Options for Change: A Flexible Vehicle for Curriculum Evolution and Reform

In this article we examine a flexible curricular approach known as the “Option.” The Option enables students to supplement traditional majors with a coherent set of courses and other educational experiences in a related, often interdisciplinary field. Options can act as curricular bridges between mainstream academic fields and problems of professional practice. They can also give students experience with emerging subject areas (e.g., biomedical engineering). Options serve as laboratories for experimenting with new subject areas before incorporating them fully into the curriculum as majors and minors. Hence, Options promote creativity and risk-taking by providing a proving ground for potential new academic programs.Roger G. Baldwin received his doctorate in higher education from the University of Michigan. He is currently Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education at Michigan State University. His research interests include curriculum development and reform, faculty career development, and organizational change. Melissa J. Baumann received her doctorate in Materials Science and Engineering from Case Western Reserve University. She is currently Associate Professor of Engineering at Michigan State University. Her research interests include biomedical materials research, specifically ceramic scaffolds in bone tissue engineering and biomedical engineering education.     

The impact of institutional factors on student academic results: implications for ‘quality’ in universities

This paper situates the topic of student assessment and the moderation of assessment within a broader context of policy debates about the quality of teaching and learning in universities. The focus and discussion grew out of a research project that aimed to investigate factors related to academic success and failure in a Faculty of Arts. The study, initially, identified a range of student demographic and biographical factors significantly related to academic success and failure. However, there was also evidence of pronounced differences in grading practices between different components (courses, programs, schools) within the institution. The paper explores the implications of such inconsistencies for the institutional mechanisms and processes that have typically been advocated as sufficient safeguards of quality. It concludes that the tendency of governments and other stakeholders to now champion performance indicators, along with the shifting focus towards quality ‘outcomes’, are likely to increasingly throw the strengths and weaknesses of institutional assessment practices into stark relief.     

Parents' monitoring-relevant knowledge and adolescents' delinquent behavior: evidence of correlated developmental changes and reciprocal influences

Links between parental knowledge and adolescent delinquent behavior were tested for correlated rates of developmental change and reciprocal associations. For 4 years beginning at age 14, adolescents (N = 396) reported on their delinquent behavior and on their parents' knowledge of their whereabouts and activities. Parents completed measures of their adolescents' delinquent behavior. Knowledge was negatively correlated with delinquent behaviors at baseline, and increases over time in knowledge were negatively correlated with increases in parent-reported delinquent behavior. Reciprocal associations indicate that low levels of parental knowledge predict increases in delinquent behavior and that high levels of delinquent behavior predict decreases in knowledge. Discussion considers both youth-driven and parent-driven processes that may account for the correlated developmental changes and reciprocal associations.     

Transfer of escape conditioning to extinction of a food-reinforced response

Four experiments test the hypothesis that escape learning in response to shock will transfer to a similar food-reinforced response and affect resistance to appetitive extinction. In the first two experiments, subjects were given escape training in a straight alley followed by continuous food reinforcement and then extinction. Prior escape training resulted in greater resistance to extinction of the food-reinforced response as compared to several control procedures. In the third experiment, the escape response was manipulated to be compatible or incompatible with the subsequent food-reinforced response. Greater resistance to extinction was shown when the two responses were compatible. The fourth experiment confirmed and extended this finding. The relationship of the present results to Amsel’s theory of persistence was discussed.     

Absolute versus relative class conceptual behavior in squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus)

A theoretical scheme was suggested which distinguished between absolute and relative class concepts and differentiated class from relational concepts. Four monkeys were trained to respond differentially to green and nongreen objects (absolute class) and four responded differentially to odd and nonodd objects (relative class). All monkeys met stringent criteria of performance on their respective tasks, the green-nongreen group in a median of 600 trials and the odd-nonodd group in a median of 1,600 trials (p = .014). Possible explanations for the performance differences and some implications of the theory for comparative, nonhuman conceptual research were discussed.     

Effects of novelty-reducing preparation on exploratory behavior and cognitive learning in a science museum setting

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between (a) novelty and exploratory behavior, (b) novelty and cognitive learning, and (c) exploratory behavior and cognitive learning in science museums. Sixty-four sixth-grade public school students participated in a posttest-only control group design. The control group received a treatment designed to decrease the novelty of a field trip setting through a vicarious exposure while the placebo group received an informative but not novelty-reducing treatment. Both groups then visited the field site where they were videotaped. Statistical analyses were conducted on both dependent variables with socioeconomic status and academic achievement as covariates, novelty-reducing preparation as the independent variable, and gender as moderator variable. Exploratory behavior was shown to be positively correlated with cognitive learning. Significant differences were detected for exploratory behavior. For both dependent variables, gender by treatment group interaction was significant with novelty-reducing preparation shown to be highly effective on boys but having no effect on girls.     

The effects of controversy,concurrence seeking,and individualistic learning on achievement and attitude change

The effects of cooperative-controversy, cooperative-concurrence seeking, and individualistic learning were compared on motivation, achievement, and attitudes toward the science subject being studied. Eighty-four fifth-grade students were assigned to conditions on a stratified random basis controlling for sex and reading ability. In all three conditions students studied whether wolves should or should not be a protected species. The results indicate that cooperative-controversy resulted in the highest achievement, greatest motivation to learn more about wolves, more positive attitudes toward the wolf, and more positive attitudes toward controversy.     

A comparison between national and transnational students’ access of online learning support materials and experience of technical difficulties on a fully online distance learning master of public health programme

Online distance learning (ODL) is now recognised as a mainstream teaching method for undergraduate and postgraduate students around the world. However, differences in learner characteristics such as help-seeking behaviour between transnational students and home students may impact on student attainment. 64 students undertaking an online master of public health programme in the UK completed a survey which explored students’ access of learner support resources, their experience of technical difficulties, demographic characteristics and learner characteristics. We collected data on the geographic region in which students were currently living and their geographical region of origin. Students whose region of origin was outside the UK/EU accessed a greater number of support resources than students based within the UK/EU and students whose region of residence was outside the UK/EU experienced a greater number of technical difficulties than students from within the UK/EU. Thus transnational students access more support resources than home students despite having to overcome more technical difficulties in order to do so. The classification of students based on fee-paying status was unable to detect these differences and may not be appropriate for ODL courses.     

Adaptive Human Scaffolding Facilitates Adolescents’ Self-regulated Learning with Hypermedia

This study examines the effectiveness of three scaffolding conditions on adolescents’ learning about the circulatory system with a hypermedia learning environment. One hundred and eleven adolescents (n = 111) were randomly assigned to one of three scaffolding conditions (adaptive scaffolding (AS), fixed scaffolding (FS), or no scaffolding (NS)) and were trained to use a hypermedia environment to learn about the circulatory system. Pretest and posttest data were collected to measure the qualitative changes in students’ mental models of the topic and quantitative changes in their declarative knowledge. Verbal protocols were collected during the 40-minute learning task to examine how each condition affected the way in which students regulated their learning. Findings revealed that learners in both the AS and NS conditions gained significantly more declarative knowledge than did those in the FS condition. Also, the AS condition was associated with shift in learners’ mental models significantly more than the other conditions. Associated with these significant shifts in their mental models, learners in the AS condition regulated their learning by planning and activating prior knowledge, monitoring their cognitive activities and their progress toward learning goals, using several effective strategies, and engaging in adaptive help-seeking. By contrast, those in the NS condition used fewer effective strategies, while those in the FS regulated their learning by using several regulatory processes which seemed to impede their learning. Implications for the design of scaffolds for fostering students’ self-regulated learning with hypermedia are presented.