Using Hands-On and Virtual Laboratories Alone or Together―Which Works Better for Acquiring Knowledge and Skills?

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Although hands-on laboratory experiments are traditionally used in schools, virtual laboratories have entered today’s classrooms, due to their...     

The Media and Information: children's responses to the Gulf War

This paper analyses research that took place in a European country not involved with the Gulf War to explore the reactions of school children to the news dealing with that particular event. It sought to ascertain the kind of knowledge accumulated about a media event, what impact it has on the school curriculum and the relationship of such news events to levels of anxiety and areas of interest. The results showed the separation between children's knowledge of the news and the curriculum at school, the different styles of gathering information and the lack of detailed discussion about such events.     

Time‐Limited Counseling Outcome in a Nationwide College Counseling Center Sample

This study examined the dose‐effect relationship between the number of sessions and therapeutic outcome in a large, nationwide counseling center research consortium. A positive relationship was found between the outcome of counseling and the number of sessions attended. The results of this study support the effectiveness of brief psychotherapy.     

Memory priming and trial spacing effects in Pavlovian learning

Conditioning trials that are massed in time produce less conditioning than those that are spaced in time. Four experiments with rat subjects examined whether a recent conditioning trial interferes with conditioning on the next trial by temporarily “priming” information in short-term memory (e.g., Wagner, 1978, 1981). We used appetitive conditioning procedures in which priming trials preceded target trials by 60 sec. When the priming trials were nonreinforced presentations of a conditioned stimulus (CS), the CS had to be the same CS as the one on the target trial to interfere with conditioning. When priming trials were actual CS-unconditioned stimulus (US) pairings, the CS identity did not matter; the US was the event that interfered with conditioning on the next trial. Reinforced trials reduced performance in a way that did not depend on context blocking. The results suggest that CS and US priming effects do contribute to conditioning deficits observed with massed trial procedures. The results are consistent with Wagner’s (1981) “sometimes opponent process,” or SOP, model, although a result that is paradoxical for the model suggests that recent USs may have motivational as well as memory effects.     

Unequal Division of Type I Risk in Statistical Inferences

Introductory statistics texts give extensive coverage to two‐sided inferences in hypothesis testing, interval estimation, and one‐sided hypothesis tests. Very few discuss the possibility of one‐sided interval estimation at all. Even fewer do so in any detail. Two of the business statistics texts we reviewed mentioned the possibility of dividing the risk of a type I error unequally between the tails for a two‐sided confidence interval. None of the textbooks that were reviewed even considered the possibility of unequal tails for two‐sided hypothesis tests. In this paper, we propose that statistics courses and texts should cover both one‐sided tests and confidence intervals. Furthermore, we propose that coverage, at least in two semesters and advanced courses, should also be given to unequal division of the nominal risk of a type I error for both tests and confidence intervals. Examples are provided for both situations.     

An Evaluation of the Informedia Digital Video Library System at the Open University

The past decade has seen the evolution of physical educational resource collections into digital libraries, a process which has opened up a whole new range of uses beyond the traditional ones of reference and individual study in a fixed location. It is becoming more common for institutions of learning to regard their teaching and learning resource materials as important assets that can be shared, incorporated into new courses and accessed remotely by students. With the inclusion of multiple media (text, video and audio), the potential of digital libraries is further enhanced. Early adopters of this technology are information specialists and authors of learning materials, and in some cases, students. Evaluations of digital libraries that are currently underway at various institutions are aiming to determine whether the technology is usable and cost‐effective. We also see a focus on the kinds of learning activities that can be supported with digital resources and the best ways of organising and describing them. The evaluation described in this paper is primarily concerned with issues of usability and identifying potential areas of use. A planned second phase of the project will delve more deeply into costs and benefits for users in specific contexts of use.     

Intellectual development beyond formal operations

Post‐formal operations as a stage of cognitive development beyond Piaget's formal operations state are discussed. It is argued that thinking abilities are of major importance for an adequate understanding of quantum‐mechanical and relativistic issues as they occur in modern science, especially physics. Some pedagogical consequences of the ‘fifth stage’ of cognitive development are discussed and proposals made about how post‐operational thinking abilities might be developed in students.