COMPROMISE MODELS FOR ESTABLISHING EXAMINATION STANDARDS

Cutoff scores based on absolute standards can be unacceptable in terms of the number of failures they produce. Cutoff scores based on relative standards, that is, cutoff scores set to achieve a fixed percentage of failures, can be unacceptable because an acceptable performance level for passed examinees cannot be guaranteed. In some situations one can improve upon an absolute standard using a compromise model, which draws on the information in the observed score distribution for a test to adjust the standard. Three compromise models are described and compared in this article.     

Multiple-schedule interactions and discrimination

Pigeons received variable-interval (VI) reinforcement for keypecking during randomized presentations of seven line-orientation stimuli forming a continuum ranging from horizontal (0 deg) to vertical (90 deg). Each line presentation lasted for 30 sec and was preceded and followed by 30-sec time-outs. After responding stabilized, only responding in the two extreme stimuli (0 and 90 deg) was reinforced. As discrimination training proceeded, strong behavioral contrast and dimensional contrast effects appeared. However, only marginal local effects (local contrast and local dimensional effects), exerted by one line-orientation component upon a second, appeared, indicating that behavioral and dimensional contrast may be independent of parallel local effects. An attempt was made to apply Blough’s (1975) quantitative model of operant generalization and discrimination to the present discrimination procedure. However, this model did not predict the generalization gradient shape that was experimentally obtained. This experiment also yielded two serendipitous findings: (1) Positive behavioral contrast appeared in an extinction-related stimulus (time-out) when other stimuli were switched from reinforcement to extinction (hitherto, positive behavioral contrast had been observed only in responding to a reinforcementrelated stimulus when other stimuli were switched from reinforcement to extinction), and (2) final responding was higher in the presence of an extinction stimulus that had always been an extinction stimulus than it was in the presence of other extinction stimuli that had previously been paired with VI reinforcement.     

Tertiary Bridging Courses in Science and Mathematics for Second Chance Students in Australia

Bridging programs in science and mathematics were designed to enable Australian students who haven't successfully completed Year 11–12 studies to qualify for entry to science and mathematics related courses in higher education. Although originally designed for Australian Aborigines, these bridging programs have broad application to all second‐chance groups in Australia seeking special entry to tertiary courses. The bridging program materials emphasize diagnostic assessment, individualized instruction, short‐term learning goals and the independence of learners, although a course tutor also must be available to play various instructional, personal support and management roles. Evidence supporting the success of these bridging programs is provided by the fact that, from a small group of Aborigines who tried out the materials for the first time, one was accepted for a university course in medicine and another was accepted for training as a commercial pilot.     

“双一流”建设背景下大学跨学科组织的学科网络结构研究

基于耗散结构理论对跨学科组织形成的原因进行分析,将学科间的知识流动作为学科间的联结方式,根据结构洞理论提出三种跨学科组织学科网络结构模式：辐射模式、汇聚模式、“沙龙”模式。通过对跨学科组织的学科基础和组织目标两个方面的分析,认为三种模式的形成是高校以优势学科为基础,根据内外部需求和学科特点构建的结果。在比较国内外大学跨学科组织构建情况的基础上,提出我国高校跨学科组织应当厚植学科基础、明确战略目标、创新组织模式。     

Coping with aversive stimulation in the neonatal period: quiet sleep and plasma cortisol levels during recovery from circumcision

Measures of behavioral state and plasma cortisol were obtained on 80 healthy, full-term, 2-3-day-old, male newborns who were scheduled to be circumcised. To establish baseline or precircumcision levels, the newborns were observed, and behavioral state was recorded for the half hour prior to circumcision. Blood was sampled via heelstick for plasma cortisol determination at the end of this observation period. The newborns were then circumcised and assigned randomly to one of 4 postcircumcision, blood-sampling time-point groups. The time points were 30, 90, 120, and 240 min following the beginning of circumcision. Behavioral state was observed during circumcision and for the half hour prior to taking the second blood sample. The results showed a return to baseline cortisol levels sometime prior to 240 min, with data from an additional group of 10 newborns indicating that the return occurred by 150 min. Behavioral distress during circumcision was associated with elevations in plasma cortisol at 30 and 90 min. Quiet sleep was correlated negatively with plasma cortisol prior to circumcision, and significant increases in quiet sleep followed circumcision, with the greatest increase corresponding to the period of most rapid reductions in cortisol.     

Assessment of Classroom Environments in Reformed Calculus Education

Research was conducted to determine if current reforms in calculus education are more inclusive of students of different genders, personalities, attributional beliefs, mathematical abilities, and computer attitudes. Two types of calculus reform are examined: a computer-assisted, student-centred and inductive reform based on the Calculus and Maple (C&M) package; and a teacher-only, teacher-centred and deductive reform. Both methods emphasise student participation in the learning and employ collaborative-learning groups mixed by ability and the assessed sociometric measures, but not mixed by gender. The classroom environments of the reform classes were assessed qualitatively using free-form surveys, interviews and classroom observations, and assessed quantitatively using the College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI). The classroom environment of reform classes was compared qualitatively to the normal lecture environment. Students assessed the classroom environment as being significantly less favourable than preferred, confirming general dissatisfaction with socio-emotional aspects of university classes, even when adopting modern educational reforms. Differences in the actual and preferred classroom environments were observed in all class sub-divisions (i.e. gender, personality) and across all environment scales of the CUCEI. The research illustrates the psychosocial diversity of reforms for university classrooms and the desirability of evaluating such reforms using a learning environment inventory as well as conventional qualitative measures.     

Puberty Predicts Approach But Not Avoidance on the Iowa Gambling Task in a Multinational Sample

According to the dual systems model of adolescent risk taking, sensation seeking and impulse control follow different developmental trajectories across adolescence and are governed by two different brain systems. The authors tested whether different underlying processes also drive age differences in reward approach and cost avoidance. Using a modified Iowa Gambling Task in a multinational, cross‐sectional sample of 3,234 adolescents (ages 9–17; M = 12.87, SD = 2.36), pubertal maturation, but not age, predicted reward approach, mediated through higher sensation seeking. In contrast, age, but not pubertal maturation, predicted increased cost avoidance, mediated through greater impulse control. These findings add to evidence that adolescent behavior is best understood as the product of two interacting, but independently developing, brain systems.     

Education and Life's Meaning

There are deep connections between education and the question of life's meaning, which derive, ultimately, from the fact that, for human beings, how to live—and therefore, how to raise one's children—is not a given but a question. One might see the meaning of life as constitutive of the meaning of education, and answers to the question of life's meaning might be seen as justifying (a particular form of) education. Our focus, however, lies on the contributory relation: our primary purpose is to investigate whether and how education might contribute to children's ability to find meaning in life or at least deal with the question. This issue is not only theoretically interesting (though relatively neglected)—it also has practical urgency. For people have a need for meaning that, if unfulfilled, leads to personal and potentially social crises—a need that often expresses itself first and strongly in adolescence; and there are reasons to have doubts about the contribution of today's traditional formal education system to the meaningfulness of children's (and future adults’) lives. We argue for the importance of frameworks of values, as well as for a greater emphasis on the affective dimension of meaning, though we reject pure subjectivism. The underlying purpose of this article, however, is not to argue for a particular comprehensive position, but to persuade philosophers of education of the importance of the issue of life's meaning in thinking about education today.     

Women Organizers of the First Professional Associations in Technical Communication

Women technical communicators helped to organize many of the first professional associations for technical communicators in the 1940s and 1950s. For some of these women, organizing was an occupational closure strategy of revolutionary usurpation: They may have hoped to position themselves favorably to shape a future profession that was not predicated on hidden forms of their inclusion. Exclusionary and demarcationary forces, however, seem to have ultimately undermined their efforts, alienating some of them and inducing others to adopt a strategy of inclusionary usurpation. In addition to using gender-sensitive revisions of occupational closure theory to explain the phenomenon of the woman organizer, the author chronicles the emergence of 8 professional associations for technical communicators and identifies the women technical communicators who helped to organize them.     

Leadership and Strategic Management: keys to institutional priorities and planning*

Allocating and managing resources have always been important cornerstones of institutional leadership. Institutional resources include financial, physical and human components. Even in the best of times, it is a challenge to do this effectively. In times of diminished and shrinking resources, distributing these precious commodities across the institutions in the most equitable and productive manner is fraught with complications. As higher education funding streams expand and present more options, they also create new challenges. Leaders today must be well-versed in the emerging realms of philanthropy and entrepreneurialism. Beyond monetary resources, leaders and senior managers must monitor and understand the external environment in order to make discerning decisions about the viability of further infrastructure investments because of changing student demographics or the complexities of personnel within the dynamic culture of social organisations. This article will stress the need for leadership and an institutional planning process as essential prerequisites to effective resource allocations. Portugal will also be discussed as a case study.