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The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable assessment tool to measure music educators' participation in and perceptions of their high-quality professional development (PD) experiences. A sample of 450 in-service music educators across the United States completed a 78-item rating scale embedded within 10 domains reflecting high-quality PD criteria: (a) content, (b) evidence/research, (c) coherence, (d) relevance, (e) active learning, (f) application, (g) collaboration, (h) reflection, (i) feedback, and (j) duration. Participants also answered the open-ended question, "What are some adjectives you would use to describe your overall professional development experiences?" Data were analyzed using Rasch measurement analyses and sentiment analyses. Results indicated an overall acceptable data-to-model fit, with the content domain reflecting most participation and the duration domain reflecting least participation. Bias analyses suggested that music educators received systematically different quality PD experiences based upon their teaching area and/or grade-level emphases. Participants had an overall positive sentiment of their PD experiences, which positively correlates with the level of quality PD they experienced (r = 0.42, p < 0.05). The most frequent emotions of the participants were trust and joy. Implications for the development and programming of PD in the field of music education are discussed.

The article seeks to understand how the application of theoretical approaches in documentary filmmaking improves students’ conceptual and analytical skills. Through the delivery of a theoretically orientated documentary module, the motivation of the study emerges from the authors’ own observations that the integration of practice can support students to better conceptualise theoretical approaches. Notably, the module is delivered at a Sino-British University within the School of International Communications, where most students are of Chinese nationality. The originality of this article arises from inclusion of data encompassing Chinese students’ views enrolled in a theoretical documentary course as part of their communications degree, data that is lacking in current literature. The article contributes to knowledge specific to how higher education instructors delivering a theoretical documentary module can better serve students pedagogically from Mainland China. The significance of these findings should not be underplayed, particularly as higher education students from Mainland China in the fields of the social sciences, humanities and the arts find critical thinking and debating skills demanding. Conclusions reached are strengthened by the employment of deductive thematic analysis to unpack the gathered interview data, which is crystallised by the application of Kolb’s experiential learning model as the theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principal aim of this article is to explore how screenwriters can guide audience emotions with respect to the television anti-heroine and encourage their engagement. The model 'piloting audience emotion for the television anti-heroine' will be presented as a screenwriting tool to encourage audience engagement by sequencing specific emotional responses at key points in a pilot episode. This framework is the result of the author's research that explored how audience engagement with a television anti-heroine can be encouraged and comprised of the development of a television show titled Angela. Discoveries made during practice were used to synthesize Aristotle's understanding of pity, fear and catharsis with Murray Smith's structure of sympathy. The model that arose is not an absolute approach, but regardless of its veracity, the conclusions drawn will at the very least promote scholarship concerning the creative development of an anti-heroine screenplay. Before the framework and the specific components comprising it are critically unpacked, the term emotion is first defined within the context of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable assessment tool to measure music educators' participation in and perceptions of their high-quality professional development (PD) experiences. A sample of 450 in-service music educators across the United States completed a 78-item rating scale embedded within 10 domains reflecting high-quality PD criteria: (a) content, (b) evidence/research, (c) coherence, (d) relevance, (e) active learning, (f) application, (g) collaboration, (h) reflection, (i) feedback, and (j) duration. Participants also answered the open-ended question, "What are some adjectives you would use to describe your overall professional development experiences?" Data were analyzed using Rasch measurement analyses and sentiment analyses. Results indicated an overall acceptable data-to-model fit, with the content domain reflecting most participation and the duration domain reflecting least participation. Bias analyses suggested that music educators received systematically different quality PD experiences based upon their teaching area and/or grade-level emphases. Participants had an overall positive sentiment of their PD experiences, which positively correlates with the level of quality PD they experienced (r = 0.42, p <.05). The most frequent emotions of the participants were trust and joy. Implications for the development and programming of PD in the field of music education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how screenwriters can discover and inject their voice into their screenplay, as a method for achieving originality. It should be noted that the study is exclusively concerned with screenwriters scripting for the commercial market. The definition formed on originality reflects this industrial position. Originality, therefore, is defined as a screenwriter successfully synthesising storytelling principles with their own voice to render something new. However, what precisely comprises voice is nebulous. To resolve this, the article will first need to critically explore writer's voice to frame a precise definition. Once this has been accomplished, a new conceptual framework, Cracks of Culture, is presented as a formula to guide screenwriters to discover and inject their own voice. The concept is underpinned by leading philosopher and neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio's [2018. The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures. New York: Vintage Books] notion that, culture expresses all categories, which gives rise to the social order and structure of a society. Finally, the article demonstrates how screenwriters can authentically voice a character of an opposite gender. This method is then presented as a possible tool for writers wishing to voice other social groups, inciting the author to call upon further research to explore this hypothesis further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to propose a methodology that practice-based screenwriters can employ to remodel an existing character framework for the writing of a commercially viable anti-heroine teleplay. Historically, we are at a time in which more nuanced and authentic female-based screenplays, which subvert traditional representations of gender, are demanded. To date, anti-heroine characters and publications have been scarce, causing the market to tread carefully due to the perceived financial risk associated. The following methodology proposed offers a robust procedure to revise an existing anti-hero framework into one for the anti-heroine. The author used this methodology for their own practice-based Ph.D. thesis where a major component of the research comprised the development of an anti-heroine teleplay that would be considered for production. The industrial nature of the research aim required the inclusion of traditional research methods prior to practice. For example, the need to conduct textual analysis on case study anti-heroine shows and engage with relevant theory to define an intended audience. Due to the use of some traditional research methods, this could leave the methodology in dispute as practice-based. Before proposing the methodological framework, such concern will be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Television Antiheroines: Women Behaving Badly in Crime and Prison Drama, Milly Buonanno (2017) Bristol: Intellect, 285 pp., ISBN-13 978-1-78320-760-2, p/bk, $45k The Girl Who Knew Too Much: Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Elaine Lennon (2016) Seattle: Amazon Digital Services LLC, 132 pp., ASIN: B01KTWF08U, e-Book, $3.99 Writing for the Screen, Anna Weinstein (ed.) (2017) New York: Routledge, 254 pp., ISBN 978-1-13894-511-1, p/bk, $32.95; ISBN 978-1-31567-157-4, e-Book, $31.30 The Heroine's Journey: Woman's Quest For Wholeness, Maureen Murdock (1990) Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 232 pp., ISBN 978-0-87773-485-7, p/bk, $18.95; ISBN 978-0-81356-342-8, e-Book, $10.98 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principal techniques used in the physical characterization of thin-film solar cells and materials are reviewed, these being scanning probe microscopy (SPM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), spectroscopic ellipsometry, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), secondary-ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), photoluminescence and time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL), electron-beam-induced current (EBIC) and light-beam-induced current (LBIC). For each method the particular applicability to thin-film solar cells is highlighted. Examples of the use of each are given, these being drawn from the chalcopyrite, CdTe, Si and III–V materials systems. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]