Partial reinforcement and latent inhibition effects on stimulus–outcome associations in flavor preference conditioning

Two experiments with thirsty rats explored the harmful effects of non-reinforced exposures to a flavor cue in the control by sensory-specific flavor–sucrose associations in a conditioned flavor preference paradigm. Experiment 1 demonstrated that rats learned to prefer a flavor cue that was consistently paired with sucrose over one that was paired with sucrose the same number of times but was also presented without sucrose on other occasions. However, rats for which sucrose was devalued following the conditioning phase preferred the partially reinforced flavor cue over the consistently reinforced flavor, suggesting that non-reinforcement weakened the ability of that flavor cue to evoke a specific representation of sucrose during the preference test. Experiment 2 demonstrated comparable effects of non-reinforcement in a latent inhibition procedure, although relatively more non-reinforced pre exposures to the flavor, in conjunction with fewer flavor–sucrose pairings, were required to see the effect. Together, the results suggest, as is often found with more traditional learning paradigms, that non-reinforcement of a flavor cue has deleterious effects on preference learning and/or performance.     

Present/absent sample matching in pigeons: Is comparison choice controlled by the sample stimulus or by differential sample responding?

In two experiments involving present/absent sample matching, we tested whether the visual stimuli or differential sample behavior served as the basis for comparison choice. In both experiments, one group (FR/DRO) was required to peck the present sample and to refrain from pecking the absent sample (as typically occurs with fixed duration present/absent samples), and the other group (FR/FR) was required to peck both samples. In Experiment 1, the samples were a black dot on a white field (present) and the white field alone (absent). In Experiment 2, the samples were a yellow hue (present) and a dark response key (absent). In both experiments, divergent retention functions were found only for the FR/DRO group. These results suggest that, in nonhedonic present/absent sample matching, it is the behavior directed toward the present sample, rather than the visual stimulus itself, that serves as the basis for comparison choice.     

Gender Roles: Biases or Differences?

This paper aims to probe into the two distinct gender roles—males and females—in several ways,and further answers the question"what on earth cause the salient differentiation in gender roles,biases or differences?"In conclusion,the author holds that it is the physiological and psychological differences in the two sexes that result in the differed distribution of such vari ous duties which males and females are supposed to fulfill as the current society has expected.     

Matthew effects in reading comprehension: myth or reality?

The presence of Matthew effects was tested in students of varying reading, spelling, and vocabulary skills. A cross-sequential design was implemented, following 587 Grade 2 through 4 students across five measurement points (waves) over 2 years. Students were administered standardized assessments of reading, spelling, and vocabulary. Results indicated that the hypothesized fan-spread pattern for Matthew effects was not evident. Low and high ability groups were formed based on 25th and 75th percentile cutoffs on initial measures of spelling, reading accuracy and fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Multilevel modeling suggested that low and high ability groups had significantly different starting points (intercepts) and their pattern of growth on passage comprehension did not indicate that the gap would increase over time. Instead, some analyses, especially of the youngest cohorts, showed significant convergence. However, there was no evidence of eventually closing the gap. Thus, although the poor students may not be getting poorer, they do not get sufficiently richer either.     

Teacher training effects: Real or illusory?

Thirteen teachers from an elementary school in a rural community participated in a 16-week university extension course on behavioral approaches in the classroom. Training was conducted in five successive phases: (a) Information, (b) Instructions to Practice, (c) Guided Practice, (d) Coding Practice, (e) Performance Feedback. Reading assignments, activity assignments, and discussion took place throughout most of the course. Teacher behaviors were coded in the classroom during the course, and 5 months and 12 months after the course. Performance Feedback was reinstated after the 12-month follow-up observations. Significant increases in positive teacher behaviors and decreases in negative teacher behaviors were observed by the end of the course; however, these changes were not maintained during the follow-up observations or reinstatement of Performance Feedback. The implications of the findings for training are discussed.     

Endogenous peer effects: Fact or fiction?

The authors examine endogenous peer effects, which occur when a student's behavior or outcome is a function of the behavior or outcome of his or her peer group. Endogenous peer effects have important implications for educational policies such as busing, school choice and tracking. In this study, the authors quantitatively review the literature on endogenous peer effects through the use of meta-analytic methods. They find a significant and positive endogenous peer effect. It appears to be a genuine empirical effect but is dependent on the measure of educational outcomes, the peer group, publication status, and publication year.     

Initial and Further Education: Substitutes or Complements? Differences in Continuing Education and Training over the Life-Course of European Workers

This investigation examines the place of initial and further education in continuing education and training over the life-course of workers across Europe. The evidence presented demonstrates that in countries with a strong orientation towards vocational education, participation in continuing education and training among employees is higher than in countries that mainly provide general education. Moreover, it can be seen that the effect of the vocational orientation of the education system increases over the life-course of workers. The conclusion of this investigation is that further education complements rather than substitutes for initial education. This implies that national education and training policies meant to encourage lifelong learning should not only attempt to expand or redirect training received by already experienced workers, but also try to facilitate participation in initial vocational training.     

Am I still too Black for you?: Schooling and secular change in skin tone effects

Analysts disagree about whether the Civil Rights/Black Power eras lessened the influence of skin tone on education. The paper finds that, holding family background constant, the educational disadvantages of dark and very dark blacks persisted between younger and older age cohorts. On the other hand, younger medium skin blacks no longer achieved less schooling than their lighter skin counterparts. This paper implies that, without the decline in skin tone effects for medium brown blacks, the racial gap between age cohorts would have remained larger.     

School self-evaluation: self-perception or self-deception? The impact of motivation and socially desirable responding on self-evaluation results

ABSTRACT

In order to enhance the quality of education, school self-evaluation (SSE) has become a key strategy in many educational systems. During an SSE process, schools describe and evaluate their own functioning, often by administering questionnaires among teachers. However, it is unknown to what extent SSE questionnaire results are distorted by respondents’ tendencies towards socially desirable responding and their motivation to fill in an SSE questionnaire. This study reports on a path analysis, performed on the results of an authentic SSE with 382 participants. Results indicate that socially desirable responding and motivation have indeed an impact on SSE results. However, the effects are differential and depend on the variable of interest. These findings can have serious implications, and should be taken into account when drawing conclusions and taking (school) policy decisions within the framework of an SSE process.     

Testing Stereotype Threat: Does Anxiety Explain Race and Sex Differences in Achievement?

Steele's (1992, 1997) stereotype-threat theory attempts to explain underperformance of minority students in academic domains and of women in mathematics. Steele argues that situational self-relevance of negative group stereotypes in testing situations increases the anxiety these students experience and that these differential anxiety levels explain performance differences. Research shows that manipulation of stereotype threat can affect academic performance. However, there has been little research testing whether anxiety does at least partially explain the relationship between race and achievement. The goal of this study was to examine whether anxiety will explain racial differences in academic performance and gender differences in math performance in the context of a nationally representative sample of high school seniors. Partial mediation was observed, with anxiety explaining significant portions of the racial differences in academic performance. Anxiety also partially explained sex differences in math achievement, although the effect sizes were very small. These results provide general support for Steele's stereotype-threat hypothesis.     

Modulation of attention in discrimination learning: The roles of stimulus relevance and stimulus–outcome correlation

The advantage in learning after an intradimensional shift rather than an extradimensional shift has been widely used as a behavioural marker of attentional changes during discrimination learning in different fields of neuroscientific study. However, some of the factors assumed to guide these attentional changes have not been completely disentangled by previous research. In two predictive-learning experiments, we investigated the importance of stimulus relevance and of stimulus-outcome correlation for the modulation of attention. In each experiment, participants were trained on two discrimination problems given in successive order. Each problem required participants to differentiate stimuli varying on two dimensions. We found that acquisition of the second discrimination was influenced by whether its relevant dimension (Exp. 1) or its irrelevant dimension (Exp. 2) had previously been trained as relevant and uncorrelated or as irrelevant and uncorrelated. We also observed that acquisition of the second discrimination was independent of whether its relevant dimension (Exp. 1) or its irrelevant dimension (Exp. 2) had previously been trained as relevant and uncorrelated or as relevant and correlated. Our results indicated that the modulation of attention is guided by stimulus relevance and not by stimulus-outcome correlation.     

Pedagogy or politics?: cyclical trends in literacy and numeracy in Ireland and beyond

In 1999, the primary curriculum was published in Ireland, with emphases on ‘breadth and balance’, recognition of the role of language and the arts and commitment to each child's potential and holistic development. In 2011, the Irish government published a strategy aimed to improve standards of literacy and numeracy among children and young people in Ireland, ‘Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life: The National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy among Children and Young People 2011–2020’. The approaches to address concerns over literacy and numeracy in Irish schools, taken by the Strategy, require deconstruction, and in this paper, we argue that the focus on literacy and numeracy to the exclusion of other educational objectives in Ireland at present threatens the holistic ethos of the curriculum. We challenge those involved in education in Ireland to ensure that pedagogical rather than political concerns motivate our strategies and policies.     

Opening or closing doors for students? Equity and data use in schools

Ensuring equitable opportunities and outcomes for all students is a top priority of many educators and policymakers across the globe. Data use can be an important lever for achieving equity, but how this can occur is not well understood. In this article, we draw upon knowledge gained in a decade of in-depth qualitative research to examine the ways in which data use helps to open or close doors for students. We discuss data use practices that influence equity goals: (1) accountability-driven data use and data use for continuous improvement; (2) using data to confirm assumptions and using data to challenge beliefs, and (3) tracking and flexible grouping to promote student growth. Along each of these dimensions, there are active decision makers, complex processes of data use at play, and a great deal of variation both within and across contexts. Ultimately, educators and policymakers are faced with critical choices regarding data use that can profoundly affect students’ daily educational experiences and trajectories.     

Citizenship Education and National Identities in France and England: Inclusive or exclusive?

ABSTRACT This paper examines and compares recent citizenship education policy documents from France and England and explores the extent to which they encourage inclusive or exclusive concepts of national identity and citizenship. Current policies are being developed in a context of perceived disillusionment and political apathy amongst the young. Whilst citizenship education has traditionally aimed to prepare young people to take their place in adult society and a national community, today the notion of a single national identity is increasingly questioned. Using framing questions from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) survey of civic education, we examine programmes of study in each country to determine the extent to which they promote human rights as shared values, make positive references to cultural diversity, and conceptualise minorities. We consider the potential of citizenship education thus defined to contribute towards the development of justice and equality in society and challenge racism and xenophobia. We note the strengths and limitations of each approach to education for citizenship and suggest what each might gain from the other.     

SENCOs: vanguards or in vain?

In Sweden today, special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) are educated at universities to help resolve educational problems related to children in need of special support at three levels, that is, the organisational level, the classroom level and the individual level. Before the education of SENCOs was created in the early 1990s, special teachers were the occupational group that worked primarily on an individual level. Children's school problems were then seen as individual deficits. SENCOs can be seen as vanguards in changing an educational system from primarily focusing on an individual perspective to a broader focus on the entire learning environment. How has the occupational role of SENCOs affected schools? The overall aim of this study is to investigate possible changes within a school system when the introduction of a new occupational group, SENCOs, challenges established structures. More specifically, this paper studies how different occupational groups view where and in what ways SENCOs work and should work. Three different questionnaires are the basis of this analysis of SENCOs' present situation within the Swedish educational system. A number of interesting findings were detected in this study. For example, several occupational groups respond that SENCOs should work with individually taught special education. Meanwhile, a pattern emerges in which SENCOs seem to have partly established a new work role. However, little is known about how these changes affect children in need of special support.     

Single or Dual Representations for Reading and Spelling?

Neuropsychological models postulate that the memory representation acquired for use in reading words is separate from the one acquired for use in spelling, while developmental models assume that the same representation is developed for access in both reading and spelling. The dual-representation model contends that there is often more precise information in reading representations than in spelling representations. This claim was tested in the current study using adult native speakers of English. People were supplied with minimal visual feedback while they spelled words that they knew and could read, and were then shown their whole spelling and asked whether they could improve upon it. People detected spelling mistakes on fewer than one in six trials after the reading check. They also returned many spellings to the original form, and were unable to improve upon them any more often than to change them to something equally bad or worse. The findings favour the view that normal individuals acquire a single orthographic representation from repeated exposures to a word during both reading and spelling. The representation may be adequate to permit successful reading but be insufficient for reproduction of the word-specific knowledge required for accurate spelling.     

European Languages and Culture in Hong Kong: trade or education?

Hong Kong Government policy is to promote Hong Kong as an international education hub for the region. This may be more rhetoric than reality. The article surveys the historical background of Hong Kong in terms of its role as a trading centre, a gateway to China and a meeting place for East and West for which interchange with European languages and cultures has been important. The development of education policy within Hong Kong as far as the European dimension is involved is also reviewed. In addition, the development of global trade in educational services is touched upon which thus far has been heavily Anglo-centric. In terms of Hong Kong itself, an analysis is presented of overseas educational programmes available in Hong Kong from Europe. The extent of European languages and studies provided in the school, university and lifelong learning sectors is surveyed. The work of European consulates in promoting languages and culture through such organisations as the Alliance Française, Goethe Instituta, etc. is another important part of provision. The article makes passing reference to the neighbouring territory of Macau and the importance there of Portuguese.
The article concludes that for European studies and languages, the role of Hong Kong as a trading and financial hub has been a more significant stimulant than the Hong Kong government's policy for Hong Kong to be an international education hub.     

Participatory practices in policy-making: Negotiating democratic outcomes or manoeuvring for compliance?

This article explores the nature of participatory practices in policy-making in basic education and their impact on the directions and outcomes of policy. Drawing on theoretical developments in policy studies, the focus is on non-formal education as a policy challenge for EFA. Data are presented from a recent field study undertaken in Uganda of the process to establish a policy framework for basic education for disadvantaged children. A multi-dimensional frame is used for the analysis of the practice of policy development. It is argued that NFE, because of its amorphous and marginal nature, is an important arena for contesting the orthodoxy of educational thinking, policies and practices. Yet the full engagement by all stakeholders by itself cannot guarantee a democratic outcome, as the nature of policy processes may allow for counter-actions that preserve the existing education hierarchy.