Student Views of Teacher Actions in Science Classrooms Designed to Meet Current Reforms

Science/Technology/Society (STS) as a reform effort has been active in Iowa for three decades. A program called Iowa Chautauqua has evolved over the four decades to promote K-12 STS teaching in Iowa’s 300 school districts. This is a study of how teachers have become Teacher Leaders of the reforms and lead other teachers who enroll as new teachers and schools each New Year. All were involved with Action Research projects each year while also assisting graduate student teams who serve as research associates. In this study, students were asked to identify specific teacher actions that were designed to make student learning more successful. The study examines general student views of teacher actions as well as specific examples of how students interact with the teacher and how the teachers encourage greater student/student involvement. The results show success with STS and how it defines science and affective actions of teachers in classrooms. Student views of Teacher Leaders, new Chautauqua teachers, and Control Teachers with no STS or Chautauqua experiences provide ways of recognizing successes of current reform efforts.     

Improving educational web search for question-like queries through subject classification

Students use general web search engines as their primary source of research while trying to find answers to school-related questions. Although search engines are highly relevant for the general population, they may return results that are out of educational context. Another rising trend; social community question answering websites are the second choice for students who try to get answers from other peers online. We attempt discovering possible improvements in educational search by leveraging both of these information sources. For this purpose, we first implement a classifier for educational questions. This classifier is built by an ensemble method that employs several regular learning algorithms and retrieval based approaches that utilize external resources. We also build a query expander to facilitate classification. We further improve the classification using search engine results and obtain 83.5% accuracy. Although our work is entirely based on the Turkish language, the features could easily be mapped to other languages as well. In order to find out whether search engine ranking can be improved in the education domain using the classification model, we collect and label a set of query results retrieved from a general web search engine. We propose five ad-hoc methods to improve search ranking based on the idea that the query-document category relation is an indicator of relevance. We evaluate these methods for overall performance, varying query length and based on factoid and non-factoid queries. We show that some of the methods significantly improve the rankings in the education domain.     

Robust synchronization of uncertain Markovian jump complex dynamical networks with time-varying delays and reaction–diffusion terms via sampled-data control

This paper is concerned with the problem of robust synchronization of a class of complex dynamical networks with time-varying delays and reaction–diffusion terms. To reflect most of the dynamical behaviors of the system, the parameter uncertainties are considered. A sampled-data controller with m stochastically varying sampling periods whose occurrence probabilities are given constants is considered. The control objective is that the trajectories of the system by designing suitable control schemes track the trajectories of the system with sample-data control. It is shown that, through Lyapunov stability theory, the proposed sample-data controllers are successful in ensuring the achievement of robust synchronization of complex dynamical networks even in the case of uncertainity and Markovian jumping parameters. By utilizing the Lyapunov functional method, Jensen’s inequality, Wirtinger’s inequality and lower bounds theorem, we establish a sufficient criterion such that, for all admissible parameter uncertainties, the complex dynamical network is robustly synchronized. The derived criteria are expressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities that can be easily checked by using the standard numerical software. Illustrative examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed results.     

An international collaborative investigation of beginning seventh grade students' understandings of scientific inquiry: Establishing a baseline

Although understandings of scientific inquiry (as opposed to conducting inquiry) are included in science education reform documents around the world, little is known about what students have learned about inquiry during their elementary school years. This is partially due to the lack of any assessment instrument to measure understandings about scientific inquiry. However, a valid and reliable assessment has recently been developed and published, Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI; Lederman et al. [2014], Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 65–83). The purpose of this large-scale international project was to collect the first baseline data on what beginning middle school students have learned about scientific inquiry during their elementary school years. Eighteen countries/regions spanning six continents including 2,634 students participated in the study. The participating countries/regions were: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mainland China, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States. In many countries, science is not formally taught until middle school, which is the rationale for choosing seventh grade students for this investigation. This baseline data will simultaneously provide information on what, if anything, students learn about inquiry in elementary school, as well as their beginning knowledge as they enter secondary school. It is important to note that collecting data from all of the approximately 200 countries globally was not humanly possible, and it was also not possible to collect data from every region of each country. The results overwhelmingly show that students around the world at the beginning of grade seven have very little understandings about scientific inquiry. Some countries do show reasonable understandings in certain aspects but the overall picture of understandings of scientific inquiry is not what is hoped for after completing 6 years of elementary education in any country.     

The response of total testing process in clinical laboratory medicine to COVID-19 pandemic

IntroductionFollowing a pandemic, laboratory medicine is vulnerable to laboratory errors due to the stressful and high workloads. We aimed to examine how laboratory errors may arise from factors, e.g., flexible working order, staff displacement, changes in the number of tests, and samples will reflect on the total test process (TTP) during the pandemic period.Materials and methodsIn 12 months, 6 months before and during the pandemic, laboratory errors were assessed via quality indicators (QIs) related to TTP phases. QIs were grouped as pre-, intra- and postanalytical. The results of QIs were expressed in defect percentages and sigma, evaluated with 3 levels of performance quality: 25^th, 50^th and 75^th percentile values.ResultsWhen the pre- and during pandemic periods were compared, the sigma value of the samples not received was significantly lower in pre-pandemic group than during pandemic group (4.7σ vs. 5.4σ, P = 0.003). The sigma values of samples transported inappropriately and haemolysed samples were significantly higher in pre-pandemic period than during pandemic (5.0σ vs. 4.9σ, 4.3σ vs. 4.1σ; P = 0.046 and P = 0.044, respectively). Sigma value of tests with inappropriate IQC performances was lower during pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period (3.3σ vs. 3.2σ, P = 0.081). Sigma value of the reports delivered outside the specified time was higher during pandemic than pre-pandemic period (3.0σ vs. 3.1σ, P = 0.030).ConclusionIn all TTP phases, some quality indicators improved while others regressed during the pandemic period. It was observed that preanalytical phase was affected more by the pandemic.     

An update algorithm design using moving Region of Attraction for SDRE based control law

State Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE) methods have the considerable advantages over other nonlinear control methods. However, stability issues can be arisen in SDRE based control system due to the lack of the global asymptotic stability property. Therefore, the previous studies have usually shown that local asymptotic stability can be ensured by estimating a Region of Attraction (ROA) around the equilibrium point. These estimated regions for stability may become narrow or the condition to keep the states in this region may be very conservative. To resolve these issues, this paper proposes a novel SDRE method employing an update algorithm to re-estimate the ROA when the states tend to move out of the stable region. The tendency is checked using a condition which is developed based on a new theorem. The theorem proves that it is possible to redesign the previous ROA with respect to the current states lying close to its boundary for ensuring the “non-local” stability along the trajectory without the need of solving SDRE at each time instant, unlike the standard SDRE approach. Therefore, the new theorem is now able to enhance the stability of the SDRE based closed-loop control system. The feasibility of the proposed SDRE control method is tested in both simulations and experiments. A validated 3-DOF laboratory helicopter is used for experiments and the control objective for the helicopter is to realise a preplanned movement in both elevation and travel axes. The results reveal that the proposed SDRE approach enables the controlled plant to track the desired trajectory as satisfactorily as the standard SDRE approach, while only solving SDRE when needed. The proposed SDRE method reduces the computational load for practical implementation of the control algorithm whilst ensuring the stability over the operational region.     

A Research Methodology for Studying What Makes Some Problems Difficult to Solve

We present a quantitative model for predicting the level of difficulty subjects will experience with specific problems. The model explicitly accounts for the number of subproblems a problem can be broken into and the difficultly of each subproblem. Although the model builds on previously published models, it is uniquely suited for blending with qualitative methods for the study of problem‐solving processes rather than being limited to examination of final answers only. We illustrate the usefulness of the model by analysing the written solutions and think‐aloud protocols of 17 subjects engaged with 25 chemical stoichiometry problems. We find that familiar themes for subject difficulty are revealed, including mapping of surface features, lack of interconnected knowledge hierarchy, and algorithmic operations at the expense of conceptual understanding.     

Using Hands-On and Virtual Laboratories Alone or Together―Which Works Better for Acquiring Knowledge and Skills?

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Although hands-on laboratory experiments are traditionally used in schools, virtual laboratories have entered today’s classrooms, due to their...     

Time‐Limited Counseling Outcome in a Nationwide College Counseling Center Sample

This study examined the dose‐effect relationship between the number of sessions and therapeutic outcome in a large, nationwide counseling center research consortium. A positive relationship was found between the outcome of counseling and the number of sessions attended. The results of this study support the effectiveness of brief psychotherapy.