Cesarean birth from three research perspectives

Issues surrounding cesarean birth are of interest to researchers from varied disciplines and nations. In this column, three studies that examine aspects of cesarean birth are reviewed. One study presented a review of 11 studies and found differences in the perceptions of white and minority mothers toward labor, vaginal birth, and cesarean birth. In a second study on infant outcomes, Japanese researchers found differences in transient tachypnea in infants born in the first half of the 37th week gestation and those born in the second half of the 37th week and the 38th week of gestation. In a third study conducted in Norway, researchers found more complications when cesarean birth occurred at advanced dilation. The three studies' implications for childbirth educators are discussed.     

浅析WebQuest的作用与局限

从教学的角度分析WebQuest的作用,认为WebQuest有利于激发学生的学习兴趣;培养学生的探索、研究精神;有利于培养学生的团队协作意识,形成协作学习方式;有利于提高学生的思维水平,培养学生的创新意识和能力;有利于学生的全面发展。同时WebQuest还存在不适合所有课程内容的教学和学习、一定程度上限制了老师的思维、学生很难一直都保持较高的积极性和投入高水平的思维等局限性。     

Online or Face-to-Face: Do Mission-Related Student Learning Outcomes Differ?

This study investigated how an authentic assessment program was used to examine student learning outcomes within the context of a Christian university’s institutional mission, core values, and distinctive qualities. For the purposes of this study, an authentic assessment program is defined as assessing student-produced work within the context of the institutional mission. A sample of 1,814 undergraduate students taking one or more general education courses at the university during the 2007–2009 academic years was examined for any significant differences in student learning outcomes. A univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) indicated the Student Assessment System (SAS) scores for the online students were not significantly different from the SAS scores for the face-to-face (F2F) students after controlling for course grade. These results suggest that online students achieved the same critical mission-related educational outcomes that the university required of its F2F students. An implication of this finding is that the university just as effectively articulated its faith-based mission and vision to the online students as it did to its students taking classes F2F.     

When Parents Ask ... about Preterm Birth, Breastfeeding Success, Breast Cancer, or Waterbirth

IN THIS COLUMN, THE AUTHOR REVIEWS RESEARCH ON FOUR SEPARATE TOPICS: the prevention of preterm birth, the effect of epidurals on breastfeeding success, the possible protective effect of lactation on breast cancer, and laboring in water. In two separate studies-a multisite study in the United States and a second study from Brazil-natural progesterone was shown to significantly reduce the incidence of preterm birth in women at high risk. A third study conducted in the United Kingdom examined the effect of clindamycin on preventing infection that can lead to preterm birth. A group of studies related to lactation found that early breastfeeding was more successful in women who did not have epidural anesthesia. In a Korean study, the lifetime duration of breastfeeding was associated with a significant reduction in breast cancer. Concerning waterbirth, Swiss researchers found that, when a woman labored in water, she regulated both water temperature and bathing duration to ensure that her body temperature and that of the fetus remained within a normal physiological range.     

Coding of feature and no-feature events by pigeons performing a delayed conditional discrimination

Pigeons’ performance of a delayed conditional discrimination with presence versus absence of conditional (sample) stimuli was examined in two experiments. The pigeons showed steeper retention functions with feature (i.e., presence) samples (either food or yellow) than with no-feature (i.e., absence) samples (either no food or no yellow). These results suggest that pigeons code features and respond only by default to test stimuli (comparisons) associated with no features. In contrast, the overall superiority of performance on no-feature-sample trials compared with feature-sample trials in both the food/no-food- and yellow/no-yellow-sample tasks was reversed at a 0-sec delay in the food/no-food-sample group, but not in the yellow/non-yellow-sample group. This difference in results with hedonic versus nonhedonic samples suggests that the crossover in delay performance on food/no-food-sample trials is produced by the formation of backward associations between the food-associated comparison stimulus and the food sample.     

提高计算机上机实验效果的探索

本文主要讨论了影响上机实验效果的三大因素，环境因素、学生因素和教师因素。其中教师因素起主导作用，提高教师的积极性和教师的计算机应用水平至关重要，当然学生、环境因素也不可忽视，只有综合考虑它们的共同作用，才能取得良好的上机实验效果。     

The relative effects of pre- and postattention directing devices on learning from a “walk-through” museum exhibit

Twenty-eight seventh and eighth grade students were randomly assigned to two treatments and a control as they entered the Florida State Museum. All subjects were given set induction materials saying in effect: (1) Treatment-Study the wall panel which is part of the cave exhibit and describes the many biologic relationships and organisms in the cave at the cave entrance. Continue into the cave and study the habitat. When you exit the cave you will be given a test to see how much you learned; (2) Treatment II-Enter the cave and study that habitat. When you exit at the other end, study the wall panel which is part of the cave exit and describes the many biologic relationships and organisms in the cave. After studying this panel you will be given a test to see how much you learned; (3) Control-You will take a walk through exhibits depicting a variety of Florida Habitats and later see a film on the Habitats of Florida that are represented in the museum. Then you will be given a test to determine how much you know about one type of habitat. Both treatments and the control spent equivalent time at their tasks and were confronted with either the cave exhibit as described or the equivalent control experiences. A 25 item criterion test was designed to measure the acquisition of conceptual and factual knowledge and specific attentional factors relative to both the cave and the instructional panel. A Kr-20 indicated that this instrument had a reliability coefficient of 0.80. It was anticipated that the panel, used as an attention directing and controlling device prior to entering the cave (Treatment I) or upon exiting the cave (Treatment II), would function as a forward-shaping or backward review prompting adjunct, hence both should be significantly more effective than the control. This was confirmed (df 2,28; F 8.09) p < 0.01. It was also expected that the forward shaping panel would be more effective than the backward review panel in the tradition of inserted questions in prose research. Although the differences were in this direction, they were not significant (p≤ 0.10).     

高职公共实训基地建设的目标定位及管理体制与机制

公共实训基地是高职教育与培训不可或缺的办学条件,是为高职院校、企业行业提供实践教学、技术培训、技能鉴定和技术服务等活动的重要保障与主要载体。因此,必须充分认识高职教育公共实训基地的重要性及其现实意义,积极探索其建设与管理的体制与机制,在高技能人才和高素质劳动者的培养培训中发挥重要作用。     

实用教学软件的再开发与应用

就计算机系统软件在教学应用中的实际问题给出了一些简单的再开发程序,这些程序对计算机的理论教学和实际操作具有一定的帮助和益处。     

Reducing the prior-knowledge achievement gap by using technology-assisted guided learning in an undergraduate chemistry course

There have been many practical obstacles for teachers to implement evidence-based educational technology, especially in STEM classrooms. By implementing learning principles related to Cognitive Load Theory, we developed an innovative Technology-Assisted Guided Learning (TAGL) approach and its web-based instructional tool, combining expertise from educational research and best teaching practices to enhance guided student-centered learning in chemistry. A total of 185 community college students were randomly assigned to learn stoichiometry through either TAGL or one of two active control interventions, traditional direct instruction and Khan Academy, a widely used web learning platform. We found that the TAGL group significantly outperformed both active control groups immediately after instruction, and furthermore, despite the fact that all groups received additional instruction in stoichiometry, the beneficial effects of TAGL compared to the control groups were maintained a month later. Notably, TAGL was able to eliminate the achievement gap between students with low prior knowledge and students with high prior knowledge. Furthermore, prior-knowledge activation was found to be especially beneficial for students with low prior knowledge. Our work contributes to existing research in learning theories and provides new insight toward the development of more effective and adaptive instructional designs. By translating research into practice, this study demonstrates the great potential of using innovative computer-based technology to improve student learning for all.