Transactional issues in distance education: The impact of design in Audioteleconferencing

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a study of student perceptions of learning via audioconferencing in university‐level courses delivered at a distance. Field observations, interviews, and a focus group were used to triangulate and deepen knowledge obtained from an initial mail survey. The results of the investigation revealed that the audioteleconferences were being used under two quite different instructional designs, which were associated with significant differences in students' perceptions of the opportunity to engage in critical thinking skills, creation of a community of inquiry, and the value of various components of the distance education system. The study documents students' perceptions and outlines ways in which these sessions can be designed to induce maximum learning opportunities.     

Movie stars and box office revenues: an empirical analysis

This paper examines the relationship between star power and box office revenues using box office data from nine countries and a continuous measure of star power based on the number of visits to a star’s web page on IMDB, the most popular web site for movie-related information. The degree of star power is computed for the top star, top three stars, and the director for the films in our sample. The results indicate that replacing an average star with a top star would increase revenues by an average of 16,618,570, while replacing three average stars with three top stars would increase revenues by an average of16,618,570, while replacing three average stars with three top stars would increase revenues by an average of 64,410,381.     

Digital Citizenship in K-12: It Takes a Village

Digital citizenship encompasses a wide range of behaviors with varying degrees of risk and possible negative consequences. Lack of digital citizenship awareness and education can, and has, led to problematic, even dangerous student conduct. If our educational village does not address these issues, the digital culture establishes its own direction, potentially pushing a productive, long-term solution further out of reach. By tapping into the experience of various practitioners and experts in the field this article provides the reader with a number of suggestions that can help the professional to help their students become better digital citizens.     

Competence vs. Performance and recent approaches to cognitive assessment

The importance of accurate cognitive assessment and its relationship to effective instructional programming are discussed. Traditional methods of test administration are less than optimally sensitive to the cognitive abilities and processes under investigation. A disparity between competence and performance can occur across a variety of populations due to task and situational demands, as well as to motivational and personality factors. Recent approaches aimed at lessening the gap between competence and performance are discussed, along with their strengths and weaknesses.     

Reconstructing Classroom Facts: Transforming Lower Track Science Classrooms

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Using New Technology to Improve Assessment

What are the areas of testing that will be most affected by new technology" Who is doing work on the cutting edge of these areas" What will be the ultimate effect of these innovations"