Does familiarity with text breed complacency or vigilance?

Proofreading one's own writing is difficult due to the overfamiliarity of one's writing, which has been claimed to conceal errors, even extraneous errors inserted by someone else (as in collaborative writing). In the present research, we examined whether increasing one's familiarity with text can indeed have a negative influence on error detection. Participants were asked to identify word errors in different contexts: a passage that was unfamiliar, previously read, copied, memorised or paraphrased. These tasks represented a continuum of progressively more demanding and time‐consuming activities, which were thought to lead to comparable increases in text familiarity. Greater familiarity with the text to be proofread was expected to improve its predictability and thus the likelihood of overlooking errors. In agreement with the level‐of‐familiarity account, as the delay between memorising and proofreading increased so did the proportion of errors detected per minute.     

First order or higher order general factor?

The Schmid‐Leiman decomposition of a hierarchical factor model converts the model to a constrained case of a bifactor model with orthogonal common factors that is equivalent to the hierarchical model. This article discusses the equivalence and near‐equivalence of the hierarchical and bifactor models and the implications of the difficulty of distinguishing between these models because of low power in samples commonly found in academic research.     

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.     

Affective-motivational effects of performance feedback in computer-based assessment: Does error message complexity matter?

The impact of computer-based performance feedback on students’ affective-motivational state may be very different, depending on the positive or negative direction of the feedback message and its specific content. This experiment investigated whether more elaborated error messages improve students’ affective-motivational response to negative (i.e., corrective) feedback. We systematically varied the presence and complexity of corrective feedback messages (1 × 4 between-subjects design) and analyzed the effects of the provided feedback on students’ emotions, task-related perceived usefulness, and expectancy-value beliefs. University students (N = 439) worked on a low-stakes test with 12 constructed-response geometry tasks. They received either no feedback or different complexities of immediate corrective feedback after incorrect responses (i.e., Knowledge of Results [KR], Knowledge of Correct Response [KCR], or Elaborated Feedback [EF]), paired with immediate confirmatory KCR feedback after correct responses (i.e., confirming their response). Our data showed that students’ task-level performance moderated the emotional impact of feedback (i.e., beneficial effects after correct responses; detrimental effects after incorrect responses). Students’ performance further moderated several feedback effects on students’ expectancy-value beliefs. Regarding error message complexity, we found that students reported higher levels of positive emotions after receiving EF or KCR compared to KR, while only EF decreased students' level of negative emotions compared to KR and increased students' task-related perceived usefulness compared to all other groups. Overall, our results suggest that performance feedback is likely to improve students’ affective-motivational state when the feedback confirms a correct response. Moreover, when reporting an error, EF (or KCR messages) were more beneficial to affective-motivational outcomes than simple KR notifications.     

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.     

Asking students to be active learners: the effects of totally or partially self-generating a graphic organizer on students’ learning performances

Instructional Science - We compared performances on a learning task in which students (N?=?81) viewed a pedagogical multimedia document without (control group) or with a readymade...     

School based management effects: Resources or governance change? Evidence from Mexico

In their struggle to improve student learning, many developing countries are introducing school-based management (SBM) reforms that provide cash-grants to school councils. School councils are expected to work collaboratively and decide on the best use of the funds. In this paper, we study the effects of one such program in Mexico on student outcomes. We complement the differences-in-differences analysis by qualitatively exploring program implementation. Results suggest the program had substantial positive effects on third grade Spanish test scores, with most benefits accruing to schools receiving SBM cash grants for the first time. These results are robust to alternative model specifications. The implementation analysis suggests school councils did monitor grant use, but parental participation did not significantly improve in other areas. Our findings suggest that the observed positive program effects are likely to be the result of providing schools with financial resources to meet pressing equipment, material, and infrastructure needs.     

Teaching and Learning with iPads, Ready or Not?

Within weeks of becoming available, the iPad reportedly sold over 3 million units, a brisker pace than other tablets in the personal computer realm. Much of the early success might be attributed to the almost 250,000 applications that could run on the device and a similar interface to the popular iPod Touch and iPhone. This article considers whether the sales spark that has ignited a hardware revolution (numerous device manufacturers have launched–e.g., HP, RIM, Samsung, Motorola, and HTC–or have plans to launch tablet devices over the next year) is being matched on the software front, with a particular focus on K-12 teaching and learning. Authors consider the potential affect both the iPad and its applications might have on teaching and learning in K-12 settings and whether these technologies allow educators and students to accomplish what they otherwise could not, from a teaching and learning perspective.     

Autonomy or oligarchy? The changing effects of university endowments in winner-take-all markets

This paper directs attention to important changes in the role and funding of elite private universities in the USA. At the center of these changes is the private endowment—an institution that has for much of its history been a pivotal element of innovation and autonomy, but which is recently tilting towards the production and reproduction of oligarchic institutional conditions. In the context of an explosion of wealth inequality in winner-take-all markets where elite higher education serves to provide coveted access to rare positional goods, the in perpetuity endowment—as currently configured—allows a small group of globally leading institutions to become rentiers who can support themselves nearly exclusively through the returns on their endowed capital. With that, a century-old dynamic of innovation and change of American higher education is at risk of collapsing. Where the elite private universities used to act as the head of Riesman’s snake-like procession, pulling the majority of American universities along in a process of isomorphic emulation, the emerging gulf between a handful of academic rentiers and the rest of the academic body (including many world-renowned, but not super-rich universities) threatens to cut that head off from the body, leaving the majority of the remaining institutions scrambling for survival at the mercy of the dictates of academic capitalism. We review policy options capable of taming the run-away endowment and place the issue in the larger context of the tension between Madisonian and Jeffersonian democratic imperatives.     

Review:Anticancer effects of Chinese herbal medicine,science or myth?

BACKGROUND OF CHINESE HERBAL MEDI- CINE (CHM) CHM is one branch of traditional Chinese medi- cine (TCM). TCM and western medicine have different ethnic and social backgrounds. The main difference between TCM and western medicine rests how to deal with illness. TCM, focusing on holism and naturalism, combines Chinese medical experi- ence with Chinese culture. In general, Chinese prac- titioners focus on the “yin” and “yang” balance in the body, which is in accordance wi…     

Does Institutional Aid Compensate for or Comply with State Policy?

To what extent does state policy for student financial aid affect the distribution of institutional aid awarded to students at public institutions? Using data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey we employ a Tobit model to investigate the relationship between student characteristics, including family income and academic qualifications, and the amount of student financial aid awarded from institutional sources at public masters’ and bachelors’ degree granting institutions. We then ask if the institutional aid is awarded in a manner that complements or compensates for the student financial aid policy in the state. The results support our hypothesis that state policy for student financial aid affects the distribution of institutional aid, but instead of institutional compensation for state policy, we observe what appears to be compliance.     

Superhighway or Road to Nowhere? Children's Relationships with Digital Technology

This article offers a critical overview of the cultural and educational benefits and dangers of digital media for young people. It argues that public debates on this issue have veered from utopian hype to moral panic. In contrast, the author argues for a more measured account of how young people appropriate such technologies in the context of their everyday lives. The article goes on to provide brief accounts of the author's previous research on children's engagement with computer games, and on their creative uses of multimedia in the home, which illustrate this approach. The article concludes with some broad principles which might guide future policy in this field.     

Catholic schools or school quality? The effects of Catholic schools on labor market outcomes

This paper studies the effects of attending a Catholic high school on students’ labor market outcomes. Using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, I find that Catholic schooling is significantly associated with higher wages over the careers even after taking into account possible selection into Catholic schools with instruments. Using matched school quality data for public and Catholic schools, I further find that Catholic and public schools are different in various aspects of school quality measures and that these differences explain most of Catholic school effects. Among the school quality variables, teacher quality and the number of math courses taken are estimated to matter the most for students’ later earnings in the long run.     

Do the effects of computer-assisted practice differ for children with reading disabilities with and without IQ-achievement discrepancy?

This study was designed to assess whether the effects of computer-assisted practice on visual word recognition differed for children with reading disabilities (RD) with or without aptitude-achievement discrepancy. A sample of 73 Spanish children with low reading performance was selected using the discrepancy method, based on a standard score comparison (i.e., the difference between IQ and achievement standard scores). The sample was classified into three groups: (1) a group of 14 children with dyslexia (age M = 103.85 months; SD = 8.45) who received computer-based reading practice; (2) a group of 31 "garden-variety" (GV) poor readers (age M = 107.06 months; SD = 6.75) who received the same type of instruction; and (3) a group of 28 children with low reading performance (age M = 103.33 months; SD = 9.04) who did not receive computer-assisted practice. Children were pre- and posttested in word recognition, reading comprehension, phonological awareness, and visual and phonological tasks. The results indicated that both computer-assisted intervention groups showed improved word recognition compared to the control group. Nevertheless, children with dyslexia had more difficulties than GV poor readers during computer-based word reading under conditions that required extensive phonological computation, because their performance was more affected by low-frequency words and long words. In conclusion, we did not find empirical evidence in favor of the IQ-achievement discrepancy definition of reading disability, because IQ did not differentially predict treatment outcomes.     

Technology Today: Inclusive or Exclusionary for Students with Vision Impairment?

The inclusion and equity of mainstream education for Australian students with vision impairment was considered in this phenomenological study of seven students’ experiences. Using Interpretative Phenomenology Analysis, the theme of technology was viewed as significant. Participants revealed a combination of ineffective technology for accessing board-work and worksheets, lack of training in the use of the technology, incompatibility issues, time factors and the lack of teacher expertise limited their use of technology. The provision of appropriate assistive technology for students with vision impairment in this digital age is paramount if equality is to be achieved. Students require training, by experts in technology and vision impairment, in the most current assistive technologies to access instructive technology increasingly used in classrooms and in the wider community. Teachers need an understanding of how imperative assistive technology is for students with vision impairment, and must become skilled practitioners in its use.     

Processing multimedia material: Does integration of text and pictures result in a single or two interconnected mental representations?

We investigated whether individuals construct either two interconnected mental representations or a single mental representation that merges information from two representations when processing multimedia materials. Individuals memorized text-picture stimuli in four different versions that differed in the specificity of information contained in either text or pictures: general pictures/general sentences, general pictures/specific sentences, specific pictures/general sentences, and specific pictures/specific sentences. Afterwards, individuals decided whether they had previously seen the specific or the general version of the sentences and the pictures. Across two experiments, individuals more frequently falsely recognized the specific sentences after having seen general sentences/specific pictures. This indicates that individuals had integrated the specific picture information with the general sentence information into a single mental representation. No such effects were observed for picture recognition. The implications of these results for multimedia learning are discussed.     

Differences in responding for sucrose and wheel-running reinforcement: Excitatory stimulus effects or inhibitory after-effects?

Previous research showed that sucrose and wheel-running reinforcement of leverpressing generate different response rate asymptotes. To investigate the basis of this difference, the present study assessed the role of inhibitory after-effects and excitatory stimulus effects on measures of responding in rats exposed to fixed-interval schedules that randomly produced either sucrose or wheel-running reinforcers. Different discriminative stimuli were associated with each reinforcer type. Inhibitory aftereffects and excitatory stimulus effects were assessed by the pattern of postreinforcement pauses and local response rates across the four different combinations of previous and upcoming reinforcer types: wheel-wheel, wheel-sucrose, sucrose-wheel, and sucrose-sucrose. Results showed that, regardless of the prior type of reinforcer, response rates were higher and pauses were shorter in the presence of a stimulus signaling sucrose reinforcement. This suggests that differences in response rate asymptotes generated by these qualitatively different reinforcers may have more to do with differences in excitatory stimulus effects than with inhibitory after-effects.