Measuring experiences of interest-related pursuits in connected learning

This paper describes an effort to develop a survey instrument capable of measuring important aspects of adolescents’ experiences of interest-related pursuits that are supported by technology. The measure focuses on youths’ experiences of connected learning (Ito et al. in Connected learning: an agenda for research and design. Digital Media and Learning Research Hub, Irvine, 2013), an emerging model of learning across settings supported by digital media. Specifically, the instrument aims to measure the depth with which youth are able to engage in an interest-related pursuit, the level of support and encouragement they receive from peers, and the degree to which their pursuit involves performance or media production as an essential feature. The survey also elicits information regarding the connections between youths’ interest-related pursuits and academic goals, the involvement of adults as co-participants in pursuits, and youths’ access to technology tools they deem necessary for their pursuits. The paper reports on results from a pilot study and two rounds of field-testing, in which we evaluated the validity and reliability of the instrument and compared results with evidence from interviews with youth. Our aim was to investigate the feasibility of an approach to measuring youths’ interest-related pursuits to inform future research and evaluation of initiatives focused on digital media and learning.     

Flipping the Coin: Towards a Double-Faced Approach to Teaching Black Literature in Secondary English Classrooms

Critiquing two approaches that English teachers use to teach Black, or African-American, literature in the secondary classroom – one that centralises races and the other that ignores it – this article proposes a hybrid approach that combines both. This double-faced approach recognises the culturally specific themes that give the text and the Black author their unique voice while also recognising commonalities that bridge the text to others – despite the race of the authors. To demonstrate the feasibility of the double-faced approach, the article concludes with an examination of three texts through the lens of this ‘race both matters and doesn’t matter’ perspective.     

A study of race and gender bias in the punishment of handicapped school children

There is scant research concerned about punishment of handicapped, minority students in public schools. The purpose of this study was to investigate race and gender, types of rules violations, types of punishments, referral rates, referral frequencies, and follow-up activities to determine differences in treatment by race, sex, and handicapping condition. The sample consisted of 4,391 discipline files representing records from 9 schools in a district (K-12). All data were analyzed using the Chi Square statistic. It was demonstrated that racial bias existed in the administration of punishment, and that Black, male handicapped students were punished more severely than others for commission of the same offenses.     

Open-field behavior of wild and domestic Norway rats

The open-field behavior of wild and domestic Norway rats was compared in 15-min tests administered over 5 successive days. Wild rats exhibited more ambulation, jumping, grooming, and time inactive than domestic rats and spent more time along the arena wall. Within- and between-trial changes in behavior were generally greater for wild rats. Factor analyses revealed major loadings on factors identified as “locomotor behavior” and “grooming.” Support was obtained for the hypothesis that domestication has raised the threshold for avoidance-escape behavior in response to a novel environment.     

Social working memory: Memory for another rat's spatial choices can increase or decrease choice tendencies

In two experiments using a radial-arm maze, pairs of rats made choices among eight maze locations, each containing a large quantity of one of two food types. The choices made by 1 rat affected the choices made by the other rat. Under most conditions, visits by 1 rat increased the tendency of the other rat to subsequently choose that maze location. However, the effect depended on the quality of the food available in a particular location. When it was possible for the rats to observe each other on the maze arms and a rat had experienced that a location contained the less preferred food type, a previous visit to that location by the foraging partner decreased the tendency to visit that location. These effects are attributed to working memory for the spatial choices of another rat, and they indicate that memory produced by a rat’s own visit to a maze location is integrated with memory for the behavior of another rat to determine spatial choice     

Designing a college web-based course using a modified personalized system of instruction (PSI) model

Conclusion With proper planning and attention to instructional design, Web-based courses can provide a convenient and instructionally sound method of course delivery. The PSI model is a proven model that can be applied to many Webbased courses     

The natural sciences,the social sciences and politics

Conclusion The social sciences stand at a strange crossroads. There is a greater need for disciplined inquiry into the issues of policy facing the United States. Yet the incentives in the political system, and in the professional guilds of those performing social research, discourage a close involvement of many prominent social scientists with policy. The political system, fearing an elite imposing its values on society, welcomes the natural scientist who seems to conform to the model of the politically neutral expert who solves problems and addresses facts. This model also fits the higher ranks of the civil service, made up of specialists rather than generalist administrators, and the outside advisers serving officials concerned with high policy. Likewise, to protect themselves from changes of partisanship, leading academic social scientists forsake policy concerns for topics within the analytic traditions of Weberian Wertfreiheit. Just as Weber sought to avoid censorship by value neutral scholarship, the modern social scientist disdains the normative concerns of policy in favour of more tractable, morally neutral issues defined as the core of the discipline.The country needs to draw some of the best analytical talent in the social science community into the policy process and advisory roles. Disciplined inquiry cannot be left only to technicians whose professional interests are far removed from political, economic, social and other human sciences. To promote better policy and better social science, we should encourage serious, professionally grounded inquiry into social values, the directions of policy, and the role and proper limits of state power. In the clamour of American politics, there is little danger that policy will be monopolised by an elite group, but considerable danger that debate on policy will be impoverished by the absence of those most knowledgeable about social and economic reality.A revised and expanded version of the first Dael L. Wolfle Lecture given on 6 October, 1987, at the Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Washington, Seattle. Don K. Price was dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and is the author ofGovernment and Science (1954),The Scientific Estate (1965) andAmerica's Unwritten Constitution (1983). He has held senior posts in the United States Bureau of the Budget, the Defense Research and Development Board, and the Ford Foundation, and was an adviser to Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson.