Measuring Habituation in Infants: An Approach Using Regression Analysis

The effectiveness of different habituation criteria was examined by means of computer simulations. A criterion based on fitting a second-order polynomial regression function to the looking time data was described. This criterion produced more accurate estimation of looking times as well as higher experimental power for detecting novelty effects, compared to the traditional windowed running average criterion or to a criterion based on linear regression. The polynomial regression approach probably has this advantage because it utilizes all of the available looking time data, rather than just the data in the current windowed average, and because it is sensitive to nonlinear trends in looking time. This new habituation criterion is easy to implement on a laboratory computer, and it should increase session lengths by no more than one trial or so, compared to windowed average criteria. With regard to test-retest reliability, all of the habituation criteria that were evaluated appear to have low reliability on average, with high sample-to-sample variability. These undesirable reliability characteristics are attributable to the high variability of infants' attentional behavior.     

Institutional traditions in teachers’ manners of teaching

The aim of this article is to make a close case study of one teacher’s teaching in relation to established traditions within science education in Sweden. The teacher’s manner of teaching is analysed with the help of an epistemological move analysis. The moves made by the teacher are then compared in a context of educational philosophy and selective tradition. In the analyses the focus is to study the process of teaching and learning in action in institutionalised and socially shared practices. The empirical material consists of video recordings of four lessons with the same group of students and the same teacher. The students are all in Year 7 in a Swedish 9-year compulsory school. During these lessons the students work with a subject area called “Properties of materials”. The results show that the teacher makes a number of different moves with regard to how to proceed and come to a conclusion about what the substances are. Many of these moves are special in that they indicate that the students need to be able to handle the procedural level of school science. These moves do not deal directly with the knowledge production process, but with methodological aspects. The function of the moves turns the students’ attention from one source of knowledge to another. The moves are aimed at helping the students to help themselves, since it is through their own activity and their own thinking that learning takes place. This is characteristic in the teacher’s manner of teaching. When compared in a context of educational philosophy, this manner of teaching has similarities with progressentialism; a mixture of essentialism and progressivism. This educational philosophy is a central aspect of what is called the academic tradition—a selective tradition common in science education in Sweden between 1960 and 1990.     

Networks as Agents of Innovation: Teacher Networking in the Context of Vocational and Professional Higher Education Reforms

The effective implementation of educational reform is an issue that confronts both those that plan and sponsor those reforms and those that are affected by them. This article discusses networking processes in the context of reform in vocational and professional higher education. When exploring failures in educational change processes, issues associated with facilitating the adoption, adaptation and implementation of educational change have not been sufficiently addressed. Here, we use the concept of social innovation, which is relatively new in innovation research, to explain the mechanisms that facilitate educational reform, and emphasise the relationship between interaction and the perception of change. In this paper, we examine how networking among teachers is related to their perception of educational change and how the effective implementation of educational reforms can be influenced by such networking. By differentiating the various types of networks we explore the relationship between networking and educational change. The article is based on the findings of a quantitative survey of 228 Estonian teachers in vocational and professional higher educational schools administered in 2010.     

Hybrid Deterministic Views About Genes in Biology Textbooks: A Key Problem in Genetics Teaching

A major source of difficulties in promoting students’ understanding of genetics lies in the presentation of gene concepts and models in an inconsistent and largely ahistorical manner, merely amalgamated in hybrid views, as if they constituted linear developments, instead of being built for different purposes and employed in specific contexts. In this paper, we report the results of a study about how textbooks can provide the grounds for the students’ construction of such hybrid views about genes. These views are a key problem in genetics teaching, because they make it more difficult that students properly understand this central biological concept and strengthen genetic deterministic ideas, which characterize a widespread discourse about genes in the public opinion. We analyzed 18 textbooks using categorical content analysis, employing categories derived from the literature addressing the historical development of gene models and concepts. Our findings indicate that the analyzed textbooks do convey hybrid views about genes, with no correspondence to scientific models related to this biological concept. These views reinforce genetic deterministic discourses and may lead students to serious misunderstandings about the nature of genes and their role in living systems, with consequences to future learning about genetics.     

Factors affecting bioscience students’ academic achievement

The examination of academic progression has become an essential tool for measuring the effectiveness of educational systems. Research concerning the relationship between student learning and how they progress in their studies, however remains scarce. The aim of this study is two-fold: Firstly, the study aims to analyse first-year bioscience students’ perceptions of their teaching–learning environment and their approaches to learning as well as the relationship of these to academic achievement as measured by students’ progression in studies and how they succeed. Secondly, the present study explores factors students feel either enhance or impede their studying as well as the relationship of those factors with their approaches to learning and academic achievement. The data consist of responses from 188 first-year students who began their studies in the fall 2007 and 2008. The data were collected in a Finnish context with a modified and shortened version of the Experiences in Teaching and Learning Questionnaire (ETLQ). The analyses were carried out using factor analysis, one-way ANOVA and structural equation modeling. According to the results, organised studying was related to both academic progression and study success. In addition, academic progression was positively related to peer support. Furthermore, most of the students found that problems in time management impeded their studies and that pre-set schedules enhanced them. Results indicate that social support and self-regulation skills are important for academic achievement.     

Alternative models of entrance exams and access to higher education: the case of the Czech Republic

The study compares the potential effects of a university admission exam model based on program-specific knowledge and an alternative model relying on general study aptitude (GSA) in the context of a strongly stratified educational system with considerable excess of demand over supply of university education. Using results of the Sonda Maturant 1998 survey, we show that in the specific context of the Czech Republic, displaying the above characteristics in the given period, an admission exam model based on general study aptitude tests may improve the access of talented individuals with lower socioeconomic status to university education. Our simulations show that with the GSA model (provided the model assumptions are met), the relative chances of an applicant with a university-educated father would be only by one-fourth higher than the relative chances of a student with a less educated father, as compared to the more than a one-third difference in case of the model emphasizing program-specific knowledge. The odds ratio for the GSA model is by 28% points lower for mother’s education.     

Conveying clinical reasoning based on visual observation via eye-movement modelling examples

Complex perceptual tasks, like clinical reasoning based on visual observations of patients, require not only conceptual knowledge about diagnostic classes but also the skills to visually search for symptoms and interpret these observations. However, medical education so far has focused very little on how visual observation skills can be efficiently conveyed to novices. The current study applied a novel instructional method to teach these skills by showing the learners how an expert model visually searches and interprets symptoms (i.e., eye-movement modelling examples; EMMEs). Case videos of patients were verbally explained by a model (control condition) and presented to students. In the experimental conditions, the participants received a recording of the model’s eye movements superimposed on the case videos. The eye movements were displayed by either highlighting the features the model focused on with a circle (the circle condition) or by blurring the features the model did not focus on (the spotlight condition). Compared to the other two conditions, results show that a spotlight on the case videos better guides the students’ attention towards the relevant features. Moreover, when testing the students’ clinical reasoning skills with videos of new patient cases without any guidance, participants studying EMMEs with a spotlight showed improved their visual search and enhanced interpretation performance of the symptoms in contrast to participants in either the circle or the control condition. These findings show that a spotlight EMME can successfully convey clinical reasoning based on visual observations.     

Buying-out teaching for research: the views of academics and their managers

This paper reports on the practice of buying-out teaching to create time for research. A study was carried out, at a regional university in Australia, with academics in receipt of research grant funds (and therefore with the means to buy out teaching), Heads of School, and the Deputy Vice Chancellors responsible respectively for research and for academic matters. We found that while eligible academics did buy out teaching by employing casual staff, most of them worried about the potential effects on teaching quality and students’ learning. Heads of School were more sanguine about possible effects on teaching. Decision making by academics about whether to buy out teaching, and by Heads of School about whether to allow it in particular cases, took account of a number of factors. Some teaching activities were seen as higher-risk than others for buying-out. It was uniformly recognised by all parties that buying-out did not result in complete relief from the teaching activity that was bought out; a great deal of time and energy needed to be invested by the academic in making appropriate arrangements and monitoring the quality of work undertaken by the casual staff. The paper suggests that clearer policies need to be instituted in this area; academics were unsure what buying-out was allowed or acceptable, and would benefit from more discussion of the practice.