Distribution of practice and metacognition in learning and long-term retention of a discrete motor task

This study examined judgments of learning and the long-term retention of a discrete motor task (golf putting) as a function of practice distribution. The results indicated that participants in the distributed practice group performed more proficiently than those in the massed practice group during both acquisition and retention phases. No significant differences in retention performance were found as a function of three retention intervals (1, 7, and 28 days). Echoing actual acquisition scores, participants in the distributed practice group predicted more proficient retention performance than did those in the massed practice group. Although all participants predicted more proficient performance than was actually achieved, the difference between predicted and actual performance failed to reach significance.     

Physical activity patterns in recent college alumni

Within this sample of recent college alumni, a high proportion indicated that they enjoy exercise (66.1%) and felt confident in setting their own fitness programs (79.4%). Yet, only 34.3% reported engaging in recommended levels of moderate or vigorous PA. In contrast to previous reports, rates of participation in vigorous, moderate, and strengthening-type PA did not differ between men and women. Alumni who reported that they engaged in adequate levels of moderate or vigorous PA had gained significantly less weight in the years following graduation than those who reported being insufficiently active (3.0 kg vs. 6.1 kg). Last, we noted a strong positive association between PA patterns as college seniors and current PA behavior as recent alumni.     

世界博物馆的新思维、新现象和新趋势

在当代充满流动性与矛盾的状况下,人们不得不重新对博物馆组织与传统遗产管理的理念模式进行思考。新的社会的、行为的与政治的范示必须得到特别关注,同样,遗产与博物馆新的解说也必须得到特别关注。当代社会已经再次对这两个领域里所蕴含的巨大价值,并与文化关口与新科技联系起来。在这样一个新的,行星际社会里,一个最大的挑战就是要保证人类能在地球上持续生存下去,让每一个人都能得到教育、住宿、健康、就业与休闲的机会。博物馆必须意识到这个新的社会—文化现实并调整自身,以成为个体与大众社会翻益之间进行冲突、争论与协商的例证。对于博物馆来说,最大的挑战就是保证所有的社会团体都能在伦理多样性中表达其特别的文亿模式与身份。这些趋势对不同类型的博物馆有着不同的影响：传统的博物馆必须成为信息式机构,提供的展品与服务能够满足以团体利益为基本的公众的要求；领土博物馆必须重新实现新博物馆学昀提议,以新的社会范示为基础,进而强调他们作为社会与政治交接地例证的作用。一种新的组织范示的实现依赖于简洁而分散的结构,呈细胞或网状,以及动态的运行方式。所有这些都根据协商与嗠务和展品的质量来进行。必须注意到虚拟博物馆。它综合了在博物馆、专业人员与公众之间进行调解的新动力。另外,还需要强调与博物馆组织与管理相关的伦理问题,以使博物馆能在全球亿的世界里实现他们的社会作用。     

Research quality and efficiency: An analysis of assessments and management issues in Dutch economics and business research programs

Assessments of quality and productivity of academic research programs become more and more important in gaining financial support, in hiring and promoting research staff, and in building academic reputation. Most assessments are based on peer review or on bibliometric information. In this paper we analyze both bibliometric data and peer review assessments of 169 research groups in economics, econometrics and business administration. The evaluations are achieved in two independent rounds in 1995 and in 2001, permitting replication of our study.The purpose of this study is twofold. In the first part we want to see to what degree bibliometric information relates to peer review judgments. The results convey how evaluators weight different output categories in their final overall judgment of academic quality. The results also have practical meaning, since they indicate what the predictive ability of bibliometric data is for future peer review outcomes. In the second part of this study we aim at explaining differences in research output quality and productivity by organizational factors, like size of the research group, composition of staff, sources of research funding and academic discipline. In this part, a composite indicator is used to represent the review committees’ overall assessment. The bibliometric data most strongly related to the peer reviews’ overall assessment are used to construct data envelopment analyses’ efficiency scores as measure of research productivity.The main conclusions from our study are that the number of publications in international top journals is the best predictor of peer review assessment results. Changes in the classification of bibliometric information, as introduced in the second evaluation round, do not alter this conclusion. Size of the research group appears to be the only permanent characteristic associated with research quality and productivity. Size is positively related to research quality but negatively related to research productivity. Larger groups appear to have the potential to improve quality, but as groups become larger, they also experience problems in maintaining the research productivity of the research team's members. The remaining organizational characteristics appear to be temporarily related to research quality and productivity. In the first evaluation round, research productivity and quality are associated with the discipline variable: research programs in more quantitative areas and characterized by a higher level of paradigm development like econometrics and operations research achieved higher levels of research quality and productivity than programs in more diverse and less quantitative areas like business administration. This relation however is not permanent, since it becomes insignificant in the second evaluation round. Instead, funding relations become more apparent in the second review round. The relative amount of national funding in the research group's funding becomes positively related to academic quality, whereas the portion of income from committed research is negatively related to academic quality of the programs’ research output. This may have been caused by the increased importance of alternative sources of research funding in the period of the second review.     

Argumentative skills development in teaching philosophy to secondary school students through constructive controversy: an exploratory study case

The use of argumentative strategies that promote the defense of well-grounded personal arguments contributes to the development of a critical, ethical and political thought that leads to responsible and socially committed people. Based on the quality of the produced arguments in philosophical essays, this work evaluates the potential application of a cooperative learning method – the constructive controversy – for the development of argumentative skills in secondary school students in philosophy. The quality of the arguments was evaluated through the analysis of a total of 144 philosophical essays produced by the students over a school year. The results point to the advantages of using this method over more traditional ones in the acquisition of argumentative skills.     

The origin of counting: A study of the early meaning of ‘one’, ‘two’ and ‘three’ among Basque- and Spanish-speaking children

This study examines the beginning of the conceptual understanding of the first number-words and what role language can play in developing the notion of numbers. To that end, 2?- and 3?-year-old Basque and Spanish monolingual children's (N = 131) basic numeracy skills are analysed by means of two different experimental procedures: Give-N (in which children are requested to gather sets of objects) and How-Many (based on the ability to count collections). The paper accounts for differences as regards the performance in the Give-N procedure between children with different linguistic backgrounds. In accordance with previous research, this finding can be related to the dissimilar ways by which languages (Basque and Spanish, in this case) express grammatical number, supporting the idea that language plays a definite role in the emergence of the earliest set-size meanings of ‘one,’ ‘two,’ and ‘three’ number-words. Eventually, the work attempts to contribute to the growing body of evidence that shows that the meaning of the count-list appears from mapping numerals onto numerical cognitive representations produced by early core systems of numbers.     

Updating Working Memory and arithmetical attainment in school

Here we wished to determine how the sub-components of Working Memory (Phonological-Loop and Central Executive) influence children's arithmetical development. Specifically, we aimed at distinguishing between Working Memory inhibition and updating processes within the Central Executive, and the domain-specificity (words and numbers) of both subcomponents in a population of children with low attainment in arithmetic and their age matched typically-attaining controls. We show that both groups were similar for phonological loop abilities, while Working Memory updating demonstrated a domain-specific modulation related to the level of children's arithmetical performance. Moreover, inhibition processes interacted with domain-specificity and arithmetical attainment. These results are particularly relevant to the diagnostic assessment of arithmetical ability and should be considered in existing tests of arithmetical development.     

Coping with methods for delineating emerging fields: Nanoscience and nanotechnology as a case study

Proper field delineation plays an important role in scientometric studies, although it is a tough task. Based on an emerging and interdisciplinary field nanoscience and nanotechnology– this paper highlights the problem of field delineation. First we review the related literature. Then, three different approaches to delineate a field of knowledge were applied at three different levels of aggregation: subject category, publication level, and journal level. Expert opinion interviews served to assess the data, and precision and recall of each approach were calculated for comparison. Our findings confirm that field delineation is a complicated issue at both the quantitative and the qualitative level, even when experts validate results.     

Visions about future: a new scale assessing optimism,pessimism, and hope in adolescents

This article reports the development and psychometric properties of visions about future (VAF), an instrument assessing hope, optimism, and pessimism. Three different studies involving Italian adolescents were conducted. With the first study 22 items were developed and the factor structure was verified. The second study, involving a second sample of adolescents, confirmed the instrument’s multidimensional structure and evaluated the convergent validity of VAF with self-report measures of hope, optimism, and pessimism. Moreover, it showed that VAF correlated with life satisfaction and career adaptability. The third study involved a third sample of adolescents and verified the measurement invariance across gender.