Exploring college students’ cognitive patterns during reasoning*

This research aimed to investigate the nature of cognitive processes when college students reason about evidence on global climate change (GCC). Twenty-six undergraduate students participated in this qualitative study, where they were interviewed to evaluate competing arguments on key issues related to GCC and discuss their own perspectives. Constant comparative analysis of data from think-aloud protocols and semi-structured interviews revealed three patterns of reasoning: minimum reasoning, constrained reasoning, and deliberative reasoning. Minimum reasoning demonstrated that participants predominantly favoured arguments which supported their own beliefs, with limited reasoning about the relative correctness of opposing arguments. Constrained reasoning showed participants’ emphasis on surface features of evidence on GCC rather than its scientific underpinnings. In contrast, deliberative reasoning involved more sophisticated cognitive efforts in coordinating evidence and claims, and a key characteristic of this pattern was in-depth statistical and causal reasoning. The current findings added to our understanding of college students’ reasoning processes when they are faced with controversial issues like GCC. This work contributed to current efforts in using cognitive research to inform science and environmental education, and laid a foundation for future endeavours in promoting scientific reasoning and argumentation in climate change education.     

Agreement among four models used for diagnosing learning disabilities

We compared the level of agreement among four models used to diagnose learning disabilities (LD), including the simple discrepancy, intraindividual, intellectual ability-achievement, and underachievement models. The sample included 170 clinic-referred university students. The simple discrepancy model diagnosed significantly more students with LD than the other three models. The highest degree of agreement occurred between the intraindividual and intellectual ability-achievement models (70%); the lowest level of agreement occurred between the simple discrepancy and underachievement models (48%). Finally, only two of the six comparisons among the four models demonstrated significant correlations. We conclude that even when discrepancy models diagnose similar numbers of students with LD, the same students are not diagnosed across different models.     

Concurrent schedule responding as a function of body weight

Five pigeons pecked for food reinforcement on several concurrent schedules. Their body weights were varied from 80% to 110% of their free-feeding weights. A number of predictions of the equations proposed by Herrnstein (1970) were tested. As predicted, the relative rate of responding equalled the relative rate of reinforcement for all subjects, on all schedules, at all body weights. And, as predicted, the overall rates of responding on the components of a concurrent schedule were slower than the local rates of responding on the components of an identical multiple schedule. Contrary to prediction, the total rate of responding generated by the concurrent schedules did not increase with increases in the total rate of reinforcement they provided. And, contrary to prediction, the k parameter did not remain constant, and the R₀ parameter did not increase with increases in body weight. It was concluded that Herrnstein’s matching law and his interpretation of the m parameter are correct but that the interpretations of k and R₀ require further investigation.     

Parent-child interaction and conduct disorder

This paper reviews recent research on the role of parent-child interaction in the etiology of children's conduct disorder. It examines the role of social and family factors in conduct disorder and the possible mechanisms by which these contextual factors might affect parent-child interaction and child problem behavior. A major focus is on research that has compared the patterns of interaction in families with and without conduct-disordered children, using observational methods, in order to test different theoretical explanations about how conduct disorder develops and is maintained. Further research is needed on the neglected area of positive parent-child interaction, which may be just as important as conflictual processes in determining the development of conduct disorder. Theoretical and methodological issues are raised about the problems of determining causality from correlational research, and the possibilities for naturalistic experimental studies are discussed.     

Setting Common Examination Papers that Differentiate

Many GCSE syllabuses are examined with examinations in which all candidates take the same papers. The setting of such papers is problematic because of the wide range of abilities and achievements of pupils at the age of 16, together with the requirement that appropriate differentiation should be provided (i.e. opportunities for candidates to show what they know, understand and can do must be given). This paper considers a number of issues relevant to the setting of such examinations. These include how differentiation may be provided; the wording of questions; and how marks should be allocated. It highlights a number of potential pitfalls and concludes that although papers, which are accessible to all candidates and discriminate appropriately, can be set, common papers will not always provide adequate opportunities for the most able and least able candidates to show what they know, understand and can do.     

Liminality,disruption, and change: A prismatic look at pandemic education

PROSPECTS - Using prismatic inquiry, a team of researchers documented a variety of personal experiences that spanned elementary through higher education, with the goal of determining what helped...     

Depressive symptoms in young adults: the influences of the early home environment and early educational child care

The relationship between depressive symptoms in young adults, the quality of the early home environment, and early educational child care was investigated in young adults randomly assigned to receive early childhood intervention in the Abecedarian study. Of the original 111 infants enrolled (98% African American), 104 participated in an age-21 follow-up. Those who had early treatment reported fewer depressive symptoms. The protective effects of the early childhood program were further supported by a significant home environment by treatment interaction. Negative effects of lower quality home environments on young adult depressive symptoms were almost entirely offset by preschool treatment, whereas depressive symptoms increased as the quality of the early home environment decreased for those in the control group.     

‘Man sorting books’: historical research in an archive of university photographs

The impetus for this article was an encounter with thousands of photographs in an online archive of a public university in New Zealand, taken over the twentieth century. The size of the archive and the paucity of information about many images draws attention to challenges of commencing work in a large institutional visual archive. The first part of the article outlines initial forays into the archive and attempts to ‘sort’ the 22,000 plus images it contains into some form of order, utilising the categories of people, things, spaces, activities. The second part considers the history of the library as integral to an idea of the university and its role in the storing, organisation and dissemination of knowledge. It analyses archival images of the library to reflect on its place in the university, together with the limits and opportunities afforded by visual archives in histories of higher education.     

Uncoupling the Articulation Between Girls' Education and Tradition in Tanzania

This article explores theoretical and historical problems associated with representations of gender and race in the Third World. Using a feminist cultural studies approach, the author examines representations associated with the concept of African tradition that have shaped colonial and post-colonial education policy for girls in Tanzania. Archival materials from missionary, colonial, and African sources reveal the multiple and often conflicting views of tradition conveyed through programmes intended to increase African girls' participation in school. The uses of tradition in colonial policy making are compared with its meanings in contemporary educational programmes for girls in an attempt to further feminist scholarship and action around the issue of girls' education.     

Behavioral contrast as a function of component duration and baseline rate of reinforcement

Three experiments examined changes in size of multiple-schedule behavioral contrast with changes in an independent variable. Experiment 1 found that positive contrast generally increased with increases in component duration when pigeons pressed treadles. Experiments 2 and 3 found that positive and negative contrast generally increased with increases in the baseline rates of reinforcement when pigeons pecked keys. The experiments show that positive and negative contrast vary as similar functions of the same variables. Experiment 1 also suggests that these functions are different for different responses.