Contextual factors affecting the utility of surrogates within exploratory search

In this paper we investigate how information surrogates might be useful in exploratory search and what information it is useful for a surrogate to contain. By comparing assessments based on artificially created information surrogates, we investigate the effect of the source of information, the quality of an information source and the date of information upon the assessment process. We also investigate how varying levels of topical knowledge, assessor confidence and prior expectation affect the assessment of information surrogates. We show that both types of contextual information affect how the information surrogates are judged and what actions are performed as a result of the surrogates.     

‘Show me more’: Incremental length summarisation using novelty detection

The paper presents a study investigating the effects of incorporating novelty detection in automatic text summarisation. Condensing a textual document, automatic text summarisation can reduce the need to refer to the source document. It also offers a means to deliver device-friendly content when accessing information in non-traditional environments. An effective method of summarisation could be to produce a summary that includes only novel information. However, a consequence of focusing exclusively on novel parts may result in a loss of context, which may have an impact on the correct interpretation of the summary, with respect to the source document. In this study we compare two strategies to produce summaries that incorporate novelty in different ways: a constant length summary, which contains only novel sentences, and an incremental summary, containing additional sentences that provide context. The aim is to establish whether a summary that contains only novel sentences provides sufficient basis to determine relevance of a document, or if indeed we need to include additional sentences to provide context. Findings from the study seem to suggest that there is only a minimal difference in performance for the tasks we set our users and that the presence of contextual information is not so important. However, for the case of mobile information access, a summary that contains only novel information does offer benefits, given bandwidth constraints.     

The effects of cooperative learning and learner control on students' achievement, option selections, and attitudes

We investigated the effects of studying alone or in cooperative-learning groups on the performance of high and low achievers, using either learner- or program-controlled computer-based instruction. A total of 92 sixth-grade students were classified by Stanford Achievement Test scores and randomly assigned to group or individual treatments, stratified by achievement scores. Both high and low achievers in the cooperative treatment performed better and had more positive attitudes toward grouping than did students working individually, on both program-controlled and learner-controlled computer lessons. In addition, the cooperative-learning group exhibited significantly greater improvement from immediate to delayed post-test than did the individual-learning group. For low achievers, the greatest improvement was in the program-controlled condition, and for the high achievers, in the learner-controlled condition. The learner-controlled cooperative-learning group, compared to the learner-controlled individual-learning group, chose to check its concept learning more often and spent more time interacting with the computer-based tutorial. These results suggest that cooperative learning provides beneficial effects, and imply a need for software designers to adapt computer-based instruction for cooperative learning to the different learning styles of high-and low-achieving students.     

Educating Teachers to Teach Multiplicative Structures in the Middle Grades

The middle-grades mathematics related to multiplicative structures has undergone careful scrutiny over the past decade. Researchers have identified the types of reasonings involved; the difficulties students have with the concepts and why these difficulties might occur; and the interconnections within this content area. On the basis of this research we make four recommendations for the preparation and professional development of teachers. The recommendations deal with different but related forms of reasoning: quantitative reasoning, multiplicative reasoning, proportional reasoning, and reasoning with rational numbers. Problematic issues that follow from the recommendations are discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Teacher Educators,Student Teachers and Biographical Influences: implications for teacher education

The importance of acknowledging the influence of biography in understanding teachers’ work is well established in recent literature. Drawing upon data arising from a study of teacher educators and their students, we consider the influence of biography on the work of teacher educators and student teachers. We draw comparisons between the ways in which they make connections with their demographic characteristics, their personal and educational histories and their understanding of their work. We evaluate the data against two major positions in the literature on biography and draw some implications for teacher education.     

Unpacking students’ epistemic cognition in a physics problem-solving environment

It is a widely held view that students’ epistemic beliefs influence the way they think and learn in a given context, however, in the science learning context, the relationship between sophisticated epistemic beliefs and success in scientific practice is sometimes ambiguous. Taking this inconsistency as a point of departure, we examined the relationship between students’ scientific epistemic beliefs (SEB), their epistemic practices, and their epistemic cognition in a computer simulation in classical mechanics. Tenth grade students’ manipulations of the simulation, spoken comments, and behavior were screen and video-recorded and subsequently transcribed and coded. In addition, a stimulated recall interview was undertaken to access students’ thinking and reflections on their practice, in order to understand their practice and make inferences about their process of epistemic cognition. The paper reports on the detailed analysis of the data sets for three students of widely different SEB and performance levels. Comparing the SEB, problem solutions and epistemic practices of the three students has enabled us to examine the interplay between SEB, problem-solving strategies (PS), conceptual understanding (CU), and metacognitive reflection (MCR), to see how these operate together to facilitate problem solutions. From the analysis, we can better understand how different students’ epistemic cognition is adaptive to the context. The findings have implications for teaching science and further research into epistemic cognition.     

Track choice,school engagement and feelings of perceived control at the transition from primary to secondary school

The transition from primary to secondary education is regarded as a crucial phase in pupils’ school careers. Changes in the school environment have a negative influence on pupils’ perceived control and engagement. However, until now little attention has been devoted to the role of the onset of ability grouping therein, which often coincides with the start of secondary education. Research has shown that students in non-academic tracks display lower levels of perceived control and engagement. In this study we examine the relation between pupils’ prospective track choice and feelings of perceived control and behavioural and cognitive engagement before the transition to secondary education. Stepwise multilevel regression models were run on data collected from pupils in their last year of primary education in 36 schools in the cities of Antwerp and Ghent (Flanders, Belgium) in May–June 2016. The results show that pupils who indicated that they would start secondary education in non-academic tracks displayed lower levels of perceived control and behavioural and cognitive engagement than pupils who indicated that they would start in an academic track. Further analyses suggest that teacher assessments of pupils’ competence play an important role in explaining these differences according to prospective track choice—with regard to perceived control and behavioural disengagement, this effect is established net of students’ actual competence. This study demonstrates that differences in perceived control and engagement according to track originate in primary education, and that primary school teachers play a vital part in labelling students according to their future careers.     

Academic Freedom: A Global Comparative Approach

Academic freedom is best understood not as an abstract universal principle or an ideal state of being but as concrete university practices nested in specific relational environments. As such, practices of academic freedom vary across the world, according to variations in political cultures, educational cultures and state-university relations. The article discusses these variations with particular reference to differences between universities associated with the limited liberal states of the English-speaking world, and those associated with comprehensive East Asian states in the Sinic tradition, including China. Given the different traditions there is no point in imposing judgments on one system in terms of the norms of another, but worth exploring the potential for common ground. Any world-wide approach to academic freedom would need to combine a universal element with space for context-specific elements.