Sheila Watt

Prosodic form and parsing commitments

This paper examines the question of whether there are effects of prosody on the syntactic parsing of temporarily ambiguous sentences containing complement verbs. It reports the results of five experiments employing cross-modal response tasks where the visually presented target word was either an ‘appropriate’ or an ‘inappropriate’ continuation in terms of the prosodic form of the preceeding auditory sentence fragment. Two experiments employing cross-modal naming only showed indications of sensitivity to syntactic and appropriateness manipulations when coupled with a simultaneous appropriateness judgment task. In contrast, the experiments employing cross-modal lexical decision showed greater sensitivity to syntactic and appropriateness effects. However, while the results from these studies replicated our earlier auditory parsing results and provided support for the suggestion that there are differences in visual and auditory parsing processes and for a ‘constituent-based,’ ‘minimal commitment’ type auditory parser, none of the studies demonstrated an effect of prosodic form on the parsing process.

Mind the Gap! School to Higher Education: still bridging the gap 5 years on

Abstract This article examines current university and school‐based special entry initiatives under which young, non‐traditional students, particularly those from social classes IIIM, IV and V, might access higher education (HE). These initiatives are seen as the only means by which such groups might reasonably be expected to continue their studies soon after leaving school. These access initiatives are described in relation to future developments such as Higher Still. Several Scottish programmes including 10‐week summer schools and shorter subject‐specific courses are examined and their advantages and disadvantages set out Throughout, such initiatives are set in the SOEID (1991) context of ‘bridging the gap’ between school and university. This article concludes that initial evidence indicates special entry summer schools do provide a way for non‐traditional students to make a successful transition to HE.

Redressing the Gender Imbalance in Science, Engineering and Technology within Higher Education

This article outlines the findings of a SHEFC‐funded project aimed at redressing the gender imbalance within science, engineering and technology (SET) subjects in higher education (HE). A review is...

Positive Assertive Management

Discipline is becoming an increasing problem in Scottish primary schools. This study examines some of those issues surrounding discipline problems in schools and highlights a need for change in approaching these problems. Positive Assertive Management, an offshoot of Assertive Discipline, is evaluated as a potentially effective part of school management systems. This in-depth, case study analysis of the benefits and practical problems associated with this style of school management focuses on a relatively large primary school in the east of Scotland which had experienced a wide range of discipline problems prior to the implementation of PAM. Staff, pupils and parents have been involved in this study, and analysis of their perceptions suggest that Positive Assertive Management does improve behaviour and enhances a positive school ethos. Results also examine some of the problematic issues associated with implementation of PAM and sustaining its principles and practices on a long-term basis.