Search results

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to present a framework of five “facets,” i.e., distinct but complementary ways in which the observed appeal of a consumer shopping site’s features can potentially be generalized across product/service domains (the authors call this framework the feature appeal generalization perspective); second, to determine if and how observed feature preferences for consumer electronics, bookstores, and sites “in general” generalize across domains; third, to test hypotheses about the impact of frequency of domain usage upon feature generalizability.

Via an online survey administered in a controlled laboratory setting, 313 respondents evaluated 26 website features in three domains (books, electronics, general) for a total of 24,414 preference judgments.

Two facets, individual feature values and within domain evaluative dimensions, revealed minimal generalizability, while there was moderate comparability across all domains in between domain feature correspondence. Personal preference elevation could be generalized between books and general, but not between these two and electronics. Differentiating dimensions showed that preferences were not generalizable from electronics to books and general because consumers wanted electronics features to provide “flashy sizzle” and books/general features to give “comfortable safety.” As hypothesized, patterns of generalizability coincided with frequency of domain usage.

Practitioners should not apply published studies of feature appeal to their domain of interest unless those studies directly analyzed that domain. Scientists should incorporate all five facets in modeling what attracts consumers to commercial websites.

This is the first multidimensional analysis of the generalizability of site feature appeal across business-to-consumer product/service domains, and the first to propose this integrated evaluative framework with its unique facets.

Because of high drop‐out rates among the students entering vocational education in Denmark retention of students has become pivotal to Danish educational policy. Thus vocational educational training (VET) colleges have been asked to work on implementing different kinds of retention initiatives and as a result, most colleges have established extended basic courses aimed at students with personal, social and/or academic difficulties. This paper aims to explore the emotional aspects of vocational educational teachers' work and present a preliminary analysis of the notion of care as socially situated within the vocational educational system.

This paper derives from a study based on fieldwork at a VET college offering extended basic courses. During the fieldwork nine weeks of participating observations and 13 interviews with teachers were conducted.

The paper provides empirical insights into the emotional practices and the management of emotions related to prevention of dropout within an educational setting. It shows how emotional practices can provide both teachers and students with positive identities and make out a productive force that prevents students from dropping out. However the management of emotions also involves a range of dilemmas and ambivalences revealing the difficult limitations related to an institutionalization and professionalization of human care.

Because of the chosen research design more studies on the emotional aspects of prevention of drop‐out from both the perspective of teachers and students are needed.

The emotional dimension of retention remains to be recognized and critically discussed more widely among stakeholders at different levels within the VET system and policy makers within education. Handling both the possibilities and the pitfalls of emotional practices requires that teachers are not left alone feeling responsible for the fate of their students.

The paper contributes with descriptions of how emotions can be productive forces preventing students from dropping out of education. At the same time it identifies a need for further critical examination of the emotional aspects of teachers' working life.

The purpose of the paper is to provide a review of the most recent literature concerning document supply and related matters.

The paper's approach is the reading of over 150 journals as well as monographs, reports and websites.

Electronic books remain a minority market but the literature at least remains optimistic and readers are improving in quality and acceptability. Open access continues to grow but with continuing and widely differing views on its impact – especially the author‐pays model. Recent mandating decisions will mean a step change in the both the creation and the growth of institutional and subject repositories. Increasing concerns are being expressed about the monopolistic implications of Google and there are some stout counter arguments. A number of interesting articles on document supply show it to be in robust health. The economic crisis will have a mixed impact on document supply as libraries consider cuts in acquisition budgets.

The paper represents a useful source of information for librarians and others interested in document supply and related matters.

Just like skirt lengths, hair styles and new automobile models, philanthropy — the charitable donations of time, money, and goods — has its trends as well. Several recent books track those trends and provide valuable insight to librarians seeking assistance in raising funds for their institutions. While many of us are despairing of the recession and current economic conditions which are causing funding problems for libraries, we ought to be encouraged by the news from these studies of philanthropic activities in the past several years. Reading about philanthropy can stimulate ideas to pursue and leads to follow in finding private support for library projects. Additional information about the trends that I list below can be found in the following books. I have coded the books so that it will be easy to find the original sources of the trends cited below.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate children's understandings of the intent and importance of current media initiatives designed to target childhood obesity. Semi‐structured interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis, for the responses of overweight and normal weight children.

In total, 33 children were interviewed, 24 of normal weight and nine overweight. They were shown two print and four television advertisements from the New South Wales Health Department web site that were popularly broadcast between 2003 and 2007. Children were then asked if they had seen the advertisement prior to the interview, and their understanding of the intent and importance of the advertisements.

Most children in both weight groups recalled seeing five out of the six presented advertisements prior to interview. The main themes identified were “Health Maintenance” and “Illness Prevention” for five of the six advertisements. Overweight children were more numerous in their detection of a health message as opposed to normal weight children, who mostly commented on the safety aspect of advertisement six.

Future evaluations of mediated health campaigns should go beyond recording simple recall of campaign material and investigate instead the understandings of target groups. Mediated health campaigns should also specify messages to particular target groups, as they appear to be most likely to facilitate behaviour change.

Mediated health campaigns are mostly evaluated quantitatively rather than by qualitative means. In addition, no study has evaluated the views of overweight and normal weight children with regards to these health campaigns.

This paper reviews the progress that Cornwall County has made since the murder of Steven Hoskin and the resulting Serious Case Review (Flynn, 2007). Interviews were held with senior and frontline personnel, whose agencies were in contact with Steven and the people who moved into his bedsit. The agencies have progressed significantly, in terms of attitude and reforming the way in which they work. The outcomes and processes that have resulted from the action plans that were drawn up have been welcomed, although there are still challenges to overcome.

Medical uncertainty is recognized as a critical issue in the sociology of diagnosis and medical sociology more generally, but a neglected focus of this concern is the question of patient decision making. Using a mixed methods approach that draws upon autoethnographic accounts and third-party interviews, we aim to illuminate the dilemmas of patient decision making in the face of uncertainty. How do patients and supportive caregivers go about navigating this state of affairs? What types of patient–doctor/healthcare professional relationships hinder or enhance effective patient decision making? These are the themes we explore in this study by following patients through the sequence of experiencing symptoms, seeking a diagnosis, evaluating treatment protocols, and receiving treatments. In general, three genres of culturally available narratives are revealed in the data: strategic, technoluxe, and unbearable health narratives.

This writing is performed with and about disappointment in moments of failed research and teaching. The bulk of this chapter was written some years ago and describes, reflects on, and analyzes a self-study inquiry about the phenomenon of pedagogical reading. Having returned to and studied this earlier work, I offer a posthuman postscript that rereads the initial inquiry primarily through the work of Deleuze. Rereading intimate scholarship through a post-human lens decenters the self as knower, writer, and teacher, making possible otherwise ways of imagining reading, writing, and studying together. In my case, posthumanism provides tools for rereading two concepts offered for understanding teaching literature, naked and belated pedagogy. While these concepts were somewhat productive in helping me understand what I was experiencing as a researcher and writer, they reproduce and justify traditional, text-centered teacher identities and practices. They are a product of and themselves reproduce what Deleuze and Guattari (2003) called “arborescent” thinking. Ultimately, naked and belated pedagogies reinforce traditional curriculum practices, sidestep students’ lives, and position the teacher as final authority in matters of curriculum control and interpretation. Disappointment includes those affections and emotions that arise through a posthuman rereading of the research scene – including what I, the researcher and teacher, failed to do, say, think, and teach.