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OBJECTIVE: To investigate the reasons for family medicine graduates' career choices. DESIGN: Qualitative study using focus groups and one-on-one interviews. SETTING: University of Calgary in Alberta. PARTICIPANTS: Seventeen male and female second-year family medicine residents, representing a range of ages and areas of origin, enrolled in the 2004 urban and rural south streams of the family medicine residency program at the University of Calgary. METHOD: During the final month of training, 2 focus groups were conducted to determine graduating students' career choices and the reasons for them. After focus-group data were analyzed, a questionnaire was constructed and subsequently administered to participants during face-to-face or telephone interviews. MAIN FINDINGS: Most residents initially planned to do urban locums in order to gain experience. In the long term, they planned to open practices in urban areas for lifestyle and family reasons. Many residents from the rural stream had no long-term plans to establish rural practices. Most residents said they felt prepared for practice, but many indicated that an optional third year of paid training, with an emphasis on emergency medicine, obstetrics, and pediatrics, would be desirable. Reasons cited for not practising in rural areas were related to workload, lifestyle issues, family obligations, and perceived lack of medical support in the community. Only 4 female graduates and 1 male graduate intended to practise obstetrics. The main reason residents gave for this was inadequate training in obstetrics during residency. Finances were cited as a secondary reason for many choices, and might in fact be more important than at first apparent. CONCLUSION: Despite its intention to recruit family medicine graduates to rural areas and to obstetrics, the University of Calgary residency training program was not successful in recruiting physicians to these areas. The program likely needs to re-examine the effectiveness of current approaches. If other programs are having similar difficulties recruiting graduates to obstetrics and rural practice, perhaps changes in policies should be considered.

The goal of all dental schools is to develop competent, knowledgeable dentists who have excellent communication skills and a sense of social responsibility. This paper describes the theoretical reasoning behind the design of an innovative dental curriculum constructed from first principles in the UK. The recognised theories of psychologists, educationalists and sociologists of the twentieth century have informed our educational decisions. In practice, this translates to a blended learning environment with problem-based learning (PBL) case scenarios at its heart. The learning of clinical and communication skills, which begins in year 1, week 1, is absolutely integral to the case scenarios, as are ethics and professionalism. PBL is supported by a comprehensive e-learning platform, plenary lectures, workshops, clinical and life science teaching delivered by core academic staff and guest speakers who are the experts in our 'community of practice' in which the students are the novices. We believe that the whole is best described as 'enquiry-based learning'. © 2008 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.

Objective: This study was undertaken to devise a suitable survey instrument to measure morale, and to undertake an assessment of morale amongst vocational dental practitioners (VDPs) in the UK. Design: Postal questionnaire survey. Setting: Dental vocational training schemes in the UK. Subjects: Vocational dental practitioners. Method: A confidential postal questionnaire was used to measure levels of morale among all VDPs in the UK in 2007. Results: A response rate of 76.7% was achieved. The mean morale score for Scottish VDPs was significantly higher than that of the Northern Irish VDPs, which in turn was significantly higher than those of the VDPs in England or Wales. In England and Wales females recorded higher morale scores than males. Lowest morale scores were associated with statements referring to concerns about future changes to NHS dentistry, and the limits on treatment within the NHS system. The highest scores were associated with good working relationships. Conclusion: The use of an appropriately tested questionnaire has provided a convenient objective measure of morale. The morale of VDPs in the United Kingdom was lower than expected. Scottish VDPs recorded higher morale scores than other VDPs and responded more positively in the survey instrument. The most negative responses from all VDPs were regarding the effect of the NHS system on treatment and concerns about future changes to the NHS. © 2008 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.

Education in Popular Culture explores what makes schools, colleges, teachers and students an enduring focus for a wide range of contemporary media. What is it about the school experience that makes us wish to relive it again and again? The book provides an overview of education as it is represented in popular culture, together with a framework through which educators can interpret these representations in relation to their own professional values and development. The analyses are contextualised within contemporary, historical and ideological frameworks, and make connections between popular representations and professional and political discourses about education. Through its examination of film, television, popular lyrics and fiction, this book tackles educational themes that recur in popular culture, and demonstrates how they intersect with debates concerning teacher performance, the curriculum and young people's behaviour and morality. Chapters explore how experiences of education are both reflected and constructed in ways that sometimes reinforce official and professional educational perspectives, and sometimes resist and oppose them. Education in Popular Culture will stimulate critical reflection on the popular myths and professional discourses that surround teachers and teaching. It will serve to deepen analyses of teaching and learning and their associated institutional and societal contexts in a creative and challenging way. © 2008 Roy Fisher, Ann Harris and Christine Jarvis. All rights reserved.

The main purpose of technical and vocational education is to cultivate personnel who have both theoretical knowledge and practical experience. The practical training experience should help students focus on their career choices. Therefore, this study surveyed the students who participated in the interactive activities of three universities of technology in 2002 and used a structural equation model to understand the determinants affecting practical training for students. The effectiveness of practical training includes the advance of professional competencies and the advance of employability. The major empirical findings of the study are as follows. Of the various determinants, the factors related to the quality of training courses, the human relationship aspect and the environment for gaining practical training, as expected, are found to have a significantly positive influence on the advance of professional competencies for students. T he quality of training courses and the environment for gaining practical training have a significantly positive influence on the advance of employability for students; somewhat unexpectedly, the quality of teachers is found to have no significant influence on both. ICIC International © 2008.

What is the role of work-placement mentoring in nurturing the next generation of Culinarians in order to improve the culinary profession? Is fear and intimidation acceptable in a professional kitchen? What is meant by professional kitchen? Can the reasons behind the high levels of staff turnover in kitchens be identified? What is meant by the term mentoring? In this article I hope to address these questions, and to discuss mentoring as a model for nurturing culinary talent. I draw upon both personal experiences and those of students who have experienced mentoring as part of the Professional Internship Module of the BA in Culinary Arts in the Dublin Institute of Technology to support my position. © 2008 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in the perceptions of internships between college students studying travel and tourism and practitioners in the field. Using a web-based survey of 48 items, the study explored how students and practitioners differed in their view regarding the role of the internship experience; the role of the internship agency, the intern's abilities; and factors in selecting an internship. Using Mest analyses, the results of the study revealed that students and practitioners were in disagreement on 13 of the 48 items in the survey and had significantly different perceptions regarding intern skills, the role of the intern, responsibilities that interns should be given, and factors to consider in selecting an internship. This study examined these differences and implications for practitioners in travel and tourism. © Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education.

This essay argues for a paradigm shift in what counts as learning and literacy education for youth. Two related constructs are emphasized: collective Third Space and sociocritical literacy. The construct of a collective Third Space builds on an existing body of research and can be viewed as a particular kind of zone of proximal development. The perspective taken here challenges some current definitions of the zone of proximal development. A sociocritical literacy historicizes everyday and institutional literacy practices and texts and reframes them as powerful tools oriented toward critical social thought. The theoretical constructs described in this article derive from an empirical case study of the Migrant Student Leadership Institute (MSLI) at the University of California, Los Angeles. Within the learning ecology of the MSLI, a collective Third Space is interactionally constituted, in which traditional conceptions of academic literacy and instruction for students from nondominant communities are contested and replaced with forms of literacy that privilege and are contingent upon students' sociohistorical lives, both proximally and distally. Within the MSLI, hybrid language practices; the conscious use of social theory, play, and imagination; and historicizing literacy practices link the past, the present, and an imagined future. © 2008 International Reading Association.

Does authentic assessment or the perception of it affect how students study and learn? Does practical experience affect how assessment authenticity is perceived? And does practical experience influence how an authentic assessment affects student learning? Mixed methods design yielded insight into the answers to these questions. This article presents the results of a study on the relationships between authenticity perceptions of different cohorts of students, who differed in the amount of practical experience, their study approach and their perceived degree of professional skill development. The results showed some salient differences in how freshman- and senior-student groups perceive the same authentic assessment and how this assessment influences their learning. These results suggest possible guidelines for developing and using authentic assessments during a curriculum in which learning and working are intertwined. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

How can opportunities for teaching and learning be improved to ensure that many more people participate, gain qualifications and obtain decent jobs? Will government policies enable us to achieve these goals? What new ideas do we need to ensure a more inclusive, equitable and efficient learning system? These are some of the main concerns which underlie this thought-provoking book coming from a major research project looking at how policies affect learners, tutors, managers and institutional leaders in Further Education Colleges, Adult and Community Learning centres and in Work Based Learning sites. Post compulsory education in the UK has been constantly restructured by the New Labour government and has been subject to considerable policy turbulence over the last few years. This book attempts to understand this important but poorly understood sector by both talking to students and front-line staff and by interviewing the officials responsible for managing post-compulsory education and lifelong learning. By examining the sector simultaneously from the 'bottom up' and from 'top down', the authors show how recent policy is affecting three disadvantaged groups - 16-19 year olds who have fared poorly in official tests at school; unemployed adults learning basic skills; and employees at work learning basic skills. The authors conclude that there are serious failings and suggest principles and features of a more equitable and effective learning system. © 2008 Frank Coffield, Sheila Edward, Ian Finlay, Ann Hodgson, Ken Spours and Richard Steer. All rights reserved.