.

There are no practical implications, as this is a topical research area which is intended to inform counter fraud practice and development.

This research highlights limitations on the UK central government’s ability to tackle fraud. There is therefore a low risk that, when published, this research could inform those considering fraudulent actions.

This research was undertaken for a professional doctorate and has been sent to the Cabinet Office to inform their professionalisation programme. It filled a potential gap in the academic literature by looking at the perceived powers, skills and regulatory pressures in place within the UK central government and the extent of the current gap between current practice and the delivery of a fully professionalised service.

IT is seldom that I can bring myself to write anything for publication, and as I had a longish article on “The education of librarians in Great Britain” printed as recently as 1964 in the Lucknow Librarian (which is edited by my friend Mr. R. P. Hingorani) I had not contemplated any further effort for some time to come. But as THE LIBRARY WORLD evidently wishes to cover all the British schools of librarianship it would be a pity for Brighton to be left out, even though, coming as it does towards the end of a gruelling series, I can see little prospect of this contribution being read. Perhaps, therefore, I need not apologise for the fact that, as my own life and fortunes have been (and still are) inextricably bound up with those of the Brighton school, any account which I write of the school is bound to be a very personal one.

This chapter describes five disciplinary domains of research or lenses that contribute to the design of a team tutor. We focus on four significant challenges in developing Intelligent Team Tutoring Systems (ITTSs), and explore how the five lenses can offer guidance for these challenges. The four challenges arise in the design of team member interactions, performance metrics and skill development, feedback, and tutor authoring. The five lenses or research domains that we apply to these four challenges are Tutor Engineering, Learning Sciences, Science of Teams, Data Analyst, and Human–Computer Interaction. This matrix of applications from each perspective offers a framework to guide designers in creating ITTSs.

Columbus set out to prove the world was round. Today, Thomas Friedman posits the “world is flat.” The reversion reflects the complexity of today's world and an interdependent global economy. That complexity also relates to how we educate the citizens of tomorrow. The purpose of this commentary is to explore what is, what works, and what possibilities exist to address the complexities that surround education ‐ complexities of learning, complexities of educational systems, and complexities of determining positive outcomes of educational efforts. Related discussion includes comparing different educational systems from different countries and cultures.

The impetus for these perceptions arose from many years of professional practice and observation, most recently piqued by Glass's polemic, Fertilizers, Pills, and Magnetic Strips. Integral to the commentary is an overlay of the educational landscape in the USA.

The essay includes suggestions for change – adapting delivery styles, using more of what we know about learning and learners, and some jabs at holding too fast to tradition. Included are a suggestion to break away from the stale approaches that may not work anymore and an examination/re‐examination of some things that might yield salutary results – continuous progress, differentiated staffing, and matching teaching styles with learning preferences and motivational needs. (Also appended is a selected annotated bibliography of other perspectives and ideas.)

The urgency of examining what works and what is worth keeping must be balanced with considering the landscape of the educational environment. This essay is a gentle prodding to do just that, taken from the author's 45 years as a professional educator.

Some educators believe that if they do their jobs properly, all their students will learn, and school will be a happy, productive and comfortable place for everybody. The reality is that not everyone has the same preferences – for teaching and learning. Recounts research that shows what the differences are between educators and students who might be characterized at‐risk. Also included are administrative implications.

On the educational level, this paper aims to show a practical case of dialogic web‐based learning. It has provided a consensus during a web‐based negotiation game between four different parties on poverty and inequality. On a multicultural level, this paper seeks to offer diverse cultures of argumentation on global poverty.

The methodology is a web‐based and real life negotiation game, namely “Surfing Global Change” which includes structured online review processes on literature‐based research and reflection.

The paper provides the consensus of four different parties on global development and poverty, and a new system of scaling development based on democratic decisions through a round table for all countries from the global north and the global south.

The presented dialog and consensus‐finding process concentrates on poverty and inequality from the point of view of the G‐8, NGOs, the global rich and the global poor.

This research, based on literature, is formed through a dialog and consensus finding between four different parties (G‐8, NGOs, the rich and the poor).

WHAT is this thing called… accountability?