Effectiveness of visual and verbal prompts in training visuospatial processing skills in school age children

Recent decades have witnessed a growing interest in intervention-based assessment to promote and enhance children’s learning. In this study, we explored the potential effect of an experimental visual–spatial intervention procedure and possible training benefits of two prompting modalities: one group received training with verbal and visual prompts, a second group training with visual prompts only, while a third, control group did not receive any training. The two training methods led to significant improvements of performance in visuospatial tasks as compared to control group, and they did so about equally well. Our findings provide evidence for the efficiency and benefits of interventions targeting visuospatial processing skills. The success of such interventions does not seem to be bounded by age or gender, and it seems that visual cues are particularly effective.     

Question formulation skills training using a novel rubric with first-year medical students

Objective:The authors used an assessment rubric to measure medical students'' improvement in question formulation skills following a brief evidence-based practice (EBP) training session conducted by a health sciences librarian.Method:In a quasi-experimental designed study, students were assessed using a rubric on their pre-instructional skills in formulating answerable EBP questions, based on a clinical scenario. Following their training, they were assessed using the same scenario and rubric. Student pre- and post-test scores were compared using a paired t-test.Results:Students demonstrated statistically significant improvement in their question formulation skills on their post-instructional assessments. The average score for students on the pre-test was 45.5 (SD 11.1) and the average score on the post-test was 65.6 (SD 5.4) with an average increase of 20.1 points on the 70-point scale, p<0.001.Conclusion:The brief instructional session aided by the rubric improved students'' performance in question formulation skills.     

The structuration of socio-technical regimes—Conceptual foundations from institutional theory

In recent years, socio-technical transitions literature has gained importance in addressing long-term, transformative change in various industries. In order to account for the inertia and path-dependency experienced in these sectors, the concept of the socio-technical regime has been formulated. Socio-technical regimes denote the paradigmatic core of a sector, which results from the co-evolution of institutions and technologies over time. Despite its widespread acceptance, the regime concept has repeatedly been criticized for lacking a clear operationalization. As a consequence, empirical applications tend to depict regimes as too ‘monolithic’ and ‘homogenous’, not adequately considering persistent institutional tensions and contradictions. These are however crucial for assessing transition dynamics. In this paper, we revisit two concepts from institutional theory that enable an explicit identification of socio-technical regimes and more generally a specification of the ‘semi-coherence’ of socio-technical systems. First, we will show that ‘levels of structuration’ can be conceptualized as degrees of institutionalization, thereby treating institutionalization as a variable with different effects on actors, the stability of the system and thus the potential for change. Secondly, we draw on the institutional logics approach to characterize the content of various structural elements present in a system and to trace conflicts and contradictions between them. We illustrate this approach with an empirical in-depth analysis of the transformation of the Australian urban water sector since the 1970ies.     

Visual and Auditory Morphological Priming in Adults With Developmental Dyslexia

The quality of implicit morphological knowledge in adult Hebrew readers with developmental dyslexia was investigated. The priming paradigm was used to examine whether these adults extract and represent morphemic units similarly to normal readers during online word recognition. The group with dyslexia as a whole did not exhibit priming with visual presentation as opposed to both age- and reading-level controls. Priming was absent when the prime and target words shared a morpheme and even when the prime and the target were identical. Only the students with phonological dyslexia, who exhibited relatively good performance in the orthographic judgment task, exhibited repetition priming but not morphological priming. Strong repetition and morphological priming effects were found for participants with dyslexia when the stimuli were auditory. The implications of the dissociation between visual and auditory priming for the locus of the deficit in morphological processing during word recognition are discussed.     

Is it possible to improve mathematical achievement by means of self-regulation strategies? Evaluation of an intervention in regular math classes

After the effectiveness of self-regulation training outside school was demonstrated, a self-regulation intervention was developed to foster the learning achievement in regular math classes. Based on the theoretical framework of self-regulated learning, self-regulation training was integrated into a math class unit. The evaluation of the intervention concerning 53 sixth-grade students took place in a pretest/posttest-control-group design. One teacher taught one class (control group) merely mathematical topics and another class (experimental group) in the same subject combined with self-regulative strategies. The results revealed that it is possible to support self-regulation competencies and mathematical achievement by self-regulation interventin within regular mathematics lessons of 6th-grade students.     

Genauigkeit von Aufwandssch?tzungen in Reengineering-Projekten – Erfahrungen aus einer Sprachumstellung von Assembler nach COBOL

Die Sch?tzung des Aufwands für die Erstellung oder die überarbeitung von grossen Softwaresystemen stellt immer noch ein betr?chtliches Risiko dar. Dieses versch?rft sich noch weiter, wenn wie im vorliegenden Fall das Projekt auf Festpreisbasis, d.h. ohne M?glichkeit zu Budgetnachforderungen w?hrend des Projekts selbst, abzuwickeln ist. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt die Erfahrungen mit der Sch?tzung und vor allem der Nutzung der detailliert ermittelten Produktivit?tsmasse in einem grossen Konversionsprojekt, bei dem 350 Assembler-Programme aus dem Wertpapierbereich einer Bankorgansiation mit unver?nderter Funktionalit?t nach COBOL zu konvertieren waren. Dabei wurden w?hrend des Projekts die bereits vorliegenden Produktivit?tszahlen genutzt, um neben einer weiteren Optimierung der Verfahren und Abl?ufe auch die Sch?tzung bez. der noch zu bearbeitenden Arbeitspakete weiter zu verbessern. Es hat sich auch in diesem Projekt gezeigt, dass auch einfachere Sch?tzans?tze tragen, wenn sie denn auf den Erfahrungen der eigenen Projektorganisation basieren. Allgemeine algorithmische Ans?tze sind zwar als grober Anhaltspunkt brauchbar, ersetzen aber nicht die eigenen Zahlenbasen. Diese in jedem Projekt immer wieder konsequent und detailliert zu ermitteln, bleibt die vorrangige Aufgabe zur Unterstützung der Sch?tzung weiterer Projekte.