Early language development and kindergarten phonological awareness as predictors of reading problems: from 3 to 11 years of age

At the end of Grade 4, 481 children on the Danish island of Bornholm were screened using group tests for sentence reading. For 205 of these children, language and speech data from the speech therapist's screening at age 3 were available, as well as language comprehension and linguistic awareness data from the kindergarten year (age 6) and word decoding measures in Grades 2 and 3. A path analysis revealed significant paths from early language abilities at age 3 through expressive and receptive language in kindergarten via language awareness in kindergarten and word decoding in Grade 2 to sentence reading in Grades 3 and 4. The subgroup of children with parents who had reported a history of reading problems at school entry scored significantly below average on sentence reading in Grade 4. The subgroup of children that were reported to show a very low interest in books and story reading before age 5 also scored low on sentence reading in Grade 4. Statistically significant but weak relationships were also found between parents' educational background, parents' library visits, and number of books at home and the child's reading ability in Grade 4.     

机载相控阵雷达调度的专家系统研究

本文研究设计了一种新型的机载相控阵雷达调度(SOMAPAR)的专家系统。该系统构造了一个由多种知识表达方式实现的知识库,并运用模糊数学方法表达知识,建立了一个简单的模糊推理机。仿真结果表明,该SOMAPAR专家系统能使雷达自适应于目标环境的变化,调整自身状态在最佳条件下工作,具有一定的专家水平。     

PREFERENCES AND ASSESSMENT OF MATHEMATICALLY HIGHLY ABLE YOUNG STUDENTS

Giftedness is commonly regarded as potential for extraordinary performance within a given area, e.g. academic, artistic, or manual, that develops in a field of interacting internal and external factors and unfolds in individual stages. Gender related and culturally dependent influences affect the dynamic processes through which a child acquires and expands its competence. Admittedly, a particular talent for a special intellectual activity, e.g. mathematics and sciences, is essential, but such a talent alone is not necessarily sufficient to explain why young students devote themselves to particular subject matter, thereby acquiring a high level of ability.

     

Faculty acceptance of a workload survey in one major university

The faculty survey or workload instrument becomes the focal point for both praise and criticism about measuring how faculty spend professional time. While research on the workload instrument often centers on the design and administration of the survey, NCHEMS has questioned how faculty react to such workload analysis, a researchable area seemingly overlooked. In a 1973 report, NCHEMS suggested that faculty reaction or acceptance may be related to the degree of faculty self-governance, experience in completing the survey, the positive use of data for departments, and the expectation that faculty are required to complete the survey for an external governing board. Faculty on one large state-supported midwestern university were asked how they felt about the workload survey administered on campus and whether the NCHEMS' factors were related to their acceptance of the survey. Multivariate analysis and a path model helped to analyze and interpret faculty responses to a questionnaire administered by this author. Results upheld one of the four NCHEMS relationships, namely, that a positive attitude toward a survey is related to perceived value of the data for allocating faculty resources and communication in the department. Several practical and methodological considerations are reviewed to extend research on faculty acceptance.     

Students' estimates of knowledge gained as measures of the quality of teacher education

One set of measures of the quality of courses for the preparation of science teachers stems from the perceptions exit students have of their knowledge with respect to that teaching. The Discipline Review of Teacher Education in Mathematics and Science surveyed these students late in 1988 on three broad types of knowledge-science content knowledge, curriculum knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge. Some of these findings of the Review are described. In addition, the base for developing items to measure these three types of knowledge is discussed in this paper. The variety in the data that emerged is also presented and the consistency of the findings with other measures of quality is described. Specialisations: science and technology curriculum, environmental education, educational disadvantage. Specialisations: research and evaluation in teacher education, technical and further education and total quality management. Specialisations: research in educational systems.     

Teaching Critical Thinking and Problem Defining Skills

Critical thinking and skills in defining problems have been among the goals of a computers and society course that had its credits reduced and student number increased. In an attempt to prevent worsening the students' learning, four measures were taken. The results actually improved from a failure rate of 21.5% to 0.7%. This was mainly due to tighter project structure and additional student work. Reduced course material and improved teacher preparation did not seem to have any effect, while more focused project teaching may have contributed to the decreased failure rate. Further improvements may be gained through time estimation in the problem definition process.     

Four dialogues and metalogues about the nature of science

We analyse and explore, in the form of dialogues and metalogues questions about the dialogic nature of beliefs and students belief talk about the nature of science and scientific knowledge. Following recent advances in discursive psychology, this study focuses not on students' claims but on the discursive resources and dialogical practices that support the particular claims they make. We argue that students' discourse is better understood as a textual bricolage that is sensitive to conversational context, common sense, interpretive repertoires, and textual resources available in the conversational situation. Our text is reflexive as it embodies the discursive construction of knowledge and undercuts any claims to authoritative knowledge. The very conception of “belief” is itself an expression or construction from within the mundane idiom.... We learn to use “belief” in conditions when the “objective facts” are unknown or problematic and we want to indicate the tenuous character of our claim.... The notion of “real world” or “objective reality” is embedded in an extensive, pervasive language game which includes as an intelligible move or possibility the use of the very concept of “belief” itself. (Pollner, 1987, p. 21)     

The course as token: A construction of/by networks

In actor-network theory (ANT) the movement from the instability of science-in-the-making to the relative stability of ready-made-science is followed by tracing the path of a token or focal actor (either human or non-human) as it both constructs a network and is simultaneously transformed by the developing network. Within science education, a new course can be seen to be a token. It undergoes various transformations as it simultaneously changes those who encounter it (teachers, students, and interested actors beyond the school) and is changed by those same actors. This paper describes the way a new applied physics course introduced in British Columbia as part of a program in applied academics can be seen to construct different networks in different contexts and, in the process, to take on significantly different characteristics. Data are collected from interviews and observations in two different settings characterized in part by differences in the types of partnerships developed with industry, labour, and post-secondary groups. The success of the applied physics course in challenging traditional forms of school physics is seen to rely on the size and strength of the network in which it is imbedded.