Elementary School Students’ Science Talk Ability in Inquiry-Oriented Settings in Taiwan: Test Development,Verification, and Performance Benchmarks

The purpose of this study was to develop a computer-based measure of elementary students’ science talk and to report students’ benchmarks. The development procedure had three steps: defining the framework of the test, collecting and identifying key reference sets of science talk, and developing and verifying the science talk instrument. The Science Talk Test (STT), consisting of semi-structured items, was developed for a framework of exemplars from inquiry classrooms representing three inquiry components (i.e. identifying questions, designing methods and presenting evidence, and drawing evidence-based conclusions) for two types of science talk (i.e. factually oriented and evaluative discourses). Grades 4 and 6 students (N = 281) were selected from three levels of urbanization representative of Taiwan to verify the STT and to establish performance benchmarks. The STT’s reliability, validity, and item parameters were found to be reasonable. Students performed better in the factually oriented talk than in the evaluative talk. Designing methods and presenting evidence was more difficult than the other two types of inquiry talk. Students’ science talk ability was predictable with prior scientific knowledge and language ability measures. Practical use of the STT, explicit instruction, and future research are recommended.     

A Cross-grade Comparison to Examine the Context Effect on the Relationships Among Family Resources,School Climate,Learning Participation,Science Attitude,and Science Achievement Based on TIMSS 2003 in Taiwan

This study aimed to examine whether the relationships among family resources, school climate, learning participation, science attitude, and science achievement are different between primary school students and junior high school students within one educational system. The subjects included 4,181 Grade 4 students and 5,074 Grade 8 students who participated in TIMSS 2003 in Taiwan. Using structural equation modeling, the results showed that family resources had significant positive effects for both groups of learners. Furthermore, a context effect for the structural relationship between school climate, learning participation, and science achievement was revealed. In the primary school context, Grade 4 students who perceived positive school climate participated in school activities more actively, and had better science performance. However, in the secondary school context, learning participation had a negative impact and led to lower science achievement. The implications about this result in relation to the characteristics of the two educational contexts in Taiwan were further discussed.     

Command filtered robust adaptive NN control for a class of uncertain strict-feedback nonlinear systems under input saturation

This paper develops a robust adaptive neural network (NN) tracking control scheme for a class of strict-feedback nonlinear systems with unknown nonlinearities and unknown external disturbances under input saturation. The radial basis function NNs with minimal learning parameter (MLP) are employed to online approximate the uncertain system dynamics. The adaptive laws are designed to online update the upper bound of the norm of ideal NN weight vectors, and the sum of the bounds of NN approximation errors and external disturbances, respectively. An auxiliary dynamic system is constructed to generate the augmented error signals which are used to modify the adaptive laws for preventing the destructive action due to the input saturation. Moreover, the command filtering backstepping control method is utilized to overcome the shortcoming of dynamic surface control method, the tracking-differentiator-based control method, etc. Our proposed scheme is qualified for simultaneously dealing with the input saturation effect, the heavy computational burden and the “explosion of complexity” problems. Theoretical analysis illuminates that our scheme ensures the boundedness of all signals in the closed-loop systems. Simulation results on two examples verify the effectiveness of our developed control scheme.     

Pre-kindergarten child care and behavioral outcomes among children of immigrants

The school transition model suggests that children's transitions into formal schooling can have lasting and profound implications for their educational careers, though this model is rarely used to understand the outcomes of children of immigrants. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), a nationally representative sample of kindergarteners in 1998–1999, we examine the pre-kindergarten child care arrangements of children of immigrants and how these care arrangements are associated with children's behavior. We find that minority and immigrant children are less likely than their native-born white counterparts to be enrolled in center-based care and other care, compared to parental care, prior to kindergarten. We also find that ethnic origin is an important predictor of child care usage. Finally, though center-based care, on average, is not independently associated with children's behavior in kindergarten, the association between center-based care and behaviors varies by race and immigrant status. Broadly, these findings underscore the importance of understanding how native- and foreign-born children experience the transition to schooling, a critical period in the life course.     

Behavioural Interactions within Chinese Families with Children Exhibiting Emotional Difficulties in Adlerian Family Play Therapy: Implications for Counselling Professionals

This study explores behavioural interactions between Chinese parents and emotionally disturbed children in Taiwan by conducting behavioural interaction analysis of five sessions each of Adlerian family play therapy involving two families. Emerging themes included behavioural displays of discouragement, control, aggression, intimacy, and conflicts. Implications are drawn and recommendations made on how counselling professionals may use behavioural interaction assessment through family play therapy as an intervention tool.     

Educational Achievement of Immigrant Adolescents in Spain: Do Gender and Region of Origin Matter?

This study explores the educational achievement of immigrant youth in Spain employing data from 3 waves of the Longitudinal Study of Families and Childhood (Pànel de Famílies i Infància), a representative sample of children in Catalonia first interviewed at ages 13-16 in 2006 (N = 2,710). Results suggest consistent disadvantage in achievement among first-generation students. Differences in achievement between the second and third generations are apparent in bivariate analyses, but are explained by observable characteristics in multivariate analyses. Gender-specific analyses uncover a large achievement gap between first-generation girls and their third-generation counterparts, but no equivalent gap for boys. Region-of-origin differences are modest, with the exception of Latin American adolescents who exhibit the lowest educational outcomes. The significance of perceptions about school on achievement are discussed.     

Tracking control design for interval type-2 fuzzy nonlinear unreliable networked control systems

This paper deals with the interval type-2 (IT2) fuzzy tracking control problem for nonlinear networked control systems with unreliable communication links. The plant is described by an IT2 fuzzy system, and the IT2 fuzzy sampled-data tracking controller is designed under the unreliable communication mechanism. By utilizing the Lyapunov theory, the stability demonstration is carried out under the mathematical expectation. The characteristics of membership functions are applied to enhance the stability of the IT2 fuzzy system. With the more sampling information used in the stability analysis, the less conservative sufficient condition is provided based on which a networked tracking controller is designed to ensure the anticipant tracking performance. Finally, the efficiency and the merits of this paper are shown by two simulation examples.     

摆线的逐点生成算法

给出了快速绘制摆线的逐点算法,此算法基于曲线表达式的特点,将摆线的点坐标迭代关系转化为几个简单迭代关系的线性组合。在迭代过程中避免了三角函数的运算,每步仅需两次乘法。算法的绘制误差不超过&2/2象素。     

Stability in mean of partial variables for stochastic reaction–diffusion systems with Markovian switching

This paper is denoted to investigating stability in mean of partial variables for stochastic reaction–diffusion equations with Markovian switching (SRDEMS). By transforming the integral of the trajectory with respect to spatial variables as the solution of the stochastic ordinary differential equations with Markovian switching (SODEMS) and using Itô formula, sufficient criteria on uniform stability in mean, asymptotic stability in mean, uniformly asymptotic stability in mean, exponential stability in mean of partial variables for SRDEMS are first derived. An example is presented to illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the obtained results.