Effects of student-generated drawing and imagination on science text reading in a computer-based learning environment

Educational technology research and development - The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of student-generated drawing and imagination on learning recall, learning transfer, and...     

高等体育院校大学英语精读课程导入的实践性探究

大学英语精读课是高等体育院校非英语专业学生的一门必修课。本文从体育院校实际出发,从课堂导入能激发兴趣,用听说读写有机结合的方法以及实施的趣味性,相关性和长度适宜性原则方面,探讨通过良好的课堂导入,使学生自然过渡到课文内容的学习,从而达到有效教学的目的。     

Prior knowledge,reading skill,and text cohesion in the comprehension of science texts

This study examined how text features (i.e., cohesion) and individual differences (i.e., reading skill and prior knowledge) contribute to biology text comprehension. College students with low and high levels of biology knowledge read two biology texts, one of which was high in cohesion and the other low in cohesion. The two groups were similar in reading skill. Participants' text comprehension was assessed with open-ended comprehension questions that measure different levels of comprehension (i.e., text-based, local-bridging, global-bridging). Results indicated: (a) reading a high-cohesion text improved text-based comprehension; (b) overall comprehension was positively correlated with participants' prior knowledge, and (c) the degree to which participants benefited from reading a high-cohesion text depended on participants' reading skill, such that skilled participants gained more from high-cohesion text.     

The implications of content versus item validity on science tests

The use of content validity as the primary assurance of the measurement accuracy for science assessment examinations is questioned. An alternative accuracy measure, item validity, is proposed. Item validity is based on research using qualitative comparisons between (a) student answers to objective items on the examination, (b) clinical interviews with examinees designed to ascertain their knowledge and understanding of the objective examination items, and (c) student answers to essay examination items prepared as an equivalent to the objective examination items. Calculations of item validity are used to show that selected objective items from the science assessment examination overestimated the actual student understanding of science content. Overestimation occurs when a student correctly answers an examination item, but for a reason other than that needed for an understanding of the content in question. There was little evidence that students incorrectly answered the items studied for the wrong reason, resulting in underestimation of the students' knowledge. The equivalent essay items were found to limit the amount of mismeasurement of the students' knowledge. Specific examples are cited and general suggestions are made on how to improve the measurement accuracy of objective examinations.     

关于中职语文阅读教学中“文本细读”应用研究

中职院校学生由于基础较为薄弱,所以在进行语文教学中,可以采取文本细读的方法,来进行辅导,使之在现有基础上最大程度的掌握语文学习的基本能力。     

异延与本文阅读的审美意境开拓

异延（differance）在时间和空间上总是在作无休止的“区分”和“延搁”的双重运动，这种由符号的共时态区分所引起的历时态的搁，加深了符号意义的不确定性本质。本阅读的审美意境开拓是一个关涉审美主体、本双向互联互动关系的复杂问题。笔度从以异延作为工具和媒介联系到本阅读的审美意竟开拓的可能性方面加以分析、探讨，以求得到一个对此方面问题的新的阐释和发见。     

On the ecological validity of measuring the sensitivity of professional caregivers: The laboratory versus the nursery

Much research indicates the importance of interactional experience for young children in developing their competence. In particular sensitive responsiveness in interaction has been associated with beneficial developmental outcomes and is often regarded as a central component of good quality child care. This study considers some alternative ways of measuring the sensitivity of caregivers. Thirty professional caregiver-infant dyads were observed in three different situations: In the laboratory during free-play (1), during a task (2) and at the nursery itself while caring for 10 infants with a colleague (3). Results indicated that their sensitivity was highest in situation 1; this score was moderately related to the sensitivity score in situation 2 and to that in the nursery. The sensitivity scores in situations 2 and 3 were not significantly related. The data support the view that sensitivity is subject to contextual influences and that researchers need to think carefully about the when and where of such measurements.     

The influence of decodability in early reading text on reading achievement: a review of the evidence

The purpose of this review is to synthesize the existing research on decodability as a text characteristic examining how reading decodable text impacts students?? reading performance and growth. The results are organized into two sections based on the research designs of the studies: (1) studies that described student performance when reading texts of varying decodability levels, and (2) studies that compared the reading performance of students after participation in a treatment that manipulated decodable text as an independent variable. Collectively the results indicate that decodability is a critical characteristic of early reading text as it increases the likelihood that students will use a decoding strategy and results in immediate benefits, particularly with regard to accuracy. The studies point to the need for multiple-criteria text with decodability being one key characteristic in ensuring that students develop the alphabetic principle that is necessary for successful reading, rather than text developed based on the single criterion of decodability.     

Investigating the validity of two widely used quantitative text tools

In recent years, readability formulas have gained new prominence as a basis for selecting texts for learning and assessment. Variables that quantitative tools count (e.g., word frequency, sentence length) provide valid measures of text complexity insofar as they accurately predict representative and high-quality criteria. The longstanding consensus of text researchers has been that such criteria will measure readers’ comprehension of sample texts. This study used Bormuth’s (1969) rigorously developed criterion measure to investigate two of today’s most widely used quantitative text tools—the Lexile Framework and the Flesch–Kincaid Grade-Level formula. Correlations between the two tools’ complexity scores and Bormuth’s measured difficulties of criterion passages were only moderately high in light of the literature and new high stakes uses for such tools. These correlations declined a small amount when passages from the University grade band of use were removed. The ability of these tools to predict measured text difficulties within any single grade band below University was low. Analyses showed that word complexity made a larger contribution relative to sentence complexity when each tool’s predictors were regressed on the Bormuth criterion rather than their original criteria. When the criterion was texts’ grade band of use instead of mean cloze scores, neither tool classified texts well and errors disproportionally placed texts from higher grade bands into lower ones. Results suggest these two text tools may lack adequate validity for their current uses in educational settings.     

The role of interest and text structure in professional reading

Students can be regarded as professional readers: they have to attend to, comprehend and remember the most important information in instructional texts, often about topics they are not readily interested in. Optimising such instructional texts has been the subject of much reading research. This research has shown robust effects for the influence of text structure: information highlighted by a strongly organising structure is retained better than seemingly less important information. Hidi and Baird (1986) suggest that such effects of structure are artefacts, because of the dullness of texts used in such experiments. They argue that readers mainly use interest instead of structure as their guide for attention and learning. In this article three related experiments using Dutch instructional texts are reported. Both interest and text structure were manipulated as within-item factors, and on-line as well as off-line methods were used to measure effects on the reading process and product. The outcomes show no support for the hypothesis of Hidi and Baird: students learn better from texts that are well structured, regardless of the interest of the text or its topic.     

Uncovering the effect of text structure in learning from a science text: An eye-tracking study

This study examined whether reading a refutational or non-refutational text would induce different cognitive processing, as revealed by eye-movement analyses. Unlike a standard expository text, a refutational text acknowledges a reader’s alternative conceptions about a topic, refutes them, and then introduces scientific conceptions as viable alternatives. Forty university students read one or the other type of text about the phenomenon of the tides. All had alternative conceptions about the topic. Findings showed that at post-test (off-line measure) refutational text readers learned more than non-refutational text readers. Outcomes regarding indices of visual behavior (on-line measures) during reading revealed that refutational text readers fixated the text segments presenting scientific concepts for a longer time overall than non-refutational text readers, in particular during the second-pass reading. Refutational text readers also fixated the refutational segments for a shorter time than non-refutational text readers for the control segments. Furthermore, all indices of visual attention predicted learning only for the refutational text readers. The more the students’ reading of the refutational text was strategic, the better they learned from it. Implications about eye-tracking methodology and the refutational effect are drawn.     

Issues of validity in science attitude measurement

This article explores the work that Moore and Foy (1997) did in revising and field testing the Scientific Attitude Instrument (SAI). I begin by showing that the empirical work with the revised instrument, the SAI II, raises doubts about the instrument's validity, and I suggest that these doubts seem to coincide rather remarkably with ones raised in an extensive study of science attitude instruments published in the early 1980s. I then consider the field testing of the SAI II in light of alternative approaches to validating instruments, and I show that the revisions made to the SAI leave its validity in question. I end by considering how we might develop guidelines for validating the instruments we use in science education research. J Res Sci Teach 34: 337–341, 1997.     

Reliability and validity of the adult reading history questionnaire

The reliability and validity of a revised version of Finucci's (1982) Reading History Questionnaire was examined in two adult samples. One sample included 84 adults from an ongoing study of familial dyslexia, and a second sample was composed of parents of 107 children from a longitudinal study of reading development. Internal consistency was demonstrated by Cronbach's alphas of .94 and .92 in the two samples. Test-retest reliability was demonstrated by significant correlations (.87 and .84 in the two samples) over several years between an earlier and revised form of the questionnaire. Validity was demonstrated via (a) correlations between the questionnaire score and reading measures (rs = .57-.70), (b) the results of a discriminant function analysis that used questionnaire scores to predict reading disability diagnosis, and (c) the finding that the questionnaire had substantial incremental validity in predicting reading skill in a hierarchical regression analysis that first entered IQ and SES. These results indicated that the questionnaire is both reliable and valid.     

对大学英语阅读教学的思考

外语学习过程是程序性知识的掌握过程,是学生不断应用与练习的过程。学生英语阅读水平的提高不是靠教师大量的课文分析和词汇讲解所能达到的,应在科学理论的指导下,进行大量阅读,从而使理解能力、词汇量、阅读速度与技巧不断提高。     

如何提高高职高专英语阅读课的效率

高职高专学生的英语基础较薄弱,尤其凸显在英语阅读部分。那么,应该如何提高高职高专的英语阅读课的质量呢?这一课题是高职高专教师们一直在研究的问题。在本论文中,笔者不仅从学生的角度出发,同时从教师的课堂出发,探讨该如何提高高职高专英语阅读课的课堂质量。     

解构主义的文本分析策略及其对英语阅读的启示

运用解构主义的文本分析策略有利于克服被动接受式的阅读习惯。本文论证解构式文本分析对培养外语学习者的创造力和批判性思维能力的作用。探讨运用解构式分析策略拆解普通文本的方法,阐释解构式文本分析对英语阅读的启示。     

谈大学英语精读课的后期教学

英语学习后期是学生英语学习的重要阶段之一.如何教授大学高年级学生精读,如何进一步提高他们英语的各方面能力,仍然是有待探讨的问题.笔者从自身的教学实践中归纳出了一些方法,希望对广大英语教师有所帮助.     

Development of text reading in Japanese: an eye movement study

This study examined age-group differences in eye movements among third-grade, fifth-grade, and adult Japanese readers. In Experiment 1, Japanese children, but not adults, showed a longer fixation time on logographic kanji words than on phonologically transparent hiragana words. Further, an age-group difference was found in the first fixation duration on hiragana words but not on kanji words, suggesting character-type-dependent reading development in Japanese children. Examination of the distributions of saccade landing positions revealed that, like adults, both third and fifth graders fixated more on kanji than on hiragana characters, which suggests that even young children utilize the same oculomotor control strategy (the kanji targeting strategy) as Japanese adults. In Experiment 2, we examined whether the proportion of kanji characters in a text affected adult reading performance. Japanese adults made more refixations and regressions in texts with a high proportion of hiragana characters. The results of both experiments suggest that differences between kanji and kana affect the reading efficiency of school-age children and that maturation of reading skills allows adults to optimize their strategy in reading kanji and kana mixed texts.     

高职高专院校图书馆阅读环境探索

就阅读现状和图书馆阅览环境对读者的重要性进行分析,结合本馆实际情况,如何为读者创造优美和谐的阅览环境,提高阅读效果进行初步探索。