Knowing everything from soup to dessert: an exploratory study to describe what characterises students’ vocational knowledge

Students’ vocational knowledge can be defined as all knowledge students require performing within occupational practice. In the context of vocational education and training, students’ vocational knowledge is often discussed from a perspective of either what should be taught and learned in schools or different kinds of knowledge students should gain in occupational practice. Much less focus is on students’ vocational knowledge itself. This exploratory in-depth study aims to describe what characterises students’ vocational knowledge. To explore students’ vocational knowledge, an analytic framework is used to describe vocational knowledge characteristics specifying: (1) occupation-specific knowledge components, and (2) qualities. Results show the framework provides a structure to gain insight into the nature and meaning of vocational knowledge, and is valuable to describe characteristics in terms of knowledge components such as technical procedures or the social and occupational environment, and qualities such as richness, complexity and specificity. Additionally, to use an existing framework – originally developed in the contexts of ICT and Social Work – its usefulness is explored in a new context, namely, the hospitality industry. Recommendations about the framework serving as a potential tool to support students’ learning processes are provided.     

Embryonic auditory experience and maternal call recognition

Peking duck embryos respond selectively to the maternal call of their species on the day before hatching, given normal embryonic auditory experience (the sounds emanating from their siblings and themselves which begin late on Day 24 of development). Groups of Peking embryos were subjected to recordings of either the mallard or the Burmese red jungle fowl maternal call beginning on Day 21 of incubation. Responses to these calls were tested on the day before hatching to determine the effects of the prenatal auditory experience. The responses of those birds exposed to the mallard maternal call were neither attenuated nor enhanced (as compared to the controls) when presented that call; those subjects which were exposed to the jungle fowl maternal call later failed to respond to that call or the mallard maternal call.     

Direct instruction in math word problems: students with learning disabilities

This investigation was conducted to test the effectiveness of strategy teaching and sequencing practice problems in teaching students with learning disabilities to identify the correct algorithm for solving addition and subtraction word problems. Sixty-two students were assigned to one of three experimental groups: strategy plus sequence, strategy only, and sequence only. The results indicated that students in the strategy-plus-sequence group, as well as those in the strategy-only group, scored significantly higher than did students in the sequence-only group. Findings indicated that strategy teaching was the more effective of the two instructional components. Implications are discussed in terms of instructional design for students with learning disabilities.     

Appreciation of Pro-Attitudinal Versus Counter-Attitudinal Political Humor: A Cognitive Consistency Approach to the Study of Political Entertainment

This study highlights the explanatory principle of cognitive consistency as a foundation for political entertainment research. More specifically, appreciation for pro- versus counter-attitudinal political humor is analyzed via one statewide (N = 304) and two national surveys (N = 1008, N = 786, respectively). Analyses reveal a preference for pro-attitudinal over counter-attitudinal humor. In addition, an assessment of pro- versus counter-attitudinal political humor appreciation serving as potential mediators of one another relative to political party identification is offered. Pro-attitudinal political humor appreciation serves as the stronger mediator, but a full range of mediation-based processes are evident. Implications and potential future lines of research are detailed.     

Adolescent interest in human sexuality: the questions kids ask

This study demonstrates a method for obtaining data on developmental changes in adolescents' interest in human sexuality. A content analysis was done on a sample of 874 student-generated questions. Question boxes were placed in classrooms so students could anonymously submit questions. In deference to perceived community pressure, questions on abortion, homosexuality, and masturbation were not allowed. Students who wrote the questions are 7th, 8th, and 10th graders enrolled in 13 different public schools. The schools are located in several small communities and on an American Indian reservation in a rural area of northern California. All children who participated did so voluntarily and with parental permission. Of the total 874 questions. 7th and 8th graders provided 593, while sophomores accounted for 233. Gender information was available only for 7th and 8th graders. Boys asked 173 questions while girls asked 241. The data are broken down by gender and by grade (7th and 8th vs. 10th). Findings reveal that younger students show more interest in the meaning of slang terms, their reproductive physiology, and intercourse. Older students show greater interest in contraception and health risks. Males are interested in slang and intercourse while females are more concerned with health risks and communication. One unexpected finding indicates that among younger children, boys and girls are equally interested in birth control and pregnancy; in the lower grades then, may be the prime time to use sex education programs to strengthen the sense of dual responsibility for knowledge about contraception and pregnancy. Also, the relative absence of questions on disallowed issues (2.5%) makes it apparent that sex educators can effectively suppress inquiry into topics that are of great interest to youngsters; only about 1/3 of the students indicated that their parents had discussed these disllowed issues, yet 48% of the students expressed interest in knowing more about abortion.     

Technology,teachers, and the search for school reform

Educational technologists have increasingly moved away from direct involvement in the world of the classroom teacher in recent years. The assumptions that technologists and teachers make about educational technology and about teaching now diverge markedly. At the same time, new reform proposals have suggested ways to restructure schools that would enhance the role of teachers as instructional decision-makers and offer them more control over their professional work life. Elements of the reform agenda are characterized, and ways are described in which educational technologists might work together with teachers in pursuit of reform goals. These include: (1) preparation of models for teaching-with-technology; (2) design of intelligent software; (3) creation of technologically based tools to support teachers' professional work and development; and (4) improvement of research about technology in education. Note:An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, Dallas, Texas, February 4, 1989.     

The effect of causal diagrams on text learning

We examined the effect of studying a causal diagram on comprehension of causal relationships from an expository science text. A causal diagram is a type of visual display that explicitly represents cause-effect relationships. In Experiment 1, readers between conditions did not differ with respect to memory for main ideas, but the readers who studied the causal diagram while reading the text understood better the five causal sequences in the text even when study time was controlled. Participants in Experiment 2 studied only the causal diagram or only the text. There were no differences in memory for main ideas or the causal sequences between these groups. Results indicate that causal diagrams are not merely redundant with text and that causal diagrams affect understanding of causal relationships in the absence of a text. These findings supported the causal explication hypothesis, which states that causal diagrams improve comprehension by explicitly representing the implicit causal structure of the text in a visual format.     

Psychological Resources as Stress Buffers: Their Relationship to University Students' Anxiety and Depression

The association of protective resources, personality variables, life events, and gender with anxiety and depression was examined with university students. Building on regression analyses, a structural equation model was generated with good fit, indicating that with respect to both anxiety and depression, negative life events and coping resources were mediated by a common distress factor. Personality variables were associated with anxiety, which in turn had a direct relationship to depression.     

An incentive effect in thermally motivated behavior

Three shaved adult male albino rats were trained to press a lever to replace a hot air drive condition (50° C) with either a small reinforcer (32° C) or a large reinforcer (14° C). Following the 10-sec reinforcer, the drive condition was either reinstated immediately (no delay) or after a 15-sec exposure to the drive temperature, during which the bar was withdrawn (delay). Response rate during the no-delay procedure was faster for the small reinforcer than for the large. This relation reversed during the delay procedure. The former observation is similar to a satiation effect and the latter resembles an incentive effect.