Gender, task contexts, and children's performance on a computer-based task

Gender differences in response to computers have been widely reported. This study addresses the question of how far the context in which a computer task is presented can affect girls' and boys' on-task performance. In an experimental study involving 60 ten and eleven year-olds, we examine the effects of differential contextualisation on girls' and boys' performance on a computer-based perceptual-motor skills task. Our findings illustrate that even with a single, standard piece of software, children's performance can be substantially affected by the context in which that software is presented. The results suggest that gender differences in children's responses to computer tasks are relatively labile, and highly context sensitive. The implications and possible explanations for these findings are considered.     

A comparative survey of Personalised Information Retrieval and Adaptive Hypermedia techniques

A key driver for next generation web information retrieval systems is becoming the degree to which a user’s search and presentation experience is adapted to individual user properties and contexts of use. Over the past decades, two parallel threads of personalisation research have emerged, one originating in the document space in the area of Personalised Information Retrieval (PIR) and the other arising from the hypertext space in the field of Adaptive Hypermedia (AH).     

COUNTERMEASURES TO IMPROVE THE DRIVING PERFORMANCE OF OLDER DRIVERS

A 2‐year study of the problems of older drivers (N = 105) was conducted by a team of researchers from the disciplines of traffic engineering, gerontology, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and driver education. The objective of the research was to develop and evaluate countermeasures to improve the safety of older drivers. During the first year, the problems of older drivers were examined and the following countermeasures designed: (a) physical therapy, (b) perceptual therapy, (c) driver education, and (d) traffic engineering improvements. In the second year, the effects of these countermeasures on the driving performance of older drivers were evaluated. All of the countermeasures improved the older adults’ performance. Combining driver education with physical or perceptual therapy tended to increase the improvement in driving performance, but none of the increases were statistically significant (s > .015). The countermeasures provided an average improvement in driving performance of 7.9%. Analysis indicated that traffic engineering improvements would be most cost‐effective on high‐volume roadways and the other countermeasures would be most cost‐effective on low‐volume roadways.     

The effect of different types of nomination forms on teachers' identification of gifted children

The present study sought to determine the effect of three different types of teacher nomination forms on a group of teachers' effectiveness and efficiency in identifying gifted children; to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of the three forms with each other, with that of the Renzulli-Hartman Scale for Rating Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students, and with that of a form that requested teachers to identify their gifted students; and to examine the relationship between the scores on the intelligence test, on the various nomination forms, and on the California Achievement Test (CAT). The subjects of the investigation were 183 children in grades K-5 and their teachers. Based on the findings of the study, the following conclusions were reached. First, the use of a behavior rating scale teacher nomination form will result in the greatest number of gifted children being correctly identified. Secondly, it is possible to increase the effectiveness, without overly affecting the efficiency, of any teacher nomination form by making the criterion standard for giftedness sensitive to the specific population it is screening. Thirdly, while the relationship between the scores was relatively low, because of its high effectiveness, its acceptable completion time, and its scores having the highest positive relationship with the intelligence test scores of any of the forms used, Form C is recommended as the teacher nomination form to be considered to assist teachers in the identification of gifted children. Fourthly, in schools where a large majority of the children score very high on a standardized achievement test, some other measure of academic success must be found if academic achievement is to be a component in the screening process. Finally, while, as a group, teachers in a school all may appear to be very good identifiers of gifted children, careful examination across grade levels, and within grade levels if the teacher sample size per grade is large enough, may assist in the identification of groups of teachers for in-service training.     

不速之客:年轻球状星团

传统观点认为，球状星团是宇宙中一群古怪的“老家伙”，但实际上存在许多年轻的球状星团，并不断有更新的产生。