Dynamic object recognition in pigeons and humans

We investigated the role of dynamic information in human and pigeon object recognition. Both species were trained to discriminate between two objects that each had a characteristic motion, so that either cue could be used to perform the task successfully. The objects were either easy or difficult to decompose into parts. At test, the learned objects could appear in their learned motions, the reverse of the learned motions, or an entirely new motion, or a new object could appear in one of the learned motions. For humans, any change in the learned motion produced a decrement in performance for both the decomposable and the nondecomposable objects, but participants did not respond differentially to new objects that appeared in the learned motions. Pigeons showed the same pattern of responding as did humans for the decomposable objects, except that pigeons responded differentially to new objects in the learned motions. For the nondecomposable objects, pigeons used motion cues exclusively. We suggest that for some types of objects, dynamic information may be weighted differently by pigeons and humans.     

Arithmetic processing in children with spina bifida: Calculation accuracy, strategy use, and fact retrieval fluency

Three studies compared 98 children with spina bifida myelomeningocele (SBM)-a disorder associated with high rates of math disability and spatial deficits-to 94 typically developing children on multidigit subtraction and cognitive addition tasks. Children with SBM were classified into those with reading decoding and math disability, only math disability, and no reading or math disability. Study 1 showed that visual-spatial errors in multidigit arithmetic were not elevated in children with SBM. In Study 2, deficits in accuracy, speed, and strategy-use in single-digit addition characterized groups with math disability regardless of reading status. Accuracy and speed on single-digit addition was strongly related to performance on multidigit subtraction. A math-level matching design in Study 3 revealed less mastery of math facts by the group with SBM. The results are discussed with reference to cognitive and neuropsychological models of math disability.     

Giving feedback: Development of scales for the mum effect,discomfort giving feedback,and feedback medium preference

Research in organizational behavior and human resources promotes the view that it is critical for managers to provide accurate feedback to employees, yet little research addresses rater tendencies (i.e., the mum effect) and attitudes that influence how performance feedback is given. Because technology has changed the nature of communication in organizations (e.g., feedback given by e‐mail), there is a need to determine how a feedback giver's preference for the delivery medium might influence the message. In this article, we develop three scales measuring the mum effect, discomfort with giving feedback, and feedback medium preference to determine feedback givers' tendencies, which may be used to improve feedback delivery. We then used these scales in a feedback situation. Findings are reported and practical implications discussed.     

Effect of Content Knowledge on Angoff‐Style Standard Setting Judgments

Evidence to support the credibility of standard setting procedures is a critical part of the validity argument for decisions made based on tests that are used for classification. One area in which there has been limited empirical study is the impact of standard setting judge selection on the resulting cut score. One important issue related to judge selection is whether the extent of judges’ content knowledge impacts their perceptions of the probability that a minimally proficient examinee will answer the item correctly. The present article reports on two studies conducted in the context of Angoff‐style standard setting for medical licensing examinations. In the first study, content experts answered and subsequently provided Angoff judgments for a set of test items. After accounting for perceived item difficulty and judge stringency, answering the item correctly accounted for a significant (and potentially important) impact on expert judgment. The second study examined whether providing the correct answer to the judges would result in a similar effect to that associated with knowing the correct answer. The results suggested that providing the correct answer did not impact judgments. These results have important implications for the validity of standard setting outcomes in general and on judge recruitment specifically.     

Quantifying risk associated with clinical trial termination: A text mining approach

Clinical trials that terminate prematurely without reaching conclusions raise financial, ethical, and scientific concerns. Scientific studies in all disciplines are initiated with extensive planning and deliberation, often by a team of highly trained scientists. To assure that the quality, integrity, and feasibility of funded research projects meet the required standards, research-funding agencies such as the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation, pass proposed research plans through a rigorous peer review process before making funding decisions. Yet, some study proposals successfully pass through all the rigorous scrutiny of the scientific peer review process, but the proposed investigations end up being terminated before yielding results. This study demonstrates an algorithm that quantifies the risk associated with a study being terminated based on the analysis of patterns in the language used to describe the study prior to its implementation. To quantify the risk of termination, we use data from the clinicialTrials.gov repository, from which we extracted structured data that flagged study characteristics, and unstructured text data that described the study goals, objectives and methods in a standard narrative form. We propose an algorithm to extract distinctive words from this unstructured text data that are most frequently used to describe trials that were completed successfully vs. those that were terminated. Binary variables indicating the presence of these distinctive words in trial proposals are used as input in a random forest, along with standard structured data fields. In this paper, we demonstrate that this combined modeling approach yields robust predictive probabilities in terms of both sensitivity (0.56) and specificity (0.71), relative to a model that utilizes the structured data alone (sensitivity = 0.03, specificity = 0.97). These predictive probabilities can be applied to make judgements about a trial's feasibility using information that is available before any funding is granted.     

‘Uni has a different language … to the real world’: demystifying academic culture and discourse for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds

The Australian government has set ambitious targets for increased higher-education participation of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. There is, thus, a pressing need to explore how best to empower these students with what they require to progress and succeed at university. The paper draws on a literature review and qualitative data from a national study in which 89 students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and 26 staff were interviewed. The paper argues that demystifying academic culture and discourses for these students is a key step institutions and staff can take in assisting students from low socioeconomic backgrounds to progress and succeed at university. A recurring theme to emerge from both the literature and interviews with students and staff was that teaching the discourse empowers and enables students to learn, has a positive impact on their sense of belonging and ultimately helps them succeed in higher education.     

Stakeholders as researchers: A multiple case study of using cooperative inquiry to develop and document the formative leadership experiences of new school library professionals

Cooperative inquiry, a form of qualitative research used in community building, has not often been applied in educational contexts. Through the lens of formative leadership theory, the researchers studied the abilities of three new school librarians trained in cooperative inquiry and leadership to engage in collaborative problem solving for technology-related school challenges. Due to internal and external factors, participants experienced various levels of success with their challengers, but cooperative inquiry proved to be a viable methodology to evaluate the outcomes of library education for school librarians' formative leadership.