Images in mirrors: Recollections,alternative explanations and modes of cognitive functioning

Students' conceptions of how objects are seen directly, and in mirrors, were explored in an analysis of their written and drawn responses to common visual phenomena depicted in cartoons with brief text. Students in Grades K-10 (n=214) completed a questionnaire and some were interviewed. Evidence was sought to support an hypothesis for increasingly sophisticated responses related to the concepts of sight, light, reflection and image. The developmental model used in this analysis was the updated SOLO Taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1991; Collis & Biggs 1991). It appears from the results that different modes of functioning can interfere to produce factually incorrect recollections of experience particularly in the age group 7 to 13 years approximately. Also, this is associated with the common spurious conception that mirrors have a lateral inversion property. Explanations involving light were extremely rare and its role related to the production of an image ‘in the mirror’ but not to the perception of an image in the eyes. Specializations: science education, students' understandings of phenomena in science. Specializations: cognitive development, evaluation, mathematics and science education. Specializations: mathematics education, students' understanding of chance and data concepts.     

复杂系统视角下的组织学习动态过程研究

组织是一个具有无尺度网络结构的复杂系统。组织学习作为组织获取核心竞争力和可持续发展能力的重要手段,是一个动态的过程:从组织学习发生的载体来看,主要有个人、团队和组织等三个层次;就组织学习发生的方式来看,包括单环学习、双环学习和三环学习等三种模式;而从组织学习过程本身来看,则分为直觉感知、解释说明、归纳整合和制度化等四个子过程。本文在系统回顾相关研究成果的基础上,从复杂系统的角度对组织学习过程进行了系统的模型整合和创新,对复杂系统环境下如何构建学习型组织的可能遇到的障碍进行了一系列的分析。     

Developing mathematical fluency: comparing exercises and rich tasks

Achieving fluency in important mathematical procedures is fundamental to students’ mathematical development. The usual way to develop procedural fluency is to practise repetitive exercises, but is this the only effective way? This paper reports three quasi-experimental studies carried out in a total of 11 secondary schools involving altogether 528 students aged 12–15. In each study, parallel classes were taught the same mathematical procedure before one class undertook traditional exercises while the other worked on a “mathematical etude” (Foster International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 44(5), 765–774, 2013b), designed to be a richer task involving extensive opportunities for practice of the relevant procedure. Bayesian t tests on the gain scores between pre- and post-tests in each study provided evidence of no difference between the two conditions. A Bayesian meta-analysis of the three studies gave a combined Bayes factor of 5.83, constituting “substantial” evidence (Jeffreys, 1961) in favour of the null hypothesis that etudes and exercises were equally effective, relative to the alternative hypothesis that they were not. These data support the conclusion that the mathematical etudes trialled are comparable to traditional exercises in their effects on procedural fluency. This could make etudes a viable alternative to exercises, since they offer the possibility of richer, more creative problem-solving activity, with comparable effectiveness in developing procedural fluency.     

Infants' perception of object trajectories

Filling in the gaps in what humans see is a fundamental perceptual skill, but little is known about the developmental origins of occlusion perception. Three experiments were conducted with infants between 2 and 6 months of age to investigate perception of the continuity of an object trajectory that was briefly occluded. The pattern of results across experiments provided little evidence of veridical responses to trajectory occlusion in the youngest infants, but by 6 months, perceptual completion was more robust. Four-month-olds' responses indicated that they perceived continuity under a short duration of occlusion, but when the object was out of sight for a longer interval, they appeared to perceive the trajectory as discontinuous. These results suggest that perceptual completion of a simple object trajectory (and, by logical necessity, veridical object perception) is not functional at birth but emerges across the first several months after onset of visual experience.     

Integrating hearing and deaf students on a college campus. Successes and barriers as perceived by hearing students

This study had two purposes: (1) to learn how hearing students in a mainstream college setting perceive deaf students as classmates, and (2) to discover how those perceptions influence the integration of deaf and hearing students on campus. Thirty full-time students at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, were interviewed using in-depth, open-ended interview strategies. It was found that even in this setting, designed expressly to integrate deaf and hearing students, full integration did not occur. Deaf students were successfully placed on the campus with hearing students for educational purposes; however, social integration did not occur.     

Hedonic and utilitarian value: the role of shared responsibility in higher education services

While on-campus student housing availability has been shown to improve retention, the interdependence between students and providers in creating the value of campus living has not been explored. This paper, therefore, draws on theories from marketing and education to investigate the role of shared responsibility in educational service outcomes (perceived utilitarian value, perceived hedonic value, satisfaction, and positive word-of-mouth) in the context of university housing. Analysis using a general linear model shows that all dependent variables increase as students’ sense of shared responsibility increases. These results contribute to the literature by introducing the notion of shared responsibility to the examination of student housing value perceptions. After implications for various stakeholders are discussed, recommendations for future research are given.     

Unpacking the CRT in Negotiating White Science

In this forum, we summarize CRT’s origins, tenets common to most CRT writings, and CRT’s evolution. We discuss Yerrick’s article Negotiating White Science with respect to certain CRT premises. Specifically, we use the CRT tenet of racism as emphasized in first- and second-generation CRT and CRT elements liberal racial ideology and voices of color to critically examine Yerrick’s propositions.