A test to measure problem-solving skills in science of children in grades one,two, and three

The aim of this study was to develop a reliable and valid group test that would evaluate some of the science problem-solving skills of children in grades one, two, and three. The primary grade children used in this study were from three different socio-economic areas: Area I has been described as a low-income urban section; Area II is characterized as a middle-income outlying-urban area; and Area III is a high-income suburban region. The problem-solving skills identified for use in this instrument are: (1) the ability to recognize the problem presented; (2) an understanding of science principles needed to solve the problem; (3) the ability to collect data; and (4) the ability to reason with “if-then” statements. The findings from the preliminary testing were used to clarify ambiguities in test directions and format and to calculate the difficulty and discrimination of each test item. After an item-by-item analysis of student performance, a final form of the instrument was constructed. The data from this final form was used to determine time limits, scoring procedures, test validity, reliability, and norms.     

Recovery from blocking achieved by extinguishing the blocking CS

Extinction-induced attenuation of single-phase and two-phase blocking was examined with rats in a conditioned lick-suppression task. In Experiment 1, which compared the effectiveness of single- and two-phase blocking, it was found that single-phase blocking was facilitated by the initiation of training with an A-US trial rather than an AX-US trial. Single-phase (but not two-phase) blocking was attenuated as a result of 200 extinction trials with the blocking stimulus (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 revealed recovery from two-phase blocking after 800 extinction trials with the blocking stimulus. Recovery from both types of blocking was specific to the blocked CS trained in compound with the extinguished stimulus (Experiment 4). This is the first article to report that the blocking deficit can be reversed by extinguishing the blocking stimulus. These results are discussed in light of acquisition models (i.e., retrospective revaluation) and expression models (i.e., the comparator hypothesis).     

A Curriculum for the Future

The paper argues that the changes in the social and economic circumstances which characterise the present period, make it essential to rethink the relation of curriculum, its purposes and shapes, to the social and economic environment of the near future. It offers some evidence of such change and its causes, even at the moment, and asks questions about essential characteristics of educational agendas in the near future. In particular, it argues that where the previous era had required an education for stability, the coming era requires an education for instability. The question then arises as to what the characteristics of curricula and pedagogies for instability are, and what dispositions for those who experience education are imagined and aimed for. It concludes with some comments on a curriculum of communication, in which facility with design has superseded competence in use, and where the broad social and cultural environment is one where identity is defined through a relation to consumption, where all commodities have taken on semiotic function so that the question of aesthetics (as the politics of style in all domains) is again in the forefront of concerns in the curriculum of communication.     

Semiotic work in the science classroom

Cultural Studies of Science Education - This review is on Lilian Pozzer and Wolff-Michael Roth’s “A cultural-historical perspective on the multimodal development of concepts in science...     

Word length and word frequency affect eye movements in dyslexic children reading in a regular (German) orthography

We combined independently the word length and word frequency to examine if the difficulty of reading material affects eye movements in readers of German, which has high orthographic regularity, comparing the outcome with previous findings available in other languages. Sixteen carefully selected German-speaking dyslexic children (mean age, 9.5 years) and 16 age-matched controls read aloud four lists, each comprising ten unrelated words. The lists varied orthogonally in word length and word frequency: high-frequency, short; high-frequency, long; low-frequency, short; low-frequency, long. Eye movements were measured using a scanning laser ophthalmoscope (SLO). In dyslexic children, fixation durations and the number of saccades increased both with word length and word frequency. The percentage of regressions was only increased for low-frequency words. Most of these effects were qualitatively similar in the two groups, but stronger in dyslexic children, pointing to a deficient higher-level word processing, especially phonological deficit. The results indicate that reading eye movements in German children are modulated by the degree of difficulty, and orthographic regularity of the language can determine the nature of modulation. The findings suggest that, similar to Italian but unlike English readers, German children prefer indirect sub-lexical strategy of grapheme-phoneme conversion.     

中国著作权制度：英美模式还是大陆模式？

一、引言 1990年9月7日通过的中华人民共和国着作权法,已经两度修改：第次修改稿於2001年月27日通过,最近的第二次修改稿,     

Academic careers, patents, and productivity: industry experience as scientific and technical human capital

We examine career patterns within the industrial, academic, and governmental sectors and their relation to the publication and patent productivity of scientists and engineers working at university-based research centers in the United States. We hypothesize that among university scientists, intersectoral changes in jobs throughout the career provide access to new social networks and scientific and technical human capital, which will result in higher productivity. For this study, the curriculum vitae of 1200 research scientists and engineers were collected and coded. In addition, patent data were collected from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The overarching conclusion from our analysis is that the academic scientists’ and engineers’ research careers we studied are quite different than characterized in the research productivity literature that is a decade or more old. The wave of center creation activity that began in the early 1980s and continues today has resulted not only in greater ties between universities and industry, but also markedly different academic careers.     

Disciplining children: characteristics associated with the use of corporal punishment

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the Social Situational Model of Family Violence through an examination of characteristics associated with the use of ordinary and severe corporal punishment as measured by the Parents-Child Conflict Tactics Scales. METHOD: Logistic Regression used to examine the validity of the model using data from a national sample conducted by the Gallup Organizations. RESULTS: Those with fewer resources (lower income, lower educational attainment) were more likely to be use severe corporal punishment. In addition, those who had been more likely to be socialized into the use of violence were also more likely to use severe corporal punishment. CONCLUSIONS: The social situational model of family violence was supported suggesting that increased efforts be made to give these parents the resources they need to implement alternative discipline strategies.