Photoresists for microlithography

Photoresist technology, which is used for micro-patterning exploits changes in properties of polymeric materials, such as their solubility or volatility, upon photo-irradiation. This process has greatly benefitted from the knowledge base of organic chemistry and photo-induced organic transformations. The role of chemistry in the development of photoresists is described in this article.     

A Behavioural Evaluation of Dance Instruction with Students Who Have Special Needs

A dance programme for a class of students with special needs was evaluated using a multiple baseline across behaviours design where the behaviours were movements representing aspects of the elements of dance: Space, Body Awareness, Relationships, Levels, Effort, Speed and Shape. Observational data showed that the instructional dance programme was successful in extending the variety of movements performed by the students and that the observational methodology designed for the study was a useful strategy for evaluating teaching in dance.     

A large-scale test of the relationship between procrastination and performance using learning analytics

Abstract

Many studies have found a relationship between students’ self-reported procrastination and their grades. Few studies have used learning analytic data as a behavioural measure of procrastination in order to predict performance, and there is no systematic research on how this relationship may differ across assessments or disciplines. In this study we analyse nine years’ worth of institutional electronic submission records, a total of 73,608 assignment submissions, to examine the relationship between submission time and grades across assignments, students, courses, and disciplines in higher education. A significant negative relationship was found overall, with students who submitted closer to the deadline obtaining lower grades, however the size of the relationship was negligible, accounting for less than 1% of the variance in grades. The relationship varied significantly depending on student, assignment, course and discipline.     

Genetics Literacy: Insights From Science Teachers’ Knowledge,Attitude, and Teaching Perceptions

Teachers have a crucial role to play in raising future generations of citizens who are aware of issues in genetics literacy such as gene therapy, cloning, and stem cell research. Teachers’ teaching practices are influenced by their knowledge in genetics literacy and their attitudes towards different issues. Accordingly, this study explored the relationships among middle school science teachers’ background characteristics (gender, teaching experience, self-perceived interest in and self-perceived knowledge of genetics), their genetics literacy levels, their attitudes towards various issues in genetics literacy, and their perceptions of teaching issues in genetics literacy. Data were collected from 435 Turkish middle school science teachers by completing the Genetics Literacy Assessment Inventory, the scale for attitudes towards issues in genetics literacy and perceptions of teaching issues in genetics literacy. The results of canonical correlation analysis suggested that being female, having a high level of interest in genetics, and perceiving oneself as knowledgeable in genetics were associated with higher levels of knowledge in genetics literacy and holding favorable general attitudes. These teachers believed in the necessity of introducing genetics literacy and held higher self-efficacy teaching beliefs regarding the teaching of issues in genetics literacy in their classes. However, they tended to emphasize more impeding factors as well as hold unfavorable attitudes towards gene therapy and gene therapy applications, implying that their attitudes were context dependent.     

Teenage pregnancy: a small comparison group of known mothers

To obtain confirmation of the findings of the authors' earlier comparison of ever-pregnant and nonpregnant Black high school students from Tennessee, 16 students confirmed to be pregnant were substituted for the 33 subjects in the original study whose pregnancy status was based solely on self-report. The nonpregnant control group of 251 teens was utilized in both analyses. Although the confirmed pregnant group was too small to repeat the regression analysis, striking concordance of findings between the 2 studies emerged for all dependent variables except the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire anxiety scale. The lower anxiety scores recorded among subjects in the original study may be either a statistical artifact or a reflection of the fact that these pregnant teens remained in school while subjects in the second study were enrolled in programs centered around their pregnant status. Sexual activity scores were strong or moderate significantly more often in both groups of pregnant teens compared to their nonpregnant counterparts. Interesting was the finding that 81% of pregnant teens regarded romance novels and soap operas to be accurate portrayals of real-life dating relationships compared to only 49% of nonpregnant teens. On the other hand, only 56% of the pregnant subjects regarded their own relationships to have this romantic quality. In a future study, the role of such uncritical romantic ideals in adolescent pregnancy risk will be investigated in a larger sample.     

TASK SPECIFICATION CHART: A KEY TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF TEST RESULTS

A task specification chart (TSC) that integrates the content facets and the procedural steps of a specified task is suggested as a tool for designing a test and for interpreting its results. An instructional unit for adding and subtracting fractions was used to demonstrate the design and application of the TSC. To evaluate its efficacy, a test based on the TSC was administered to two independent samples. Accounts of the variance of item difficulty indices and errors in students' responses were used as the criteria for this evaluation. The results indicated that a very high percentage of variance in item difficulty indices was accounted for by item characteristics representing different task components. The typology of errors constructed on the basis of the TSC proved to be an efficient tool for identifying erroneous rules of operation underlying students' response patterns on the test.     

Home again: effects of the Mother-Child Home Program on mother and child

4 successive cohorts of low-income families were randomly assigned either to a home-based intervention program that focused on modeling verbal interaction between mother and child around selected toys and books or to comparison treatments. Large program effects were found on maternal interaction styles in videotaped observations. Small IQ and program-specific effects were found for children in contrast to much larger IQ effects found in earlier research. IQ effects did not appear to have been mediated by changes in maternal behavior. A variation in which toys and books were supplied without home visits was as effective as the full program on IQ but not on maternal behavior. 3 years postprogram , there were no detectable effects in achievement or IQ tests or in first grade teachers' ratings of school adjustment and performance, but IQ and achievement scores were near national norms. Reasons for discrepancies with earlier results are discussed. The results highlight the need for continued experimental evaluation of early intervention programs with safeguards to insure that samples are educationally at risk.     

Kuwait University and its evaluation program

As the only institution of higher education in Kuwait offering a four-year degree program, Kuwait University is expected to provide its society and its rapidly changing labor market with professionally trained Kuwaiti nationals in fields requiring up-to-date scientific and technical knowledge. Its location in the Arabian Gulf region requires KU to honor and preserve the Arab and Islamic tradition. Thus, the success of KU graduates in the job market and in society will depend on a combination of scientific knowledge and appreciation for local and regional values. With the introduction of the graduate studies program, KU is on the threshold of becoming a major institution of research and scholarship. With this step forward, KU increases its responsibility to offer a diversified academic program designed to meet the specialized manpower requirements of Kuwait as a major commercial center in the Middle East. To evaluate its programs, KU established the Center for Evaluation and Measurement in 1977 which introduced the Course and Instructor Evaluation project, and later expanded its activities through the KU Academic Evaluation Committee, to include program evaluation. The office of the Vice-Rector for Research was established in 1981 to encourage, support, and develop scientific research activities at Kuwait University. At present, KU has fully realized the importance of educational reform. A few of the issues, identified in this paper, can be outlined as follows:

1. The need for an admission policy to recruit more students competent in general subject matter knowledge as well as in English proficiency, and to assign them fairly to the subject areas of choice.
2. The need to design a research oriented curriculum with stronger emphasis on general education as required of an undergraduate studies program rather than stressing professionalism.
3. The need for an instructional program that deemphasizes students' total reliance on memorization and examinations for completing course requirements.
4. The need to improve instructional and research facilities, as well as make them available to students and to train students in their proper use.
5. The need to reappraise employment conditions for non-Kuwaiti teaching staff providing them with job security and career certainty.
6. The need for an administratively and financially independent KU, and long-range plan for a campus to accommodate the increasing number of students, faculty, and support staff.

fa]This report is based on studies conducted at the Center for Evaluation and Measurement and on the status reports of several foreign consultants, members of the KUAE Committee, who evaluated various departments. The author has highlighted those issues and added his interpretations in various areas of the academic program dealing with admission and recruitment of students and their career preparation, as well as curriculum, instruction, faculty, research, facilities, and introduction of graduate studies at Kuwait University.     

Following the Template: Transferring Modeling Skills to Nonstandard Problems

This study seeks to analyze how students apply a mathematical modeling skill that was previously learned by solving standard word problems to the solution of word problems with nonstandard contexts. During the course of an experiment involving 106 freshmen, we assessed how well they were able to transfer the mathematical modeling skill that is used to solve standard problems to the solution of nonstandard ones that had an analogous structure. The results of our research show that students had varying degrees of success applying the different stages of modeling depending on whether they were solving a familiar problem (involving near transfer) or one that had an unfamiliar context (involving far transfer): in cases of near transfer, students applied the template formally even though it did not align with the text of the new word problem, which complicated further interpretation. In cases of far transfer, students chose to solve the problem by using an ordinary method of selecting a solution by trial and error in preference to the use of modeling. Thus, the application of the modeling skill as a multistage process is complicated when solving nonstandard problems involving either near or far transfer.