Extended visual fixation in the early preschool years: look duration, heart rate changes, and attentional inertia

Visual fixation in infants from 6 months to 2 years of age was examined for its fit to the theory of "attentional inertia." A children's movie ("Sesame Street" movie, "Follow that Bird") or an extended audiovisual stimulus (computer-generated patterns) was presented to 40 children for a minimum of 20 min while fixation was videotaped and heart rate (HR) was recorded. Consistent with attentional inertia theory, fixations toward the stimuli had a lognormal distribution, HR decreased over the course of a look, and HR returned to prestimulus levels immediately before look offset. Older children (18 months, 24 months) showed a distinction in the parameters describing the lognormal distribution for the "Sesame Street" movie and the audiovisual patterns, whereas younger children (6 months, 12 months) responded similarly to the two stimulus types. Fixation patterns of children in this age range suggest attention increases over the course of a look, and parameters consistent with attentional inertia theory differentially develop in this age range.     

Implementation strategies for educational intranet resources

Recent events in UK Higher Education have caused university schools to look toward alternative means of enhancing and monitoring the quality of the service they provide. One approach utilises networked learning and teaching resources, in particular intranets. Two Schools at the University of Brighton commenced independent implementation of intranets at similar times. The subjects of the case studies are the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences Intranet (SPI) and the Business School Intranet (BSI). This paper describes the two alternative strategies for intranet implementation, demonstrates the differing degrees of staff and student utilisation of these learning and teaching assets, identifies barriers to success within each and proposes solutions to address them. The paper proposes a unified strategy for effective intranet implementation and suggests measures to manage organisational resistance to change.     

Visual and Auditory Information Processing in Dyslexia: The Possibility of Subtypes

THIS DOUBLE‐BLIND experiment investigated various aspects of visual and auditory problems related to dyslexia. Seventeen children with dyslexia aged 7.25 to 10.25 years were compared with 17 normal readers matched for CA and intellectual ability. A speech perception task which measured the subjects’ auditory threshold level significantly separated the two groups. No difference was found when this task was performed at 35 dB above individual threshold levels. A significant difference between groups was found for the Form Constancy Subtest of the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception (DTVP) (1966). A significant negative correlation found between these measures for the dyslexics, but not for the normal readers, supports previous evidence for auditory and visual subtypes in dyslexia. Various optometric measures were also examined. Four dyslexics, but no normal readers, suffered fixation disparity. This difference was significant. Six representative subjects of each group were compared for eye tracking in reading. The word span of the dyslexics was significantly smaller than that of the normal readers. A multiple discriminant analysis incorporating the auditory threshold task, form constancy, fusional reserves (distance, negative), accommodation right eye and heterophoria significantly discriminated the two reading groups. The perceptual variables were more heavily weighted than the optometric measures. It was concluded that while eye tracking and binocular fusion problems should always be considered in the assessment of dyslexics, factors involved in information processing in auditory and visual perception appear to be those which are more highly implicated.     

The possibilities and actualities of disciplined inquiry

Research on the substantive issues and concerns of higher education is handicapped by higher education's lack of status and recognition as an academic discipline and/or a professional specialty. A major contributing factor is identified as the historical separation of sponsored research and graduate education. Professors of higher education have not been actively involved in funded research and researchers have not participated fully in doctoral programs. An effective solution of the problem should be the cooperation of professors and researchers in recasting theory-based and policy-related research as disciplined inquiry, by strengthening current doctoral programs and by concentrating on the preparation of the next generation of scholars, professors, and researchers.     

Attributes of meaningful learning experiences in an outdoor education program

This phenomenological study sought to identify the attributes of meaningful learning experiences as found in an outdoor education program. Thirteen students in the Wilderness Writing Program at Brigham Young University were the sample of this study. Their participation in outdoor recreational activities and their reflections about their experiences were analyzed. Through written journal entries, group discussions, observations, and writing assignments, a qualitative analysis identified attributes that occurred in their meaningful learning experiences. Meaningful learning was defined as a realization of a person's weaknesses, strengths, and potentials. This realization came through experiences with attributes of a degree of perceived risk, which led to a feeling of awkwardness, followed by a purifying process, or sublimation. A reflective period allowed for reconstruction of a person's view of himself or herself and this was closely tied with feedback from others in the group.     

The maintenance of matching behavior when contrast occurs in multiple concurrent concurrent schedules of reinforcement

Pigeons were trained on a multiple schedule of reinforcement in which each component was a concurrent schedule. The concurrent schedules were programmed by the changeover-key procedure. The primary purpose was to determine if the relative behavior allocated to two response alternatives is affected when absolute changes in these behaviors occur; i.e., to determine if matching is affected when positive behavioral contrast occurs. Results showed that (1) relative behavior in the unaltered component of the multiple schedule is not disrupted when positive contrast occurs in that component, (2) positive contrast occurred when the overall frequency of reinforcement in the reinforcement-correlated component(s) was high, but not when it was low, (3) changeover behavior was susceptible to positive contrast effects, and (4) changeover contrast and food-key contrast are independent phenomena.     

Sustained and selective attention in children with learning disabilities

Sustained and selective attention of 30 fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students with learning disabilities (LD) and 20 controls were compared. A continuous performance test (CPT) yielded no differences for students with LD and controls, suggesting similar ability for both groups in sustaining attention and inhibiting impulsive responding. Subjects with LD made more errors than controls on a selective attention task when letter distractors were adjacent to the target letter but not when they were distant, and more correct responses than controls when facilitating letters were adjacent to the target, suggesting that students with LD are less able to narrow the focus of their attention. Longer response times by students with LD indicate that they have slower information-processing skills than controls. Regrouping students according to teacher ratings for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) yielded the customary impulsive response set on the CPT and more errors on the selective attention task, but no differences on response times for students with ADHD. LD students with ADHD made more errors than LD students without ADHD when letter distractors were adjacent to the target letter.     

The order of presentation of conditioned stimuli during extinction

Three experiments examined the effects of prior extinction with nontarget CSs on a target CS’s rate of extinction and amount of associative loss. After fear was conditioned to several CSs, rats received extinction training with the target CS either before or after extinction with nontarget CSs. In general, neither rate of extinction nor amount of associative change, as measured by reinstatement and relearning, were significantly affected by order of extinction. The present results do not support Rescorla’s interpretation of extinction.     

The Consequences of School Desegregation in a Kansas Town 50?Years After Brown

This article examines the legacy of segregation and desegregation in the town of Parsons, Kansas. We argue that school desegregation, the goal of which was to increase access and equalize educational opportunities for African Americans, did not have that desired affect. Fifty years after the closing of the all-Black Douglass School, Parsons’ citizens had not openly acknowledged the effects this event had on the African American community. Three generations later, African American student achievement still lags behind that of White students. These unresolved issues have contributed to a number of losses in the Black community, including loss of Black teachers and loss of talented Black young people. We use theories of social capital and cultural capital as a framework to illustrate how White, middle class students had greater access to school resources, and to identify the social and cultural resources within the Black community that the school district could build upon, such as strong leadership and a sense of resolve and resiliency.

“Still Finding the Ground:” A Self-Study of a First-Year Physical Education Teacher Educator

While decades of research have documented the socialization of inservice physical education teachers, the socialization of physical education faculty members has only recently become a research focus. Self-study of teacher education practices is becoming increasingly popular when exploring the lived experiences of physical education faculty. We used self-study of teacher education practices to understand the experiences of Kevin, a beginning physical education teacher educator in a visiting assistant professor position at Northern Illinois University. Kevin’s experiences differ from those of many other teacher educators as he had not taught in school settings before moving into higher education. He did, however, have a strong background in higher education pedagogy through work in a center for teaching and learning. Data were collected through journaling, documents and artifacts, and exit slips, feedback forms, and focus group interviews completed by Kevin’s students. Qualitative data analyses resulted in the construction of three first-order themes: (1) developing appropriate pedagogy, (2) developing and maintaining relationships with students, and (3) managing an identity as a teacher educator. Kevin’s journey was non-linear and marked by both successes and challenges, but at the end of the year he felt that he had grown as a teacher educator. Further, while Kevin’s youth and lack of teaching experience influenced his teacher education practice, it was not always negative and he found ways to compensate for what he lacked in direct teaching experience. Results are discussed with reference to Kevin’s socialization and future directions for research are provided.