Evaluating hierarchical organisation structures for exploring digital libraries

Search boxes providing simple keyword-based search are insufficient when users have complex information needs or are unfamiliar with a collection, for example in large digital libraries. Browsing hierarchies can support these richer interactions, but many collections do not have a suitable hierarchy available. In this paper we present a number of approaches for automatically creating hierarchies and mapping items into them, including a novel technique which automatically adapts a Wikipedia-based taxonomy to the target collection. These approaches are applied to a large collection of cultural heritage items which is formed through the aggregation of other collections and for which no unified hierarchy is available. We investigate a number of novel user-evaluated metrics to quantify the hierarchies’ quality and performance, showing that the proposed technique is preferred by users. From this we draw a number of conclusions as to what makes a hierarchy useful to the user.     

In Early Education, Why Teach Handwriting Before Keyboarding?

Legible written communication is essential for students to share knowledge (Rogers and Case-Smith 2002). If students lack proficiency in written communication, their composition skills will suffer, which can affect their self-esteem and grades. Whether or not this proficiency is in handwriting or keyboarding is a question worthy of discussion. In this article the authors define motor learning, examine the overlapping principles of motor learning in handwriting and keyboarding skill development, and discuss the need for fluency. The principles of motor learning indicate that handwriting precedes keyboarding when comparing skills and time needed to gain competency. Also discussed are correlations between handwriting and keyboarding skills and the impact of teacher attitudes toward each. As occupational therapists, the authors’ recommendations are based on the review of literature and evidence their combined with their extensive experience as school-based occupational therapists. Using a school-based consultative model of occupational therapy at the continuing education or university educational level can facilitate the sharing of this knowledge with early childhood education teachers.     

Using a computer-aided personalized system of instruction to enhance the mastery of statistics in online learning

This study compared the effectiveness of teaching a distance education statistics course using a computer-aided personalized system of instruction (CAPSI) in comparison to a distance education course that used video lectures. Data were collected between 2017 and 2022. Two-hundred and sixty-eight students were included in the sample. Results supported that students enrolled in the CAPSI statistics course were less likely to drop out of the course and mastered significantly more material than students enrolled in the lecture-based distance education course. It is recommended that instructors teaching statistics in distance education settings consider using CAPSI to improve student outcomes.     

Prescription and reality: Reading advisers and reading practice, 1860–1880

Victorian Americans were serious readers: they expected books to contribute to their moral development. Yet not all the literature the marketplace provided served this purpose. Many readers therefore turned to reading advisers for suggestions about what to read and how to read it. The advice books they wrote, along with diaries and letters, tell us a great deal about Victorian reading practices and about the changing role of books and periodicals in mid-nineteenth-century society.     

Effects of Parent Implemented Visual Schedule Routines for African American Children with ASD in Low-Income Home Settings

Low-income, minority families are underrepresented in the literature on parent training for school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although the use of visual supports, such as visual schedules, is considered to be an evidence-based practice for children with ASD in school, it is not known whether this strategy is effective for minority, low-income families when implemented by the parent in the home setting. This study used a multiple-baseline across routines design replicated across two African American child-mother dyads to examine the effects of a parent-implemented visual schedule procedure on child independent schedule use and between-activity transitions. Parent participants were trained to implement a visual schedule intervention during home routines. Although a functional relation was demonstrated across routines for one mother-child dyad, results varied across participants, highlighting the importance of treatment fidelity. Implications for future research, including the challenges involved in parent-implemented interventions in low-income settings for minority children with ASD, are addressed.     

Beliefs and Achievement: A Study of Black, White, and Hispanic Children

School achievement among black, white, and Hispanic elementary school children was investigated, and efforts were made to study the beliefs about academic achievement of the children and their mothers. A total of approximately 3,000 first, third, and fifth graders enrolled in 20 schools in the Chicago metropolitan area were given achievement tests in mathematics and reading. Black and Hispanic children performed at a significantly lower level than white children, but at fifth grade ethnic differences in mathematics scores were no longer significant when mothers' education was statistically controlled. This was not the case in reading, where differences were found after controlling for the effects of mothers' education. Interviews with subsamples of approximately 1,000 mothers and children revealed greater emphasis on and concern about education among minority families than among white families. Black and Hispanic children and mothers evaluated the children and their academic abilities highly; they were positive about education and held high expectations about the children's future prospects for education. Mothers of minority children and teachers in minority schools believed more strongly than white mothers and teachers in the value of homework, competency testing, and a longer school day as means of improving children's education.     

Effects of prior response-contingent reinforcement on superstitious behavior

Three pigeons were exposed to fixed-time (FT) 15 sec, fixed-interval (FI) 15 sec for performing an arbitrary response, a reversal back to FT 15 sec, and then extinction (no reinforcement). During each phase, a computer-controlled tracking system continuously recorded the position of the bird’s head as it moved freely in the experimental chamber. During the first exposure to FT 15 sec, all 3 birds developed a pattern of feeder-wall-directed behavior with occasional circular excursions from the feeder immediately following reinforcement. During FI 15 sec, all birds performed the arbitrary operant, which consisted of contacting a virtual target sphere near the rear of the chamber, and did not engage in feeder-wall-directed behavior. During the reversal back to FT 15 sec, the birds developed a behavior sequence consisting of moving in the direction of the target sphere after reinforcement, followed by feeder-wall-directed behavior prior to the next reinforcement. During extinction, either moves toward the target sphere or wall-directed behavior occurred separately, interspersed with reappearance of the two as a sequence, followed by cessation of both members of the behavior sequence. These findings indicate that prior reinforcement of an arbitrary response can affect the location and form of superstitious behavior that develops near the beginning of the interreinforcement interval, but that other factors (e.g., immediacy of reinforcement) affect the location and form of the behavior near the end of the interval. The findings can be interpreted in the context of superstitious chaining.