Prevalence and genotype of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Chlamydia psittaci</Emphasis> in faecal samples of birds from zoos and pet markets in Kunming,Yunnan, China

Chlamydia psittaci is an important zoonotic pathogen in birds and may be transmitted to humans and result in severe respiratory disease. To assess the prevalence and genotype of C. psittaci in birds in Kunming, Yunnan, China, a total of 136 specimens of psittacine birds involving 8 species were collected from the city’s zoos (n=60) and pet markets (n=76). The frequency of C. psittaci infection was 19.9% (27/136) in the psittacine birds. The prevalence of C. psittaci was higher in pet birds (26.3%; 20/76) than in zoo birds (11.7%; 7/60) (P=0.034). In particular, among Agapornis fischeri, the C. psittaci infection (50%; 10/20) was significantly more frequent in the pet markets than in the zoos (P=0.006). In addition, the highest prevalence of 41.2% (7/17) was found in Ara ararauna. To determine the genotype of C. psittaci, 23 OmpA gene fragments (about 1.4 kb) in 27 positive samples were successfully amplified and sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis showed that all the 23 strains belonged to genotype A. Our results demonstrate the high prevalence of C. psittaci genotype A infection in psittacine birds in Yunnan Province, suggesting a potential threat to human health in this area. Therefore, it is necessary to take effective measures to prevent the spread of C. psittaci among psittacine birds, as well as among employees and customers.     

Object permanence in four species of psittacine birds: An African Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus), an Illiger mini macaw (Ara maracana), a parakeet (Melopsittacus undulatus), and a cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus)

Four psittacids—an African Grey parrot, an Illiger macaw, a cockatiel, and a parakeet—were tested on object-permanence tasks that are commonly used to assess levels of understanding in human infants during their first 2 years. These birds showed Stage 6 competence, demonstrating that object permanence is not limited to mammals. The results for these birds were comparable to those of an African Grey parrot that had been trained in interspecies communication prior to object-permanence testing. Our findings thus suggest that although language-like behavior provides a communication channel that facilitates testing, such language training is unlikely to affect the outcome of the tests.     

Categorical color coding by pigeons

Pigeons were trained on two independent tasks. One involved red and yellow hues, the other involved blue and green hues. For half of the birds, the two tasks were the same (i.e., both tasks were either matching-to-sample, or oddity-from-sample). For the remaining birds, the two tasks were different (i.e., one task was matching-to-sample; the other task was oddity-from-sample). Following acquisition, the pigeons were exposed to test trials on which either the correct or the incorrect comparison hue was replaced with one of the hues from the other task. On yellow-sample trials and on green-sample trials, the pigeons performed as if they had a common code for yellow and green. When there was one comparison available that was appropriate to the “yellow/green” code, performance remained high; but when either both comparisons or neither comparison was appropriate to the “yellow/green” code, performance dropped. The pigeons also tended to code red samples as green and to code blue samples as yellow. The results indicate that pigeons can categorically code colors under conditions that rule out a failure to discriminate among the colors.     

Are the tests scores of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) science tests comparable? An assessment of test equivalence in German Schools

The aim of this study is to link the science scale of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) with the science scale of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). One requirement for a strong linking of test scores from different studies is a sufficient similarity of the tests regarding their constructs. The present study aims to assess the similarity of the operationalized constructs of the NEPS and PISA scientific literacy tests with the aim to link the scales of the two tests. A linking study was carried out for this purpose in which 1079 students worked on the tasks of both studies. The results of the comparison between NEPS and PISA indicated a high overlap regarding their constructs. However, both studies deal with missing responses differently. The linking via equipercentile equating showed a high classification consistency which was highest when missing responses were ignored in both studies.     

Learning from direct instruction: Best prepared by several self-regulated or guided invention activities?

Learning from direct instruction can be enhanced by preparatory invention tasks: students invent an index that allows to differentiate a set of cases regarding important aspects (self-regulated). However, contradictory results have been found. As self-regulated activities often need practice, we tested whether the contradictory findings persist when students can practice inventing. We randomly assigned 99 eighth-grade students to two conditions (independent variable): they either invented twice (self-regulated; n = 49) or worked through worked solutions of the two tasks (guided; n = 50) before learning about ratios in physics from a lecture. Extraneous load, deep-structure recall, knowledge-gap perception, and self-efficacy were potential mediators. Transfer was the dependent measure. Guidance led to less extraneous load. However, self-regulation led to higher transfer because the students devoted more attention to the deep structure of the preparation tasks. Our findings suggest that—given some practice—self-regulated outperforms guided preparation for learning from direct instruction.     

Child sexual abuse: Case handling through public social agencies in the Southeast of the USA

This paper reports data from a regionwide survey of child sexual abuse case handling in the Southeast. Public social agency workers do not generally provide nor view the provision of treatment services as being primarily their responsibility. While about 70% of the workers (N = 1,045) had performed initial intervention and diagnostic tasks, only 46.1% had performed treatment tasks. Ten percent of the workers felt initial intervention tasks were more appropriate to some other professional community resource; 16.3% made this judgment for diagnostic tasks. On the other hand, 55.1% delegated the responsibility for the provision of treatment services. More importantly, the workers' perception of task performance responsibility was not appreciably influenced by the notion of being provided adequate training to perform treatment services.     

Preliminary evidence for color stimuli discrimination in the Asian small-clawed otter (Aonyx cinerea)

Color discrimination ability can be determined through anatomy or perceptual ability. In this study we tested perceptual ability. Three Asian small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinerea), one male and two females, were trained via operant conditioning to discriminate stimuli within a training task. If they passed criteria for this task, they were tested on as many as six delayed matching-to-sample experimental tasks. These experimental tasks involved comparing varying saturations of the colors blue, green, and red against varying shades of gray, as well as against each other. The male reached criterion on five of the experimental tasks, indicating an ability to discriminate the stimuli. One female participated in only two tasks and did not achieve the criteria as set. The second female did not pass the training task, and thus was not experimentally tested. This study overall showed some early evidence that Asian small-clawed otters may have the ability to learn to discriminate different stimuli on the basis of color cues. Sensory studies conducted on two other otter species and the results of this study indicate that color vision may be a common trait across Lutrinae species.     

Eye movements of university students with and without reading difficulties during naming speed tasks

Although naming speed (NS) has been shown to predict reading into adulthood and differentiate between adult dyslexics and controls, the question remains why NS is related to reading. To address this question, eye movement methodology was combined with three letter NS tasks (the original letter NS task by Denckla & Rudel, Cortex 10:186–202, 1974, and two more developed by Compton, The Journal of Special Education 37:81–94, 2003, with increased phonological or visual similarity of the letters). Twenty undergraduate students with reading difficulties (RD) and 27 without (NRD) were tested on letter NS tasks (eye movements were recorded during the NS tasks), phonological processing, and reading fluency. The results indicated first that the RD group was slower than the NRD group on all NS tasks with no differences between the NS tasks. In addition, the NRD group had shorter fixation durations, longer saccades, and fewer saccades and fixations than the RD group. Fixation duration and fixation count were significant predictors of reading fluency even after controlling for phonological processing measures. Taken together, these findings suggest that the NS–reading relationship is due to two factors: less able readers require more time to acquire stimulus information during fixation and they make more saccades.     

The predictive power of intuitive rules: A critical analysis of the impact of `more A–more B' and `same A–same B'

In the international community of mathematics and science educators the intuitive rules theory developed by the Israeli researchers Tirosh and Stavy receives much attention. According to this theory, students' responses to a variety of mathematical and scientific tasks can be explained in terms of their application of some common intuitive rules. Two major intuitive rules are manifested in comparison tasks: ‘More A—more B’ and ‘Same A—same B’. In this paper, we address two important questions for which the existing literature on intuitive rules does not provide a convincing research-based answer: (1) are the reasoning processes of students who respond in line with a given intuitive rule actually affected by that rule or by essentially other misconceptions (leading to the same answer), and (2) are individual students consistent in their choice of one of the intuitive rules when confronted with different, conceptually unrelated tasks? A test consisting of five comparison problems from different mathematical subdomains was administered collectively to 172 Flemish students from Grades 10 to 12. An analysis of students' written calculations and justifications suggested that the students were considerably less affected by the intuitive rules than their multiple-choice answers actually suggested. Instead, essentially different misconceptions and errors were found. With respect to the issue of individual consistency, we found that students who made many errors did not answer systematically in line with one of the two intuitive rules.     

The dynamic relationship between response processes and self-regulation in critical thinking assessments

Our aim was to explore higher education students’ response and self-regulatory processes plus the relationship between these, as evidenced in two types of performance-based critical thinking tasks included in the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+) International instrument. The data collection consisted of 20 cognitive laboratories. The data were analyzed using a qualitative approach. The tasks were found to trigger different response and self-regulatory processes. Overall, the performance task evoked more holistic processes than the selected-response questions, in which students’ processes were more question-oriented. The results also indicated the entanglement of students’ response and self-regulation processes. Three self-regulation groups were identified. Students with versatile self-regulation skills were able to complete the task thoroughly, whereas students with moderate self-regulation skills faced challenges in monitoring and evaluating their performance. Students who were lacking in self-regulation struggled both with the task as a whole and their own progress. Implications for higher education are discussed.     

Is adaptation to task complexity really beneficial for performance?

Theories of self-regulated learning assume that learners flexibly adapt their learning process to external task demands and that this is positively related to performance. In this study, university students (n = 119) solved three tasks that greatly differed in complexity. Their learning processes were captured in detail by task-specific questionnaires and computer-generated log files. Results indicate that students adapted almost all learning processes significantly to task complexity. For example, students accessed more hypertext pages for complex tasks than for simple tasks. However, this kind of adaptation was not consistently related to performance. For variables capturing learners’ self-regulation, such as the number of accessed hypertext pages, more pronounced adaptation was significantly and positively related to performance even when learners’ general processing depth was statistically controlled. Results were less consistent for variables capturing learners’ self-monitoring, such as their judged task complexity.     

Comparing composing processes in writing-only and reading-to-write test tasks

The use of reading-to-write tasks for assessing academic writing in English is increasing, often replacing traditional impromptu writing-only tasks. This shift has led to a number of studies comparing the written products of these two task types. To add to this literature, this article reports on a study comparing test takers’ processes in composing reading-to-write and writing-only test tasks. Ten non-native English-speaking students at a large Midwestern United States university participated in talk-aloud writing sessions and interviews. They wrote on tasks developed for the English placement exam at the university. The data were analyzed qualitatively across tasks and test takers. Differences were found across tasks and writers with the reading-to-write task eliciting a more interactive process for some writers and writing-only tasks requiring more initial and less online planning. Those with more experience and interest in writing reported using a more interactive process. To use the results in choosing between the two tasks, careful consideration of the construct for academic writing is needed. However, the results suggest a more authentic process in reading-to-write tasks, and also reveal test takers’ preference for these tasks.     

Are children's rule-assessment classifications invariant across instances of problem types?

Wilkening and Anderson recently criticized Siegler's rule-assessment methodology as being insufficiently diagnostic of some rules that may be used to solve tasks like the balance scale. An implication of this criticism is that the rule-assessment method may yield classifications that vary with the problems used to assess knowledge. We tested this implication by varying the size of the product difference within problem types for both the balance-scale and the inclined-plane tasks. Many children's classifications differed from problem set to problem set. Children tended to achieve more developmentally sophisticated classifications with larger product differences, and variability in classifications was attributable to greater accuracy on all problem types with larger product differences. The variability in accuracy on the simple problem types is predicted by neither Siegler's nor Wilkening and Anderson's analyses. Possible explanations for these findings were discussed.     

A student team approach to teaching adolescents with special emotional and behavioral needs

Teams-Games-Tournament (TGT), an instructional technique involving student teams and learning games, is proposed as an alternative classroom structure for children with special needs. TGT and individualized instruction were compared in a school for adolescents of normal intelligence experiencing problems with human relationships and academic tasks. Students were randomly assigned to treatments. A five-category behavioral observation scale recorded student interaction and task behavior. In addition, students responded to a five-item sociometric instrument. The results confirmed hypotheses that TGT would exceed individualized instruction on students' attraction to one another, frequency of peer tutoring, and percent of time on task. A five-month followup showed former TGT students distributed among six new classes to be still interacting with their peers both on and off task more than control students.     

Comparing spatial memory in two species of tit: Recalling a single positive location

The performance of a food-storing species, the marsh tit(Parus palustris), was compared with that of a nonstorer, the blue tit(P. caeruleus), in a spatial memory task in which birds had to return to a site where they had previously been allowed to eat part of a piece of peanut. No differences were found between species’ overall performance, but increasing retention interval from 1 min to 24 h brought about a decrease in performance. The results are discussed in relationship to the hypothesis that food-storing birds have a specialized spatial memory capacity.     

Process support in learning tasks for acquiring complex cognitive skills in the domain of law

Whole tasks for acquiring complex skills are often too difficult for novices. To solve this problem, process support divides the problem solving into phases, offers driving questions, and provides feedback. A multimedia program was used to teach sophomore law students (N = 82) to prepare and carry out a plea. In a randomised 2 × 2 design with the factors number of phases and availability of driving questions, students solving a task with fewer phases performed better and more efficiently than students exposed to more phases. Also, students receiving driving questions performed better, although not more efficiently than students not receiving such questions. The results indicate that whole tasks should be accompanied by process support, although task characteristics might restrict the benefits of driving questions in this support.     

Maintaining motivation and regulating emotion: measuring individual differences in academic volitional strategies

This study examined self-regulatory strategies used by students to maintain motivation on academic goal tasks. Of particular interest were strategies for managing potentially disruptive emotional states. The Academic Volitional Strategy Inventory (AVSI) was developed to investigate this aspect of student self-regulatory behavior. Three separate student samples (n = 378; n = 463; n = 246) from a large southwestern university contributed to the refinement of the AVSI, and supported theoretical arguments for the existence of volitional self-regulatory action by students in maintaining academic task motivation. Factor analyses performed on items for each administration of the AVSI revealed a three-factor structure as providing a conceptually clear division of items. Item groupings consisted of strategies reflecting (1) self-efficacy enhancement, (2) stress reduction, and (3) negative-based incentives. Reliability estimates revealed strong internal consistency and stability. Further analyses currently in progress to support the validity of the scale are also discussed. However, the preliminary results presented in this paper suggest that the AVSI is a promising research instrument, and one that captures an aspect of self-regulatory action not adequately examined by existing instruments.     

“Same/different” symbol use by pigeons

Pigeons learned to respond at one spatial position when a pair of stimuli matched and at a different spatial position when they mismatched. All birds were then transferred to novel stimuli on an orthogonal dimension. For the positive-transfer group, the correct positions for matching and mismatching stimuli remained as they were during training. For the negative-transfer group, the correct positions were reversed. In Experiment 1, the birds were trained with shape stimuli and transferred to hue stimuli. Significant group differences were found, in spite of considerable stimulus-specific learning. In Experiment 2, when the same birds (counterbalanced for Experiment 1 transfer group) were transferred to steady-intermittent stimuli, even larger group differences were found. The data indicate that pigeons have some capacity for representing the concepts “same” and “different” with arbitrary stimuli (i.e., symbols). The data further suggest that distinctions that have been made between matching/oddity transfer tasks and same/different tasks may be procedural rather than conceptual.     

Matching and oddity learning in pigeons: Effects of penalty time for incorrect responding

In simultaneous matching-to-sample and oddity-from-sample tasks, briefly delaying the offset of trial stimuli following an incorrect choice response was found to facilitate task acquisition (Experiment 1). Because thispenalty-time procedure also resulted in longer choice-response latencies, it was hypothesized that any procedure that increased response latency would facilitate task acquisition. However, in Experiment 2, no evidence of facilitation was found when a 2-sec pause was imposed prior to the choice response. The results of Experiment 3 suggest that penalty-time facilitation of acquisition was not due to either the added differential outcome on correct versus incorrect trials (i.e., incorrect choice responses do not darken the keys as do correct choice responses) or the aversive effects associated with trial prolongation (i.e., incorrect responses not only result in the absence of reinforcement but also delay the start of the next trial). Instead, results suggest that birds trained with the penalty-time procedure review the trial stimuli following an incorrect choice.