Relationship between toy and material use and the occurrence of social interactive behaviors by normally developing preschool children

The purpose of this naturalistic study was to identify the kinds of social behaviors that normally developing preschool children exhibit while manipulating various toys and materials found in most preschool settings. One hundred fifteen 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds in four day-care centers were observed during free play periods. Thirty-eight available toys and play materials were rated as to whether they were used in an Isolate, Parallel, Sharing/Cooperative, or Physical Assistance context. The resulting data on toy/material use are discussed in terms of selecting physical stimuli in social behavior modification efforts that clearly set the occasion for positive social interaction.     

The activity context of preschool children's social interactions: A comparison of high and low social interactors

The purpose of this observational study of the activity context in which preschool children engaged in positive social interactions was to produce a data source that could be used to assist in the identification of socially withdrawn children, and to select efficient training contexts in which to develop the social behavior repertoire of withdrawn youngsters. Eleven high-rate and 10 low-rate social interactors, ranging in age from 36 to 72 months, were observed for 12 10-minute sessions across a 3-month period. Six activity contexts were coded by trained observers: Observer, Isolate, Parallel, Game, Cooperative, and Fantasy. The results indicated that: (a) Low-rate children engaged in significantly more Isolate and Observer activity than did high-rate children. (b) High-rate children engaged in significantly more Cooperative and Fantasy activity than did low-rate children. (c) There were no significant differences between groups for Game and Parallel activities. Results are discussed in terms of the concurrent validity between frequency of interaction measures and the activity context data, the developmental progression of social skills acquisition, and the selection of treatment contexts for withdrawn children.     

Preliminary comparison of the performance of the National Library of Medicine's systematic review publication type and the sensitive clinical queries filter for systematic reviews in PubMed

Objective:The National Library of Medicine (NLM) inaugurated a “publication type” concept to facilitate searches for systematic reviews (SRs). On the other hand, clinical queries (CQs) are validated search strategies designed to retrieve scientifically sound, clinically relevant original and review articles from biomedical literature databases. We compared the retrieval performance of the SR publication type (SR[pt]) against the most sensitive CQ for systematic review articles (CQrs) in PubMed.Methods:We ran date-limited searches of SR[pt] and CQrs to compare the relative yield of articles and SRs, focusing on the differences in retrieval of SRs by SR[pt] but not CQrs (SR[pt] NOT CQrs) and CQrs NOT SR[pt]. Random samples of articles retrieved in each of these comparisons were examined for SRs until a consistent pattern became evident.Results:For SR[pt] NOT CQrs, the yield was relatively low in quantity but rich in quality, with 79% of the articles being SRs. For CQrs NOT SR[pt], the yield was high in quantity but low in quality, with only 8% being SRs. For CQrs AND SR[pt], the quality was highest, with 92% being SRs.Conclusions:We found that SR[pt] had high precision and specificity for SRs but low recall (sensitivity), whereas CQrs had much higher recall. SR[pt] OR CQrs added valid SRs to the CQrs yield at low cost (i.e., added few non-SRs). For searches that are intended to be exhaustive for SRs, SR[pt] can be added to existing sensitive search filters.     

Terra Populus: Workflows for Integrating and Harmonizing Geospatial Population and Environmental Data

The Terra Populus project (TerraPop) addresses a variety of data management, curation, and preservation challenges with respect to spatiotemporal population and environmental data. In this article, we describe our approaches to these challenges, with a particular focus on geospatial data workflows and associated provenance metadata. The goal of TerraPop is to enable research, learning, and policy analysis by providing integrated spatiotemporal data describing people and their environment. To do so, TerraPop is assembling a globe-spanning and temporally extensive collection of high-quality population and environmental data, ensuring good documentation, and developing a Web-based data access system that enables users to assemble customized integrated data sets drawing on a variety of data sources and formats. We describe TerraPop's collection strategies, detail the geospatial workflows involved in preparing data for ingest into the project database and those used to transform data across formats for dissemination, and discuss the system used to capture and manage provenance metadata throughout the project. A key aspect of the project is the development of global current and historical administrative unit boundaries that can be linked to census data. These boundaries serve as the linchpin of TerraPop's data integration strategy, and constitute an important data set in their own right.     

The relationship among counselor experience level, empathic accuracy, and counseling outcome in the early phase of counseling

The current study examined a mediating effect of empathic accuracy on the relationship between counselor experience level and counseling outcome. Data were collected from 48 counselor?Cclient dyads in real-life counseling settings. Empathic accuracy and counseling outcome were assessed by using client perceptions of the first three audiotaped counseling sessions. Ickes?? standard empathic accuracy assessment procedure was used with modifications to assess empathic accuracy. The procedure to assess empathic evaluation included three steps: (a) clients recognize and write down their thoughts and feelings while listening to the audiotapes, (b) counselors infer their client??s thoughts and feelings, (c) The third raters rate the statements of counselors?? empathic accuracy. Correlational analysis revealed that counselor experience level, empathic accuracy, and counseling outcome were positively related to one another. A path analysis was used to test the model that counselor experience level affects counseling outcome through the effect of empathic accuracy. Both paths from counselor experience level to empathic accuracy and from empathic accuracy to counseling outcome were significant, along with a significant mediating effect of empathic accuracy. These results show enhancing empathic accuracy is critical for counseling outcome. Limitations of the current study and suggestions for future research were discussed.     

A technology gap interpretation of growth paths in Asia and Latin America

This paper presents a North-South technology gap model which combines the Schumpeterian approach to technical and structural change with the Keynesian perspective on effective demand and the Balance-of-Payments (BOP) constraint as drivers of growth. Three are the contributions of the paper. First, it develops a model in which the technology gap, relative productivity and relative wages co-evolve and may generate different paths of convergence or divergence between South and North depending on the parameters of the model. Second, the parameters of the model are associated with different types of policies, which allows for discussing how these policies may change the growth path. Finally, the model is used to discuss the contrasting experiences of Asia and Latin America since 1970. Convergence in Asia and divergence in Latin America have been extensively debated topics in the literature on comparative economic development, which highlights the crucial role of industrial policy. It is argued that the results of the technology gap model are consistent with the findings of this literature and helps understand the forces behind convergence and divergence.     

Awakening the Scientist Inside: Global Climate Change and the Nature of Science in an Elementary Science Methods Course

This investigation assessed the impact of situating explicit nature of science (NOS) instruction within the issues surrounding global climate change and global warming (GCC/GW). Participants in the study were 15 preservice elementary teachers enrolled in a science methods course. The instructional intervention included explicit NOS instruction combined with explicit GCC/GW instruction situated within the normal elementary science methods curriculum. Participants’ conceptions of NOS and GCC/GW were assessed with pre- and postadministrations of open-ended questionnaires and interviews. Results indicated that participants’ conceptions of NOS and GCC/GW improved over the course of the semester. Furthermore, participants were able to apply their conceptions to decision making about socioscientific issues. The results provide support for context-based NOS instruction in an elementary science methods course.     

Predicting continued use of online teacher professional development and the influence of social presence and sociability

This study examined how a well‐established Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) could predict teachers' intentions to continue using e‐learning for professional development based on perceived ease of use and usefulness. Although studies have shown social interactions are important to teachers, no study has analyzed the mediating influence of social presence and sociability within e‐learning professional development. Therefore, the original TAM was expanded to encompass user perceptions of social presence and sociability. Structural equation modeling was used to measure the mediating affects on their intention to continue using e‐learning for their professional development. The results indicate that the expanded hypothesized model was a good predictor of continuance intention. Perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and social presence were found to be significant determinants of teachers' intent to continue using e‐learning to meet their future professional development needs. The results have implications for educational leaders, designers and facilitators who want to promote teacher online professional development and embed e‐learning conditions that will be readily embraced by classroom teachers.     

A model for teaching an introductory programming course using ADRI

High failure and drop-out rates from introductory programming courses continue to be of significant concern to computer science disciplines despite extensive research attempting to address the issue. In this study, we include the three entities of the didactic triangle, instructors, students and curriculum, to explore the learning difficulties that students encounter when studying introductory programming. We first explore students’ perceptions of the barriers and affordances to learning programming. A survey is conducted with introductory programming students to get their feedback on the topics and associated learning resources in the introductory programming course. The instructors’ perceptions are included by analyzing current teaching materials and assessment tools used in the course. As a result, an ADRI based approach is proposed to address the problems identified in the teaching and learning processes of an introductory programming course.