The effects of amount and type of teacher-child interaction on child-child interaction during free-play

Social interactions between preschool behaviorally handicapped children were measured under three experimental conditions during free-play: (a) active teacher involvement in free-play, (b) no teacher involvement in free-play, and (c) teacher structured free-play. Significantly more child-child interactions occurred during teacher structured free-play than in either of the other two conditions, with the no teacher involvement condition producing significantly more child-child interactions when compared to the active teacher involvement condition. Additionally, significantly more teacher-child interactions occurred during the active teacher involvement condition than in either of the other two conditions, with nonsignificant differences in teacher-child interaction between the no teacher involvement and the teacher structured conditions. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for ameliorating social interaction deficits among young behaviorally handicapped children.     

The influence of achievement goals and social goals on help-seeking from peers in an academic context

The influence of achievement goals and social goals on help-seeking from peers in an academic context was examined in two studies. A total of 551 high school students participated in the two studies. The results across the studies demonstrated strong convergence, revealing that mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, and friendship-approach goals were positive predictors of instrumental help-seeking, whereas performance-avoidance and friendship-avoidance goals were negative predictors. Study 2 additionally demonstrated that attitudes toward help-seeking mediate the influence of achievement and social goals on instrumental help-seeking. These results add to the body of work investigating achievement and social motivation together to more fully understand motivational influences on academic outcomes.     

Static analysis of programming exercises: Fairness,usefulness and a method for application

This article explores the suitability of static analysis techniques based on the abstract syntax tree (AST) for the automated assessment of early/mid degree level programming. Focus is on fairness, timeliness and consistency of grades and feedback. Following investigation into manual marking practises, including a survey of markers, the assessment of 97 student Java programming submissions is automated using static analysis rules. Initially, no correlation between human provided marks and rule violations is found. This paper investigates why, and considers several improvements to the approaches used for applying static analysis rules. New methods for application are explored and the resulting technique is applied to a second exercise with 95 submissions. The results show a stronger positive correlation with manual assessment, whilst retaining advantages in terms of time cost, pedagogic advantages and instant feedback. This study provides insight into the differences between human assessment and static analysis approaches and highlights several potential pitfalls of simplistic implementations. Finally, this paper concludes that static analysis approaches are appropriate for automated assessment; however, these approaches should be used with care.     

Addressing first- and second-order barriers to change: Strategies for technology integration

Although teachers today recognize the importance of integrating technology into their curricula, efforts are often limited by both external (first-order) and internal (second-order) barriers. Traditionally, technology training, for both preservice and inservice teachers, has focused on helping teachers overcome first-order barriers (e.g., acquiring technical skills needed to operate a computer). More recently, training programs have incorporated pedagogical models of technology use as one means of addressing second-order barriers. However, little discussion has occurred that clarifies the relationship between these different types of barriers or that delineates effective strategies for addressing different barriers. If pre- and inservice teachers are to become effective users of technology, they will need practical strategies for dealing with the different types of barriers they will face. In this paper, I discuss the relationship between first- and second-order barriers and then describe specific strategies for circumventing, overcoming, and eliminating the changing barriers teachers face as they work to achieve technology integration.     

Speaking to read: The effects of speech recognition technology on the reading and spelling performance of children with learning disabilities

In recent literature on persons with learning disabilities (LD), speech recognition has been discussed primarily as an assistive technology to help compensate for writing difficulties. However, prior research by the authors has suggested that in addition to helping persons to compensate for poor writing skills, speech recognition also may enhance reading and spelling; that is, what was designed as assistive technology appears to serve remedial functions as well. The present study was conducted to determine whether elementary and secondary students with LD who used the technology to write self-selected compositions and class assignments would demonstrate improvements in reading and spelling. Thirty-nine students with LD (ages 9 to 18) participated. Nineteen participants used speech recognition 50 minutes a week for sixteen weeks, and twenty students in a control group received general computer instruction. Results indicated that the speech recognition group showed significantly more improvement than the control group in word recognition (p<.0001), spelling (p<.002) and reading comprehension (p<.01). Pre- and posttests on five reading-related cognitive processing measures (phonological, orthographic, semantic processing, metacognitive reading strategies, and working memory) indicated that for the experimental group, only phonological processing improved significantly over the treatment period when compared to controls (p<.04). Further ANCOVA suggested that growth in phonological processing was associated with significant differences among conditions for all three academic measures: word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension. Address correspondence to 971 N. Altadena Drive, Pasadena, CA 91107. E-mail center@frostig.org.     

Software for calculating blood lactate endurance markers

Blood lactate markers are used as summary measures of the underlying model of an athlete's blood lactate response to increasing work rate. Exercise physiologists use these endurance markers, typically corresponding to a work rate in the region of high curvature in the lactate curve, to predict and compare endurance ability. A short theoretical background of the commonly used markers is given and algorithms provided for their calculation. To date, no free software exists that allows the sports scientist to calculate these markers. In this paper, software is introduced for precisely this purpose that will calculate a variety of lactate markers for an individual athlete, an athlete at different instants (e.g. across a season), and simultaneously for a squad.