Dissonance in first-year students’ reflections on their learning

This paper presents the findings of an interview study of first-year engineering students’ approaches to study. Data is presented to illustrate the construct of “dissonant study orchestration” as it is manifested in the everyday academic reality of these students’ learning behaviour. This data is theorised within a student’s-experiences-oflearning framework and patterns of study approach considered atypical of or theoretically undesirable within, the model used to determine them are presented and discussed. Individual-level, qualitatively different patterns of “dissonant” orchestration are articulated. The conclusion to the paper argues that the qualitative distinctions apparent amongst dissonant approaches present particular challenges to academic practitioners whose aim is the improvement of these students’ learning behaviour.     

Finding Direction When the Ground Is Moving: Science Education Research in South Africa

Dynamic visualisations capture aspects of scientific phenomena that are difficult to communicate in static materials and benefit from well-designed scaffolds to succeed in classrooms. We review research to clarify the impacts of dynamic visualisations and to identify instructional scaffolds that mediate their success. We use meta-analysis to synthesise 47 independent comparisons between dynamic and static materials and 76 comparisons that test the effect of specific instructional scaffolds. These studies show that dynamic visualisations are better than static visuals at promoting conceptual inferences about science, consistent with the success of inquiry instruction in science. To realise this potential of dynamic visualisations, instruction needs to help students use the dynamic visualisation to make sense of their own ideas. Scaffolds that are most successful include prompts for reflection, prompts to distinguish among parts of the visualisation, visual cues that identify salient features, multiple visualisations presented sequentially, and interactive features that govern the pacing of activities. We extract guidelines from this research to help researchers plan future studies of visualisations, designers create and refine instructional materials using visualisations, and practitioners customise instruction that features visualisations.     

Optimal allocation of faculty time under uncertainty in production

A model of expected utility maximization is used to study the optimal allocation of a professor's time between research and teaching in a situation where both production activities are subject to uncertainty. It was shown that, in general, a professor's optimal allocation of time under uncertain production departs from the certainty strategy. An explicit model was developed to evaluate the effects of time effort in research and teaching with respect to changes in the degree of uncertainty, the Pratt-Arrow index of risk aversion, and the unit output rewards of research and teaching (for example, “merit pay”).     

Facebook Use and Its Role in Shaping Access to Social Benefits among Older Adults

Adults who are 65 years or older have increasingly adopted social network sites (SNSs), Facebook in particular. Yet the ramifications of SNS use in this population remain understudied. Using a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults (N = 2,003), this study focuses on Facebook users (N = 1,138) and examines patterns of Facebook use by younger (aged 18–65 years) and older users (aged 65 or older), as well as the social benefits associated with older users’ Facebook use. Findings show that older users have different network structures, but the frequency of their visits and engagement in Social Media Relationship Maintenance Behaviors (SMRMB), a measure of perceived likelihood to engage with others via social media, do not significantly differ from those of younger users. Moreover, our results suggest that among older users (N = 98), the number of self-reported “actual” friends on Facebook and SMRMB positively predict perceived support, while SMRMB contributes to perceptions of access to useful information. Overall, the study highlights unique usage patterns and social benefits associated with Facebook use among older adults. As such, its findings provide insights for the future design of technological interventions to help older adults better access social benefits associated with SNS use.     

Teacher-learners' conceptions of learning: Evidence of a "communalist" conception amongst postgraduate learners?

Recently, research on mature students' approaches to learning, conducted within a students'-experiences-of-learning framework, has suggested that these students tend towards being deep-level learners. The studies reported in this paper were focused on the self-reported conceptions of learning of a group of mature students enrolled in a postgraduate degree course. A primary aim of these studies was to assess the extent to which these students reported "sophisticated" conceptions of learning, as might be expected from mature, postgraduate learners. A secondary focus was to assess the extent to which academic context might be said to have influenced learning conceptions over time. The studies suggest that, for this sample of students, quantitative conceptions appear to predominate. In addition, a conception of learning that does not appear to "fit" within the conceptual model used to assess these conceptions is presented and discussed. Empirical data suggesting the stability of these learning conceptions over time is discussed in the light of its implications for teaching on postgraduate degree programmes where students appear to hold quantitative conceptions of learning. But the paper also argues for the need for further research into a conception which holds that learning is a moral obligation or service to a community.