Augmented Reality for Teaching Science Vocabulary to Postsecondary Education Students With Intellectual Disabilities and Autism

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of an emerging technology called augmented reality to teach science vocabulary words to college students with intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorders. One student with autism and three students with an intellectual disability participated in a multiple probe across behaviors (i.e., acquisition of science vocabulary words) design. Data were collected on each student's ability to define and label three sets of science vocabulary words (i.e., bones, organs, and plant cells). The results indicate that all students acquired definition and labeling knowledge for the new science vocabulary terms. Results are discussed in the context of applying universal design principles with emerging technologies to create authentic opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders to learn science vocabulary. (Keywords: augmented reality, autism, intellectual disability, science vocabulary, universal design for learning)     

A Target’s Perspective: Verbal Aggressiveness,Coping Strategies,and Relational Harm

A total of 361 college students recalled situations when they were the targets of verbally aggressive messages. Results indicated that message source predicted perceived relational harm better than the trait variable of verbal aggressiveness. Greater relational harm was perceived from romantic partners and short-term acquaintances. Males were higher in verbal aggressiveness. Targets’ levels of trait verbal destructiveness predicted which coping strategy each reported, and which coping strategy they chose predicted perceived relational harm.     

Scenario-Based Assessments in Writing: An Experimental Study

Writing from source text is critical for developing college-and-career readiness because it is required in advanced academic environments and many vocations. Scenario-based assessment (SBA) represents one approach to measuring this ability. In such assessment, the scenario presents an issue that the student is to read and write about. Before writing, lead-in exercises are presented to encourage the examinee to engage with the source materials and to model the process used in a classroom writing project. This study experimentally manipulated a middle-school assessment design to understand if (1) the lead-in/essay structure increased scores erroneously with a concomitant decrease in test technical quality, and (2) the presence of a single unifying scenario affected scores or score meaning. In general, the SBA design did not appear to artificially increase total-test or essay scores. As importantly, it functioned as well as, sometimes better than, the alternative designs in terms of the measurement characteristics examined.     

The Nature of Science and Science Education: A Bibliography

Research on the nature of science and science education enjoys a longhistory, with its origins in Ernst Mach's work in the late nineteenthcentury and John Dewey's at the beginning of the twentieth century.As early as 1909 the Central Association for Science and MathematicsTeachers published an article – A Consideration of the Principles thatShould Determine the Courses in Biology in Secondary Schools – inSchool Science and Mathematics that reflected foundational concernsabout science and how school curricula should be informed by them. Sincethen a large body of literature has developed related to the teaching andlearning about nature of science – see, for example, the Lederman (1992)and Meichtry (1993) reviews cited below. As well there has been intensephilosophical, historical and philosophical debate about the nature of scienceitself, culminating in the much-publicised Science Wars of recent time. Thereferences listed here primarily focus on the empirical research related to thenature of science as an educational goal; along with a few influential philosophicalworks by such authors as Kuhn, Popper, Laudan, Lakatos, and others. Whilenot exhaustive, the list should prove useful to educators, and scholars in otherfields, interested in the nature of science and how its understanding can berealised as a goal of science instruction. The authors welcome correspondenceregarding omissions from the list, and on-going additions that can be made to it.     

From Cognitive-Domain Theory to Assessment Practice

This article exemplifies how assessment design might be grounded in theory, thereby helping to strengthen validity claims. Spanning work across multiple related projects, the article first briefly summarizes an assessment system model for the elementary and secondary levels. Next the article describes how cognitive-domain theory and principles are used in the design of a scenario-based summative assessment for argumentation in the English language arts. Finally, results from several psychometric approaches are used to evaluate propositions suggested by the domain theory, including ones related to the use of topical scenarios and learning progressions in assessment design. Although results generally supported these propositions, the work described represents only a small step in a long-term, iterative process of theory development, assessment design, and empirical tryout, which should, in principle, lead to more valid assessments that better inform teaching and learning.     

Enhancing use of learning sciences research in planning for and supporting educational change: Leveraging and building social networks

This paper explores practical ways to engage two areas of educational scholarship—research on science learning and research on social networks—to inform efforts to plan and support implementation of new standards. The standards, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS; NGSS Lead States in Next generation science standards: For states, by states. National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2013), have been adopted by U.S. states serving more than one-quarter of all students, and they are grounded in decades of research on how students learn science. In this paper we discuss efforts to leverage recent research on social networks to inform standards implementation across a set of professional associations and school districts. These efforts are being undertaken by the Research + Practice Collaboratory which is testing a set of conjectures related to how the knowledge base from both research and practice can mutually inform STEM education improvement.     

Understanding How First-year Seminars Affect Persistence

First-year seminars are nearly ubiquitous fixtures in American higher education, and research has documented their positive effect on student persistence. Only limited research, however, has attempted to isolate the impact of various aspects of first-year seminars on persistence, especially on a cross-institutional basis. We use a survey of almost 20,000 first-year students at 45 four-year institutions combined with institutional-level data to understand how aspects of first-year seminars affect early intentions to persist. Because survey respondents are grouped within dissimilar institutions, we use a multilevel modeling approach to model intent to persist.     

Assessing the Nature of Science: What is the Nature of Our Assessments?

This paper discusses the nature of the instruments used to assess students' and teachers' conceptions of the nature of science during the last four decades. Two salient points emerge from critically reviewing the various research emphases and associated assessment instruments specifically related to the nature of science. The first is to question the validity of much of the research presented on the grounds that (a) assessment instruments are interpreted in a biased manner, and (b) some assessment instruments appear to be poorly constructed. Although such comments are well founded, it is important to note that the research conclusions were unusually uniform regardless of the particular instrument used in an investigation. The second point is a more critical concern about the traditional paper and pencil approach to the assessment of an individual's understanding of the nature of science. Although not a new insight, discrepancies between the interpretation of a written response to a traditional instrument (e.g., multiple choice assessment) and the intent of the respondent have been well documented. It is suggested that the current educational research shift toward more qualitative, open-ended approaches to assessment of individuals' understanding (of any concept) be applied to the assessment of individuals' nature of science conceptions.