Writing quality in Chinese children: speed and fluency matter

There were two goals of the present study. The first was to create a scoring scheme by which 9-year-old Chinese children??s writing compositions could be rated to form a total score for writing quality. The second was to examine cognitive correlates of writing quality at age 9 from measures administered at ages 6?C9. Age 9 writing compositions were scored using a 7-element rubric; following confirmatory factor analyses, 5 of these elements were retained to represent overall writing quality for subsequent analyses. Measures of vocabulary knowledge, Chinese word dictation, phonological awareness, speed of processing, speeded naming, and handwriting fluency at ages 6?C9 were all significantly associated with the obtained overall writing quality measure even when the statistical effect of age was removed. With vocabulary knowledge, dictation skill, age, gender, and phonological awareness included in a regression equation, 35% of the variance in age 9 writing quality was explained. With the variables of speed of processing, speeded naming, and handwriting fluency additionally included as a block, 12% additional variance in the equation was explained. In addition to gender, overall unique correlates of writing quality were dictation, speed of processing, and handwriting fluency, underscoring the importance of both general automaticity and specific writing fluency for writing quality development in children.     

Developmental and individual differences in Chinese writing

The goal of the present study was to examine the generalizability of a model of the underlying dimensions of written composition across writing systems (Chinese Mandarin vs. English) and level of writing skill. A five-factor model of writing originally developed from analyses of 1st and 4th grade English writing samples was applied to Chinese writing samples obtained from 4th and 7th grade students. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to compare the fits of alternative models of written composition. The results suggest that the five-factor model of written composition generalizes to Chinese writing samples and applies to both less skilled (Grade 4) and more skilled (Grade 7) writing, with differences in factor means between grades that vary in magnitude across factors.     

An Educational Tool for Formal Relational Database Query Languages

This article describes an educational tool, implemented in Prolog, that takes advantage of the connection between logic programming and databases to provide an evaluator for relational query languages. The tool utilizes a common data definition facility and provides the student with a choice of query languages: relational algebra, domain relational calculus, tuple relational calculus, and SQL. The students use the relational interpreter for a sequence of homework assignments that both provide invaluable feedback on each language and illustrate the differences between the languages.     

‘I Actually Contributed to Their Research': The influence of an abbreviated summer apprenticeship program in science and engineering for diverse high-school learners

This study describes an investigation of a research apprenticeship program that we developed for diverse high-school students often underrepresented in similar programs and in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professions. Through the apprenticeship program, students spent 2 weeks in the summer engaged in biofuels-related research practices within working university chemistry and engineering laboratories. The experience was supplemented by discussions and activities intended to impact nature of science (NOS) and inquiry understandings and to allow for an exploration of STEM careers and issues of self-identity. Participants completed a NOS questionnaire before and after the experience, were interviewed multiple times, and were observed while working in the laboratories. Findings revealed that as a result of the program, participants (1) demonstrated positive changes in their understandings of certain NOS aspects many of which were informed by their laboratory experiences, (2) had an opportunity to explore and strengthen STEM-related future plans, and (3) examined their self-identities. A majority of participants also described a sense of belonging within the laboratory groups and believed that they were making significant contributions to the ongoing work of those laboratories even though their involvement was necessarily limited due to the short duration of the program. For students who were most influenced by the program, the belonging they felt was likely related to issues of identity and career aspirations.     

Banning Queer Blood: Rhetorics of Citizenship,Contagion, and Resistance,by Jeffrey A. Bennett

The Voice in Speech. By Clara Kathleen Rogers. Boston: Published by the Author, 1915. Cloth, pp. 123. $1.25.

Correct Pronunciation. By Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D. New York: Charles E. Merrill Co., 1912. Pp. 173.

The Technic of the Speaking Voice. By John R. Scott. Published by the Author, Columbia, Mo.: Cloth, pp. 534.

The Structure of an Effective Public Speech. By Harry B. Bradbury. Greenfield, Mass.: T. Morey &; Son, 1915. Pp. 85, cloth, 60 cents.     

A rhetorician's son: His advice to public speakers

J. M. Barrie's 1922 address Courageconstitutes a paradoxical rhetorical text. In his oratorical debut, Barrie offered seniors at St. Andrews poignant and explicit advice concerning life's liminal passages, even as he carefully obfuscated his own identity. This essay offers two readings of the text to illuminate an alternative relationship between text and context in rhetorical criticism. The first interpretation focuses on the obvious textual paradox related to liminality. The second reading moves from the “textual context” to the social and ideological context, and argues that working within the address is the rhetorical form of “the closet.” Recontextualizing Barrie's address from within “the closet,” renders visible a second “invisible context” related to homosexuality, opening a new interpretive doorway for the critic.     

Kairos as Indeterminate Risk Management: The Pharmaceutical Industry's Response to Bioterrorism

The pharmaceutical industry's response to the threat of bioterrorism following 9-11 invoked the rhetorical notion of kairos as an urgent and ongoing opportunity not only to protect the nation but also to improve the industry's reputation and fortify its political power. Yet the notion of kairos as seizing an advantage—grounded in modernist assumptions about agency and control—is also complicated by the case history of big pharma's response, which left the industry vulnerable to heightened and additional risks. This case history suggests that kairos can be less about seizing an advantage than about indeterminately responding to shifting, unbounded, uncertain, unpredictable, and uncontrollable risks shaped by the processes of globalization.     

Teaching the introductory communication theory course to undergraduates

This essay explores the introduction to communication theory course for undergraduates. The authors discuss several key notions for making the course valuable to the undergraduate: the attitude of the instructor, the attitude of the students, course requirements, and evaluation techniques.     

A Framework for Creating a Climate of Transparency for Professional Performance Assessment: Fostering Student Investment in Gatekeeping

Students unfamiliar with their counseling program's professional performance assessment policies may consider such policies pejorative. Moreover, student beliefs about the primacy of ethical service to clients may be confounded when faculty members are reluctant or fail to formally address concerns about deficient professional performance of students. The authors propose a framework intended to promote openness and transparency in professional performance assessment and believe this framework is critical to students' accurate perceptions of the assessment process, their trust in faculty members, and their future investment in safeguarding public welfare and the ethical integrity of the counseling profession through gatekeeping.     

American Association for Health,Physical Education,and Recreation

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify whether post-resistance exercise (REx) blood flow restriction (BFR) can elicit a similar acute training stimulus to that offered by either heavy REx or traditional low-load BFR REx. Method: Ten men completed trials with 30% one-repetition maximum (1RM) for 5 sets of 15 repetitions without BFR (30%), with BFR during exercise (30% RD), and with postexercise BFR (30% RP) and at 75% 1RM for 3 sets of 10 repetitions. Lactate and cortisol were measured before and up to 60 min after exercise. Thigh circumference, ratings of perceived exertion (RPE), and pain were measured before and after exercise. Surface electromyography was measured during exercise. Results: All conditions had a large effect (effect size [ES] > 0.8) on lactate, with the largest effects observed with the 75% condition; no differences were observed between the 30% conditions. All conditions had a moderate effect (ES > 0.25 ≤ 0.4) on increasing thigh circumference. This effect was maintained (ES = 0.35) with the application of BFR after REx (30% RP). Change in RPE, from the first to last set, was significantly greater with 30% RD compared with other conditions (all p < .05). Electromyography amplitude was higher and percentage change was greater for the 75% condition compared with the other conditions (both p < .05). Conclusions: The application of BFR immediately post-REx altered several of the responses associated with REx that is aimed at inducing muscular hypertrophy. Additionally, these changes occurred with less pain and perceived exertion suggesting that this form of REx may offer an alternative, tolerable method of REx.