Aging and Text Comprehension: Interpretation and Domain Knowledge Advantage

In this study, young, middle-aged, and elderly adults read two different history texts. In the knowledge advantage condition, readers read a history text about an event that was well-known to readers of all ages but most familiar to elderly adults. In the no advantage condition, readers read a history text about a political situation of a country that no age groups knew much about. After reading the text, readers recalled and interpreted the texts. Comparison of the recall and the interpretation performance showed that while recall was best in the young group and declined with age, interpretation did not. The middle-aged and elderly adults generated interpretations that were equally deep and more synthetic than those of the young adults. They also generated interpretations with more diverse rationale statements. As for the effect of knowledge advantage its effect on text recall was straightforward: although not significant, age-group differences in recall were smaller in the knowledge advantage condition than in the no advantage condition, suggesting that age-related decline in recall can be moderated by older adults' knowledge advantage. The effect of knowledge advantage on text interpretation was less clear-cut. While knowledge facilitated interpretations, the facilitation was not uniform across different measures of interpretations, suggesting a complex interaction between text interpretation and knowledge.     

Rates and Predictors of Counseling Center Use Among College Students of Color

A comparison of institutional enrollment data and counseling center service utilization data at 66 universities showed that neither ethnic minority students nor European American students under‐ or overutilized counseling services (Study 1). Data from Study 2 examining students in the general campus bodies at 45 institutions indicated that utilization of counseling center services for students of various ethnicities was predicted by the ethnic composition of the counseling center staff. Among students of color, utilization of campus counseling services was predicted by greater psychological distress, less family support, and a history of previous psychological problems.     

Structured Constructs Models Based on Change‐Point Analysis

This study proposes a structured constructs model (SCM) to examine measurement in the context of a multidimensional learning progression (LP). The LP is assumed to have features that go beyond a typical multidimentional IRT model, in that there are hypothesized to be certain cross‐dimensional linkages that correspond to requirements between the levels of the different dimensions. The new model builds on multidimensional item response theory models and change‐point analysis to add cut‐score and discontinuity parameters that embody these substantive requirements. This modeling strategy allows us to place the examinees in the appropriate LP level and simultaneously to model the hypothesized requirement relations. Results from a simulation study indicate that the proposed change‐point SCM recovers the generating parameters well. When the hypothesized requirement relations are ignored, the model fit tends to become worse, and the model parameters appear to be more biased. Moreover, the proposed model can be used to find validity evidence to support or disprove initial theoretical hypothesized links in the LP through empirical data. We illustrate the technique with data from an assessment system designed to measure student progress in a middle‐school statistics and modeling curriculum.     

Students’ Perceptions and Emotions Toward Learning in a Flipped General Science Classroom

Recently, the inverted instruction methodologies are gaining attentions in higher educations by claiming that flipping the classroom engages more effectively students with the learning process. Besides, students’ perceptions and emotions involved in their learning process must be assessed in order to gauge the usability of this relatively new instruction methodology, since it is vital in the educational formation. For this reason, this study intends to evaluate the students’ perceptions and emotions when a flipped classroom setting is used as instruction methodology. This research was conducted in a general science course, sophomore of the Primary Education bachelor degree in the Training Teaching School of the University of Extremadura (Spain). The results show that the students have the overall positive perceptions to a flipped classroom setting. Particularly, over 80 % of them considered that the course was a valuable learning experience. They also found this course more interactive and were willing to have more courses following a flipped model. According to the students’ emotions toward a flipped classroom course, the highest scores were given to the positive emotions, being fun and enthusiasm along with keyword frequency test. Then, the lowest scores were corresponded to negative emotions, being boredom and fear. Therefore, the students attending to a flipped course demonstrated to have more positive and less negative emotions. The results obtained in this study allow drawing a promising tendency about the students’ perceptions and emotions toward the flipped classroom methodology and will contribute to fully frame this relatively new instruction methodology.     

The effects of active versus reflective learning style on the processes of critical discourse in computer-supported collaborative argumentation

This study examined how message-response exchanges produced in the interactions between active learners only, reflective learners only, active-reflective learners and reflective-active learners affected how often active versus reflective learners posted rebuttals to arguments and challenges across four types of exchanges that believed to promote critical discourse (argument–challenge, challenge–counterchallenge, challenge–explain, challenge–evidence) in computer-supported collaborative argumentation (CSCA). This study found that the exchanges between reflective learners produced 44% more responses than in the exchanges between active learners ( ES  = +0.17). The reflective–reflective exchanges produced 47% more responses than the active–reflective exchanges ( ES  = +0.18). These results suggest that groups with reflective learners only are likely to produce more critical discourse than groups with active learners only, and the ratio of active–reflective learners within a group can potentially influence overall group performance. These findings illustrate how specific traits of the learner can affect discourse processes in CSCA and provide insights into process-oriented strategies and tools for structuring dialogue and promoting critical inquiry in online discussions.     

Political homophily on social network sites and users' poll skepticism

Although many studies have investigated citizens' attitudes toward polls and the political consequences, there have been no studies examining the effects of social network site (SNS) users' opinion environments on their poll skepticism. Based on prior studies on poll skepticism, we examine the relationship between perceived SNS opinion environments, poll skepticism, perceived concerns over the negative influence of the polls, and voting intention in an upcoming election. Using the survey data of the 2012 South Korean General Election, this study found that if the published polls are against respondents' political position, their homophilous SNS opinion environments promote poll skepticism, and augmented poll skepticism leads to concerns over the negative influence of the polls on other voters, which in turn increases voting intention.     

An online authoring tool for creating activity-based learning objects

As higher education increasingly relies on e-learning, the need for tools that will allow teachers themselves to develop effective e-learning objects as simply and quickly as possible has also been increasingly recognized. This article discusses the design and development of a novel tool, Enook (Evolutionary note book), for creating activity-based learning objects (LOs). This tool has three general foci: 1) creation of various activity-based objects for experimental learning or learning by doing while simultaneously offering as many learning resources as a real e-book that services as both a textbook and a notebook, dual functions that paperback books can never provide; 2) management of all aspects of live instructor-led classroom training in a network environment, such the Web and or a mobile network; 3) facilitated use of data on students’ progress to monitor their understanding of the material and to provide other meaningful information through learning analytics.     

Supporting High School Student Accomplishment of Biology Content Using Interactive Computer-Based Curricular Case Studies

Research in Science Education - Research into the efficacy of modules featuring dynamic visualizations, case studies, and interactive learning environments is reported here. This quasi-experimental...     

Shifting Gears: Characteristics and Consequences of Latent Class Transitions in Doctoral Socialization

Research in Higher Education - Using a national sample of 336 biology Ph.D. students, this study classified students based on their interactions with faculty and peers, and investigated...