Single comments or average ratings: which elements of RateMyProfessors.com™ shape university students’ judgments and course choice intentions?

The use and abuse of course and lecturer rating websites such as RateMyProfessors.com? is a highly relevant topic for universities’ evaluation and assessment policies and practice. However, only a few studies have paid attention to the actual influence of teaching evaluation websites on the students themselves—that is, their perceptions of a certain course and their course choice intention at university. Findings point to the fact that positive comments on the website about professors improve students’ evaluations. However, professor evaluation websites contain two types of information: single student comments and average ratings. Research on exemplification effects has shown that single cases often have a stronger influence on recipients than more valid base rate information. We test this assumption in an experiment (n?=?126) using a professor evaluation website stimulus. Results show that single comments strongly influence opinions and course choice intentions but that they are moderated by the valence of the average rating.     

Expression of a taste aversion conditioned with an odor-taste compound: Overshadowing is relatively weak in weanlings and decreases over a retention interval in adults

Adult rats were injected with lithium chloride (LiCl) after consumption of a novel flavor (chocolate milk) that either was or was not presented together with a novel ambient odor (banana) as a compound conditioned stimulus (CS). In Experiment 1, the adults’ consumption of the flavor 24 h after conditioning was compared with that of weanling rats given the same conditioning treatment on Postnatal Day 21. The results confirmed previous indications that the reduction in aversion observed for adults conditioned with the compound CS (overshadowing) was weak or nonexistent in weanlings. After a longer retention interval (21 days), there was no evidence of overshadowing in adults despite maintained retention of the basic conditioned aversion. In Experiment 2 this decrease in overshadowing after a long retention interval was replicated with adult animals and extended to a different method of testing. The form of the effect was the same as in Experiment 1: The decrease in overshadowing occurred over the retention interval without loss in retention of the basic taste aversion; the decrease in overshadowing was a consequence of anincrease in the flavor aversion displayed by animals conditioned with the compound CS. The impaired flavor aversion (i.e., the overshadowing) observed shortly after conditioning apparently was due to factors associated with memory retrieval, rather than to reduced attentional or associative strength.     

Migration,Knowledge Transfer,and the Emergence of Australian Post-War Skiing: The Story of Charles William Anton

Skiing underwent substantial changes during the post-war years when the sport turned into a multi-billion dollar industry and a leisure activity for the masses. Despite its global nature and popularity, skiing in academic writing has not gained much recognition. This paper explores the role of knowledge transfer during the pioneering phase of post-war skiing in Australia. It describes the life of Charles William Anton, an Austrian refugee from the Anschluss who migrated to Sydney and subsequently became one of the founding fathers of Australian post-war skiing. The following pages show the multi-layered nature of skiing as a global sport by exemplifying how ideas spread from pre-war Europe to post-war Australia. The paper will also provide a case study about refugee knowledge transfer and the ‘productive process of absorption, adoption or rejection of knowledge’ that takes place once an idea has been introduced into a new environment.     

A hypermedia system for teaching database design task

The number of commercial object-oriented database systems and object-oriented interfaces to traditional database systems is increasing. To facilitate the process of object-oriented data modelling (OODM) for experts and end-users, a hypermedia system is designed that is able to teach and guide users in performing OODM. The system supports the full range of modelling activities, from the identification of a class and its properties, to the relationships among classes. It provides other important functions, such as error checking of the model, graphical interface and the provision of hypermedia contextual explanations. Hypermedia are effectively used in the system so that the users can learn OODM effectively, as well as perform OODM correctly and quickly. The system has been empirically evaluated to gauge its effectiveness and ease of use. The evaluation suggests that the system will be useful for a OODM training or teaching course, and it can also be an effective computer-based learning tool for selflearning     

The international flow of third level lesser developed country students to developed countries: Determinants and implications

This study analyses the international flow of third level developing country students to advanced countries from the perspective of sending authorities in developing countries. The magnitude of this flow can hardly be overemphasized; on the basis of a conservative estimate made in the article, the annual loss of foreign exchange entailed by this flow amounted to 17 percent of the interest repayment on total external debts of the lesser developed countries (LDCs) in 1979, a sum which the developing countries themselves can hardly ignore.On an aggregate basis, our principal hypothesis is that the outflow of students is determined primarily by excess demand for third level education in developing countries. The empirical results support this hypothesis, while pointing to the importance of other factors. Excess demand for third level education in the developing countries is one of the most important determinants of the flow of developing country students to the advanced countries.On the whole, expansion of developing country tertiary education, at the national or regional levels, could effectively divert some of the flow to local institutions. Aside from this, expansion can also be argued on the basis of the high returns to third level education in developing countries compared to the returns to physical capital, as well as the considerable economies of scale associated with this level of instruction. Further, given the willingness/ability of the students to pay, as witnessed by the fact that the vast majority of developing country students finance privately their education abroad, the expansion of third level education in LDCs could be funded substantially via user charges and student loan schemes.     

The effect of nonreinforced stimulus exposure on the strength of a conditioned taste aversion as a function of retention interval: Do latent inhibition and extinction involve a shared process?

Two experiments examined the effects of nonreinforced flavor exposure on the strength of a conditioned taste aversion. Rats were conditioned by pairing maple flavor with LiC1. Prior to or subsequent to this pairing, some animals received nonreinforced exposure to either maple or saccharin. In separate subjects, preference for maple was tested 1 or 21 days after the last training episode. In the first experiment, the nonreinforced stimulus exposure occurred before conditioning (latent inhibition, or LI, procedure); in the second experiment, the nonreinforced exposure occurred after conditioning (extinction, or EXT, training). In both experiments, nonreinforced exposure to maple or saccharin reduced the magnitude of a conditioned maple aversion when testing occurred soon after conditioning. When testing was delayed, however, the attenuation due to nonreinforced saccharin exposure dissipated, both with the LI procedure and with EXT. In contrast, the nonreinforced exposure to maple was found to attenuate conditioned reactions at both short and long retention intervals. The release from generalized LI and spontaneous recovery following generalized EXT training are discussed in terms of retrieval processing. The possibility that the same mechanism may underlie LI and EXT is considered.     

The influence of cue type and configuration upon radial-maze performance in the rat

The influence of cue type and cue configuration on radial-maze performance in rats was examined in two experiments. In the first experiment, it was found that rats provided with both salient intramaze and extramaze cues acquired the task faster than rats given only one set of cues. No difference in acquisition was found between a group trained with intramaze cues alone and a group trained with extramaze cues alone. In a cue-preference test, it was found that groups that had been trained with extramaze cues, intramaze cues, or both sets of cues relied on extra-maze cues to avoid visited arms when given both types of cues concurrently. When all groups were transferred to intramaze-cue-alone trials, only the group that had been originally trained with extramaze cues alone showed any disruption. Also, during the second half of the intramaze-cue-alone trials, the arrangement of these cues was randomly changed on each trial. This disruption in cue configuration did not deleteriously affect performance in any of the three groups; all remained above chance performance, although the performance of the group originally trained with extramaze cues alone was inferior to that of the other two groups. In Experiment 2, groups of rats were trained on daily alternating trials under intramaze-cue-alone and extramaze-cue-alone conditions. For one group, the configuration of intramaze cues was altered randomly on each trial; the other group had intramaze cues always presented in the same configuration over trials. It was found that acquisition was more rapid on intramaze trials in the group given static configurations. Also, acquisition of the extramaze task was faster than the intramaze task in the group given variable intramaze cue configurations. No difference was found between the intramaze and extramaze conditions in the group given static intramaze cue configurations. These data suggest that a static cue configuration may influence radial maze performance, but is not a necessary condition for such performance.     

Separation anxiety in parents of adolescents: theoretical significance and scale development

Parents of adolescents commonly face separation-related issues associated with children's increasing independence and imminent leave-taking. The aims of this investigation were (1) to develop a reliable and valid measure of parental emotions associated with separation and (2) to validate the measure by relating it to other attributes (attachment relationship quality, parent-child communication, and parent-adolescent differentiation) assessed in mothers, fathers, and their adolescents. The newly constructed, 35-item Parents of Adolescents Separation Anxiety Scale (PASAS) was administered to 686 parents of teenagers in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12 or college-bound freshmen and seniors. Factor analyses supported formation of two subscales: Anxiety about Adolescent Distancing (AAD) and Comfort with Secure Base Role (CSBR); both subscales showed distinctive patterns of change with child age. Parents' reports indicated that healthy adult attachment styles were associated with lower AAD and higher CSBR scores; children of parents who had higher AAD scores reported lower quality of attachment to both mothers and fathers.     

Matching-to-sample performance by pigeons trained with visual-duration compound samples

Pigeons were trained on duration matching-to-sample in which each of four combinations of signal type (red or white light) and duration (2 or 10 see) was mapped onto a different choice stimulus. Probe trials in Experiments 1 and 2 involved a successive presentation of two duration samples. In each experiment, birds tended to summate two durations when the same signal was presented twice, but not when two different signals appeared. These results contrast with those reported by Spetch and Sinha (1989), who found a summation effect with both same-signal and different-signal compounds. In Experiment 3, pigeons chose among two alternatives which were both associated with the duration of the sample but of which only one was also associated with the signal type of the sample. Pigeons systematically chose the stimulus that matched both sample duration and signal type. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of transfer of training and coding of event duration.