Divided attention in bimanual aiming movements: effects on movement accuracy

The role of focusing attention on one limb or both limbs in a bimanual aiming task was investigated in two experiments. Participants were prompted to focus attention on either limb (Experiment 1) or were free to choose their attentional strategy (Experiment 2). Fifty-two college-aged participants made quick, bimanual lever reversals in the sagittal plane over 20 degrees and 60 degrees in 210 ms to the reversal point. In both experiments, spatial accuracy was better when participants focused their attention on a single limb compared to the nonattended limb and when they paid attention to both limbs. However, no differences were shown on a no-knowledge of results (KR) retention test when participants paid attention to both limbs. In the second experiment, differences were maintained on a no-KR retention test when participants continued to select their own attentional strategy, although the statistical effect was smaller than in the first experiment. The findings suggested that the movement parameter selection process benefited from attentional focus.     

Effect of a Problem Based Simulation on the Conceptual Understanding of Undergraduate Science Education Students

A study of the effect of science teaching with a multimedia simulation on water quality, the “River of Life,” on the science conceptual understanding of students (N = 83) in an undergraduate science education (K-9) course is reported. Teaching reality-based meaningful science is strongly recommended by the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996). Water quality provides an information-rich context for relating classroom science to real-world situations impacting the environment, and will help to improve student understanding of science (Kumar, 2005a; Kumar and Chubin, 2000). The topics addressed were classes of organisms that form river ecosystem, dissolved oxygen, macroinvertebrates, composition of air, and graph reading skills. Paired t-test of pre- and post-tests, and pre- and delayed post-tests showed significant (p < 0.05) gains. The simulation had a significant effect on the conceptual understanding of students enrolled in a K-9 science education course for prospective teachers in the following areas: composition of air, macroinvertebrates, dissolved oxygen, classes of organisms that form a river ecosystem, and graph reading skills. The gain was more in the former four areas than the latter one. A paired t-test of pre- and delayed post-tests showed significant (p < 0.05) gains in the water quality and near transfer subsets than the dissolved oxygen subset. Additionally students were able to transfer knowledge acquired from the multimedia simulation on more than one concept into teachable stand-alone lesson plans.     

Facilitating problem solving in high school chemistry

The major purpose for conducting this study was to determine whether certain instructional strategies were superior to others in teaching high school chemistry students problem solving. The effectiveness of four instructional strategies for teaching problem solving to students of various proportional reasoning ability, verbal and visual preference, and mathematics anxiety were compared in this aptitude by treatment interaction study. The strategies used were the factor-label method, analogies, diagrams, and proportionality. Six hundred and nine high school students in eight schools were randomly assigned to one of four teaching strategies within each classroom. Students used programmed booklets to study the mole concept, the gas laws, stoichiometry, and molarity. Problem-solving ability was measured by a series of immediate posttests, delayed posttests and the ACS-NSTA Examination in High School Chemistry. Results showed that mathematics anxiety is negatively correlated with science achievement and that problem solving is dependent on students' proportional reasoning ability. The factor-label method was found to be the most desirable method and proportionality the least desirable method for teaching the mole concept. However, the proportionality method was best for teaching the gas laws. Several second-order interactions were found to be significant when mathematics anxiety was one of the aptitudes involved.     

Analyzing difficulties with mole-concept tasks by using familiar analog tasks

This study was conducted to determine which skills and concepts students have that are prerequisites for solving moles problems through the use of analog tasks. Two analogous tests with four forms of each were prepared that corresponded to a conventional moles test. The analogs used were oranges and granules of sugar. Slight variations between test items on various forms permitted comparisons that would indicate specific conceptual and mathematical difficulties that students might have in solving moles problems. Different forms of the two tests were randomly assigned to 332 high school chemistry students of five teachers in four schools in central Indiana. Comparisons of total test score, subtest scores, and the number of students answering an item correctly using appropriate t-test and chi square tests resulted in the following conclusions: (1) the size of the object makes no difference in the problem difficulty; (2) students understand the concepts of mass, volume, and particles equally well; (3) problems requiring two steps are harder than those requiring one step; (4) problems involving scientific notation are more difficult than those that do not; (5) problems involving the multiplication concept are easier than those involving the division concept; (6) problems involving the collective word “bag” are easier to solve than those using the word “billion”; (7) the use of the word “a(n)” makes the problem more difficult than using the number “1”.     

Undergraduate Research and Service-Learning Programs in a Kinesiology Program at a Teaching University

High-impact practices foster student success, but faculty faced with heavy teaching loads and lack of resources and infrastructure are challenged to implement such practices. Kinesiology faculty at California State University, East Bay collaborated to implement two student programs: Kinesiology Research Group and Get Fit! Stay Fit! The Kinesiology Research Group, a faculty–student research group, and Get Fit! Stay Fit!, a service learning experience, partnered to consolidate human and structural resources. Student–faculty mentoring circles were used to support this innovative partnership. Here, we report student perceptions of the value of these programs to their academic and professional development.     

Pattern recall,decision making and talent identification in rugby union

The ability to make fast, accurate decisions is an essential skill for all who play sport. However, measuring this ability has proved difficult for coaches and talent identification practitioners. Pattern recognition (a key factor in decision making) has commonly been measured using pattern recall tasks. This study aimed to understand whether accuracy when recalling rugby union patterns is a valid measure of on-field decision making performance. In Study 1, professional players recalled structured patterns of players from still images (N?=?20) viewed for 5?s. On-field decision-making markers, including coaches’ rankings of decision-making ability, playing position, number of years playing professionally and total number of years playing rugby union, were used as predictor variables of recall accuracy. Results showed that only total number of years playing rugby union was correlated with recall accuracy, suggesting that caution is necessary when adopting these tasks for talent identification purposes. The structured stimuli used in Study 1 were not representative of a true rugby union game, so Study 2 tested novice and expert players on a pattern recall task that included structured, semi-structured and unstructured rugby union patterns. Experts were significantly more accurate than novices when recalling structured and semi-structured patterns; however, there were no differences when recalling unstructured patterns. It was concluded that structured and semi-structured patterns should be used in future studies to test whether pattern recall tasks can be used for talent identification in rugby union.     

Daily activities of school psychologists: A national survey

A national survey of 335 school psychologists, asking them to record their activities on a specific school day, found that assessment activities comprised nearly 40% of the work time, and consultative activities another one-third of the day. Data were collected on a number of other work activities, as well as characteristics of the respondents: age, ethnic status, graduate degrees held, languages spoken, and characteristics of district served.     

Spatial assimilation effects and error detection in rapid overlapping and sequential bimanual movements.

This study verified earlier anecdotal evidence indicating that spatial assimilations could be reduced by offsetting movements in time. In Experiment 1, 40 right-handed participants (ages 18-23 years) made single and dual quick lever reversals of 20 degrees and 60 degrees with the left and right limbs, respectively. Participants were assigned to either the Overlapping (O) group, in which one limb began when the other limb reached the reversal point, or to the Sequential (S) group in which one limb followed the other with a delay of 114 ms, on average. The shorter-distance limb of the O group overshot relative to the S group. Short-distance spatial assimilations were also shown in the S group in Experiment 2, when the delay was increased to 250, 500, or 1,500 ms (N = 30), suggesting that assimilation effects can be caused by command interactions at both the planning and the execution levels.