The influence of prior knowledge and viewing repertoire on learning from video

Video is increasingly used as an instructional tool. It is therefore becoming more important to improve learning of students from video. We investigated whether student learning effects are influenced through an instruction about other viewing behaviours, and whether these learning effects depend on their prior knowledge. In a controlled environment, 115 students watched a number of instructional videos about the technical equipment needed in a course on digital photography. Every second student was instructed about other possible viewing behaviours. A pre-post-retention test was carried out to calculate learning effects. The differences with respect to the learning effects of students who received an awareness instruction on an alternative viewing strategy were not significantly different. The differences as observed in our earlier experiment however could not be reproduced. Students with a broad viewing repertoire showed higher learning effects than students with a narrow repertoire. Furthermore, students with a strategic viewing approach also showed higher learning effects. Certain conditions have to be met: the technical and didactical quality of the video must be good, the integration in a learning task must be apparent, students must be aware of their viewing behaviour, and teachers must be aware of their students’ viewing behaviour in order to enrich the viewing repertoire of students when they have at least some basic knowledge e.g. after several lessons on the topics at hand. In future research, this study should be replicated using more complex video episodes than the instruction videos we used in our experiments that were only on the factual knowledge level of the taxonomy of Bloom. Moreover, replication of this study with a larger sample size could yield a significant improvement in learning effects. This is plausible because students need an amount of prior knowledge beyond a certain threshold value in order to be able to expand their knowledge network in their long term memory. Finally, additional media player functionality, facilitating effective student learning from video, can be described based on the results of this study.     

Developing the ability to recontextualise cellular respiration: an explorative study in recontextualising biological concepts

In many science education practices, students are expected to develop an understanding of scientific knowledge without being allowed a view of the practices and cultures that have developed and use this knowledge. Therefore, students should be allowed to develop scientific concepts in relation to the contexts in which those concepts are used. Since many concepts are used in a variety of contexts, students need to be able to recontextualise and transfer their understanding of a concept from one context to another. This study aims to develop a learning and teaching strategy for recontextualising cellular respiration. This article focuses on students’ ability to recontextualise cellular respiration. The strategy allowed students to develop their understanding of cellular respiration by exploring its use and meaning in different contexts. A pre- and post-test design was used to test students’ understanding of cellular respiration. The results indicate that while students did develop an acceptable understanding of cellular respiration, they still had difficulty with recontextualising the concept to other contexts. Possible explanations for this ack of understanding are students’ familiarity with the biological object of focus in a context, the manner in which this object is used in a context and students’ understanding of specific elements of cellular respiration during the lessons. Although students did develop an adequate understanding of the concept, they do need more opportunities to practice recontextualising the concept in different contexts. Further research should focus on improving the strategy presented here and developing strategies for other core concepts in science.     

Self Organising Wayfinding Support for Lifelong Learners

Lifelong learning puts learner self-direction centre-stage. However, increased responsibility should not come at the price of over-burdening or abandonment of learners as they progress along their learning journey. This paper introduces an approach to wayfinding support for lifelong learners based on self-organisation theory. It describes an architecture which supports the recording, processing and presentation of collective learner behaviour designed to create a feedback loop informing learners of successful paths towards the attainment of learning goals. The approach is presented as an alternative to methods of achieving adaptation in hypermedia-based learning environments which involve learner modelling. The article concludes with a discussion of the questions being addressed in our ongoing research.     

The (non)effect of Joint Construction in a genre-based approach to teaching writing

This quasi-experimental intervention study examines the effect of genre-based instructional practices on 90 primary students’ narrative writing achievements and is a result of six teachers’ action to meet the educational goals of the Swedish national curriculum. Specifically, the authors examine the effects of Joint Construction, the phase in the genre pedagogical model of the Sydney School known as the Teaching and Learning Cycle, in which teachers and students work together to co-construct texts. Joint Construction has been put forward as the most powerful part of the Teaching and Learning Cycle. The authors challenge this argument, presenting findings that are inconsistent with this widely held belief. Using a pretest-posttest control group design, the study shows that the Joint Construction stage did not significantly improve the quality of students’ narrative writing or increase the text length of their writings.     

Evaluating faculty performance under the equal pay for equal work doctrine

The issue of sex discrimination in faculty employment has become a prominent legal and political concern, necessitating the development of objective empirical methods to determine the existence of patterns of discriminatory treatment. In this study, regression techniques are employed to apply the equal pay for equal work interpretation of the fair employment doctrine. Specifically, faculty promotion and salary policies at the University of Texas at Austin are analyzed to determine whether male and female faculty members are rewarded equally for equal academic qualifications and performances. This regression analysis tends to support the discrimination hypothesis with respect to both promotion and salary policies.     

PHYSIOLOGICAL INDICATORS OF STRESS AND INTELLECTUAL PERFORMANCE AMONG ANXIOUS OLDER ADULTS

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the relationship between anxiety and cognitive performance in older adults. We asked 27 older adults, self‐selected on the basis of their concerns about decrements in intellectual functioning, to perform a series of cognitive tasks to assess crystallized (Gc) and fluid (Gf) intellectual abilities. Volunteers also completed questionnaires concerning their beliefs about their task performance specific to each ability, as well as measures of both generalized and intellectual self‐efficacy, everyday cognitive failures, and concerns about illness and aging. Cortisol was measured as an indicator of anxiety and Epstein‐Barr virus levels were assessed to determine nonspecific physiological changes. Results indicated that in the self‐selected “anxious” sample, there was a significant negative correlation between cortisol and self‐efficacy related to the most difficult measure of Gf. The only other significant (negative) correlation was between cortisol and generalized self‐efficacy. As expected, EBV levels were not correlated with any of the performance or self‐efficacy measures taken. Possible explanations of these findings are discussed as they relate to varying levels of performance and concerns about the loss of skills among older adults.     

School Level Conditions Affecting the Effectiveness of Instruction

In this article, the current status of school level factors, as they appear in research reviews and in school effectiveness models is criticised both from a theoretical and from an empirical perspective. School level factors are often related to student achievement without taking into account the classroom level, where teaching and learning primarily take place. As a theoretical alternative, an overview of school level factors that enhance the quality of instruction, time for learning and opportunity to learn at the classroom level is provided. These factors are supposed to contribute to the explanation of differences in student achievement. Some empirical support for these ideas is found in educational research studies that have made use of three‐level analyses.     

开放式创新网络形成及演化的探索性案例研究

企业如何在战略阶段演进中构建与战略网络与商业生态系统相互融合与共同演化的开放式创新网络,已成为开放式创新能否取得成效的关键。本文揭示了开放式创新网络与战略网络、商业生态系统的关联性及内在逻辑,运用探索性案例研究方法,以"每20分钟产生一项专利"的荷兰埃因霍芬高科技园区为研究对象,将园区开放式创新网络形成及演化3阶段的开放式创新网络概括为"1+0"、"1+N"、"N+N"3种形式,得出开放式创新网络的形成及演化取决于战略网络的类型和动态变化趋势以及商业生态系统中核心物种的生态位进化。     

Reading for meaning: the effects of Developmental Education on reading achievements of primary school students from low SES and ethnic minority families

The appropriateness of innovative educational concepts for students from a low socioeconomic status (SES) or ethnic minority background is sometimes called into question. Disadvantaged students are supposed to benefit more from traditional approaches with Programmatic Instruction (PI). We examined Developmental Education (DE), an innovative approach, inspired by Vygotskian theory, in which reading skills are developed through meaningful reading of texts corresponding to students’ self-generated problems. The effectiveness of DE is compared to PI in terms of reading comprehension, strategy knowledge, and reading motivation of 4th-grade students; 170 students from ethnic minority or low SES background participated in a pretest-posttest natural 2-group design. Outcomes were similar in both approaches, with one exception: Students with an ethnic minority background in DE performed better on strategy knowledge than similar students in PI. These results are discussed in relation to previous studies on the appropriateness of innovative curricula for disadvantaged students.