Fear-motivated vicious-circle behavior maintained through secondary punishment

Two experiments attempted to establish vicious-circle behavior through fear motivation combined with secondary punishment. In Experiment 1, rats were trained with two CSs, a tone and a buzzer, paired with shock in different contexts. Secondary punishment based on delay and trace conditioning procedures facilitated running in fear-motivated rats, relative to four control groups. In Experiment 2, rats were given pairings of a tone CS with shock, and a buzzer CS with a drop into a water tank. Fear-motivated rats which received secondary punishment during either 33% or 100% of test trials exhibited self-punitive running relative to a nonpunished (0%) group and a backward-conditioning control group. Results indicate that “all secondary” vicious-circle behavior can be established through Pavlovian conditioning, thus supporting a conditioned fear interpretation.     

Teacher and school characteristics and their influence on curriculum implementation

Reform‐based curriculum materials have been suggested as a mechanism to make inquiry‐based instruction more prevalent in secondary science classrooms, specifically when accompanied by comprehensive professional development (Loucks‐Horsley, Hewson, Love, & Stiles, 1998 ; Powell & Anderson, 2002 ). This research examines the implementation of a reform‐based high school chemistry curriculum in a large, urban school district. We explicitly consider the role of the teachers' knowledge and beliefs in their implementation of the reform‐based chemistry curriculum, as well as school level factors. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected in the form of beliefs interviews and classroom observations from 27 high school chemistry teachers. Analysis of the data revealed that implementation of the curriculum was strongly influenced by the teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning, and the presence of a supportive network at their school sites. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 883–907, 2007     

Academic Follow-Up Data on Two Cohorts of High-Risk Transfer Children

Two cohorts of children from inner-city elementary schools were provided a tutoring intervention to help in their transition to new schools. Participants were third, fourth, and fifth grade children who were identified as having low-income status, evidencing lags on achievement tests, and experiencing stressful life events. The intervention involved an orientation program with twice weekly paraprofessional tutoring. Two and three year academic and sociometric follow-up data were collected. Those provided the intervention evidenced some improvements over time, and these changes were most prominent in the area of reading grades. Fewer significant findings were found on sociometric indices.     

Combining issues of “girl-suited” science teaching,STS and constructivism in a physics textbook

This paper outlines the design of a physics textbook that addresses issues of gender-inclusive physics teaching, STS and constructivism. Difficulties of addressing these issues in a textbook for normal classes, which has to compete with other textbooks on the market will be discussed. Specializations: constructivist approaches in science education research and practice. Specializations: gender issues in science instruction. Specializations: primary education, integrated science. Specializations: STS, phenomenological oriented physics instruction. Specializations: peace education within science education.     

Reinstatement of postresponse stimuli prior to reward in delayed-reward discrimination learning by pigeons

Delayed-reward learning in pigeons was examined using a simultaneous red-green visual discrimination task in which the conditions during the delay interval were varied between groups. The nondifferential group received training in which the stimulus present during the 1-min delay was the same following a peck on the correct and incorrect colors. The other three groups received 1-min delay training in which different stimuli occurred in the delay interval following correct and incorrect choices. The differential group received continuous, differential stimuli during the delay. The reinstatement group received the differential stimuli in the 10 sec immediately following the choice and during the last 10 sec of the delay. The reversedcue group was treated in the same way, except that the 10-sec delay stimulus immediately following an incorrect response was also presented for 10 sec prior to reward on correct choices, and the stimulus following a correct response also occurred 10 sec before nonreward on incorrect choices. Nondifferential birds failed to learn the discrimination, while differential and reinstatement birds learned it readily. The reversed-cue birds learned to choose the incorrect stimulus. Differential and reinstatement birds showed no decrement in performance when the delay was increased to 2 min. These findings suggest that similarity of prereward and postresponse delay stimuli controls choice responding in long-delay learning, a finding compatible with both memorial and conditioned reinforcement interpretations.     

Matching Cloze as an Evaluation Procedure for Slow Learning Children

The matching cloze procedure, which does not require language production skills and which is simple enough for the classroom teacher to construct unaided, was originally developed to measure reading skills of elementary English‐second‐language pupils. The results of this pilot study with opportunity school children indicate the validity of the procedure as an evaluation technique for slow learning children.