Erratum to: Dragons,Ladybugs, and Softballs: Girls’ STEM Engagement with Human-Centered Robotics

Journal of Science Education and Technology -     

Temporal patterns of schedule-induced drinking and pawgrooming in rats exposed to periodic food

Five rats were exposed to fixed-time food schedules, ranging from 30 to 480 sec. Three rats displayed a postfood pattern of schedule-induced drinking, with short latencies from food delivery to drinking at all interfood interval durations. In contrast, drinking for the other 2 subjects tended to occur at lower overall levels, and drinking bouts frequently began in the middle of the interfood interval, such that the latency from food delivery to drinking increased dramatically as the interfood interval increased. Observation of these 2 subjects revealed that another form of licking-pawgrooming-occurred reliably after food delivery and before drinking bouts. A between subject comparison of the 3 postfood drinkers and the 2 pawgroomers revealed that, in addition to a common topography (repetitive licking), pawgrooming and drinking were similar with respect to their temporal locus, relation to the interfood interval, and extinction baseline levels. These similarities suggest that drinking and pawgrooming are induced by a common mechanism. Cohen, Looney, Campagnoni, and Lawler’s (1985) two-state model of reinforcer-induced motivation provides a useful framework for the interpretation of these results.     

Deal‐making and rule‐breaking: behind the façade of equity in academia

A glass ceiling for women still exists in academia after two decades of equal employment opportunity (EEO) legislation in Australia. There are complex factors that when combined make gender inequity in the higher education sector highly resistant to change. Using personal histories as a reflexive device, the paper makes explicit the embedded male patterns of behaviour in academia that operate beneath the façade of policies and rules put into place to counter inequity. In particular, the paper focuses on the cognitive dissonance individuals experience due to the disparity between formal organizational policies promoting equity, such as workload allocations, and perceptions of the unequal opportunities for women and men. Using social identity theory and the leader member exchange (LMX) framework, the daily experiences of three academic women are interpreted, the impediments to equality identified, and suggestions made for more fundamental change to gendered organizational structures within academia. The analysis of such behaviours shows that the traditional emphasis of EEO legislation on formal policies and procedures to bring about gender equity in academia needs to be accompanied by cultural change programs that make explicit and challenge behaviours that reproduce and reinforce male hegemony in academia.     

Correction to: How social challenges affect children’s regulation and assignment quality in hypermedia: a process mining study

Metacognition and Learning - The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake.     

Coordinating scaffolds for collaborative inquiry in a game-based learning environment

Collaborative inquiry learning affords educators a context within which to support understanding of scientific practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts. One approach to supporting collaborative science inquiry is through problem-based learning (PBL). However, there are two key challenges in scaffolding collaborative inquiry learning in technology rich environments. First, it is unclear how we might understand the impact of scaffolds that address multiple functions (e.g., to support inquiry and argumentation). Second, scaffolds take different forms, further complicating how to coordinate the forms and functions of scaffolds to support effective collaborative inquiry. To address these issues, we identify two functions that needed to be scaffolded, the PBL inquiry cycle and accountable talk. We then designed predefined hard scaffolds and just-in-time soft scaffolds that target the regulation of collaborative inquiry processes and accountable talk. Drawing on a mixed method approach, we examine how middle school students from a rural school engaged with Crystal Island: EcoJourneys for two weeks (N=45). Findings indicate that hard scaffolds targeting the PBL inquiry process and soft scaffolds that targeted accountable talk fostered engagement in these processes. Although the one-to-one mapping between form and function generated positive results, additional soft scaffolds were also needed for effective engagement in collaborative inquiry and that these soft scaffolds were often contingent on hard scaffolds. Our findings have implications for how we might design the form of scaffolds across multiple functions in game-based learning environments.     

Promoting complex systems learning through the use of conceptual representations in hypermedia

Studying complex systems is increasingly important in many science domains. Many features of complex systems make it difficult for students to develop deep understanding. Our previous research indicated that a function‐centered conceptual representation is part of the disciplinary toolbox of biologists, suggesting that it is an appropriate representation to help students develop deep understanding. This article reports on the results of two experiments that investigate how hypermedia using a conceptual representation influences pre‐service teachers' and middle school students' learning of a complex biological system, the human respiratory system. We designed two versions of instructional hypermedia based on the structure–behavior‐function conceptual representation. One hypermedia was function‐centered which emphasized the function and behavior of the system, whereas the other was focused on the structure of the system. We contrasted the instructional effectiveness of these two alternative conceptual representations. The results of both studies indicated that participants using the function‐centered hypermedia developed deeper understanding than those using the structure‐centered version. This proof‐of‐concept study suggests that the function‐centered conceptual representation is a powerful way to promote complex systems understanding. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 1023–1040, 2009     

The impact of knowledge transfer on MNC subsidiary performance: does cultural distance matter?

Knowledge Management Research & Practice - Despite research on how multinational corporations (MNCs) manage knowledge transfer across national borders, little is known about the implications of...