Decision making: Influence of features and presentation mode upon generation of alternatives

Decision making can be defined as the process of making reasoned choices among alternatives based upon judgments consistent with the values of the decision maker. Models describing decision making generally include: identification of the problem, collection of relevant information, generation of alternatives, identification of consequences of alternatives, and selection of alternatives. This research focuses on the ability of children to generate alternatives in decision-making tasks. The problem was to determine the differential effects of the number of features of a decision-making situation in interview and computer-simulation modes on the number of alternatives children generate. The study involved 208 children with equal numbers of 2nd and 4th grade boys and girls. Each child responded to three decision-making situations either in an interview or computer-simulation mode. The three situations varied on the number of features of the award objects. An increase in the number of features (color) of the award objects (jelly beans) in a decision-making situation increased the number of alternatives generated. The children in this study generated more alternatives in the interview setting than with the computer simulation.     

Using technology in assessing integrated science and mathematics learning

Drawing from current models, research, and science and mathematics education reform documents, this article first defines and/or delimits three broad domains of education: integrated school science and mathematics, assessment, and technology. Based upon this three-tiered discussion, a list of characteristics is then distilled to guide in the development of assessment for integrated school science and mathematics using technology. Two integrated school science and mathematics activities are provided to illustrate the alignment of instruction and assessment and the systematic integration of technology into both.The writing of this paper was supported by The National Center for Science Teaching and Learning under grant R117Q00062 from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsoring agency.     

Evaluating prospective elementary teachers' understanding of science and mathematics in a model preservice program

Two cohorts of students preparing to become elementary teachers participated in a model program in science and mathematics. These students were compared to other students taking similar courses on their conceptual understandings of science and mathematics, their investigative proficiencies, and their beliefs about effective methods of teaching these subjects. Instruments included newly developed tests of understanding, existing standardized achievement tests, and instruments devised for the evaluation to elicit conceptions of appropriate ways to teach science and mathematics to elementary children. Results from individual courses indicated that students participating in the model program developed more thorough understandings and more reform-minded beliefs related to teaching science and mathematics. Issues associated with the assessment and evaluation of innovative programs in science and mathematics are discussed, and recommendations for teacher preparation are offered.     

Computer technology-cognitive psychology interface and science performance assessment

The emerging interface between computer technology and cognitive psychology for performance assessment in science education is explored. Cognitive theories of learning offer promises to transform computer technology from a test administration tool into a process assessment tool, and computer technology offers a medium for studying the cognitive processes of learning. Interface theories and interface technologies are briefly discussed. The technology-psychology interface may be a base for building an alternative assessment technology. Some prototype projects in this line of inquiry are presented. As in any other novel approaches to testing, there are several questions that need to be answered in establishing the role of the technology-psychology interface in performance assessment.     

The Rise and Fall of a Promotions Committee: some reflections on the interrelationship between micro and macro machinations of power

This paper is concerned with a case study regarding the ‘rise and fall’ of a promotions committee within an Australian College of Advanced Education. The paper considers the internal organisational factors involved with the abolition of promotion by merit as part of increasingly dominant managerialist practices. The paper attempts to contextualise these institutional developments in terms of the restructuring of the Australian economy and concomitant pressures upon state expenditure and consequent increasing pressures on tertiary education institutions to ‘pay their own way’. The study fits within the ‘imperialist strategy’ within organisational analyses where the study of organisations is “merged within a wider analytical framework geared to the examination of historical transformations in institutional structures and the principles which underlie these long‐term historical movements”. In the concluding section, some critical remarks are proffered regarding the way senior administrators within tertiary education institutions have responded to these privatisation pressures upon them.

     

Reinforcement context and pacemaker rate in the behavioral theory of timing

In the present experiment, an attempt was made to extend the base of evidence for the assumption of the behavioral theory of timing that pacemaker rate is determined by reinforcement rate. Pigeons discriminated the first half from the second half of a 50-sec trial in a free-operant psychophysical procedure. Left-key responding was reinforced at variable intervals during the first 25 sec, and right-key responding was reinforced at variable intervals during the second 25 sec. The rate of “extraneous” reinforcers delivered at variable intervals following responses to a center key was manipulated independently of performance in the temporal discrimination. Quantitative estimates of pacemaker rate were not directly proportional to extraneous rate of reinforcement, whether extraneous reinforcers were available during the intertrial interval, the entire session, or the trial only. Instead, estimates of pacemaker rate were inversely related to the rate of extraneous reinforcement, which suggests that pacemaker rate is determined by the ratio of the rate of reinforcement for the timing response relative to other sources of reinforcement.     

Characterizing highly cited method and non-method papers using citation contexts: The role of uncertainty

The top 1000 biomedical papers by number of citations are classified by method, type of method and non-methods by examination of citation contexts. Supervised machine learning is applied to the context data for a training sample of papers which is then used to classify the full list, revealing that words indicating utility are most important for the classification of methods. Further word analysis is carried out using corpus linguistics to uncover context words that characterize non-methods. Hedging words are found to play an important role for non-methods, and several are selected for further analysis with logistic regression. Other variables in the regression are a consensus variable based on the similarity of contexts for a paper and another variable based on whether citations come from “methods” sections of citing papers. Accuracy of predictions from logistic regression is comparable to machine learning. The results are interpreted in terms of the perceived certainty or uncertainty of the underlying knowledge, that is, methods and their outputs have higher certainty, and non-methods higher uncertainty. Evidence is found that hedging is inversely related to citation frequency. Implications of this work for the study of the development of science and the role of methods and tools in biomedical research are discussed.     

The Raw Materials of Reform: Rethinking the Knowledge of School Improvement

Despite widespread conviction that adequateknowledge exists for improving schools, weargue that the knowledge needed for successfulschool reform goes far beyond what is currentlyavailable and accessible. Drawing on theexample of ATLAS, a collaboration among fourexperienced reform organizations in the UnitedStates – the Coalition of Essential Schools,the School Development Program, EducationDevelopment Center, and Harvard Project Zero –we argue that four significant ``problems ofknowledge' made it difficult to collect,integrate, and use what the members of theseorganizations had learned about schoolimprovement. First, the ATLAS partners quicklyfound that, while they had substantialknowledge and resources in many areas ofschooling, there were many other aspects ofschooling, school change, and organizationaldevelopment where further knowledge wasrequired. Second, even in areas where thepartner organizations had considerableexperience, they often found that it was hardto articulate and share that knowledge in atimely and efficient way. Third, in someinstances, the lessons that members of thepartner organizations took away from theirprevious experiences were either inconsistentwith one another or downright contradictory.Fourth, the difficulties of creating andmaintaining a new collaborative organizationmay have discouraged the development andsharing of knowledge across the partnerorganizations.