A Longitudinal Analysis of Doctoral Graduate Supply in the Educational Measurement Field

For nearly three decades, researchers have been concerned that the educational measurement field is not producing enough graduate‐level specialists to meet the growing demand driven by the increased use of educational assessments in the United States. This study examined the supply‐side aspect of the proposed labor shortage by relying on data from the National Science Foundation's Survey of Earned Doctorates collected between 1997 and 2016. Over the 20 years examined, measurement programs produced 3,124 doctoral graduates, and across this time span, the annual production of graduates nearly doubled. This supply expansion can largely be attributed to the increase in the number of international graduates, which outpaced the annual growth rate of domestic PhD recipients by 156%. Moreover, 85% of graduates were found to either self‐identify as White or Asian. Less than 10 Hispanic and no more than 20 Black graduates were produced in any of the years examined. Of the 76% of graduates that reported having a job offer or accepted a position upon graduation, most entered the academy despite the overall average starting salary ($59,484) being considerably lower than the starting salary for their counterparts entering industry ($84,918), government ($69,970), or other educational institutions ($81,428).     

Naturalistic intervention for Asperger syndrome – a case study

On the basis of their cognitive abilities, children with Asperger syndrome are attractive candidates for inclusive education and, in Australia, most are in integrated settings. However, social interaction between children with Asperger syndrome and their peers remains problematic, with the children with Asperger syndrome often being left alone despite being among or near classmates. For classroom teachers, effective interventions in terms of class management are critical to facilitate positive social interaction between these two groups of children, and case studies can tell us a great deal about what works. In practice, a combination of intervention techniques may be best, in case a single one is ineffective, and in order to take advantage of potential synergies. In this article, Serene Choi, of the School of Education at the University of Newcastle (Australia) and Timo Nieminen, of the Centre for Biophotonics and Laser Science in the Department of Physics at the University of Queensland, report a naturalistic multiple-component intervention used to develop the social skills of a boy with Asperger syndrome in a mainstream school in Australia. This combined intervention, making use of social stories, simple peer modelling and individual lessons, appears to be a practical teaching method for inclusive education.     

Brain networks governing the golf swing in professional golfers

Golf, as with most complex motor skills, requires multiple different brain functions, including attention, motor planning, coordination, calculation of timing, and emotional control. In this study we assessed the correlation between swing components and brain connectivity from the cerebellum to the cerebrum. Ten female golf players and 10 age-matched female controls were recruited. In order to determine swing consistency among participants, the standard deviation (SD) of the mean swing speed time and the SD of the mean swing angle were assessed over 30 swings. Functional brain connectivity was assessed by resting state functional MRI. Pro-golfers showed greater positive left cerebellum connectivity to the occipital lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe and both frontal lobes compared to controls. The SD of play scores was positively correlated with the SD of the impact angle. Constant swing speed and back swing angle in professional golfers were associated with functional connectivity (FC) between the cerebellum and parietal and frontal lobes. In addition, the constant impact angle in professional golfers was associated with improved golf scores and additional FC of the thalamus.     

Revitalising Traditional Street Markets in Rural Korea: Design Thinking and Sense‐Making Methodology

This article reports on an academic–industrial cooperation between students at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology and a local foundation working to revitalise the Eonyang traditional market in Ulsan, South Korea. Students majoring in disciplines ranging from natural and applied sciences to business administration were introduced to design thinking, the double diamond model, and sense‐making as frameworks for generating creative outcomes. Those outcomes included media, signage and packaging, a display stand, an accessory for hikers, an artistic reinterpretation of the traditional store shutter, the design for a guesthouse and new packaging for locally produced products. Students presented their ideas at a public exhibition as team projects that involved 3D printing, CAD, Web‐design, graphic design and motion‐picture editing tools. The study reveals that students learn more effectively when pedagogy emphasises active learning and on‐site observation through design‐based integrated education. Its qualitative research involved interviews in which students experienced how design thinking methodology can transform a local economy. The methods reveal a new educational model centred upon creative and applied learning.     

What Does the No Child Left Behind Act Mean to Early Childhood Teacher Educators?: A Call for a Collective Professional Rejoinder

This article is a call to become more critically aware of the new law commonly referred to as No Child Left Behind Act, which was put into effect in 2002 in the United States. The article is also an invitation to early childhood educators worldwide to engage in a dialogue that raises several questions: (a) How does such legislation affect early childhood educators and teacher preparation programs?; (b) How might teacher educators react and respond to the new law as they continuously practice informed decision-making about teacher preparation that is socially responsible? In view of these questions, it is a hope that we can see the initiation of nationwide dialogue regarding the issue of the No Child Left Behind Act. Primarily, how does the new law affect teacher educators and teachers? It is inevitable for us to be united and politically informed to prevent further scrutiny of questionable politically and economically driven educational practices in the United States, not to mention “test-heavy” evidence-based education reform.     

A sequence-based filtering method for exhibition booth visit recommendations

As exhibitions are known to play important roles in marketing and sales promotion, the exhibition industry has grown significantly not only in the exhibition event size and frequency but also in the number of participating firms and visitors. While the challenge in assessing economic returns from exhibitions is being studied, it is agreed that the eventual success of an exhibition resides largely in its ability to meet the visitors’ needs. Visitors use an exhibition as a source of information when searching for products or services. Though an exhibition provides an information-rich environment, however, visitors often get lost in the abundance of information. A specialized recommender system can be a good solution to information overload as it can guide visitors to right exhibition booths and help them collect necessary information. Traditional collaborative-filtering recommender systems, however, use only customers’ rating or purchase records so that they do not capture exhibition visitors’ temporal visit sequences and dynamic preferences. Moreover, due to the computation overhead, they cannot generate real-time recommendation in ubiquitous environments for exhibitions. In order to overcome these drawbacks, this study proposes a booth recommendation procedure that takes into consideration not only booth visit records but also visit sequences. Experiment results show that the proposed procedure achieves higher recommendation accuracy, faster computation, and more diversity than a typical collaborative-filtering recommender system. From the results, we conclude that the proposed booth recommendation procedure is suitable for real-time recommendation in ubiquitous exhibition environments.