Social facilitation of drinking of a partially satiated duckling

Water-deprived and nondeprived ducklings were reintroduced to a flock companion which had been allowed to partially satiate itself after 3 h of water deprivation. The drinking and sieving behavior of the partially satiated “reactor” bird was immediately increased above that of similar birds left on their own. However, whether or not the introduced “actor” ducklings were deprived had no consequences for the drinking response of the reactor above that obtained by their introduction. The number of companions introduced also failed to have any effect other than that obtained by their introduction. The increase in sieving was greater when deprived, rather than nondeprived, actors were introduced. These results were discussed in relation to the motivational aspects of sieving behavior and the mechanism of social facilitation.     

Creating contextually authentic science in a “low‐performing” urban elementary school

This article reports on a 2½‐year collaborate project to reform the teaching and learning of science in the context of Mae Jemison Elementary, the lowest performing elementary school in the state of Louisiana. I outline a taxonomy of authentic science inquiry experiences and then use the resulting framework to focus on how project participants interpreted and enacted ideas about collaboration and authenticity. The resulting contextually authentic science inquiry model links the strengths of a canonically authentic model of science inquiry (grounded in the Western scientific canon) with the strengths of a youth‐centered model of authenticity (grounded in student‐generated inquiry), thus bringing together relevant content standards and topics with critical social relevance. I address the question of how such enactments may or may not promote doing science together and consider the implications of this model for urban science education. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 695–721, 2006     

A Study on the Impact of GPA on Perceived Improvement of Higher‐Order Cognitive Skills*

Colleges of Business (COBs) have experienced high growth rates in the past decade and many colleges are imposing minimum grade point average (GPA) requirements for students to enter or remain in the college. A primary reason for this requirement may be the belief that students with high GPAs are more inclined to demonstrate higher‐order cognitive skills (HOCS) than students with low GPAs. It is not clear whether the link is valid. This study hypothesizes that students with high GPAs who are taught in the same way as students with lower GPAs will have higher perceptions of improved HOCS. We conducted an experiment in which students, with varying GPAs, at three large universities primarily used multimedia instructional materials. We obtained the students' perceptions of their improved HOCS from their responses to a survey. A regression analysis of the data reveals that the relationship between GPAs and students' perceived improvement in HOCS is significant (p < .001). We conclude the study by recommending that (a) it is critical to use research methodologies to evaluate perceived and actual learning improvements, (b) COB policies to implement GPA restrictions on admission are worthwhile, and (c) case studies need to be used much more frequently in undergraduate COB classes.     

An empirical analysis of teacher spillover effects in secondary school

This paper examines whether educational production in secondary school involves joint production among teachers across subjects. In doing so, it also provides insights into the reliability of value-added modeling. Teacher value-added to reading test scores is estimated for four different teacher types: English, math, science and social-studies. The initial results indicate that reading output is jointly produced by math and English teachers. However, while falsification tests confirm the English-teacher effects, they cast some doubt about whether the math-teacher effects are free from sorting bias. The results offer a mixed review of the value-added methodology, suggesting that it can be useful but should be implemented cautiously.     

Curriculum design for inquiry: Preservice elementary teachers' mobilization and adaptation of science curriculum materials

Curriculum materials are crucial tools with which teachers engage students in science as inquiry. In order to use curriculum materials effectively, however, teachers must develop a robust capacity for pedagogical design, or the ability to mobilize a variety of personal and curricular resources to promote student learning. The purpose of this study was to develop a better understanding of the ways in which preservice elementary teachers mobilize and adapt existing science curriculum materials to plan inquiry‐oriented science lessons. Using quantitative methods, we investigated preservice teachers' curriculum design decision‐making and how their decisions influenced the inquiry orientations of their planned science lessons. Findings indicate that preservice elementary teachers were able to accurately assess how inquiry‐based existing curriculum materials are and to adapt them to make them more inquiry‐based. However, the inquiry orientations of their planned lessons were in large part determined by how inquiry‐oriented curriculum materials they used to plan their lessons were to begin with. These findings have important implications for the design of teacher education experiences that foster preservice elementary teachers' pedagogical design capacities for inquiry, as well as the development of inquiry‐based science curriculum materials that support preservice and beginning elementary teachers to engage in effective science teaching practice. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:820–839, 2010     

Effects of intensity on muscle-specific voluntary electromechanical delay and relaxation electromechanical delay

The purposes of this study were to examine: 1) the potential muscle-specific differences in voluntary electromechanical delay (EMD) and relaxation electromechanical delay (R-EMD), and 2) the effects of intensity on EMD and R-EMD during step incremental isometric muscle actions from 10 to 100% maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC). EMD and R-EMD measures were calculated from the simultaneous assessments of electromyography, mechanomyography, and force production from the vastus lateralis (VL), vastus medialis (VM), and rectus femoris (RF) during step isometric muscle actions. There were no differences between the VL, VM, and RF for the voluntary EMD_E-M (onsets of the electromyographic to mechanomyographic signals), EMD_M-F (onsets the mechanomyographic to force production), or EMD_E-F (onsets of the electromyographic signal to force production) as well as R-EMD_E-M (cessation of electromyographic to mechanomyographic signal), R-EMD_M-F (cessation of mechanomyographic signal to force cessation), or R-EMD_E-F (cessation of electromyorgraphic signal to force cessation) at any intensity. There were decreases in all EMD and R-EMD measures with increases in intensity. The relative contributions from EMD_E-M and EMD_M-F to EMD_E-F as well as R-EMD_E-M and R-EMD_M-F to R-EMD_E-F remained similar across all intensities. The superficial muscles of the quadriceps femoris shared similar EMD and R-EMD measurements.     

Automatic Activation of Sounds by Letters Occurs Early in Development but is not Impaired in Children With Dyslexia

The automatic letter-sound integration hypothesis proposes that the decoding difficulties seen in dyslexia arise from a specific deficit in establishing automatic letter-sound associations. We report the findings of 2 studies in which we used a priming task to assess automatic letter-sound integration. In Study 1, children between 5 and 7 years of age were faster to respond to a speech-sound when primed by a congruent letter, indicating that automatic activation of sounds by letters emerges relatively early in reading development. However, there was no evidence of a relationship between variations in the speed of activating sounds by letters and reading skill in this large unselected sample. In Study 2, children with dyslexia demonstrated automatic activation of sounds by letters, though they performed slowly overall. Our findings do not support the theory that a deficit in automatic letter-sound integration is an important cause of reading difficulties but do provide further evidence for the importance of phonological skills for learning to read.