Teacher ratings of student engagement with educational software: An exploratory study

The quality of students' learning engagement may significantly influence their learning. Can teachers accurately judge student learning engagement with educational software? In this exploratory study, 3 fifth-grade teachers used a seven-level taxonomy to rate the frequency of different forms of engagement among 42 students interacting with different types of educational software. Teachers spontaneously treated the seven levels of engagement as a continuum, rating students highest on one level or a set of contiguous levels. Teachers generally agreed when ranking students by their typical levels of engagement, but disagreed regarding the actual frequencies of different engagement types. Ratings of software engagement conceived of as interpretive activity were correlated significantly with student reading test scores. Given the authentic classroom conditions in which this study took place, the results are promising for the classroom utility of the seven-level conception of student engagement with software.     

非物质文化遗产资源保护与旅游利用研究综述

非物质文化遗产以其自带属性与旅游产生互动,成为学术界的研究热点。在非物质文化遗产的概念、保护和旅游开发等方面学者们取得了丰硕的研究成果,但缺少对我国不同旅游发展阶段非物质文化遗产资源保护和旅游利用研究的系统梳理。根据旅游发展的时间脉络,将此类研究划分为＂萌芽-保护-利用-协调＂四个阶段。研究发现,有关非物质文化遗产资源保护与利用的研究成果丰富,理论研究趋势与实践相契合,但定性研究远远大于定量研究。同时,实证研究较为缺乏。     

基于RMP分析的河南省非物质文化遗产旅游开发研究

非物质文化遗产是区域重要的旅游资源,并将成为中国国际旅游的三大产品之一.用昂普（RMP）分析模式,在对河南省的非物质文化遗产的资源、产品转化、市场弹性、生产偏好、市场竞争性进行分析的基础上,对旅游产品的创新、空间组合等进行了分析和设计,最后提出了河南省非物质文化遗产的旅游开发策略：保护第一、合理开发、整合文化资源、突出特色文化、按照特点顺序开发、增强产品的参与性和采用恰当的开发模式.     

教育学革命:从知识教育学到行为教育学

早在19世纪和20世纪之交，以本本主义为思想特征的知识教育学就受到了来自以人本主义 为思想特征的行为教育学的严峻挑战。杜威在他的名著《学校与社会》(人民教育出版社，1 994年版)中就提出了一个惊天动地的命题：“现在我们的教育中正在发生的一种变革是重心 的转移。这是一种变革，一场革命，一场和哥白尼把天体的中心从地球转到太阳那样的革命 ”。然而，在过去的20世纪里，这场革命不过是像钟摆一样从一个极端摆到另一个极端，即 从以本本为中心的系统传授知识模式摆到以儿童的偶发兴趣为中心的问题解决行为模式。前 者以赫尔巴特(J…     

Difficulty and self-efficacy: An exploratory study

Serious games are becoming increasingly popular due to their association with increased learning outcomes when compared to traditional self-regulated learning activities. However, the majority of research examining the outcomes of serious games has focused almost exclusively on learning outcomes. This has resulted in a lack of research examining why these types of games result in increased positive outcomes, such as engagement or performance. This study seeks to address this gap in existing research by examining the relationship between game difficulty and participants’ engagement, performance and self-efficacy in a Pacman style maze navigation game. This required the use of hidden difficulty variations which participants were randomly assigned. Participants engaged with the game over a 5-days practice period. Results from this study suggest that difficulty plays a considerable role in influencing participants’ self-efficacy for the task. Self-efficacy has been consistently linked to positive outcomes such as increased engagement and performance. This highlights the importance of difficulty as a game design factor as well as providing an insight into the manner in which serious games could be further refined in order to increase user’s self-efficacy and associated positive outcomes. Implications for future serious games and self-efficacy research are discussed.     

Determinants of withdrawal behavior: An exploratory study

Research on college persistence has typically classified nonreturnees as dropouts. Recently, this practice has been criticized by Tinto (1987) who argues that such a practice merges together different types of withdrawal behavior whose determinants may vary as a function of the particular departure behavior under consideration. This paper empirically examines whether the determinants of decisions to withdraw from the institution are similar to those affecting decisions to transfer to other institutions of higher education for the 1984 entering freshman class at a large southern institution. Results provide support for Tinto's proposition of differentiating between different types of voluntary withdrawal behavior. While institutional commitment, academic performance, finance attitudes, and student perceptions of faculty concern for student development and teaching discriminated between persisters and dropouts, only final institutional commitment and final goal commitment discriminated between persisters and transfers.An earlier version of this paper was presented before the 1990 American Educational Research Association annual meeting.     

Cognitive preferences and creativity: An exploratory study

Cognitive preference, a cognitive style acquired through life and learning experiences and representing a distinct orientation to the processing of information, is related to creativity in this study. Significant correlations were observed between cognitive preference and verbal creativity but not with figural creativity as measured by the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking.     

Videogames and spatial skills: An exploratory study

Fifty-eight undergraduate and graduate students participated in an exploratory study which examined the relationship between videogames, spatial cognitive skills, and eye-hand coordination. Scores on two videogames were compared with subjects’ scores on three standardized spatial skills tests and on one test of eye-hand coordination. The subjects were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (which was provided with five hours of videogame practice) or the control group (which was provided with no videogame practice). The scores on the two videogames were found to be correlated with different spatial test scores. Significant sex and age differences were also found on several of the measures. The males scored higher than the females on spatial orientation, visualization, and the baseline measures on one of the videogames, while the females scored higher than the males on the test of eye-hand coordination. The age of the subjects was found to be negatively correlated with scores on the videogames and spatial test scores. I would like to acknowledge the significant contributions of my advisers Ronald Slaby and Barbara Flagg of Harvard Graduate School of Education, America’s Game of Somerville, MA, for equipment donation, and John Kao of the Harvard Business School for donating the use of computer facilities.     

One-person criminal justice programs: An exploratory study

This article examines the issues that confront one-person criminal justice programs. These programs, operated by only one full-time faculty member, have both advantages and disadvantages. Identification, categorization, and analysis of the many relevant issues are the focus of this exploratory study. Nationwide more than one-third of the community college criminal justice programs are staffed by only one educator, as are some four-year college programs. It is important to ensure that the negative points inherent in one-person programs do not impair the quality of criminal justice education.     

Rhetorical criticism of interpersonal discourse: An exploratory study

This study demonstrates how rhetorical criticism can be utilized to clarify the rhetorical nature of interpersonal discourse. Bitzer's situational theory, Bormann's fantasy theme analysis, and Arnold's criticism of oral rhetoric are synthesized to explain the nature and form of selected portions of taped and transcribed interpersonal dialogue.     

Componential skills of beginning writing: An exploratory study

The present study examined the components of end of kindergarten writing, using data from 242 kindergartners. Specifically of interest was the importance of spelling, letter writing fluency, reading, and word- and syntax-level oral language skills in writing. The results from structural equation modeling revealed that oral language, spelling, and letter writing fluency were positively and uniquely related to writing skill after accounting for reading skills. Reading skill was not uniquely related to writing once oral language, spelling, and letter writing fluency were taken into account. These findings are discussed from a developmental perspective.     

Professional standards for the teaching of science: An exploratory study

The Science Education Professional Development (SEPD) Project was commissioned by the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) as part of its Projects of National Significance Program. Its brief was to develop a national strategy for enhancing the professional development of science teachers. This paper summarises one component of the Project's work, an exploration of the feasibility of establishing professional standards or expectations for teachers of science. The aim was to give clearer purpose and direction to professional development planning and to provide a more valid basis for evaluating science teachers for career development. Specializations: Teachers' work and policy, teacher development, educational evaluation, teacher evaluation, research on teaching.     

Measuring effectiveness in citizens' participation organizations: An exploratory study

The authors reviewed theories of organization effectiveness, proposed a multivariate model, and empirically tested determinants of effectiveness of local school citizens' participation organizations with respondents in a metropolitan public school system. The results suggest that resource acquisition and internal process effectiveness in citizens' groups are inversely correlated with the perceived need for improvement in student achievement and the quality of life in the local school. Limitations of the research are discussed.