Using the Sociology of Associations to Rethink STEM Education

Using three constructs taken from Latour's 2005 book, Reassembling the Social, we consider our work in 2 contexts that were part of a project to support science teachers working with English learners: an 8th-grade physical science class in a summer science enrichment academy, and a 6th-grade Earth science class in a public middle school. We utilize Latour's constructs of (a) group formation, (b) mediators and intermediaries, and (c) traces of intentionality to interpret the interactions that occur in these spaces. We analyze these interactions to make a broader argument about the limitations of improvement science perspectives that are increasingly influential in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education research in the U.S. context.     

Assessing Student Openness to Inquiry-Based Learning in Precalculus

Abstract

The authors have completed a 2-year quasi-experimental study on the use of inquiry-based learning (IBL) in precalculus. This study included six traditional lecture-style courses and seven modified Moore method courses taught by three instructors. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to investigate the attitudes and beliefs of the students in each section. In this article, we provide a summary of those results with a particular focus on the Openness to IBL survey we developed for assessing student preferences for either student-centered or teacher-centered instruction. Although the majority of the students exhibited a strong preference for direct instruction, students whose scores favored student-centered approaches according to the survey also tended to perform better on the final exam, indicating that a key element to success in an IBL course may be students’ perceptions of the method.     

Increasing Completion and Cutting Costs: An Examination of How the Flipped Classroom and One-Room Schoolhouse Models Benefit Community Colleges

Community colleges continue to operate in a society of accountability and efficiencies. Throughout the country, states have implemented performance-based funding and completion agendas while also tightening or restricting funding for higher education. The state of Ohio has implemented one of the boldest performance funding plans in the country while also mandating that higher education institutions limit spending and lower costs to students. This article explores how Central Ohio Technical College has implemented the flipped classroom and one-room school house models in college-level mathematics courses and how both models of instruction can help community colleges increase successful completion rates to meet performance-based funding completion metrics while also limiting instructional cost.     

Translations of new public management: a decentred approach to school governance in four OECD countries

Despite the prevalence of corporate and performative models of school governance within and across different education systems, there are various cases of uneven, hybrid expressions of New Public Management (NPM) that reveal the contingency of global patterns of rule. Adopting a ‘decentred approach’ to governance (Bevir, M. 2010. “Rethinking Governmentality: Towards Genealogies of Governance.” European Journal of Social Theory 13 (4): 423–441), this paper compares the development of NPM in four OECD countries: Australia, England, Spain, and Switzerland. A focus of the paper is how certain policy instruments are created and sustained within highly differentiated geo-political settings and through different multi-scalar actors and authorities yet modified to reflect established traditions and practices.     

Intertrial interval and unconditioned stimulus durations in autoshaping

Four groups of pigeons were exposed to an autoshaping procedure in which a 20-sec key illumination preceded the presentation of response-independent grain, The groups differed according to the duration of feeder access and the intertriai intervals, If feeder durations are not included in the time between trials, two of the groups had identical intertriai intervals. If feeder durations are included, each of the other two groups was identical to one of the first two in terms of the intertriai interval, The speed of acquisition and maintained measures of responding were directly related to the duration of the interval from food offset to signal onset, Groups exposed to equivalent intertriai intervals and different feeder durations did not differ from one another on these measures, The results were interpreted as evidence that feeder durations were not included in the functional intertrial interval and that feeder duration, per se, did not affect autoshaped responding.     

Contributions of active and dynamic self-regulation to learning

Most modern cognitive theories postulate that active executive control is the only internal source of self-regulation of learning processes. To account for incidental and other categories of unintentional learning, this study explored the hypothesis that two independent sources of internal control regulate academic learning: (a) active (or executive) and (b) dynamic (or nonexecutive). College undergraduates completed an inventory of active and dynamic learning processes. The findings supported the twosource hypothesis. Moreover, when the contribution of dynamic self-regulation was removed, the correlation between active self-regulation and learning was no longer significant. When active self-regulation was removed, the correlation between dynamic self-regulation and learning remained basically the same.Asghar Iran-Nejad received his Ph.D. in 1983 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at The University of Alabama. His research interests and publications include the multisource nature of learning, cognitive and affective causes of interest, and sources of self-regulation. Brad S. Chissom received his Ed.D. in 1969 from Florida State University. He is Professor and Program Chair in Educational Research at The University of Alabama. He has written in the areas of educational research methodology, measurement and statistical applications.     

Trauma and Dissociation: Predictors of Loneliness in Students at an Urban University

Loneliness is often seen in college students as they leave established support networks and family. Loneliness is also associated with negative mental health outcomes, including depression and decreased life satisfaction. The authors explored relationships between trauma, dissociation, and loneliness, and assessed the predictive ability of trauma and dissociation on feelings of loneliness. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that trauma experience and dissociation significantly predicted loneliness in the current sample (n = 429). Implications for counseling are discussed.     

Visual Assertions: Effects of Photo Manipulation and Dual Processing for Food Advertisements

In our media landscape, consumers view a plethora of messages with visual assertions, created through postproduction photo manipulation, which communicate meaning at-a-glance. These visual assertions are processed initially and directly and greatly influence how consumers think, feel, and behave. Yet the impact of visuals, which likely color all processing, is not incorporated in persuasive message processing models. Using dual processing models from multiple disciplines as a theoretical foundation, this study demonstrates through two experiments that the effects of photo manipulation, as visual assertions, in food advertising increased consumers' perceptions of healthfulness, positive attitudes, and purchase intentions. Dual processing models for persuasive messages should be extended to account for the initial, influential visual processing of implied assertions, often manipulated during postproduction.