Motivation and the nontraditional adult student

No one motivational theory has ever been widely accepted by adult educators. At present there is a profusion of complex motivational theories which attempt to explain human behavior and individual action. This article overviews three basic types of motivational theories found in the literature today and combines these into a conceptual scheme which can be used by the adult educator. The scheme provides a more thorough understanding of the overlapping motivational theory types allowing learning experiences to be based upon a more consistent set of assumptions and propositions regarding the nature of these nontraditional students and the teaching/learning process.     

COVID-19 and the opportunity to design a more mindful approach to learning

PROSPECTS - The industry of modern schooling leads to surface learning of exaggeratedly voluminous curricula and excessively high-stakes assessments that instrumentalize the pursuit of knowledge....     

Student Perceptions of a Summer Robotics Camp Experience

Research on the effectiveness of STEM-focused (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics-focused) schools and other learning experiences (e.g., short-term camps) on student outcomes is sparse. This study documented perceptions of STEM content and careers for elementary, middle, and secondary school students participating in university-based summer camps focused on robotics. Attitudes before and after the camp experiences were compared across gender groups and grade levels. Middle school students showed greater growth on the surveys compared to their elementary and secondary school peers. Implications for the design and evaluation of STEM experiences include looking at longer, more intensive experiences.     

Children’s Orthographic Knowledge and Their Word Reading Skill: Testing Bidirectional Relations

Prominent models of word reading concur that the development of efficient word reading depends on the establishment of lexical orthographic representations in memory. In turn, word reading skills are conceptualised as supporting the development of these orthographic representations. As such, models of word reading development make clear predictions of bidirectional relations between lexical orthographic knowledge and word reading skill. We test these predictions in a longitudinal study of 112 English-speaking children in Grades 2 and 3. At two time points, we assessed lexical orthographic knowledge and three aspects of word reading skill: word reading accuracy, word reading efficiency, and phonological decoding. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we found that earlier word reading accuracy, word reading efficiency, and phonological decoding predicted gains in lexical orthographic knowledge. Contrary to theoretical predictions, lexical orthographic knowledge did not predict gains in any of our measured word reading skills.     

Headlines from the discovery files: Key publications on scholarly content discoverability

This article reviewed 13 research papers and industry publications from 2015 and 2016 to present a broad view of today's scholarly content discovery landscape. The featured publications strive to address limitations in scholarly content discovery and access experiences to expand our understanding of the researcher experience and to influence positive change for all stakeholders. With original research findings or well‐cited expert analysis, the reviewed papers outline the dominant channels of scholarly content discovery channels and demonstrate how trends fluctuate by the type of user and their information needs, as well as a wide variety of demographics. Best practices in metadata management, standards, and cross‐sector collaboration are also discussed. Together, the publications reviewed here validate the importance of user‐centric, evidence‐based, and standards‐compliant approaches to learned resource development and dissemination.     

Establishing word representations through reading and spelling: comparing degree of orthographic learning

Skilled reading involves rapid and automatic word recognition. Through a self‐teaching process, phonological decoding during reading is thought to establish the word‐specific representations in memory that support efficient word reading. Much is known about orthographic learning during reading; less is understood about this process during spelling. Here, we compared the degree of orthographic learning that occurs during reading and spelling. Forty‐eight children in Grade 2 practised reading or spelling nonwords within stories. Orthographic learning was measured using spelling recognition, spelling production and word naming tasks. Both readers and spellers showed evidence of orthographic learning; however, spellers outperformed readers on all tasks. Overall, results suggest that spelling sets up a higher quality representation in memory and highlight the importance of spelling in the development of word reading efficiency.     

Letter Processing and the Formation of Memory Representations in Children with Naming Speed Deficits

The ability to recognize letter patterns within words as a single unit is important for fluent reading. This skill is based on previously established memory representations of common letter patterns. The ability to form these memory representations may be impaired in some poor readers, particularly readers with naming speed deficits (NSD). This study explored factors that influence letter processing and the subsequent formation of memory representations of letter strings in children with and without a NSD. Children were presented with a letter string, followed by a probe unit that was either a single letter, a two-letter cluster, or a repetition of the whole string. Children indicated whether or not the probe had been present in the preceding string. Two factors were manipulated: (a) amount of time to process the initial letter string, and (b) level of orthographic structure present in the letter string. Results indicated that overall, children with NSD performed less accurately than children without NSD. However, children with NSD showed no differential benefit in performance as a result of longer time to process a letter string. In addition, all readers were able to make use of the orthographic structure in a letter string to aid performance. Implications of results for establishing memory representations of letter strings are discussed.     

Using Text Talk as a Gateway to Culturally Responsive Teaching

In 3 second-grade classrooms within diverse educational settings, the theory of culturally responsive teaching was utilized in combination with the strategy, Text Talk. Text Talk is a strategy generally used with young children during read-alouds to foster oral language and comprehension. Culturally response teaching builds on students' prior experiences and knowledge. Together, the use of Text Talk and culturally responsive teaching provides a gateway to support young children's literacy.     

Evaluation of the appropriate time period between sampling and analyzing for automated urinalysis

Introduction

Preanalytical specifications for urinalysis must be strictly adhered to avoid false interpretations. Aim of the present study is to examine whether the preanalytical factor ‘time point of analysis’ significantly influences stability of urine samples for urine particle and dipstick analysis.

Materials and methods

In 321 pathological spontaneous urine samples, urine dipstick (Urisys™2400, Combur-10-Test™strips, Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany) and particle analysis (UF-1000 i™, Sysmex, Norderstedt, Germany) were performed within 90 min, 120 min and 240 min after urine collection.

Results

For urine particle analysis, a significant increase in conductivity (120 vs. 90 min: P < 0.001, 240 vs. 90 min: P < 0.001) and a significant decrease in WBC (120 vs. 90 min P < 0.001, 240 vs. 90 min P < 0.001), RBC (120 vs. 90 min P < 0.001, 240 vs. 90 min P < 0.001), casts (120 vs. 90 min P < 0.001, 240 vs. 90 min P < 0.001) and epithelial cells (120 vs. 90 min P = 0.610, 240 vs. 90 min P = 0.041) were found. There were no significant changes for bacteria. Regarding urine dipstick analysis, misclassification rates between measurements were significant for pH (120 vs. 90 min P < 0.001, 240 vs. 90 min P < 0.001), leukocytes (120 vs. 90 min P < 0.001, 240 vs. 90 min P < 0.001), nitrite (120 vs. 90 min P < 0.001, 240 vs. 90 min P < 0.001), protein (120 vs. 90 min P < 0.001, 240 vs. 90 min P<0.001), ketone (120 vs. 90 min P < 0.001, 240 vs. 90 min P < 0.001), blood (120 vs. 90 min P < 0.001, 240 vs. 90 min P < 0.001), specific gravity (120 vs. 90 min P < 0.001, 240 vs. 90 min P < 0.001) and urobilinogen (120 vs. 90 min, P = 0.031). Misclassification rates were not significant for glucose and bilirubin.

Conclusion

Most parameters critically depend on the time window between sampling and analysis. Our study stresses the importance of adherence to early time points in urinalysis (within 90 min).Key words: urinalysis, automation, analytical sample preparation methods, flow cytometry, specimen handling