'Noisy, fallible and biased though it be' (on the Vagaries of Educational Research)

Scholarship in education beyond school has developed largely outside university departments of education, and has rarely engaged systematically with the study of education in schools. The paper concentrates on three areas: adult education, higher education, and further education. The development of the extra-mural tradition meant that adult education was less an object of scholarly study than a means of spreading scholarship to the wider population, with important exceptions such as historical studies. Since the 1970s, the volume of research and postgraduate education in adult education in British universities has grown considerably. The study of higher education was marginal until the 1960s; its subsequent development was relatively slow until the 1990s, when the quality of university teaching came under wider external scrutiny. The study of further education and vocational training is characterised by disciplinary fragmentation, with much activity taking place in departments of psychology, economics, sociology and management, as well as in those former polytechnics that specialised in training further education teachers. The rise of integrative concepts such as lifelong learning suggest greater potential for cross-disciplinary scholarship that can engage the diverse body of those interested in teaching and research about this field.     

A psychological model of student persistence

The present study examines the validity of the Eccles model of achievement behaviors (model of academic choice) for its predictive validity when the outcome (behavior) is student persistence in the postsecondary educational system to completion of at least the baccalaureate degree. Patterns of effects hypothesized by the theoretical model were only partially supported by the results forthcoming from the estimation of the model. Of the two constructs hypothesized to directly influence persistence—the value placed on college attendance and expectations for success in college—only value had significant influence. Two measures of goal orientations—business/financial and humanitarian/social—exerted indirect influence as hypothesized, but level of degree aspirations had as strong a direct influence on persistence as did value. Prior achievement had the strongest total effects of any of the variables in the model.     

Auditorysame/different concept learning by monkeys

Two rhesus monkeys learned the auditory abstract concept ofsame/different. They were trained with 38 different environmental and natural sounds, which were arranged in different combinations as training progressed. Upon transfer to 138 different novel stimuli, they performed as well (78.8% correct) on the first exposure to the novel stimuli as they did (77.3%) with their training stimuli. The comparatively large set of training sounds, contact with the sound source, and a special fading procedure are thought to have contributed to the monkeys’ being able to learn this concept. Implications for species’ similarities/differences in cognitive processing are discussed.     

A developmental analysis of the relationship between response strength and punishment

Two levels of training (100 vs. 500 trials) and two ages of rats (young and adult) were used in a developmental analysis of the relationship between response strength and the effects of punishment. The apparatus was a Y maze with three discriminably different arms. After 100 or 500 reinforced trials, subjects were shocked each time they responded in one arm. The recovery sessions followed the punishment session. Results from the punishment day indicated that: (a) young rats received a greater amount of shock, and (b) additional training increased the amount of shock received by the young but decreased it in the adults. The recovery data showed that: (a) the suppressive effects of punishment were greater for the adults than for the young, and (b) the recovery scores were not influenced by degree of overtraining. The Age by Overtraining interaction suggested that the relationship between response strength and punishment is age dependent. The age differences found with the amount-of-shock and recovery measures provided additional support for the position that younger rats are less competent than adult rats in inhibiting responses.

     

Differential Grading Standards Revisited

The differential grading standards described by Goldman and Widawski (1976) exist in the same magnitude and in roughly the same order a decade later in a different kind of institution. Major fields that attract as majors students who score higher on SATs employ stricter grading standards. These differential grading standards serve to attenuate the correlation between SAT scores and grades, which is, even in highly selective institutions, substantial.     

师生交流的传播学分析

师生交流是一个贯穿教育全过程的重要概念,对它的研究不能仅仅停留在师生之间教学内容的传达上。该文以传播学的理论来分析师生交流的形式、手段、主要内容及不同定位产生不同的效果等,意在使师生交流在更宽的领域得到更深入的研究。     

Teaching the design and interpretation of graphs through computer-aided graphical data analysis

Graphs are one of the primary means of exploration and communication in the practice of science, but students in science laboratories are customarily taught only the low-level mechanics of constructing a single kind of graph when given a table of information. The use of a microcomputer can relieve the drudgery of plotting, allowing students to pursue higher-level issues in the design and interpretation of graphs through repeated “thought experiments.” We introduced computer-assisted graphical data analysis to inner-city high school students with weak math and science backgrounds, emphasizing the dynamic manipulation of various kinds of graphs to answer specific questions. Drawing on extensive recordings and classroom observations, we describe examples of the performance of these students on open-ended problem-solving tasks in which graphs can be used to arrive at meaningful answers to applied data analysis problems.