Natural-Born Arguers: Teaching How to Make the Best of Our Reasoning Abilities

We summarize the argumentative theory of reasoning, which claims that the main function of reasoning is to argue. In this theory, argumentation is seen as being essentially cooperative (people have to listen to others' arguments and be ready to change their mind) but with an adversarial dimension (their goal as argument producers is to convince). Consistent with this theory, the experimental literature shows that solitary reasoning is biased and lazy, whereas reasoning in group discussion produces good results, provided some conditions are met. We formulate recommendations for improving reasoning performance, mainly, to make people argue more and better by creating felicitous conditions for group discussion. We also make some suggestions for improving solitary reasoning, in particular to maximize students' exposure to arguments challenging their positions. Teaching people about the value of argumentation is likely to improve not only immediate reasoning performance but also long-term solitary reasoning skills.     

Placing Motivation and Future Time Perspective Theory in a Temporal Perspective

An overview of the conceptual development of future time perspective theory [Nuttin, J. R. (1984). Motivation, Planning and Action: A Relational Theory of Behavior, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ; Nuttin, J., and Lens, W. (1985). Future Time Perspective and Motivation: Theory and Research Method, Leuven University Press and Erlbaum, Leuven, Belgium and Hillsdale, NJ] is provided. It is demonstrated that having a deep future time perspective and increasing the instrumentality of one's present behavior are associated with enhanced motivation, deep conceptual learning, better performance, and more intensive persistence. Moreover, recent research indicates that it is important to consider the degree of specificity of the provided future goal, the content of the given future goal, and the context in which the instrumentality of the present behavior is made clear. Practical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Measuring teaching quality in higher education: assessing selection bias in course evaluations

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are widely used to measure teaching quality in higher education and compare it across different courses, teachers, departments and institutions. Indeed, SETs are of increasing importance for teacher promotion decisions, student course selection, as well as for auditing practices demonstrating institutional performance. However, survey response is typically low, rendering these uses unwarranted if students who respond to the evaluation are not randomly selected along observed and unobserved dimensions. This paper is the first to fully quantify this problem by analyzing the direction and size of selection bias resulting from both observed and unobserved characteristics for over 3000 courses taught in a large European university. We find that course evaluations are upward biased, and that correcting for selection bias has non-negligible effects on the average evaluation score and on the evaluation-based ranking of courses. Moreover, this bias mostly derives from selection on unobserved characteristics, implying that correcting evaluation scores for observed factors such as student grades does not solve the problem. However, we find that adjusting for selection only has small impacts on the measured effects of observables on SETs, validating a large related literature which considers the observable determinants of evaluation scores without correcting for selection bias.     

Social learning as approach for teacher professional development; how well does it suit them?

Learning from others has been reported as a productive approach for teacher Professional Development (PD) and is seen as a valuable addition to formal PD. Specific insights into whether social learning suits teachers is still lacking. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to develop and apply an instrument to assess social learning mindedness of teachers. A questionnaire called the “Quiz: Social learning, how does it suit me?” was developed and its reliability and factor structure were explored. A total of 110 teachers, ranging from primary school to pre-university education filled out the Quiz. Results indicated that the teachers were already quite social learning minded; they were positively oriented towards social learning. Social learning mindedness encompassed five underlying factors including counteracting social-learning preferences, teachers’ opinions and preferences related to learning from colleagues/others, their orientation towards collaboration in new approaches to PD, an autonomy factor, and a more general attitude towards knowledge dissemination. Mostly, teachers like to explain and share their knowledge, like to collaborate with others to enhance their knowledge and ask others for advice if they have a problem. At the same time, they want some control over their PD (e.g. the outcomes). The teachers in this sample did not show much preferences that would counteract social learning, leading to the conclusion that social learning suits teachers as a form of PD. The Quiz, which is accessible online (in Dutch), is a useful tool for teachers to quickly get acquainted with social learning.     

Environmental science education in a small island state: integrating theory and local experience

Abstract

The importance of education to address current sustainability challenges in small island states has been widely recognized. Environmental education may increase knowledge, while also increasing environmental awareness and motivating students to become agents of change. Student engagement in introductory environmental science courses may benefit from operationalizing abstract concepts by embedding course material and activities within this local context. Here, we describe an introductory course in environmental science that has been tailored to the local context of a small island state in the Caribbean. In addition to reaching academic course goals, pre- and post-course surveys showed that course participants’ environmental awareness increased on the dimensions ‘Personal Value System’ and ‘Willingness to Take Environmental Action’. The described course provides a template for the development of a low-cost introductory environmental science course that integrates general theory and application within the context of Caribbean island states.     

Is problem-based learning associated with students’ motivation? A quantitative and qualitative study

In this study, a mixed-method design was employed to investigate the association between a student-centred, problem-based learning (PBL) method and law students’ motivation. Self-determination theory (SDT) states that autonomous motivation, which is associated with higher academic performance, can be reached when there is fulfillment of three psychological needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness. PBL aims to trigger autonomous motivation. In Study 1, 85 PBL law students (37% male; Mean age = 21.99 years) and 69 law students of a lecture-based, non-PBL program (39% male; Mean age = 22.72 years) filled out the Self-Regulation Questionnaire and an adapted version of the Work-related Basic Need Satisfaction Scale in order to measure autonomous and controlled motivation and perceived autonomy, competence and relatedness. In order to compare both groups, two MANOVAs were conducted and results showed differences neither in autonomous and controlled motivation, nor in feelings of autonomy and competence. However, PBL students experienced more relatedness. Additionally, in Study 2, focus-group discussions that were conducted indicated that PBL contains both autonomy-supportive and controlling elements, which might explain why no differences were found in perceptions of autonomy and autonomous and controlled motivation between PBL and non-PBL students. Furthermore, students reported that tutorial groups in PBL contributed to feelings of relatedness.     

Promoting elementary school students' autonomous reading motivation: Effects of a teacher professional development workshop

Responding to the declining trend in reading motivation in and beyond the elementary school years, the authors aimed to enhance late-elementary school students' autonomous reading motivation. Toward this end, the authors evaluated the influence of a teacher professional development grounded in self-determination theory on fifth-grade students' (n = 664) autonomous motivation for in-school and leisure-time reading. A quasi-experimental repeated measures design was set up with experimental and control conditions. The experimental condition consisted of teachers participating in a professional development workshop aimed at providing the knowledge and skills necessary to implement an autonomy-supportive and structuring teaching style, whereas the control condition included teachers who continued with their current teaching repertoire. Multilevel piece-wise growth analyses corroborated that students in the experimental group reported increased recreational autonomous reading motivation from pretest to posttest relative to the control group. Additional analyses made clear that boys in particular benefitted from their teachers' professional development.     

Digit ratio (2D:4D) and competition level in world-class female gymnasts

Abstract

In this study the relationship between the digit ratio (2D:4D) and artistic gymnastics performance and competition level was investigated in a sample of Caucasian world-class female gymnasts (n = 145). The sample was divided into three competition events (compulsories, free work, final score). Within each event three performance groups (lowest, middle, and highest) were based on the competition scores gathered at the World Championships at Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1987. Lengths of the digits were measured on X-rays of the left hand. Several anthropometric dimensions were measured and from those measurements an androgyny index (Bayer & Bayley) and somatotype components (endomorphy, mesomorphy, ectomorphy) were calculated. Although significant differences in some anthropometric characteristics between the performance level groups within each competition event were observed, no significant differences in the 2D:4D ratios were found between the performance level groups, varying from 0.918 ± 0.020 to 0.924 ± 0.020. Also, no significant correlations were observed between the 2D:4D ratio and anthropometric, androgyny, and somatotype characteristics, r varying from r = –0.11 to r = +0.12. It can be concluded that in this sample the 2D:4D digit ratio, unlike other anthropometric characteristics, is not a discriminating factor for the performance in artistic gymnastics performance on a world-class level.     

Monolingual Document Retrieval for European Languages

Recent years have witnessed considerable advances in information retrieval for European languages other than English. We give an overview of commonly used techniques and we analyze them with respect to their impact on retrieval effectiveness. The techniques considered range from linguistically motivated techniques, such as morphological normalization and compound splitting, to knowledge-free approaches, such as n-gram indexing. Evaluations are carried out against data from the CLEF campaign, covering eight European languages. Our results show that for many of these languages a modicum of linguistic techniques may lead to improvements in retrieval effectiveness, as can the use of language independent techniques.