Prior experience shapes metacognitive judgments at the category level: the role of testing and category difficulty

Most metacognition research has focused on aggregate judgments of overall performance or item-level judgments about performance on particular questions. However, metacognitive judgments at the category level, which have not been as extensively explored, also play a role in students’ study strategies, for example, when students determine what topics to study for an exam. We investigated whether category learning judgments (CLJs) were sensitive to differences in the difficulty of general knowledge categories. After either studying or being tested on facts from several categories (e.g., Shakespeare, Astronomy), participants estimated the likelihood that they could correctly answer new questions from those categories on a later test (i.e., they made CLJs). Results of two studies showed that CLJs were sensitive to differences in category difficulty. Further, participants gave lower or more conservative CLJs when they took an initial test as compared to studying questions from the categories. Results are discussed in terms of the value and relevance of CLJs both in educational settings and in theories of metacognition.     

德语语法上的“疑问句”在日常交流中的应用

德语语法中对疑问句有多种划分。无论如何划分,学习掌握疑问句的意义在于正确地使用它。就疑问句在语法方面和日常交流中的划分和使用进行介绍。对开放式提问（Offene Fragen）、排他性提问（Geschlossene Fra-gen）、选择性提问（Alternativfragen）、反问式提问（Gegenfragen）、修辞式提问（Rhetorische Fragen）以及暗示性提问（Suggestivfragen）等六大类提问（疑问句）配以大量例句,进行了应用研究,并提出实践中需要注意的事项。     

The State of Research in Technical Communication

There have been many attempts to assess the state of research in our field. This article is our attempt to both (1) synthesize recent analyses, opinions, and conclusions concerning the status of technical communication research and (2) propose an action plan aimed at redirecting our field's agenda for its research. We explore these questions: What are the recent research trends in our field? What is and is not promising about our recent approaches to research? Where do we need to go next? What are the critical components for a new agenda for our research?     

Academics’ views on publishing refereed works: A content analysis

Survey research was carried out with academics (N=205), from a large regional Australian university, to explore their views about publishing or not publishing in refereed sources and their perceived worth of this activity. Several open-ended questions were included in the survey to elicit information about the factors that either encourage or discourage these academics from publishing. Additionally, questions were posed to allow the respondents to discuss ways that the University could further support them in their endeavour to produce at least some or more scholarly publications. The responses to these questions were content analysed to discover key categories and frequencies were calculated on the most salient categories. The results of this analysis are reported and comparisons are made on the responses of male and female academics. The implications of the results for higher educational practice are considered.     

How do Revenue Variations Affect Expenditures Within U.S. Research Universities?

Using Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) figures on the 96 Research Extensive Institution in academic year 2007?C2008, we employ panel data from academic year 1984?C1985 to 2007?C2008 to identify revenue-expenditure relationships. Although we consider a wide range of functional expenditure categories, we focus our analysis on instructional and research expenditures because these categories tie most closely to the core missions of research universities. Results suggest tight relationships between some revenue and expenditure categories for some institutions. For public universities, these relationships tend to follow expected paths. For example, a large proportion of tuition revenues tend to be spent in the functional category of instruction. Private universities evidence a somewhat different pattern, with revenues generally expended in the pursuit of merit aid and research. This suggests that private universities strategically deploy revenues from a wide variety of sources to secure particular students and to conduct research activities. However, the ways in which universities and IPEDS classify faculty work raises some questions about the transparency of various categories, and suggests that some current conceptions of how revenues are expended on research and instruction functions may be less than straightforward.     

A research review of e-assessment

The use of e-assessment in higher education is a relatively new educational practice that has been more frequently studied in recent years. This review aims to summarise some research on e-assessment, providing an overview based on articles from three well-established scientific journals. Focusing on research topics, settings for e-assessment and research methods used in the articles, the review reveals a research field with a broad spectrum of inquiries and approaches. Research of e-assessment practices is often conducted as small-scale studies in which the e-assessment task comprises closed questions such as multiple-choice questions. The article discusses the findings to guide future research and concludes that there is a need for more studies on e-assessment in online courses as well as for longitudinal studies.     

Quality relationships and quality practice in the nursery school

This article is based on research into effective relationships in a nursery school in an urban area. This research was part of a larger research project, between the Manchester Metropolitan University and a Local Authority. The project was concerned with identifying quality care and education (educare) for children under five in a range of educational, social services, voluntary and private establishments. The research was carried out between 1992 and 1994 and involved interviewing the parents of two cohorts of children as well as participants and non‐participant observation in the nursery classrooms. The research findings indicated four categories of practice which contributed towards effective relationships. Aspects of these categories are examined together with examples of questions which practitioners might like to consider in relation to their own school. In conclusion key factors contributing to quality relationships identified in this research are highlighted.     

Are the Key Stage Two Reading Tests becoming easier each year?

This article presents and discusses some new research on the National Curriculum Key Stage Two reading tests for years 1998, 1999 and 2000. The research task was to use the original categories designed and declared by the QCA in 1998 to analyse the reading tests in the two subsequent years in order to examine the reliability of the tests. The research shows that in 1999, and again in 2000 the reading tests were progressively easier for the children to answer. This was because the number of questions requiring higher‐order reading skills, particularly those of inference and deduction, has decreased each year, while the number of questions requiring the lower‐order skill of literal information retrieval has increased. In this way the author questions the QCA’s declared ‘rise in reading standards’ from 1998 onwards.     

《宋书·州郡志》平议

某种意义上说,《宋书·州郡志》是沈约依据各类资料所编撰的一篇论文。本文就《宋书·州郡志》的编撰过程、存在问题、版本情况、校勘整理、学术价值、研究状况与研究方法等,略作述论与考议。     

The Content of Educational Psychology: an Analysis of Top Ranked Journals from 2003 Through 2007

Educational psychology as a field of study has encountered a lack of distinction by overlapping with other fields of study or disciplines. Consequently, educational psychology continues to have difficulty claiming jurisdiction over bodies of research knowledge and has been encroached upon by other more crystallized disciplines. The purpose of this study is to examine the research literature published across top-ranked educational psychology journals to identify the common ground and current trends in research content and to identify those areas that can be reclaimed by the discipline as its own. Overall, 758 articles published in six journals from January 2003 through December 2007 were included in this study. A combination of statistics-based and linguistics-based methods were used to determine how frequently terms occur in the data and establishing a semantic network which created a probabilistic analysis of the co-occurrence of terms resulting in a constellation of terms showing the relationship and relative importance of the categories of terms. The results showed a consistency of research categories suggesting that in spite of reports to the contrary, there is a collective agreement among educational psychologists demonstrated by the empirical research in the field.     

隐私基本问题探讨

隐私及隐私权基本问题,是我国法学界热切讨论而且充满争议的话题。鉴于目前学术界对有关隐私的概念、范围、权能仍是众说纷纭、争议颇大,本文因此对隐私的主体、客体进行探讨,以求能更进一步得对此新领域进行研究。     

Let the Questions Be Your Guide: MBE as Interdisciplinary Science

From its inception, the field of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) has been conceived as an interdisciplinary science, and with good reason: The phenomena the field aims to understand often arise from interactions among multiple factors, span levels of analysis, and are context dependent. In this article, we argue that to reach its potential as an interdisciplinary science—and in order to explain such complex phenomena—MBE must be fundamentally organized around meaningful, discipline‐spanning questions, and the questions must determine tools and research methods (not the other way around). Using examples from three central questions in MBE—“who,”“when,” and “how”—we highlight the limits of single disciplines, and the value of a question‐driven interdisciplinary approach in MBE, with respect to questions that can be asked, the perspectives that can be considered, and the array of methods, tools, and models that can be made available. We believe that the future is bright for MBE, and that the field has a unique opportunity to provide meaningful answers to some of the most difficult questions in education today. However, realizing this potential depends on, as a first step, allowing the questions themselves to drive the field's work moving forward.     

Primary sources of cognate research in human performance technology

This article is third in a series written to address questions regarding the need for more empirical research in the field of human performance technology (HPT) and the need to determine the future direction of HPT research. The call for more empirical research has been published in journals such as Performance Improvement Quarterly and Performance Improvement (formerly Performance and Instruction) for nearly 20 years.     

Assessing the Quality of Research Training: The case of part-time candidates in full-time professional work

Intrinsic to the Australian Federal Government's Research Training Scheme (RTS) is a perception that the quality of research degree graduates is in question (Kemp, 1999a, 1999b); in particular, that they lack a skill set that would enable them after graduating to make a greater contribution to the knowledge economy, the information-rich workplace and to national innovation. However, little or no concrete evidence has ever been given to support these claims. Furthermore, no substantive distinction is made between different categories of research degree candidates—for example, between those who are undertaking their research full-time and those who are already full-time professional workers and are undertaking their research degree in a part-time mode. We argue that making this distinction and exploring its impact is vital and report on a study that examines the role and relevance of research degrees to professionals and the workplace. This provides an evidence-based contribution to questions regarding the quality and attributes of research degree graduates and the synergies between their development in the workplace and the research program.     

Exploring the Purposes of Qualitative Data Coding in Educational Enquiry: Insights from recent research

A number of questions are raised concerning the purposes of data coding in qualitative research. It is suggested that in some cases these purposes may usefully be organised into two broad categories, each of which requires a separate coding response. A research project is briefly described in which it was found useful to employ two distinct, though connected, phases of data coding along the lines proposed.     

Mathematics teacher educator knowledge: What do we know and where to from here?

The knowledge that mathematics teacher educators need has attracted limited but increasing attention in recent years. The papers in this special issue build on emerging themes from that work and raise additional questions that contribute towards a future research agenda in the field. Several of the articles develop conceptualisations of teacher knowledge to apply to mathematics teacher educators, introducing new aspects and drawing attention to unique characteristics of mathematics teacher educators in the process. To some extent the questions these papers raise reflect similar questions in mathematics education more generally but for which the implications for mathematics teacher educators warrant attention. In this paper we review the articles in this special issue and use them as a springboard to examine contemporary developments in the field and posit ways forward for research on mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge.     

教师信念研究的进展与走向分析

近20年来国内外以教师信念为主题的研究取得了一些进展。主要表现在:1.研究的广度上,从教师信念的定义、结构、类型、影响因素,到形成机制都进行了广泛的研究;2.研究的视角发生了变化,跨学科研究越来越多;3.研究方法上,实证研究日益占据主导地位,也取得了一些让人信服的结论;4.教师信念研究成为教师成长研究中的新热点。     

Hopes and challenges in using action research: the outcome of attempting to help in‐service teachers learn how to design,evaluate and use reading comprehension questions collaboratively

The research was conducted at Haramaya University with a group of in‐service teacher trainees in the Department of English with the aim of helping the trainees learn about the construction of reading comprehension questions. The data for the study were collected from the trainees’ reading comprehension exercises and their analyses of the cognitive categories of the questions collaboratively designed in the classroom. A reflective diary was kept to record events and to reflect on them. The study resulted in three major findings. The first is that trainees develop better understanding of the pedagogical values of reading comprehension questions when they have the chance to design, evaluate and use hierarchically ordered questions themselves. The second major finding is related to the use of small‐group learning as a strategy to promote collaborative learning. The study found that a community of learning does not happen just by putting trainees together into a group. Thirdly, the study demonstrated that action research should not be conducted with a predetermined problem in mind, but flexibly, to address issues that arise through the action research itself. The experience recounted here suggests that action research is much more than the technical things we do in classrooms; it also helps generate new knowledge.     

学科标准视域中的"高等教育"学科属性探析

在国外,高等教育被视作一个研究领域,而非一门学科;在国内,虽然高等教育一开始就是作为一门学科来建立的,但对于高等教育到底是一个研究领域还是一门学科,学界至今依然存有争议。这种争议的背后始终绕不开的问题就是判断是否学科的标准是什么,是否存在一个公认、统一的标准?对于这些问题的回答,可为判定高等教育"学科"属性提供基本的参照。