Perceived Expectations Related to Promotion and Tenure: A National Survey of CACREP Program Liaisons

The purpose of the present study was to determine the perceptions of expectations and practices that contribute to decisions regarding promotion and tenure for counselor educators. Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs liaisons for 74 counselor education programs responded to an Internet‐based survey about perceptions of promotion and tenure practices in their programs and institutions. The responses indicate that relatively equal emphasis is placed on teaching, scholarship, and service. Implications for defining promotion and tenure criteria are discussed, and recommendations for further research are provided.     

Effects of Problem-Based Learning on Recognition Learning and Transfer Accounting for GPA and Goal Orientation

Conflicting research results have stirred controversy over the effectiveness of problem-based learning (PBL) compared to direct instruction at fostering content learning, particularly for novices. We addressed this by investigating effectiveness with respect to recognition learning and transfer and conducting an aptitude-treatment interaction analysis. We also examined how students' goal orientations may moderate learning in PBL and lecture/discussion environments. Participants included 197 preservice teachers in an undergraduate educational psychology course. Controlling for GPA, students in the PBL condition performed significantly better than students in the lecture/discussion condition on a transfer measure (p <.001, partial η² =.271) and equally on a recognition learning measure (p =.530). We also found an aptitude-treatment interaction for recognition learning (p =.012, partial η² =.034) but not transfer (p =.088). Results of goal orientation on learning outcomes were inconclusive.     

Telephone Testing and Teacher Assessment of Reading Skills in 7-year-olds: I. Substantial Correspondence for a Sample of 5544 Children and for Extremes

Many research questions require the assessment of reading in large samples of children. We compared two nonconventional procedures for early reading assessment: test administration by telephone, and teacher assessment. Five thousand five hundred and forty four children participating in a longitudinal twin study were assessed by telephone using the Test of Early Word Reading Efficiency, and by their teachers using the UK National Curriculum criteria. A correlation of 0.69 was obtained between the TOWRE and Teacher Assessment for Reading. There was also good agreement between the two procedures for identification of children at the lower extreme. Both appear to be practical and valid for research studies.     

The relations among young children's peer-reported trustworthiness, inhibitory control, and preschool adjustment

Sixty-five (38 male and 27 female) preschool children (mean age = 5 years 1 month) completed measures of peers’ trustworthiness (promise keeping and secret keeping). Teachers rated the preschool children's inhibitory control, trustworthiness, and preschool adjustment. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) yielded support for the hypothesized model. The expected positive paths were found from (1) gender to preschool adjustment and inhibitory control, (2) age to peer-reported trustworthiness, (3) peer-reported trustworthiness to preschool adjustment, (4) inhibitory control to peer-reported trustworthiness, and (5) inhibitory control to preschool adjustment. The findings confirmed the hypothesized development of trustworthiness with age and girls’ advantage over boys in inhibitory control and preschool adjustment. The findings supported the hypotheses that trustworthiness is associated with preschool adjustment and mediates, in part, the relation between inhibitory control and preschool adjustment.     

The value and potential of multisited ethnography for science education research: a review of Jrène Rahm’s Science in the Making at the Margin

Rahm sought to illuminate how children and youth make meaning of science in three out-of-school time programs, and the identity work that is done through the trajectory of their youth toward their young adulthood. Through using multisited ethnography, she asserts that we can learn more about what the youth say about their science learning and science literacy development in these programs. She has revealed through her rich data the potential value of multisited ethnography for science education research. A similar theme of insider/outsider status to science emerged in each of the three sites. The nature of the data collected in Rahm’s multisited ethnography allowed for the unveiling of the similarities in this theme, but also made evident the nuanced ways that this theme presented itself differently across the three sites. The additional potential came through in the varied data Rahm could have delved into and did not. A unique characteristic of ethnographic research, that is not necessarily present in other research methods, is that a wide array of varied data is collected. An analysis of documents, images, and observational field notes, which go beyond interview data, may provide deeper understandings previously untouched in science education.     

Using comparative genomics for inquiry-based learning to dissect virulence of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Yersinia pestis

Genomics and bioinformatics are topics of increasing interest in undergraduate biological science curricula. Many existing exercises focus on gene annotation and analysis of a single genome. In this paper, we present two educational modules designed to enable students to learn and apply fundamental concepts in comparative genomics using examples related to bacterial pathogenesis. Students first examine alignments of genomes of Escherichia coli O157:H7 strains isolated from three food-poisoning outbreaks using the multiple-genome alignment tool Mauve. Students investigate conservation of virulence factors using the Mauve viewer and by browsing annotations available at the A Systematic Annotation Package for Community Analysis of Genomes database. In the second module, students use an alignment of five Yersinia pestis genomes to analyze single-nucleotide polymorphisms of three genes to classify strains into biovar groups. Students are then given sequences of bacterial DNA amplified from the teeth of corpses from the first and second pandemics of the bubonic plague and asked to classify these new samples. Learning-assessment results reveal student improvement in self-efficacy and content knowledge, as well as students' ability to use BLAST to identify genomic islands and conduct analyses of virulence factors from E. coli O157:H7 or Y. pestis. Each of these educational modules offers educators new ready-to-implement resources for integrating comparative genomic topics into their curricula.     

Using targeted active-learning exercises and diagnostic question clusters to improve students' understanding of carbon cycling in ecosystems

In this study, we used targeted active-learning activities to help students improve their ways of reasoning about carbon flow in ecosystems. The results of a validated ecology conceptual inventory (diagnostic question clusters [DQCs]) provided us with information about students' understanding of and reasoning about transformation of inorganic and organic carbon-containing compounds in biological systems. These results helped us identify specific active-learning exercises that would be responsive to students' existing knowledge. The effects of the active-learning interventions were then examined through analysis of students' pre- and postinstruction responses on the DQCs. The biology and non-biology majors participating in this study attended a range of institutions and the instructors varied in their use of active learning; one lecture-only comparison class was included. Changes in pre- to postinstruction scores on the DQCs showed that an instructor's teaching method had a highly significant effect on student reasoning following course instruction, especially for questions pertaining to cellular-level, carbon-transforming processes. We conclude that using targeted in-class activities had a beneficial effect on student learning regardless of major or class size, and argue that using diagnostic questions to identify effective learning activities is a valuable strategy for promoting learning, as gains from lecture-only classes were minimal.     

ADAPTING A METHODOLOGY FROM MATHEMATICS EDUCATION RESEARCH TO CHEMISTRY EDUCATION RESEARCH: DOCUMENTING COLLECTIVE ACTIVITY

In this report, we adapt and extend a methodology for documenting the collective production of meaning in a classroom community. A cornerstone of the methodological approach that we develop is a close examination of classroom discourse. Our efforts to analyze the collective production of meaning by examining classroom interaction are compatible with the relatively recent emphasis in mathematics and science education research that focuses on how communities of learners establish ideas through discourse and inquiry. The methodological approach we take builds on and extends an approach from mathematics education that uses Toulmin’s argumentation model to document and analyze students’ conceptual progress. Our modification introduces a new criterion for empirically demonstrating when particular ways of reasoning become part of the normative practices of the community. An example from an undergraduate course in physical chemistry is used to illustrate the methodology.     

Magnetic compass orientation in C57BL/6J mice

We report evidence for a robust magnetic compass response in C57BL/6J mice. Mice were trained to build their nests in one of four magnetic directions by creating a light gradient along the long axis of a rectangular cage and positioning a nest box at the opposite (dark) end. The mice were then tested overnight in a circular, visually symmetrical arena in one of four magnetic field alignments. The positions of the nests built in the test arena showed strong unimodal orientation in the magnetic direction coinciding with the dark end of the training cage.