Administrative and structural changes in student evaluations of teaching and their effects on overall instructor scores

Using nine years of student evaluation of teaching (SET) data from a large US research university, we examine whether changes to the SET instrument have a substantial impact on overall instructor scores. Our study exploits four distinct natural experiments that arose when the SET instrument was changed. To maximise power, we compare the same course/instructor before and after each of the four changes occurred. We find that switching from in-class, paper course evaluations to online evaluations generates an average change of ?0.14 points on a five-point scale, or 0.25 standard deviations (SDs) in the overall instructor ratings. Changing labelling of the scale and the wording of the overall instructor question generates another decrease in the average rating: ?0.15 of a point (0.27 SDs). In contrast, extending the evaluation period to include the final examination and offering an incentive (early grade release) for completing the evaluations do not have a statistically significant effect on the overall instructor rating. The cumulative impact of these individual changes is ?0.29 points (0.52 SDs). This large decrease shows that SET scores are not comparable over time when instruments change. Therefore, administrators should measure and account for such changes when using historical benchmarks for evaluative purposes (e.g. appointments and compensation).     

日常家庭生活中父母——儿童互动对儿童数学发展的影响

本研究观察并分析了两组4岁儿童在家庭日常生活中与父母的互动及所涉及的数的学习。组1儿童为书面数符号表征高分者，组2儿童为低分者。57对儿童-父母对子参加了研究。结果表明，本研究所观察到的儿童日常活动内容丰富多样；大概有三分之一的被试对子所从事的活动涉及到不同类型的阅读和数学学习活动，但这些活动大多由父母发起；儿童早期数学发展水平可能与家庭教育的如下因素有关：家庭日常生活中父母-儿童共同活动的内容与频次，高分组儿童的父母在家中可能更加注意发起或者更加成功地发起了阅读与数学学习活动；高分组父母在与儿童互动的某些策略的运用上可能更有利于儿童的数学学习；高分组的父亲在家中可能与孩子一起参与共同活动的时间更长；高分组父母之所以更加成功地发起了与阅读和数学学习有关的活动可能与儿童本身的因素有关。     

Exploring the social inclusion of deaf young people in mainstream schools,using their lived experience

Research suggests that children with hearing loss face a number of difficulties in the education system, including socially. Although there has been much research with the severe to profound deaf population there has been little research into the life experiences of children with moderate hearing loss who attend mainstream secondary schools. This research sought to examine the experiences of social inclusion for five young people with moderate hearing loss. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews in the young person’s school setting and were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Although each participant had distinctive experiences, there were a number of common themes that emerged indicating the factors that support social inclusion and those which create barriers for deaf children in schools. Implications for educational psychologists are considered and the limitations of the research are outlined.     

Acquisition of three word knowledge aspects through reading

A number of studies have shown that second or foreign language learners can acquire vocabulary through reading. The aim of the study was to investigate (a) the effects of reading an authentic novel on the acquisition of 3 aspects of word knowledge: spelling, meaning, and collocation; (b) the influence of reading on the acquisition of partial and deeper knowledge of the words; and (c) the relationship between word frequency and learning gains. The results show that there was significant improvement in all three aspects of word knowledge. The measuring instrument detected greater partial than deeper knowledge gains in word meanings and collocations. The greatest learning gains in all three aspects of word knowledge were demonstrated for the words that occurred between 11 and 20 times in the text. The findings suggest that incorporation of extensive reading into language learning programs can contribute to significant improvement of learners' vocabulary knowledge.     

Adolescent, parent, and observer perceptions of parenting: genetic and environmental influences on shared and distinct perceptions

Agreement among reporters on features of family life, whether family members or outside observers, is considered to be low. This study, which involved a national sample of 720 families comprised of identical and fraternal twins, full siblings, half siblings, and biologically unrelated stepsiblings, examined the issue of low interrater agreement by decomposing the common and unique variance among parent, child, and observer reports of parenting behaviors (warmth and negativity) into genetic and environmental factors. Quantitative genetic analyses were employed to decompose the "Social" level of perception (common variance among parents, children, observers), the level of "Family" subculture (common variance only among parents and children), and the unique "Individual" level into genetic and environmental components. It was predicted that genetic factors would account for substantial portions of the variance at the Social and Family levels; nonshared environmental factors were expected to influence variance unique to child reports; and shared environmental factors were expected to influence variance unique to parent reports. A second and related aim of the study was to examine the subjective-objective dimension of genetic effects on measures of the environment. Results of model-fitting analyses generally supported the predictions for parental warmth and negativity at the Family and Individual levels. At the Social level, genetic factors were predominant for parental negativity and shared environmental factors for parental warmth. The findings are discussed in terms of genetically influenced child effects on parenting and methodological difficulties in constructing latent variables.     

试论授课型教学软件的开发与应用

本文根据我国高等学校目前仍以课堂教学为主的现状 ,提出了在重视开发学生自学为主的自学型CAI软件和网络课件的同时不要忽视开发“课堂授课型教学软件”的观点 ,并且结合本校高等数学的教学实践 ,研制开发了“高等数学授课型多媒体教学软件”用于本科教学。通过一年多的教学实践 ,积累了经验 ,找到了不足 ,取得了满意的效果 ,为进一步的研究开发作了有益的探索     

Stress and Resources in Vocational Problem Solving

By adapting the job demands-resources model of Demerouti et al. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 499–512, (2001) to vocational problem-solving situations, we aimed to investigate how, and to what extent, problem-solving demands and personal resources affect stress responses and task interest. Therefore, we used a problem-solving task from the business administration domain in a computer-based office simulation. We assigned 58 participants into two groups. The treatment group worked on the problem scenario, whereas the control group was instructed to inspect the computer-based scenario and to check the software’s usability without solving the problem. Problem-solving demands, perceived stress, task interest, cardiovascular parameters, and cortisol concentration were assessed before, during and after the task at several time points. The vocational problem-solving task was associated with perceived time pressure, uncertainty, mental effort, task difficulty, and perceived stress. In addition, we found higher heart rate and cortisol concentration and lower heart rate variability values in the treatment group (compared to the control group) at the end of the task. Furthermore, we found that content knowledge buffers the impact of problem-solving demands on stress responses and it maintains task interest under high mental effort. Overall, we found evidence that vocational problem-solving activities bear stress-evoking potential and personal resources may provide buffering and maintaining functions.     

Children's Beliefs about Long-Term Retention

In 2 experiments, we examined pre-school, grade 1, and grade 3 children's metamemory about long-term retention. Specifically, we examined beliefs about the type of information most likely to be forgotten and beliefs about the impact of suggestions and retroactive interference on memory. Children made and explained paired-comparison judgments concerning the differential forgetting of peripheral versus central information, whether misinformation effects would arise from suggestions by others, and whether retroactive interference would arise from experiencing two similar events. The major findings were that ( a ) most children believed that events central to a story would be retained better than peripheral details; ( b ) in preschool and first grade, children believed that memory was invulnerable to suggestion (from a parent or a sibling), but in third grade, children believed suggestion could adversely affect memory; ( c ) most preschoolers believed that retroactive interference effects would not occur, whereas most first and third graders acknowledged that they would; ( d ) older children believed that both suggestibility and interference were less likely given a retention interval of several months compared to 1 day; and ( e ) in explaining their beliefs, children assigned sensory-behavioral factors a major causal role in determining what would be remembered over the long term. These results are discussed in terms of the development of beliefs about memory and the mind in general.