Applying Visitor Preference Criteria to Choose Pro‐wildlife Behaviors to Ask of Zoo Visitors

Abstract Many zoos now emphasize that their role in conservation includes influencing the behavior of their visitors for the benefit of wild animals. However, there is limited evidence of behavioral change to support this emphasis; one reason may be that requested behaviors are not viewed favorably by zoo visitors. The purpose of the present study was to involve zoo staff in a process of identifying and prioritizing pro‐wildlife behaviors using a set of criteria that noted what zoo visitors prefer. This was achieved by replicating Smith’s (2009a) study but including visitor‐preferred attributes identified in Smith, Curtis, and van Dijk (2010) . Across several zoos in Australia, 152 staff members participated in seven Nominal Group Technique workshops. Initially over 500 behaviors were identified and prioritized, first by filtering behavior lists, then by participants voting on behaviors. When voting, participants tended to choose behaviors promoting wildlife‐friendly consumerism and donations.     

Cognitive Load Theory: Advances in Research on Worked Examples, Animations, and Cognitive Load Measurement

The contributions to this special issue document some recent advances of cognitive load theory, and are based on contributions to the Third International Cognitive Load Theory Conference (2009), Heerlen, The Netherlands. The contributions focus on developments in example-based learning, amongst others on the effects of integrating worked examples in cognitive tutoring systems; specify the effects of transience on cognitive load and why segmentation may help counteract these effects in terms of the role of time in working memory load; and discuss the possibilities offered by electroencephalography (EEG) to provide a continuous and objective measure of cognitive load. This article provides a short introduction to the contributions in this issue.     

Development of metacognitive skillfulness: A longitudinal study

This study shows the results of a two-year longitudinal study where the same participants were followed for two consecutive years as they enter secondary school (aged 12–14 years). The main issue was to investigate the development of both the quantity and the quality of metacognitive skills. Another issue was to establish whether the development of metacognitive skillfulness is intelligence-related or relatively intelligence-independent. Finally, the generality vs. domain-specificity of developing metacognitive skillfulness was investigated. Thirty-two secondary school students participated in this study. While thinking aloud they performed two different tasks representing two different domains: A text-studying task for history and a problem-solving task for math. Participants' intellectual ability, metacognitive skillfulness and learning performance were assessed. Results show a quantitative as well as a qualitative growth in metacognitive skillfulness. Furthermore, results of both years show that metacognitive skillfulness contributed to learning performance (partly) independent of intellectual ability. A parallel development of metacognitive and intellectual ability was found. Finally, metacognitive skills predominantly appear to be general. Domain-specific metacognitive skills, however, played a substantial, but minor role as well in both years. Instructional implications are being discussed.     

On the elusive nature of high Chinese achievement

It is argued that Stankov's proposal to view unforgivingness as underlying the combination of high educational achievement, anxiety, and self-doubt is an original way of summarizing Confucian score patterns. However, it is argued that the proposal cannot explain why reading scores in Confucian countries are not higher than in other countries and that an empirical study to test the proposal is difficult to conduct as it would require the involvement of many different countries.     

Formative assessment in an online learning environment to support flexible on-the-job learning in complex professional domains

This article describes a blueprint for an online learning environment that is based on prominent instructional design and assessment theories for supporting learning in complex domains. The core of this environment consists of formative assessment tasks (i.e., assessment for learning) that center on professional situations. For each professional situation, three levels of situational complexity are defined, and within each of these three levels, tasks are offered that differ in the degree of support offered to the learner. This environment can support (beginning) professionals in complex domains in gaining insight into the available repertoire of behavior in professional situations, as well as into the quality and effectiveness of that behavior (assessment criteria), while simultaneously helping them to develop insight into the standards that their own behavior should (eventually) match.     

The role of competence and value beliefs in students' daily emotional experiences: A multilevel test of a transactional model

This study examined the mutual influence of relatively stable personal competence and value beliefs and lesson specific appraisals of competence and value on daily emotional experiences of students in the classroom context. Personal competence and value beliefs were measured by means of questionnaire whereas appraisals and daily emotions were assessed by means of diary forms completed over a two-week period. Multilevel analyses of data from 120 grade seven students revealed that both personal competence-value beliefs and appraisals played an important role in determining daily emotional experiences in the classroom. More importantly, the results showed that the effects of stable personal variables on daily emotional experiences were mediated by lesson specific appraisals. In general, the results support cognitive mediational models of emotion that capitalize on the importance of both personal and situational characteristics in emotion elicitation.     

Professional Identity Development: A Grounded Theory of Transformational Tasks of New Counselors

Professional identity development is an important professional issue. Examining the lived experiences of counselors‐in‐training (CITs), the authors used grounded theory methodology to describe the transformational tasks that are required for professional identity development. Tasks include finding a personal definition of counseling, internalizing responsibility for professional growth, and developing a systemic identity—all simultaneously manifesting as students progress from focus on experts to self‐validation. Counselor educators can facilitate movement through these transformational tasks by helping CITs to increase self‐evaluating, self‐motivating, and self‐locating within a professional community.     

Effects of Perinatal HIV Infection and Early Institutional Rearing on Physical and Cognitive Development of Children in Ukraine

To study the effects of perinatal HIV-1 infection and early institutional rearing on the physical and cognitive development of children, 64 Ukrainian uninfected and HIV-infected institutionalized and family-reared children were examined (mean age = 50.9 months). Both HIV infection and institutional care were related to delays in physical and cognitive development, with a larger effect of the rearing environment. Family care, even of compromised quality, was found to be more favorable for children's physical and cognitive development than institutional care. The impact of the quality of child care on physical and cognitive development is discussed in light of future interventions.     

A framework for teaching scientific inquiry in upper secondary school chemistry

A framework for teaching scientific inquiry in upper secondary chemistry education was constructed in a design research consisting of two research cycles. First, in a pilot study a hypothetical framework was enriched in collaboration with five chemistry teachers. Second, a main study in this community of teachers and researchers was conducted on the process of designing teaching scientific inquiry based on the enriched framework. Also, the enactment by five teachers and 80 students (age 17) of a designed inquiry module on “Diffusion: moving particles” was studied. This resulted in a theoretically and practically founded framework for teaching scientific inquiry, in which an iterative cycle of inquiry for students and a student inquiry community are essential. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:788–806, 2010     

The effects of instruction on situation model construction: an eye fixation study on text comprehension in primary school children

This study examined whether the formation of a situation model can be encouraged by a situation‐focused instruction in primary school children. To achieve this, the standard reading‐for‐comprehension instruction was adapted so that it would emphasise the importance of imagination in narrative text comprehension. The results showed that the situational instruction enhanced the situation model construction abilities in good comprehenders in such a way that it improved not only their memory for the situation model but also the ease with which they filled in the gaps in time and space that appeared in the narratives. In poor comprehenders, the situational instruction led to a redistribution of attentional resources allocated to textbase‐ and situation‐level processing. It was suggested that this caused them to go beyond encoding the explicit text and instead construct a situation model from it, and that they did so without enriching the model with general‐knowledge inferences as much as good comprehenders.