Comparative effectiveness of three language laboratory methods using a new equipment system

Summary One hundred and forty senior high school students were divided into three matched groups according to the results of intelligence and English achievement tests, and taught English in the same LL with three different methods:IP (instant playback),AA (audio active), andLDP (long-delay playback). To verify the results, all three groups were given the same five Japanese-English translation tests and the same five speaking tests all through the experiment. As a result, theIP group gained higher scores in both tests than theAA group and theLDP group. The limiting values of the logistic curves indicate that theIP group ranks first, and theAA andLDP groups are not much different. This research was supported partly by a Scientific Research Encouraging Grant from the Japanese Ministry of Education.     

Application of behavioral technology to small group discussion with university students

Tokens were given to university students in two separate experiments for participation in small group discussions. In the first experiment a multiple baseline design was used with two small groups in an educational psychology class. In the second, 10 small groups were assessed on group participation without and with a token condition. Results of the first experiment were inconclusive though favorable; the second experiment resulted in a significant difference (t=15.41; P<.001, df=77) in group participation when tokens were delivered contingent upon group participation. The results indicate that token technology can be an effective technique to increase small group participation when a variety of back-up reinforcers is offered. The results are discussed in terms of possible applications of token technology within a university setting.     

Examining Equivalence of Accommodations on a Statewide Elementary-Level Science Test

This study examined the extent to which the underlying factor structure of the 2005 South Carolina Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests (PACT) in science for grades 3, 4, and 5 was equivalent for students who were administered the test in a regular (standard) or accommodated form. Three accommodation groups were of interest: students who received any testing accommodations, students who received any testing accommodations excluding those for whom setting was the only accommodation provided, and students who received the oral administration accommodation. Each accommodation group was compared to a matched sample of the regular group. It was found that the science test for a given grade level is appropriately described by the factor model for regular and accommodation groups. Results indicated that the factor structure, factor loadings, and error variances of the science test were similar across the regular and accommodation groups.     

Effects of collaborative activities on group identity in virtual world

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of collaborative activities on group identity in a virtual world such as Second Life. To achieve this purpose, this study adopted events that promoted participants' interactions using tools inherent in Second Life. The interactive tools given to the control group in this study included ‘permissions to move, copy, edit’, ‘give item’, ‘chat’, and ‘send instant message’. In addition to these tools, special tools of ‘give item for praise’ and ‘pollster’ were given to the experimental group. The two groups were compared using scores of group identity, which has nine subcategories. The experimental group showed higher scores in five subcategories than the control group. Thus, we concluded that the use of tools for facilitating participants' interactions is effective for the formation of group identity.     

The effect of assessment of process after receiving teacher feedback

This exploratory study investigated the effect of assessing both process and product compared to assessing written products alone. Two groups of students received teacher feedback over a one-year period. One group was assessed on their revisions in addition to the quality of final drafts, while a second group was assessed on the quality of final drafts alone. The uptake of feedback, in the form of revision attempts, and the success of those attempts were compared between the two groups using a Mann–Whitney U-test. In addition, improvement in writing performance was measured and compared between the two groups using one-way analysis of variance. It was found that the group assessed on process had significantly higher uptake of feedback than the group assessed on product alone. However, the increased uptake consisted of unsuccessful revision attempts, while the number of successful revisions was almost identical between the groups. It was also found that the group assessed on final product alone improved significantly more than the group assessed on process in terms of essay content. It is concluded that the assessment of feedback may not be necessary in some contexts, and suggestions are given for increasing the quality of learning achieved by teacher feedback.     

Anatomy adventure: A board game for enhancing understanding of anatomy

Certain negative factors such as fear, loss of concentration and interest in the course, lack of confidence, and undue stress have been associated with the study of anatomy. These are factors most often provoked by the unusually large curriculum, nature of the course, and the psychosocial impact of dissection. As a palliative measure, Anatomy Adventure, a board game on anatomy was designed to reduce some of these pressures, emphasize student centered and collaborative learning styles, and add fun to the process of learning while promoting understanding and retention of the subject. To assess these objectives, 95 out of over 150 medical and dental students who expressed willingness to be part of the study were recruited and divided into a Game group and a Non‐game group. A pretest written examination was given to both groups, participants in the Game group were allowed to play the game for ten days, after which a post‐test examination was also given. A 20‐item questionnaire rated on a three‐point scale to access student's perception of the game was given to the game group. The post‐test scores of the game group were significantly higher (P < 0.05) than those of the non‐game counterparts. Also the post‐test score of the game based group was significantly better (P < 0.05) than their pretest. The students in their feedback noted in very high proportions that the game was interesting, highly informative, encouraged team work, improved their attitude, and perception to gross anatomy. Anat Sci Educ 7: 153–160. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.     

Training and changes in fluid and crystallized intelligence

In this study, the same battery of tests was administered three times: at the beginning of the experiment, at the end of training, and 1 year after the end of training. The control group was taught in the traditional way. The experimental group was given extensive training in creative problem solving over a 3-year period. The invariant factor structure model for multimode data (R. P. McDonald, 1984, in Research methods of multimode data analysis, New York: Praeger Scientific) was fitted, with LISREL, to both groups simultaneously. At the last testing session, the experimental group performed better than the control group on a majority of variables. Fluid intellectual abilities were somewhat more affected by training in creative problem solving than were crystallized abilities.     

Effects of combination of irbesartan and perindopril on calcineurin expression and sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2＋-ATPase activity in rat cardiac pressure-overload hypertrophy

INTRODUCTION Left ventricular hypertrophy has been thought to be the principal predicators of predisposing risk factor of cardiac morbidity and mortality (Devereux, 1995; Levy et al., 1990). The pathogenesis that mediates cardiac hypertrophy is poorly understood. Cardiachypertrophy can be induced by hemodynamic over-load, ischemic disease, neurohumoral factors and intrinsic defects in cardiac structural protein genes (Sadoshima and Izumo, 1997; Vikstrom and Lein-wand, 1996). Another in…     

Instructional design in a chemistry laboratory course: The impact of structure and aptitudes on performance and attitudes

Elements of instructional design such as explicitly stated objectives, reviews, examples, questions, and feedback were incorporated into the laboratory manual and instruction for a unit on kinetics in a college laboratory course. This treatment (high structure) was given to five sections of students (N = 109), while a laboratory manual and instructions that emphasized informational content without the use of these design strategies (low structure) was given to another five sections (N = 108) taught by the same instructors. The students receiving the additional structure scored significantly higher on a quiz, took less time to solve a set of laboratory problems, and felt more satisfied with the instruction provided. There were no differences between groups in their comfort with the knowledge acquired. There were no interactions with performance outcomes, but several occurred for attitudes, treatments, and personality measures. The more conforming the students, the more satisfied they were with the instruction in the high-structured group and the less they liked it in the low-structured group. The more motivated the students, the more they liked the instruction in the high-structure treatment, and even more in the low-structure group. There was also a complex interaction among treatment, anxiety, ability, and treatment satisfaction.     

The Facilitation of Thinking Skills in Preschool Children using Computer Presented Activities

Summary Thirty six four‐year‐old children were given the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices and were then randomly divided within sexes into two groups. A treatment group worked through sixteen computer presented problem‐solving activities while the second was a controlled group and did not do the activities. All the children were then re‐tested on Raven's Matrices. The results showed a significantly greater improvement between the pre‐ and post‐test for the treatment group than for the control group. The results are discussed in terms of the development of thinking skills.     

A longitudinal study of the Stanford-Binet and WISC-R with special education students

A group of 95 black and 52 white low socioeconimic children assigned to special education calsses were initially given the Stanford-Binet (1972 norms) and three years later the WISC-R. Correlations between the Stanford-Binet and WISC-R Full Scale IQs were significant in both ethnic groups, with r=.60 for the total group. Correlations between the Stanford-Binet and WISC-R subtests also were generally signiificant (rs between .29 and .52 for the total group). Stanford-Binet and WISC-R Full Scale IQs did not differ significantly. For this sample of special education children, the Stanford-Binet was found to have satisfactory predictive validity.     

Recovery of conditioned fear by a single postextinction shock: Effect of similarity of shock contexts and of time following extinction

Subjects in six experimental groups (n = 16 each) received one-trial passive avoidance (PA) training in which shock was delivered upon movement from a white wooden floor compartment to a black grid compartment. Then fear was extinguished (30 min) in the black compartment. After either 24 or 168 h, all the groups were treated in a room distinctively different from the training room. At each interval, one group received a shock in an apparatus similar to the conditioning box, another received a shock in a dissimilar apparatus, and another was placed in a neutral box. A PA test trial in the training apparatus indicated reinstatement of extinguished fear in all the groups given a postextinction shock except the 24-h dissimilar group. Control groups revealed that the extinction treatment was effective and that spontaneous recovery was not evident. The results were explained in terms of classical conditioning, stimulus generalization, and the broadening (flattening) of stimulus generalization gradients with time.     

Effects of orienting activities and practice on achievement,continuing motivation,and student behaviors in a cooperative learning environment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of orienting activities and type of practice on achievement, continuing motivation, and student behaviors in a cooperative learning environment. Eighty graduate education majors were assigned to cooperative groups and required to learn instructional design principles from three instructional television lessons. Each lesson included specific orienting activities (advance organizers or objectives) and different types of practice (verbal information or intellectual skills). Results indicated that subjects who worked in groups that received intellectual skills practice performed better on the application portion of the posttest than those who received verbal information practice. Knowledge acquisition and student behaviors were affected by a combination of type of practice and orienting activity. Groups that received intellectual skills practice discussed more content, gave more help to their fellow group members, and exhibited less individual behavior than groups that received verbal information practice. Groups given objectives discussed significantly more content than groups given advance organizers. The authors wish to thank Steven Ross and the reviewers ofETR&D for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Effects of atorvastatin on vascular remodeling in spontaneously hypertensive rats

Objective: To investigate the structural changes of aorta, and evaluate the effects of atorvastatin on the remodeling of thoracic aorta in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). Methods: Twelve eight-week-old SHR were randomized into atorvastatin treated group (ATV group,n=6) and distilled water group (DW group,n=6); Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY) were used as normal controls. Atorvastatin was administered to ATV group for 10 weeks by gavage in mixture with distilled water(1 ml); the latter two groups were given the same amount of distilled water by gavage for 10 weeks. Systolic blood pressure of caudal artery was examined before and after treatment, and serum concentrations of total cholesterol, triglycerides and HDL-C were measured. Wall thickness, media thickness, medial cross-sectional area and lumen diameter of thoracic aorta were assessed with computed video processing. Results: Systolic blood pressure in ATV group was markedly lower than that in DW group (P<0.01). Compared with DW group and WKY group, serum concentrations of total cholesterol, triglycerides and HDL-C in ATV group were significantly lower (P<0.01,P<0.05). Wall thickness, media thickness, and medial cross-sectional area to lumen ratio in DW group were significantly higher than those in WKY group and ATV group (P<0.01,P<0.05), but no such difference was found between WKY group and ATV group (P>0.05). Conclusion: Vascular structural changes of aorta are due to the alteration of the vessel wall in early stage of SHR. Atorvastatin can markedly improve vascular remodeling.     

Constructing Equivalent Salary Schedules

College students (N = 160) read two 1-½ page passages on the concepts of autism and trochaic meter. After reading, four independent groups answered questions requiring either a summary, the generation of a new example of the concept, a listing of the critical attributes of the concept, or the identification of a new example. All groups received feedback, and a control group received feedback but no post-question. Alternate forms of a test of concept classification were given one day and one week after reading. The identify post-question group showed greater accuracy in the classification of new examples of the concepts studied when compared to the other post-question groups, yet required no greater amount of study time than the no-question control group.     

Improving interpersonal relations in the college classroom: An empirical investigation

The effect of small interpersonal discussion groups on student interpersonal relations was examined. A Group Psychology class with small interpersonal groups was compared to two other similar-level psychology classes with more traditional formats. One of these controls (a placebo group) had small, academically oriented discussion groups, and the other (a standard control group) was a medium-sized lecture class. TotalN was 258. The quality of within-class interpersonal relations for the experimental group exceeded that of the controls on all dependent variables. These effects, however, did not extend to behavior outside the class. This finding was supported by the results of a two-year follow-up (N=74).     

Problem-Based Learning in 9th Grade Chemistry Class: ‘Intermolecular Forces’

This research study aims to examine the effectiveness of a problem-based learning (PBL) on 9th grade students’ understanding of intermolecular forces (dipole–dipole forces, London dispersion forces and hydrogen bonding). The student’s alternate conceptions about intermolecular bonding and their beliefs about PBL were also measured. Seventy-eight 9th grade students were stratified by cognitive levels and then randomly assigned to experimental (PBL, 40 students) and control (lecture-style teaching, 38 students) groups. Following a preparatory lesson where activation and remediation of existing knowledge occur, a pre-test was given, and no significant difference was found between the two groups of students (p > .05). After the instruction was completed, a post-test and also a questionnaire related to the quality of the problem, the teacher’s role and group functioning were administered. Results from the post-test of both groups (p < .05) and questionnaire showed that PBL is affective on students’ achievement, remedying formation of alternate conceptions and also social skills.     

Problem‐based learning in an eleventh grade chemistry class: ‘factors affecting cell potential’

The purpose of this research study was to examine the effectiveness of problem‐based learning (PBL) on eleventh grade students’ understanding of ‘The effects of temperature, concentration and pressure on cell potential’ and also their social skills. Stratified randomly selected control and experimental groups with 20 students each were used in this study. To determine their misunderstandings and misconceptions about closely related, previously covered subjects, such as oxidation‐reduction reactions and electrochemical cells, interviews were conducted. Following a preparatory lesson where remediation of misconceptions were undertaken, a pre‐test was given, and no significant difference was found between the two groups of students (p>0.05). Then, the same teacher taught factors that affect cell potential using a teacher‐centred traditional format to the control group, and a PBL format to the experimental group. Results from the post‐test of both groups (p<0.05) showed that PBL is effective on students’ achievement, remedying formation of misconceptions in a significant way. Interviews were also conducted with PBL students to determine their beliefs according to PBL activity. The findings according to interviews revealed that students in the PBL class were more motivated, self‐confident, willing to problem‐solve and share knowledge, and were more active in cooperative group activities than the traditionally‐taught students.     

The Study of Number Sense: Realistic Activities Integrated into Third-Grade Math Classes in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

The authors compared the performance of students who received integration of number sense activities in instruction with students who received instruction using regular mathematics textbooks. Two classes of third-grade students (N = 60) were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Students in each group were given a pretest, post I test, and post II test, and were interviewed individually across 20 class periods of intervention. Results showed that the performance of the students in the experimental group was significantly higher than those in the control group. The interview data also showed that the students in the experimental group performed better than students in the control group in flexible and effective ways to use number sense.     

Learning from physics instruction

Forty high school students participated in a study to investigate learning and remembering from physics instruction. At pretest, students received aptitude tests, an alternate form of achievement test (counterbalanced) and a word association (WA) test. Then the 40 students were divided into instruction (N = 28) and control (N = 12) groups. The control group received all subsequent tests but no instruction. The instruction group received physics instruction over five 2-hour sessions. At the end of each session, the WA test was administered; the alternate form of the achievement test was administered at the end of the last session. The instruction and control groups did not differ significantly in achievement at pretest. The instruction group showed a significant gain from pre- to posttest; no such gain was found for the control group. The instruction and control groups did not differ on the number of responses generated on the WA test at pretesting. The number of responses given by students in the instruction group increased significantly from test 1 (pretest) to test 6 (posttest). For the control group, the number of responses increased initially and then leveled out well below the instruction group data. When WA test responses were tallied for “constrained” responses (i.e., tallying only those concepts found in equations defining the stimulus word), the number of constrained responses increased consistently for the instruction group. For the control group, constrained responses showed an initial increase and then leveled out well below instruction group data. Finally, the aptitude, achievement, and WA data were intercorrelated. This analysis suggests that for students who perform well in solving problems at the end of instruction, the physics concepts became meaningful soon after they were introduced. Subsequently, these students were able to consolidate, in memory, the meaning of the concepts and the interrelations among these concepts in the form of equations. Students not able to solve problems at the end of instruction seemed to be completing the process of acquiring the meaning of the concepts.