Effects of race of examiner and type of reinforcement on the intelligence test performance of lower-class black children

This study examined the effects of race of examiner and type of reinforcement upon the WISC-R performance of lower-class black children. A total of 120 black males were selected and assigned to either a white or black examiner to form two groups. Within each group, children were given no reinforcement, tangible reinforcement, traditional social reinforcement, or culturally relevant social reinforcement after each correct response. Children given tangible rewards, regardless of race of examiner, obtained significantly higher scores than did children given no reinforcement or children given traditional social reinforcement. Also, children given culturally relevant social reinforcement by a black examiner obtained significantly higher scores than did children given culturally relevant reinforcement by the white examiner.     

A Moment of Letting Go: Iris Murdoch and the Morally Transformative Process of Unselfing

Higher education as a personal, intellectual and moral cultivation is a longstanding ideal that is constantly challenged by the view that education is merely the development of specific skills for vocational and personal success. Much research argues that the latter understanding makes education a technical affair that creates an egocentric emphasis on the individual students’ ambitions and desires. This article joins in the defence of the former ideal by enquiring into the moral dimensions of education. This is done by turning to Iris Murdoch's idea of moral transformation, with a specific focus on the idea of unselfing. The main argument is that unselfing is a transformative process characterised by a growing attunement to the surrounding world, and the interconnectedness of goal and process is emphasised. Also, to gain a deeper understanding of what unselfing entails I turn to the idea of attention. It is understood as having a specific direction, outward from the egocentric, and as enabling unselfing. The article concludes by suggesting that unselfing can offer a challenge to (higher) education as it entails a moment of letting go of plans and narratives, and of surrendering to the influence of an existence that exceeds the individual. This moment is of relevance to education as it is crucial to the possibility of growing as a moral being as it cultivates a moral manner of relating to others.     

Intelligibility is equity: Can international students read undergraduate admissions materials?

Fewer international students have applied to and enrolled in US institutions, as 40 per cent of US institutions reported a drop in international applications since 2016. Subsequently, US institutions must ensure that their international admissions materials are as equitable and transparent as possible. Expanding previous work, this study examines the readability and translation of international undergraduate admissions materials of 335 four‐year public and non‐profit private US institutions. Results reveal these materials are written near a 14th‐grade reading comprehension level, only 1 per cent of institutions provide web‐embedded translation tools on their websites and 91 per cent of institutions provide English‐only content. Implications for practitioners, policymakers and future research are addressed.     

Guiding Low Spatial Ability Individuals through Visual Cueing: The Dual Importance of Where and When to Look

Research suggests that spatial ability may predict success in complex disciplines including anatomy, where mastery requires a firm understanding of the intricate relationships occurring along the course of veins, arteries, and nerves, as they traverse through and around bones, muscles, and organs. Debate exists on the malleability of spatial ability, and some suggest that spatial ability can be enhanced through training. It is hypothesized that spatial ability can be trained in low-performing individuals through visual guidance. To address this, training was completed through a visual guidance protocol. This protocol was based on eye-movement patterns of high-performing individuals, collected via eye-tracking as they completed an Electronic Mental Rotations Test (EMRT). The effects of guidance were evaluated using 33 individuals with low mental rotation ability, in a counterbalanced crossover design. Individuals were placed in one of two treatment groups (late or early guidance) and completed both a guided, and an unguided EMRT. A third group (no guidance/control) completed two unguided EMRTs. All groups demonstrated an increase in EMRT scores on their second test (P < 0.001); however, an interaction was observed between treatment and test iteration (P = 0.024). The effect of guidance on scores was contingent on when the guidance was applied. When guidance was applied early, scores were significantly greater than expected (P = 0.028). These findings suggest that by guiding individuals with low mental rotation ability “where” to look early in training, better search approaches may be adopted, yielding improvements in spatial reasoning scores. It is proposed that visual guidance may be applied in spatial fields, such as STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine), surgery, and anatomy to improve student's interpretation of visual content. Anat Sci Educ. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.     

How Haptics and Drawing Enhance the Learning of Anatomy

Students’ engagement with two-dimensional (2D) representations as opposed to three-dimensional (3D) representations of anatomy such as in dissection, is significant in terms of the depth of their comprehension. This qualitative study aimed to understand how students learned anatomy using observational and drawing activities that included touch, called haptics. Five volunteer second year medical students at the University of Cape Town participated in a six-day educational intervention in which a novel “haptico-visual observation and drawing” (HVOD) method was employed. Data were collected through individual interviews as well as a focus group discussion. The HVOD method was successfully applied by all the participants, who reported an improvement of their cognitive understanding and memorization of the 3D form of the anatomical part. All the five participants described the development of a “mental picture” of the object as being central to “deep learning.” The use of the haptic senses coupled with the simultaneous act of drawing enrolled sources of information that were reported by the participants to have enabled better memorization. We postulate that the more sources of information about an object, the greater degree of complexity could be appreciated, and therefore the more clearly it could be captured and memorized. The inclusion of haptics has implications for cadaveric dissection versus non-cadaveric forms of learning. This study was limited by its sample size as well as the bias and position of the researchers, but the sample of five produced a sufficient amount of data to generate a conceptual model and hypothesis.