Potentiation and overshadowing between landmarks and environmental geometric cues

Rats were required in three experiments to find one of two submerged platforms that were situated in the same pair of diagonally opposite corners of a rectangular grey swimming pool. The experimental groups were trained with landmarks, comprising A4 cards attached to the walls, located in the corners containing the platforms. For the control groups, the landmarks were situated in the corners containing the platforms for half of the trials, and in the other corners for the remaining trials. Learning about the positions of the platforms with reference to the shape of the pool was overshadowed in the experimental groups when the landmarks were white, and enhanced when the landmarks were black. A fourth experiment assessed whether geometric cues influenced the control acquired by the landmarks. As in the previous experiments, the presence of the geometric cues overshadowed learning about the landmarks when they were white, but enhanced learning when the landmarks were black.     

Taylorism,Tylerism and Performance Indicators: defending the indefensible?

This paper explores some of the antecedents to the recent growing interest in the United Kingdom in the use of educational performance indicators, and links it in particular to aspects of both Taylorist and Tylerist philosophies. It attempts to distinguish between different constructed meanings of performance indicators evident in both policy statements and practice. Whilst acknowledging the many potential problems inherent in the adoption of this approach to evaluation, the paper argues that both the nature and use of educational performance indicators are crucially shaped by factors such as purpose, authorship, focus and audience. The paper outlines an approach to performance indicators which tacitly addresses a critique of Taylorist and Tylerist influences, adopting an optimistic view that indicators can be made professionally relevant and useful. At the heart of the paper is an account of a collaborative evaluation project which, over the last 5 years, has supported the development of teacher‐generated indicators across some 80 schools and colleges in a consortium of six local education authorities. Despite the difficulties which have been encountered in this approach, the paper concludes that performance indicators can be made professionally relevant and useful.     

Resilience in higher education students: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

The health, wellbeing and employability of university students are key considerations within higher education. In response, interest in student resilience is on the rise. Reviews of contemporary resilience literature highlight both conceptual and methodological weaknesses, issues which hamper attempts to design effective resilience interventions. To inform the design of a student resilience program, to be piloted at three Australian universities, a scoping review of resilience specific to the higher education context was undertaken. Searches of three electronic databases (PsychINFO, CINAHL and ProQuest) were conducted. Seventy-two peer-reviewed articles published between 2007 and 2017 were included in the review. While the review reaffirms the conceptual and methodological issues found in previous resilience research, it provides a useful critique of key issues in relation to university student resilience and interventions to enhance students’ resilience. Recommendations for educators and researchers are provided.     

Toward a resolution of inconsistencies in the phonological deficit theory of reading disorders: phonological reading difficulties are more severe in high-IQ poor readers

This study examined whether high- and low-IQ poor readers differed in patterns of reading performance. Ten-year-old poor readers with IQ scores of 110 and higher showed difficulty in taking a phonological approach to reading, failing to show an advantage in reading high-frequency regular versus irregular words and showing impaired nonword reading accuracy for their reading age. However, poor readers with IQ scores of 90 and below showed a more phonological approach to reading, with better reading of regular than irregular words of both high and low frequency, and with nonword reading skills slower than, but as accurate as, those of reading-age controls. We concluded that the high-IQ poor readers experienced difficulty in taking a phonological approach to reading, whereas the low-IQ poor readers had much less marked phonological problems, supporting Stanovich's phonological-core variable-difference model.     

What traits do academics value in student writing? Insights from a psychometric approach

The number of students studying for university qualifications through the medium of English and for whom English is not their first language has increased significantly in recent years. This, along with efforts to widen access to those under-represented in higher education, has brought into focus the question of what academics see as constituting a ‘good’ piece of student writing. In this small-scale pilot study, Thurstone’s method of paired comparisons was used to establish a scale for ranking six essays in terms of how favourably each was viewed by academic lecturers when compared with every other essay in the set. Kelly’s repertory grid technique was subsequently applied to interviews conducted with the same lecturers to establish which traits they associated with the upper and lower end of the scale. Findings suggest that this methodology represents a promising approach to establishing what academic tutors regard as the key elements of good writing and thus provides an indication of what English teachers might fruitfully focus on in their teaching of the skill.     

A comparison of visual search strategies of elite and non-elite tennis players through cluster analysis

Considerable research has documented that successful performance in interceptive tasks (such as return of serve in tennis) is based on the performers’ capability to capture appropriate anticipatory information prior to the flight path of the approaching object. Athletes of higher skill tend to fixate on different locations in the playing environment prior to initiation of a skill than their lesser skilled counterparts. The purpose of this study was to examine visual search behaviour strategies of elite (world ranked) tennis players and non-ranked competitive tennis players (n = 43) utilising cluster analysis. The results of hierarchical (Ward’s method) and nonhierarchical (k means) cluster analyses revealed three different clusters. The clustering method distinguished visual behaviour of high, middle-and low-ranked players. Specifically, high-ranked players demonstrated longer mean fixation duration and lower variation of visual search than middle-and low-ranked players. In conclusion, the results demonstrated that cluster analysis is a useful tool for detecting and analysing the areas of interest for use in experimental analysis of expertise and to distinguish visual search variables among participants’.     

Facilitating Intercultural Communication in Parent–Teacher Conferences: Lessons From Child Translators

In this article Abraham Lincoln is considered as an alternative to the usual type of patriot's hero. He reminds us of our great historical failings. He remains a figure of controversy, a national hero in only some corners of society. He is the heroic President who serves as the first compassionate defender of the downtrodden, and he is a hero in those subcultures as well. Lincoln's treatment in the movies is discussed, focusing particularly on the recent movie Lincoln. Lincoln is seen as a match for the usual movie hero. His famous immunity to casual treatment in popular culture is discussed as well.