New project system for undergraduate electronic engineering

A new approach to projects for undergraduate electronic engineering in an Australian university has been applied successfully for over 10 years. This approach has a number of projects running over three year period. Feedback from past graduates and their managers has confirmed that these projects train the students well, giving them the ability and confidence to work independently and collectively in the industrial world. Due to their importance to universities, staff and students alike, together with the potential heavy financial burden on the universities, careful planning has to be undertaken before implementing such projects. This paper presents some detailed suggestions on how such projects should be administered and operated as well as setting out possible criteria to assist supervisors in evaluating the final product from such projects.     

University students’ meta-modelling knowledge

Background: As one part of scientific meta-knowledge, students’ meta-modelling knowledge should be promoted on different educational levels such as primary school, secondary school and university. This study focuses on the assessment of university students’ meta-modelling knowledge using a paper–pencil questionnaire.

Purpose: The general purpose of this study was to assess and to describe university students’ meta-modelling knowledge. More specifically, it was analysed to what extent the meta-modelling knowledge, as expressed in a questionnaire, depends on the scientific discipline to which university students relate their answer and the concrete model to which they refer while answering.

Sample: N = 184 students from one German university voluntarily participated in this study.

Design and methods: The questionnaire was developed based on a theoretical framework for model competence and includes constructed response items asking about the purpose of models, ways for testing models and reasons for changing models. Students written answers were first analysed qualitatively based on the theoretical framework to decide whether they expressed advanced understandings or not. Further analyses then were conducted quantitatively.

Results: Findings suggest that only few university students possess an advanced meta-modelling knowledge. However, significant more students who relate their answers to the STEM-disciplines expressed advanced understandings than those who referred to social sciences or linguistics/philology. Furthermore, university students who expressed an advanced meta-modelling knowledge referred to rather abstract kinds of models in order to explain their view.

Conclusions: The present study supports the assumption that meta-modelling knowledge may be situated and contextualised. Both the scientific discipline and the concrete model to which university students refer seem to be relevant item features influencing university students’ expressed meta-modelling knowledge. Implications for assessment and teaching are discussed in the article.     

In the interests of the child: psychiatry,adoption, and the emancipation of the single mother and her child – the case of the Netherlands (1945–1970)

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses illegitimacy and single motherhood in the postwar period in the Netherlands from the perspective of what was considered to be in the interests of the child: being adopted by a married couple or being raised by the birthmother. It focuses particularly on the impact of psychiatry and the legalization of adoption in 1956 on the emancipation of the single mother and her child. The paper argues that the release of single motherhood and illegitimacy from the moral-religious stigmata of a “sinful fallen woman” and a “damned” or “degenerated” child has, in the Dutch case, not proceeded as a linear process. The process of emancipation toward proud and independent lone motherhood stagnated in the 1950s and 1960s because, when adoption was legalized, illegitimacy became an issue over which scientists, especially psychiatrists, gained the power of expert control. Guided by dynamic psychology and what they conceived of as the best interests of the child they declared single mothers to be victims of “sociopathology” and, consequently, unfit for motherhood. Adoption became the preferred option. This medicalised approach continued to dominate until the reawakening of feminism in the late 1960s made self-sufficient lone motherhood once more a respectable choice.     

Supporting the less-adaptive student: the role of learning analytics,formative assessment and blended learning

Abstract

How can we best facilitate students most in need of learning support, entering a challenging quantitative methods module at the start of their bachelor programme? In this empirical study into blended learning and the role of assessment for and as learning, we investigate learning processes of students with different learning profiles. Specifically, we contrast learning episodes of two cluster analysis-based profiles, one profile more directed to deep learning and self-regulation, the other profile more directed toward stepwise learning and external regulation. In a programme based on problem-based learning, where students are supposedly being primarily self-directed, this first profile is regarded as being of an adaptive type, with the second profile less adaptive. Making use of a broad spectrum of learning and learner data, collected in the framework of a dispositional learning analytics application, we compare these profiles on learning dispositions, such as learning emotions, motivation and engagement, learning performance and trace variables collected from the digital learning environments. Outcomes suggest that the blended design of the module with the digital environments offering many opportunities for assessment of learning, for learning and as learning together with actionable learning feedback, is used more intensively by students of the less adaptive profile.     

The Predominance of the Linear Model in Secondary School Students' Solutions of Word Problems Involving Length and Area of Similar Plane Figures

Linear (proportional) functions are undoubtedly one of the most common models for representing and solving both pure and applied problems in elementary mathematics education. But according to several authors, different aspects of the current culture and practice of school mathematics develop in students a tendency to use these linear models also in situations in which they are not applicable. This article reports two closely related studies about this phenomenon in 12–13- and 15–16-year old students working on word problems involving lengths and areas of similar plane figures of different kinds of shapes, as well as about the influence of drawings in breaking this improper use of linearity. Generally speaking, the results provide a convincing demonstration of the predominance of the linear model in secondary students' solutions of this kind of mensurational problem.     

Stabilität der physischen Fitness im Kindesalter

Monitoring of physical fitness (PF) in childhood is important from a societal as well as individual perspective to ensure and support healthy child development. Hence, the German Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs together with the German Olympic Federation recommend the usage of motor tests, for instance in schools, to implement targeted interventions. Results of motor assessments are interpreted using reference categories to prevent overinterpretation of small but meaningless intra- and inter individual differences. Furthermore, temporal trends can influence the validity of these reference categories. The aims of the study are (1) to examine short- and medium-term changes in PF in middle childhood (2) to evaluate implications for reference values and the validity of the construct PF, (3) to provide valid reference values for eight- to nine-year-old children. In the school years 2011–2016, over 20,000 third-graders completed the German Motor Test (GMT) in the project “Berlin has Talent”. Possible temporal trends are examined using regressions and cross-tables. Implications of these changes on the construct PF are analyzed using Rasch measurement. Four out of seven tasks showed temporal changes. However, the validity and unidimensionality of the GMT are confirmed (p?>?0.90), if balancing backwards is excluded from the model. On the one hand, task-related changes of children’s motor performance within five years support the requirement of a comprehensive continuous monitoring to enable early interventions. On the other hand, they call for continuous evaluation of reference values of the GMT, which should rely on representative and sufficiently large samples.     

Retroactive interference effects of mentally imagined movement speed

In two retroactive interference experiments, we assessed the effect of mentally imagined movement speed on subsequent motor performance. All participants performed a sequential motor action at three speeds during a baseline test and a retention test. During the retention interval of Experiment 1, the participants (n = 50) physically performed the action at a slow speed, physically performed it at a fast speed, imagined it at a slow speed, imagined it at a fast speed, or performed a no-practice control task. In Experiment 2, the participants (n = 24) imagined the movement, overtly vocalized words, or both, all at a slow speed. The results revealed that the speed of the imagined motor action affected the speed of subsequent performance in the retention test and that imagery and physical practice were functionally equivalent. The results are consistent with Lang's bio-informational theory.     

Changes in the perception of action possibilities while climbing to fatigue on a climbing wall

Abstract

In two experiments we examined changes in the perception of action possibilities as a function of exertion. In Experiment 1, participants repeatedly climbed on a climbing wall in a series of trials that progressively increased in number to 10 trials, resulting in increased exertion. Before and during climbing, the participants judged their maximum reaching height and perceived exertion. On a separate day, participants climbed another 10 trials while performing actual maximum reaches. Higher perceived exertion was associated with decreases in perceived maximum reach while the actual reaches did not decrease. However, the perceptual changes occurred early during task execution when the participants were not yet fatigued. When exertion set in, neither perceived nor actual maximum reaching appeared to be affected. In Experiment 2, we included exhaustion trials. The findings replicated the early changes in perception observed in Experiment 1, which may be explained by hands-on experience with the task. Furthermore, while climbing to exhaustion, perceptual judgements largely changed in keeping with changes in the actual maximum reach. Thus, there appeared to be a functional relationship between participants' actual action capabilities, rather than their state of physical fatigue per se, and perceived action possibilities.     

Diagnosing Students’ Understanding of the Nature of Models

Students’ understanding of models in science has been subject to a number of investigations. The instruments the researchers used are suitable for educational research but, due to their complexity, cannot be employed directly by teachers. This article presents forced choice (FC) tasks, which, assembled as a diagnostic instrument, are supposed to measure students’ understanding of the nature of models efficiently, while being sensitive enough to detect differences between individuals. In order to evaluate if the diagnostic instrument is suitable for its intended use, we propose an approach that complies with the demand to integrate students’ responses to the tasks into the validation process. Evidence for validity was gathered based on relations to other variables and on students’ response processes. Students’ understanding of the nature of models was assessed using three methods: FC tasks, open-ended tasks and interviews (N?=?448). Furthermore, concurrent think-aloud protocols (N?=?30) were performed. The results suggest that the method and the age of the students have an effect on their understanding of the nature of models. A good understanding of the FC tasks as well as a convergence in the findings across the three methods was documented for grades eleven and twelve. This indicates that teachers can use the diagnostic instrument for an efficient and, at the same time, valid diagnosis for this group. Finally, the findings of this article may provide a possible explanation for alternative findings from previous studies as a result of specific methods that were used.