“Areas of Instruction”—A Tool for Assessing the Quality of Instructional Situations

A model for analysing the nature of the dyadic teacher–student interplay in instructional situations including one teacher and one student is described. The “teacher” may be a regular teacher, a parent, or any other person who is in the position of teacher. The “student” may be a student of any age. The model may discern (a) if the teacher merely asks for information preknown to the teacher and the teacher evaluates the student's answer according to the teacher's preknowledge, (b) if the teacher asks for information preknown to the teacher, the teacher then scaffolds the student's learning by giving clues to the correct answer and then evaluates the answer according to the teacher's preknowledge, or (c) the teacher asks for information not preknown to her/him and the teacher is genuinely interested in the student's answer. This last scenario (c) is thought to give optimal conditions for cognitive development for the student.     

Questions,Instructions, and Modes of Listening in the Joint Production of Guided Action: A Study of Student–Teacher Collaboration in Handicraft Education

This article concerns a central issue in education as an institutional activity: instructions and their role in guiding student activities and understanding. In the study, we investigate the tensions between specifics and generalities in the joint production of guided action. This issue is explored in the context of handicraft education—or more specifically, a teacher education program in sloyd. Handicraft is particularly interesting when analysing instructions, since the purposes of instructions are often dual: (1) to bring about a broad, instructionally relevant mode of understanding artefacts (including their origin, aesthetics, etc.), and (2) to guide manual action in the production of such artefacts. In the article, a detailed analysis of an instructional sequence, which includes the production of two distinct types of embroideries, is reported. The analysis sheds light on the role of educational examples in sloyd as well as on the related issue concerning the distinctive difference between the activities of listening to instructions as part of a lecture, on the one hand, and, on the other, listening to instructions in order to be able to accomplish a task.     

Not Read,but Nevertheless Solved? Three Experiments on PIRLS Multiple Choice Reading Comprehension Test Items

Multiple-choice (MC) reading comprehension test items comprise three components: text passage, questions about the text, and MC answers. The construct validity of this format has been repeatedly criticized. In three between-subjects experiments, fourth graders (N ₁ = 230, N ₂ = 340, N ₃ = 194) worked on three versions of MC items from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2001 reading comprehension test with relevant components successively deleted: “original version” (text, questions, MC-answers), “version without text” (questions, MC-answers), “version without text and without questions” (only MC-answers). Answering correctly the MC items became more difficult as the relevant information was eliminated. In the two narrative fictional texts presented, the students' performance of the version without text was not better than chance. Conversely in the informational (fictional) text, the students' performance of the version without text was better than chance. In the third condition, students' performance was never better than chance.     

Efficient sample preparation in immuno-matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry using acoustic trapping

Acoustic trapping of minute bead amounts against fluid flow allows for easy automation of multiple assay steps, using a convenient aspirate/dispense format. Here, a method based on acoustic trapping that allows sample preparation for immuno-matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry using only half a million 2.8 μm antibody covered beads is presented. The acoustic trapping is done in 200 × 2000 μm² glass capillaries and provides highly efficient binding and washing conditions, as shown by complete removal of detergents and sample processing times of 5-10 min. The versatility of the method is demonstrated using an antibody against Angiotensin I (Ang I), a peptide hormone involved in hypotension. Using this model system, the acoustic trapping was efficient in enriching Angiotensin at 400 pM spiked in plasma samples.     

Managing research and innovation networks: Evidence from a government sponsored cross-industry program

Important innovations are increasingly produced based on research engagement and fertilization across industries. However, we know little about the challenges associated with managing innovation networks in specific contexts that involves researchers in cross-industry collaboration. Against this backdrop, we draw on theory on design and orchestration of innovation networks to analyze a large-scale government sponsored program, “ProcessIT Innovations” that was designed to increase competitiveness and accelerate economic growth in Northern Sweden. The program was initiated and led by firms from the traditionally strong local process industry and engaged local researchers and firms from the emerging IT industry. Based on our analyses, we offer two contributions. First, we provide a detailed analysis of the challenges related to configuration of the network, orchestration of partnerships between participants, and facilitation of innovation in dedicated development projects. Second, we propose a model of managing research and innovation networks through fertilization across industries and between firms and research institutions.     

The Co-Effects of Query Structure and Expansion on Retrieval Performance in Probabilistic Text Retrieval

The effects of query structures and query expansion (QE) on retrieval performance were tested with a best match retrieval system (InQuery¹). Query structure means the use of operators to express the relations between search keys. Six different structures were tested, representing strong structures (e.g., queries with facets or concepts identified) and weak structures (no concepts identified, a query is a bag of search keys). QE was based on concepts, which were first selected from a searching thesaurus, and then expanded by semantic relationships given in the thesaurus. The expansion levels were (a) no expansion, (b) a synonym expansion, (c) a narrower concept expansion, (d) an associative concept expansion, and (e) a cumulative expansion of all other expansions. With weak structures and Boolean structured queries, QE was not very effective. The best performance was achieved with a combination of a facet structure, where search keys within a facet were treated as instances of one search key (the SYN operator), and the largest expansion.     

Teacher Judgments of Student Reading and Math Skills: Associations With Child- and Classroom-Related Factors

The purpose of the study was to examine whether students’ linguistic skills and task-avoidant behavior (i.e., the child-related factors) and the mean level of academic skills (reading comprehension and math) of classmates (i.e., the class-related factor) are associated with teacher judgments of children’s reading comprehension and math skills. The participants were third-grade Estonian-speaking students (n?=?656; age 9?11 years) and their classroom teachers (n?=?51). The results of the structural equation modeling path analyses indicated that teachers tend to judge students showing higher academic and linguistic skills and lower avoidance behavior as higher on the reading comprehension and math skills. In contrast, the classmates’ higher academic skill level was related to lower judgments of individual children’s reading comprehension and math skills by teachers.