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Teachers often find that their training has not provided them with sufficient knowledge and understanding about underlying social forces and processes in their classrooms. This new book addresses this gap by focusing on the social psychology of the classroom, providing the relevant social psychological knowledge and facilitating the application of

Pivotal to the transformation of higher education in the 21st Century is the nature of pedagogy and its role in advancing the aims of various stakeholders. This book brings together pre-eminent scholars from Australia, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and the USA to critically assess teaching and learning issues that cut across most disciplines. In addressing long-standing and newly emerging issues, the researchers examine the scientific evidence on what constitutes effective teaching in college classrooms, on the psychometric integrity of measures of teaching effectiveness, and on the use of such measures for tenure, promotion, and salary decisions. Systematically explored throughout the book is the avowed linkage between classroom teaching and motivation, learning, and performance outcomes in students. In so doing, the book deals with the nexus between knowledge production by researchers and knowledge utility for end-users made up of classroom instructors, department heads, deans, directors, and policymakers. The book will appeal to researchers interested in teaching and learning, faculty members developing evidence-based pedagogical practices, academic administrators and policymakers responsible for instituting teaching and learning protocols, and faculty development officers promoting the effective teaching practices.

Published annually since 1985, the Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of research findings on a selected topic, critiques the research literature in terms of its conceptual and methodological rigor, and sets forth an agenda for future research intended to advance knowledge on the chosen topic. The Handbook focuses on twelve general areas that encompass the salient dimensions of scholarly and policy inquiries undertaken in the international higher education community. The series is fortunate to have attracted annual contributions from distinguished scholars throughout the world.

The Sourcebook of Nonverbal Measures provides a comprehensive discussion of research choices for investigating nonverbal phenomena. The volume presents many of the primary means by which researchers assess nonverbal cues. Editor Valerie Manusov has collected both well-established and new measures used in researching nonverbal behaviors, illustrating the broad spectrum of measures appropriate for use in research, and providing a critical resource for future studies.With chapters written by the creators of the research measures, this volume represents work across disciplines, and provides first-hand experience and thoughtful guidance on the use of nonverbal measures. It also offers research strategies researchers can use to answer their research questions; discussions of larger research paradigms into which a measure may be placed; and analysis tools to help researchers think through the research choices available to them.With its thorough and pragmatic approach, this Sourcebook will be an invaluable resource for studying nonverbal behavior. Researchers in interpersonal communication, psychology, personal relationships, and related areas will find it to be an essential research tool.

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

'The term''social science''promises more than its practitioners can deliver: it promises knowledge. This knowledge is to consist of statements of empirical regularities of such quality as will enhance predictive power and inform public and private policy. Boundaries of Competence illuminates obstacles to this aspiration.Chapter 1 grounds knowledge in perception. Chapter 2 challenges the assumption that ordinary language necessarily describes reality and reveals the mischief words can do. Chapter 3 proposes a continuum of perceiving-conceiving involved in different ways of''knowing''worlds. Chapter 4 lays out requirements of measurement, arguing that assigning numbers to dubious observations gives false assurance that mathematical manipulations necessarily rep- resent events.Chapter 5 shows how choice of unit affects the correlations we find in our search for causes. Chapter 6 holds that, given deficiencies in knowledge and perhaps because of the way Nature works, we assess probabilities rather than seek certainties. Chapter 7 notes difficulties in counting events that consist of''social facts,''which''depend on us,''and those that refer to''brute facts,''that exist independently of us. Chapter 8 criticizes the practice of employing proxies for observations of what we're talking about. In particular, it demonstrates the error produced by relying on what people say as measure of what they do.Chapter 9 criticizes ways of explaining conduct by characterizing actors and their acts, and by''understanding''them through empathy. Chapter 10 discusses the important and never-ending quarrel about causation. Chapters 11 and 12 argue that in social affairs, decision is regularly torn between doing what is effective (rational) and doing what is right (moral).Nettler's writing is crisp, and his argument balanced. He employs research from several disciplines to challenge ideologically driven descriptions of our condition and explanations of ou'