Motivating Young Native American Students to Pursue STEM Learning Through a Culturally Relevant Science Program

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Data indicate that females and ethnic/race minority groups are underrepresented in the science and engineering workforce calling for innovative...     

Graduate Business Students Performance with Synchronous and Asynchronous Interaction e-Learning Methods

The effects of synchronous and asynchronous lectures and interaction formats were examined with graduate business students in on‐campus and off‐campus MBA programs. The dependent variables were scores on exams questions and learning styles and cognitive styles were used as covariates. The results indicated significant differences for discussion and lecture format and for on‐campus and off‐campus students. The results were discussed relative to learning in electronic environments.     

Test Anxiety and Metacognitive Performance in the Classroom

Educational Psychology Review - Test anxiety is a context-specific academic anxiety which can result in poorer academic and metacognitive performance. We assessed how the quantity and relative...     

Examining vocabulary,reading comprehension,and content knowledge instruction during fourth grade social studies teaching

Reading and Writing - Teaching vocabulary and reading comprehension during social studies instruction is critical for reading development and the acquisition of content knowledge. This study...     

Factors associated with changes in prestige of university departments

Four models of possible predictors of changes in prestige for university departments are advanced and tested using multiple regression. Changes in prestige are measured using a residual change score derived from the ratings of departments in various disciplines collected by American Council of Education in 1964 and 1969. The models are tested using data collected from 1,164 faculty in 80 university departments in 1968, and from published sources for that same year. Results indicate that a resource model is the best predictor for sociology, and that a research productivity model and an organizational model were good predictors of reputational change for political science and chemistry. For physics, only one organizational variable was an important predictor. The fourth model tested involved reputation of faculty within the department, and this model yielded the fewest significant results. A composite predictive equation was then used, retaining variables that had emerged as significant in earlier analyses. Results again exhibited large differences across scientific fields, suggesting that there is no single set of factors that can reliably predict improvement or decline in prestige across all disciplines.     

Pragmatic Assessment in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Comparison of a Standard Measure With Parent Report

The purpose of this study was to investigate the concurrent validity of subtests on the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL) by comparing them with the assessment of communication and social skills on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (Vineland). The participants were 35 children and adolescents with higher functioning autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who had received both the CASL and the Vineland. Results of the study suggest that the Pragmatic Judgment and Inferences subtests of the CASL appeared to document the difficulties that individuals with ASD had in adaptive use of language for communication.     

Educational Outcomes,Modern and Postmodern Interpretations: Response to Smyth and Dow

Drawing on research in Canada as well as studies in Australia and elsewhere, this paper challenges the arguments of Smyth and Dow (British Journal of Sociology in Education, 19(3), pp. 291-303) that outcomes-based education necessarily embodies a form of technical rationality which routinizes, proletarianizes and deskills teachers and their work. This paper criticizes Smyth and Dow for applying a universalistic and monolithic labour process theory to outcomes issues, for paying little or no attention to published evidence and argument on outcomes, and for being insensitive to the variable geometries of the outcomes phenomenon across different contexts. This paper, by contrast, identifies how investigating outcomes in a context of socialist policy-making, where equity goals are explicit and high discretion is granted to teachers, can contribute to clearer understanding of the variable postmodern geometries and educational possibilities of outcomes technology. These possibilities include fostering stronger collegiality among teachers, and democratic inclusion of pupils and parents in the teaching and learning process.     

Interactive Instruction to Prevent Attention Problems in Class

This article reports the development and implementation of a strategy designed to bring persistent attention problems in class (off-task behaviour) under the control of teachers and students. The strategy enables the teacher to recognise the demotivating meaning that a task situation can have for a student. By pinpointing this situation in short dialogues with the student, the teacher encourages the student to make his or her own task proposal with the intention of turning the task into a feasible challenge. The strategy was designed from a cognitive-motivational interpretation of attention problems, and it is given shape in four programs for elementary schools. The theoretical frame of reference, the characteristics of the strategy, and the implementation of the programs are set out. Furthermore, an evaluation study is reported. The results indicate that teachers using the strategy can deal more effectively with students who have task behaviour problems. The students' on-task behaviour in this study increased in units of time from 60–70%. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Running performance in the heat is improved by similar magnitude with pre-exercise cold-water immersion and mid-exercise facial water spray

This investigation compared the effects of external pre-cooling and mid-exercise cooling methods on running time trial performance and associated physiological responses. Nine trained male runners completed familiarisation and three randomised 5 km running time trials on a non-motorised treadmill in the heat (33°C). The trials included pre-cooling by cold-water immersion (CWI), mid-exercise cooling by intermittent facial water spray (SPRAY), and a control of no cooling (CON). Temperature, cardiorespiratory, muscular activation, and perceptual responses were measured as well as blood concentrations of lactate and prolactin. Performance time was significantly faster with CWI (24.5 ± 2.8 min; P = 0.01) and SPRAY (24.6 ± 3.3 min; P = 0.01) compared to CON (25.2 ± 3.2 min). Both cooling strategies significantly (P < 0.05) reduced forehead temperatures and thermal sensation, and increased muscle activation. Only pre-cooling significantly lowered rectal temperature both pre-exercise (by 0.5 ± 0.3°C; P < 0.01) and throughout exercise, and reduced sweat rate (P < 0.05). Both cooling strategies improved performance by a similar magnitude, and are ergogenic for athletes. The observed physiological changes suggest some involvement of central and psychophysiological mechanisms of performance improvement.     

Enacting FAIR Education: Approaches to Integrating LGBT Content in the K–12 Curriculum

The FAIR Education Act (SB 48) was signed into law in California in July of 2011, amending the Education Code by requiring representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons in the social sciences. In this article, the author uses James Banks’ model of the Four Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content to suggest ways in which lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender content could be located in the K–12 curriculum. Examples are provided at each of the levels including topics such as Gertrude Stein, Harvey Milk, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History Month, the Gay Rights Movement, Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, Matthew Shepard Act, It Gets Better Project, Gay Straight Alliance, and Stop SB 48 campaign, among others. The examples are offered to education boards and others to initiate conversations around ways to appropriately integrate the roles and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons into the curriculum, emphasizing places where such issues are already latent in social science content standards.