Western influences on Chinese sexuality: insights from a comparison of the sexual behavior and attitudes of Shanghai and Hong Kong freshmen at universities

In this 1991 study the sex behavior and attitudes of first-year university students in Shanghai, China, were compared to attitudes and beliefs of first-year students in Hong Kong. Findings do not confirm a strong Western influence and increased promiscuity. The evidence suggests that the effect of Westernization or modernization is dependent on and varies with the nature of the imported Western culture and the form of and standards for sex education. Students from Hong Kong, which is more modernized than Shanghai, were less sexually active and more conscientious about using contraception. A high percentage of Shanghai students had experienced sexual intercourse and multiple sex partners. Christian males from the Hong Kong survey had less coital experience than non-Christian Hong Kong males. The surveys were conducted in 22 universities in Shanghai among 1919 first-year students, but only 25.1% responded with completed questionnaires (344 single Chinese males and 137 single Chinese females). The Hong Kong questionnaire was distributed to 7675 students. 2341 single Chinese males and 2247 single Chinese females who were unmarried and non-Chinese completed the survey (a 48.5% response rate). It is argued that restrained female unmarried sexuality is still limited by cultural and religious attitudes.     

Classification Consistency and Accuracy for Mixed-Format Tests

This study explores classification consistency and accuracy for mixed-format tests using real and simulated data. In particular, the current study compares six methods of estimating classification consistency and accuracy for seven mixed-format tests. The relative performance of the estimation methods is evaluated using simulated data. Study results from real data analysis showed that the procedures exhibited similar patterns across various exams, but some tended to produce lower estimates of classification consistency and accuracy than others. As data became more multidimensional, unidimensional and multidimensional item response theory (IRT) methods tended to produce different results, with the unidimensional approach yielding lower estimates than the multidimensional approach. Results from simulated data analysis demonstrated smaller estimation error for the multidimensional IRT methods than for the unidimensional IRT method. The unidimensional approach yielded larger error as tests became more multidimensional, whereas a reverse relationship was observed for the multidimensional IRT approach. Among the non-IRT approaches, the normal approximation and Livingston-Lewis methods performed well, whereas the compound multinomial method tended to produce relatively larger error.     

Learner instruction,attitudes during class and academic achievement of junior high school students in Korea: a panel analysis

This study examined changes in the structural relationship among learner-centred classes perceived by Korean junior high school students, attitudes during class and academic achievement. A linear change model was identified as optimal, showing a steady increase over time for each parameter. The higher the initial value for learner-centred classes, the higher both the initial value and rate of change was for attitudes during class and academic achievement. The initial values for attitudes during class also had a significant effect on initial values of academic achievement, suggesting that attitudes are important in increasing academic achievement. The rate of change of both learner-centred classes and attitudes during class significantly influenced the rate of change of academic achievement.     

Measuring instructional congruence in elementary science classrooms: Pedagogical and methodological components of a theoretical framework

This article is situated within a theoretical framework, instructional congruence, articulating issues of student diversity with the demands of academic disciplines. In the context of a large‐scale study targeting elementary school science, the article describes a research instrument that aims to combine the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative approaches to classroom data. The project‐developed classroom observation guideline is a series of detailed scales that produce numerical ratings based on qualitative observations of different aspects of classroom practice. The article's objectives are both pedagogical and methodological, reflecting the dual functionality of the instrument: (a) to concretize theoretical constructs articulating academic disciplines with student diversity in ways that are useful for rethinking classroom practice; and (b) to take advantage of the strengths of qualitative educational research, but within a quantitative analytical framework that may be applied across large numbers of classrooms. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 424–447, 2007     

Mathematics Achievement of Children in China and the United States

First and fifth graders in Beijing and Chicago were given a battery of mathematics test. Whether tested with problems requiring solely computation or with ones requiring application of knowledge about mathematics, American children's performance was consistently inferior to that of Chinese children. Interviews with American children suggested that they like mathematics, believe they are doing well in mathematics, and do not perceive mathematics as a difficult subject. American children's poor performance appears to be attributable, in part, to low motivation for devoting more attention to mathematics. Low standards held by American parents for academic achievement and lower interest in teaching mathematics by American teachers appear to contribute to American children's poor performance.     

SOCIAL PERSUASIONS BY TEACHERS AS A SOURCE OF STUDENT SELF‐EFFICACY: THE MODERATING ROLE OF PERCEIVED TEACHER CREDIBILITY

The primary purpose of this study was to ascertain whether the degree to which Korean middle school students perceived their teachers to be credible made a difference in the effectiveness of teachers’ persuasion as a source of students’ academic self‐efficacy. In the contexts of both general school learning and a specific subject of Korean language and literature, social persuasions by teachers were a significant predictor of student self‐efficacy. Students’ academic self‐efficacy, in turn, was a significant predictor of students’ expected final examination scores. Although perceived teacher credibility did not predict student self‐efficacy directly, it interacted significantly with teacher persuasion in the prediction of student self‐efficacy, as determined by the latent interaction analysis. Consistent with Bandura's assertion and our hypothesis, students reported stronger academic self‐efficacy as they perceived the teachers who delivered the social persuasion to be more credible.     

Learning in honeybees as a function of amount of reward: Rejection of the equal-asymptote assumption

Foraging honeybees were trained individually with successively presented targets differing in odor, one containing 5 µl and the other 20 µl of a 50% sucrose solution, after which preferences were measured in choice tests. In Experiment 1, there were either 8 training trials with each target, 16 trials with each, or 8 trials with the 20-µ1 target and 16 trials with the 5-µl target. In Experiments 2 and 3, the odor-amount relation was reversed after either 24 or 16 trials with each target. In Experiment 4, differential reward was introduced only after two, four, or six feedings-to-repletion on each target. All of the results could be simulated quantitatively and with considerable accuracy on the assumption that the attractiveness of an odor is given by the strength of its association with sucrose; that asymptotic associative strength is an increasing function of amount of reward; and that choice between two odors is determined by their relative associative strength.     

Inability of five-month-old infants to retrieve a contiguous object: a failure of conceptual understanding or of control of action?

Infants of 5 to 6 months of age can retrieve a free-standing object, but fail to retrieve the same object from atop a slightly larger object. The accepted explanation has been that the infants do not understand that an object continues to exist independently when placed upon another. Predictions based on that explanation were tested against the hypothesis that infants' problem consists of lack of precision in visually guided reaching and lack of ability to inhibit reflexive reactions to touch. Twelve infants each at 5 and 7 months of age were tested on 16 trials. More 5-month-olds succeeded, in less time, and with fewer touches to an edge of the base, on trials more forgiving of an imprecise reach than on less forgiving trials. Success in retrieving objects close in size and fully contiguous with their bases was seen even at 5 months when the demands on skill in reaching were reduced. It is proposed that when 5-month-old infants fail to retrieve one object placed upon another, it is not because of a lack of conceptual understanding, but because they lack the skill to reach to the top object without accidentally touching an edge of the base en route.     

Piketty,capital and education: a solution to,or problem in,rising social inequalities?

Abstract

When Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-first Century was released in 2014, it became an overnight success. Piketty focused on the concentration of wealth in a tiny social elite, and showed that their wealth had increased following the financial crisis in 2008. Yet the value of Piketty’s book offers something more than this for social scientists concerned with social inequalities. His work on a large data-set of long-run income and wealth statistics illustrates that the assumptions and models which have guided the work of neoclassical economists are flawed, but that societal arrangements matter. Yet despite this insight, Piketty’s solution to the problem of inequality is to argue that ‘… the best way to reduce inequalities with respect to labor … is to invest in education’. In this article I argue that there are major problems with this proposed solution and outline three lacunae that need to be addressed.     

‘Quality and quantity’: the value of online seminars for media and cultural studies undergraduates

Much previous research into the effectiveness of CMC has suffered from a lack of clarity or of consistency in the adoption and explication of coding typologies or taxonomies. This has reduced the opportunities for comparison between studies and for the accumulation of evidences to guide pedagogy. In addition, most studies of CMC have used postgraduate students from the sciences, mathematics and engineering as their subjects. There is a notable dearth of studies with undergraduate students and, in particular, with students in the arts, social sciences and humanities. In this study, 104 undergraduate students on media‐related programmes undertook a three‐week online discussion (CMC) on the nature of cultural globalisation. The quality of the discussion was evaluated using an enhanced taxonomy rooted in Bloom and other more recent writers. The pattern of dialogue was also mapped and represented graphically. The results suggest that CMC as a method for enhancing peer‐led discussion of theoretical concepts, with media arts undergraduates, can be very effective. This article makes a contribution to thinking about the evaluation of CMC learning experiences and offers recommendations on maximising the quality for the learner of such experiences.