中澳美的经济变革与数学课程改革方向

世界经济结构正经历巨大的转型,具体表现为农业所占GDP的比例显著下降,而制造业,尤其是服务业则不断提高.中国、澳大利亚与美国是3个具有代表性的国家,经济上的这种变化对教育以及数学课程都产生了影响,反映了当今社会中对人们所需的"数学素养"的全新要求.中国、澳大利亚与美国义务教育阶段国家级数学课程都强调了"统计思想"与"关系性思维"这两个重要内容.     

Mentors’ contributions to gifted adolescents’ affective,social, and vocational development

Research on mentorships for gifted adolescents primarily has focused on the role mentors play in students’ academic success. Mentors’ contribution to gifted adolescents’ affective, social, and vocational development rarely has been addressed. This article identifies special needs and characteristics of gifted adolescents in these latter areas, and suggests how mentors can play a significant role in each, including the particular value of mentoring relationships for gifted adolescent females. Finally, educational implications are explored, as well as the need for empirical studies which examine the benefits derived by gifted and nongifted mentees from mentoring relationships.     

CORRECTIONAL POST‐SECONDARY EDUCATION: THE EXPANDING ROLE OF COMMUNITY COLLEGES

More than 75 percent of post‐secondary institutions offering education programs in prisons are community and vocational/ technical colleges. The predominance of community colleges among correctional education providers is a major change from the early 1970's when two‐thirds of such programs were provided by four‐year institutions.

Over 260 community colleges provide programs and services to the 26,000 inmates participating in higher education. Results of a survey on correctional post‐secondary education indicate that these programs are in many ways different from those educational institutions provide on their own campuses. For example, they generally, have different admission standards, are administered by part‐time staff, and rely upon part‐time and adjunct faculty.

Community and junior college administrators are urged to closely examine the operation and quality of their correctional programs and the need for evaluative research on the long‐term effects of these programs is also stressed.     

Determinants of withdrawal behavior: An exploratory study

Research on college persistence has typically classified nonreturnees as dropouts. Recently, this practice has been criticized by Tinto (1987) who argues that such a practice merges together different types of withdrawal behavior whose determinants may vary as a function of the particular departure behavior under consideration. This paper empirically examines whether the determinants of decisions to withdraw from the institution are similar to those affecting decisions to transfer to other institutions of higher education for the 1984 entering freshman class at a large southern institution. Results provide support for Tinto's proposition of differentiating between different types of voluntary withdrawal behavior. While institutional commitment, academic performance, finance attitudes, and student perceptions of faculty concern for student development and teaching discriminated between persisters and dropouts, only final institutional commitment and final goal commitment discriminated between persisters and transfers.An earlier version of this paper was presented before the 1990 American Educational Research Association annual meeting.     

Personality structure,instructional outcomes,and instructional preferences

Four instructional treatments differing in structure and student responsibility were used with 60 abstractthinking and 60 concrete-thinking students. As predicted, abstract students preferred those treatments with less structure and more responsibility; however, abstract and concrete students showed similar achievement levels as a result, of each treatment. The differentiated outcomes hypothesis is offered to account for the findings.

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Résumé Quatre méthodes de traitement pédagogique de structure et de responsabilité des étudiants ont été employées avec 60 étudiants pensant abstraitement et 60 étudiants pensant de manière concrète. Ainsi que prévu, les étudiants pensant abstraitement préféraient les méthodes ayant moins de structure et plus de responsabilité. Les deux catégories d'étudiants ont toutefois obtenu des niveaux d'accomplissement pareils avec chaque méthode de traitement. L'hypothèse des aboutissements différenciés est offerte comme explication des conclusions.

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This study was based in part on the doctoral dissertation of the junior author. The authors would like to thank the students and staff of the County College of Morris, Morristown, N.J., for their cooperation.     

Factors contributing to preservice teachers' management of children's problem behaviors

The purpose of this study was to assess factors that contribute to preservice teachers' choice of a helping or a restrictive strategy to manage social immaturity and social defiance behaviors among children. Levels of tolerance, opinions as to the causes of behavior, perceptions of adverse effects or costs of problem behaviors, and choice of strategy were measured in response to hypothetical samples of problem behavior. Regression analyses indicated that the costs of problem behavior significantly predicted the type of strategy that would be chosen. Training preservice teachers to manage these costs was the main implication for teacher training programs.     

Postcontraction influences on reaction time

The purpose of this study was to compare reaction time (RT) and fractionated RT components (premotor and motor times) between normal and postcontraction conditions. Twelve participants performed 20 trials each of control and postcontraction RT conditions. For the control condition, participants executed a learned, rapid, knee-extension contraction response to an auditory stimulus. The postcontraction condition was identical to the control condition except that the participants performed a 3-s isometric contraction of the knee extensor muscles prior to an auditory stimulus. Muscle activity was recorded from the quadriceps muscle group. Results indicated that the postcontraction condition was significantly faster than the control condition for the average RT, premotor time, and motor time. It was concluded that reaction time, processing time, and muscle contraction time for a learned task could be significantly reduced following an isometric contraction.