FACULTY ATTITUDES TOWARD EVALUATION OF TEACHING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO

This report summarizes the results of a survey of faculty member attitudes towards the evaluation of teaching at the University of Western Ontario. Although the existing system of evaluation is perceived as narrow in focus, ineffective in improving teaching and inflexible, faculty members still optimistically expect that a satisfactory system is possible.     

Variables affecting alternation behavior in the cockroach,Blatta orientalis

To investigate alternation behavior in the cockroach as an invertebrate, three T-maze experiments were conducted assessing the effects of (a) intratrial (exposure) and intertrial (exposure to test) interval, (b) brightness similarity of the alternatives and response-direction factors, and (c) an initial free-choice vs. a varying number of forced-choice exposures. Alternation was enhanced with a long exposure on Trial 1, a short interval between Trial 1 and Trial 2 (test), greater dissimilarity (or discriminability) of the arm brightnesses and more frequent forced-choice exposures to an arm prior to test. These results highlight the role of intramaze brightness cues as controlling alternation in the cockroach and accord well with a response-to-change interpretation of the phenomenon. In addition, they suggest that the alternation paradigm can be used effectively to assay short-term memory storage in neurologically simple organisms.     

A Collective Self-Study to Improve Program Coherence of Clinical Experiences

Student feedback collected through program evaluation of secondary education licensure and Master’s program clinical experiences prompted us to conduct a collective self-study. We used a reflective framework for analysis and discussion of the shifts students in our courses made as they progressed from observers to practicing teachers. Along with our graduate students, we collected and shared data and analysis from two courses – an introductory mathematics course for pre-service teachers and a capstone self-study teacher research course for in-service teachers. Data included students’ reflective accounts of their clinical experiences, dialogue with peers in response memos and focus groups, and our meta-conversation about and interpretations of data captured in meeting notes, audio recordings of meetings, email exchanges, and video conferencing over a two-month period. Analysis resulted in reframed thinking about our teaching and implications for program coherence, including provision of meaningful participant observations in diverse settings, design of dialogic platforms for students to make connections, and support of a critical level of reflection to inform teacher professional practice. The results are informative to teacher educators and programs seeking to better understand their roles in designing dialogic spaces for students to think deeply about the connections of their courses to clinical experiences and in supporting ongoing teacher professional development. The study highlights the benefits of faculty collective self-studies and contributes to the literature on self-study for program development.     

Positive and negative transfer of conditioned aversive stimuli to a conditioned appetitive excitor as a function of aversive US intensity

Rats were given Pavlovian aversive (Av) conditioning in which a weak (0.5-sec, 0.7-mA) or a strong (0.5-sec, 1.4-mA) footshock unconditioned stimulus (US) was presented alone or in a positive, zero, or negative correlation with a flashing-light conditioned stimulus (AvCS+, AvCSo, or AvCS?, respectively). Thereafter, the subjects received Pavlovian appetitive (Ap) conditioning in which the flashing-light CS was positively correlated in a forward order with the delivery of a food US. As anticipated, for subjects that had been trained with the strong shock US, the AvCS+ retarded and the AvCS? facilitated Ap conditioning relative to both the AvCSo and the novel-CS treatments, which did not differ in effect. However, the exact opposite prevailed for the AvCS+ and AvCS? subjects that had been trained with the weak shock US. On the basis of these and other data, we propose an “ABC” model of transfer that stresses the importance of affective, behavioral, and cognitive factors in accounting for the divergent results that are obtained in both Av-to-Ap and Ap-to-Av transfer paradigms.     

Testing for factorial invariance of the Modified Leadership Scale for Sports: using a Japanese version

The objective of this study was to provide empirical evidence to support psychometric properties of a modified four-dimensional model of the Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS). The study tested invariance of all parameters (i.e., factor loadings, error variances, and factor variances–covariances) in the four-dimensional measurement model between two groups of student-athletes. For testing multi-group invariance of the proposed scale, 335 middle school and 320 high school student-athletes in Japan participated in this study. The modified version of the LSS consists of 35 items representing training instruction, democratic behaviour, positive feedback, and social support. A chi-square difference test was employed for model comparisons. The results supported configural, metric, scalar and factor variance–covariance invariance in the modified LSS across the two student-athlete groups.     

Developing tomorrow’s decision-makers: opportunities for biotechnology education research

Globally, science curricula have been described as outdated, and students perceive school science as lacking in relevance. Declines in senior secondary and tertiary student participation in science indicate an urgent need for change if we are to sustain future scientific research and development, and perhaps more importantly, to equip students with the knowledge and skills to make informed decisions related to scientific research. This paper argues that a good starting point would be the inclusion of more contemporary areas of science in middle school curricula. One such area with continually emerging developments is biotechnology. This paper further argues the need for research into the impact of biotechnology education that would allow students to go beyond learning about biotechnological processes and products to explore their benefits and risks through an integrated approach, where biotechnology education were extended to include subject areas beyond science, such as social sciences, health education, and English. Such an approach is important, in light of research that suggests that the general public has a limited understanding of biotechnology and that public dissemination of information is insufficient to allow individuals to make informed decisions about or to develop attitudes towards, the varied applications of biotechnology. If we are to educate students to be tomorrow’s informed decision-makers, we must start by addressing their understanding of and attitudes towards emerging sciences. Further research is needed to broaden our understanding of how to achieve these goals.     

The Teaching of Hebrew in the Reform Religious School

There are few educators today who would take issue with the assertion that research, and the findings of research, are beginning to dominate the American educational scene. The growing influence of science and the scientific method on every aspect of contemporary living has brought about significant change and innovation in the school, in the home and in the community at-large.