A survey on the light-fastness properties of organic-based Alaska Native artifacts

A series of light-fastness tests were conducted on a group of ethnographic objects that will be on exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution Arctic Studies Center, a recent addition to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center in Alaska. The objects surveyed belong to the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. This work was designed as a feasibility study on the use of a micro-fading tester as a non-contact and non-destructive technique to evaluate the light-stability of materials present in ethnographic collections. A broad range of objects containing a wide variety of materials were selected for the study. The materials investigated included a variety of dyes applied on silk, cotton, and wool substrates along with some unusual materials such as tanned skin and seal gut skin. The results from this investigation have allowed establishing exhibition recommendations taking into consideration the sensitivity of each object, light levels in the museum building, and estimated light exposures based on the duration of the exhibit. The micro-fading tester has proven to be a very useful tool for determining the light-stability of ethnographic materials without causing any harm to the objects. Objects containing equivalent materials are usually classified under a general category based on their probable sensitivity to light. However, micro-fading test results have permitted the detection of dissimilarities among some of these objects, which could be associated to variations in prior fading histories, the quality of raw materials, and different preparation methods.     

A naturalistic study of children and their parents in family learning courses in science

During the 1960s and 1970s a number of family learning projects evolved, most of which focused on pre-schoolers and their parents. The goal of some of these programs was to provide enjoyable, structured experiences in which parents and their children learned together. Recently, a number of institutions have been sponsoring enrichment science classes or learning experiences for parents and older children. The study described here is based on a project funded by the National Science Foundation (DISE No. 07872) which was attempting to show that it was possible to increase scientific literacy of two different age groups by simultaneously exposing parents and their middle school children to short courses in science. The project is an outgrowth of a study previously reported (Gennaro, Bullock, & Alden, 1980) carried out at the Minnesota Zoological Gardens. The study is based on data obtained during the first two years of the project and used various data gathering procedures such as the use of questionnaires, interviews, observations, and cognitive testing. It was found that children register for the courses primarily because of interest in the subject matter of the courses and that parents register because of their desire to nurture the child and the child's interest in the subject matter of the course. Both parents and children made significant gains in learning as measured by subject matter tests. Participants reported that the experience was both enjoyable and valuable. Children's attitudes toward their parents and the course were significantly higher if the children perceived a highly cooperative learning environment with their parents. Parents who scored in the medium or high range on the pretest had significantly more interactions with their children concerning information about course tasks than those who scored low on the pretest.     

Confidence in performance judgment accuracy: the unskilled and unaware effect revisited

Since its introduction in the late 1990s, the unskilled and unaware effect motivated several further studies. As it stands, low-performing students are assumed to provide inaccurate and overconfident performance judgments. However, as research with second-order judgments (SOJs) indicates, they apparently have some metacognitive awareness of this. The current study with 266 undergraduate students aimed to provide in-depth insights into both the reasons for (in)accurate performance judgments and the appropriateness of SOJs. We implemented a general linear mixed model (GLMM) approach to study item-specific performance judgments in the domain of mathematics at the person and item level. The analyses replicated the well-known effects. However, the GLMM analyses revealed that low-performing students’ lower confidence apparently did not indicate subjective awareness, given that these students made inappropriate SOJs (lower confidence in accurate than in inaccurate judgments). In addition, students’ self-generated explanations for their judgements indicated that low-performing students have difficulties recognizing that they possess topic knowledge to solve an item, whereas high-performing students struggle with admitting that they do not know the answer to a question. In sum, our results indicate that students at all performance levels have some metacognitive weaknesses, which, however, occur subject to different judgment accuracy.     

Urban regimes and school compacts: The development of the Detroit Compact

School compacts between the business community and school officials have increased in recent years. This paper examines the development and implementation of a school compact program in the Detroit Public School system. The paper shows that the Detroit Compact was initiated by Detroit's corporate leaders. The article highlights some of the issues faced in forging compact agreements between the business community, Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, school officials, and school activists. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the problems the Detroit Compact faces.