The effect of number and minimum duration of post-response-prevention escapes on the resistance to extinction of an avoidance response

After one-way avoidance training, rats were exposed, during avoidance response prevention, to light (CS-only) presentations or to light-shock (CS-US) pairings. Subgroups were then given 1, 5, or 10 trials during which they could escape immediately (unrestricted) or after 5 sec (restricted) by means of the previously conditioned avoidance response from a simultaneous light-shock compound. All animals were then exposed to avoidance extinction. The number of unrestricted escapes increased responding for CS-only animals, but had no significant effect on the performance of CS-US animals. Nevertheless, resistance to extinction was considerably less for CS-only animals given 10 unrestricted escapes than for CS-US animals given one unrestricted escape. One restricted escape had no more effect than one unrestricted escape for either response-prevention group. However, 5 restricted escapes elevated responding for CS-only animals to the level of CS-US animals. Extinction responding for CS-US animals increased significantly only after 10 restricted escapes. Since CS-only animals showed no further increase, resistance to extinction once more was greater for CS-US animals. These results, together with the very brief unrestricted escape latencies of CS-only animals, support a greater role for Pavlovian extinction than for response competition in the facilitation of avoidance extinction by CS-only response prevention. The fact that 10 restricted escapes were required to elevate resistance to extinction for CS-US animals over that obtained with one unrestricted escape attests to the effectiveness of Pavlovian conditioning during avoidance response prevention in elevating CS aversiveness to a near ceiling level.     

Implementing Outcomes Assessment in an Academic Affairs Support Unit

While outcomes assessment has become a focus for institutions of higher education, assessment in academic support units remain sparse. Traditionally, assessment has been comprised of one-time student satisfaction surveys and/or supervisor evaluations tied specifically to job criteria. Although informative, these methods fail to account for or measure specific student learning outcomes completed by students via their interaction with faculty and staff. This article presents the development and implementation of a program of outcomes assessment at a 4-year public university in the northeast. Results indicate that students come to college with varying expectations of the role of academic advisors and range on a continuum of academic and social preparation to meet the demands of higher education. A majority of students are meeting the stated learning outcomes. Feedback from this assessment model is being used to improve the quality of services provided to successive cohorts of students at this institution.     

S + T + M = E as a Convergent Model for the Nature of STEM

Science & Education - The paper provides a theoretical synthesis that addresses the multiple calls to consider the existence of an integrated nature of STEM (science, technology, engineering,...     

Improving teacher questioning in science using ICAP theory

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate the efficacy of professional development in changing two middle school science teachers’ questioning to include more questions that require deeper student responses. The professional development was based on ICAP theory which proposes a framework for identifying cognitive engagement based on what is required of students. ICAP hypothesizes that Interactive and Constructive questions, such as those requiring inferential thought and collaboration, lead to deeper thinking and therefore stronger learning gains than questions that are more Active, Passive. Teacher questioning before and after the PD showed a marked improvement in increasing the number of questions that required students to make inferences about the materials. Student gain scores from tests on the lesson’s content suggests a positive relationship between constructive questions and student learning. This paper also details a coding scheme based on ICAP that can be used to provide feedback on teachers’ questioning.     

Moral disengagement: A new lens with which to examine children’s justifications for lying

ABSTRACT

The development of children’s lie-telling abilities is considered to be a social and cognitive milestone. While occasional lying is developmentally appropriate, the use of frequent, antisocial lies as a maladaptive problem-solving mechanism can indicate behaviour problems. Since lying is often considered a moral transgression, researchers should examine lying from the perspective of moral theory to understand children’s reasons for lying, which may help to understand how chronic lying develops. A theoretical framework, namely the social cognitive process of moral disengagement (MD) could not only provide new insight into children’s justifications for telling common lies, but also atypical, antisocial lies. This paper aims to describe how MD may be applied to explain children’s justifications for lying, especially antisocial lies, and how adults can address MD by modelling the positive consequences of truth-telling, to promote honesty in children.     

Likelihood-Based Confidence Intervals for a Parameter With an Upper or Lower Bound

The precision of estimates in many statistical models can be expressed by a confidence interval (CI). CIs based on standard errors (SEs) are common in practice, but likelihood-based CIs are worth consideration. In comparison to SEs, likelihood-based CIs are typically more difficult to estimate, but are more robust to model (re)parameterization. In latent variable models, some parameters might take on values outside of their interpretable range. Therefore, it is desirable to place a bound to keep the parameter interpretable. For likelihood-based CI, a correction is needed when a parameter is bounded. The correction is known (Wu & Neale, 2012), but is difficult to implement in practice. A novel automatic implementation that is simple for an applied researcher to use is introduced. A simulation study demonstrates the accuracy of the correction using a latent growth curve model and the method is illustrated with a multilevel confirmatory factor analysis.     

Sodium arsenite reduces severity of dextran sulfate sodium-induced ulcerative colitis in rats

The histopathological features and the associated clinical findings of ulcerative colitis (UC) are due to persistent inflammatory response in the colon mucosa. Interventions that suppress this response benefit UC patients. We tested whether sodium arsenite (SA) benefits rats with dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-colitis. The DSS-colitis was induced by 5% DSS in drinking water. SA (10 mg/kg; intraperitoneally) was given 8 h before DSS treatment and then every 48 h for 3 cycles of 7,14 or 21 d. At the end of each cycle rats were sacrificed and colon sections processed for histological examination. DSS induced diarrhea, loose stools, hemoccult positive stools, gross bleeding, loss of body weight, loss of epithelium, crypt damage, depletion of goblet cells and infiltration of inflammatory cells. The severity of these changes increased ir the order of Cycles 1,2 and 3. Treatment of rats with SA significantly reduced this severity and improved the weight gain.     

Policy orientation effects on performance with licensing to start-ups and small companies

This study empirically tests a model of a university's selectivity and support policy orientation for technology licensing and its interaction with the external environment for entrepreneurship. Using a sample of 134 US research universities, we investigate main, two-way and three-way interaction effects for two measures of technology transfer performance—licenses with companies that subsequently go public and product royalties. Results indicate both main and moderating effects for both measures of performance. Implications for practice and policy are offered, with special attention to public universities.     

Defying expectations: Vocabulary growth trajectories of high performing language minority students

We investigated general vocabulary and academic vocabulary growth trajectories of adolescent language minority students using an individual growth modeling approach. Our analytical sample included 3161 sixth- to eighth-grade students from an urban school district in California. The language minority students in our sample were classified as initially fluent English proficient (IFEP), redesignated fluent English proficient (RFEP), or limited English proficient (LEP) students. The analytical sample was not a nationally representative sample and included a great number of Asian students and students who receive gifted and talented education. Students were assessed at four time points on a standardized measure of general vocabulary and a researcher-developed academic vocabulary test. On both vocabulary measures, IFEP students slightly outperformed English-only (EO) students on average, and EO students scored higher than RFEP and LEP students at baseline. RFEP and LEP students showed slower rate of growth than their EO peers in general vocabulary. While both EO and language minority students showed summer setback with general vocabulary knowledge on average, the magnitude of summer setback was not as great for LEP students. In academic vocabulary, all subgroups of language minority students showed more rapid rate of growth than their EO peers. Only the REP students experienced a change in the learning trajectory during the summer months. We discuss the implications of these findings for all language groups.