Single or Dual Representations for Reading and Spelling?

Neuropsychological models postulate that the memory representation acquired for use in reading words is separate from the one acquired for use in spelling, while developmental models assume that the same representation is developed for access in both reading and spelling. The dual-representation model contends that there is often more precise information in reading representations than in spelling representations. This claim was tested in the current study using adult native speakers of English. People were supplied with minimal visual feedback while they spelled words that they knew and could read, and were then shown their whole spelling and asked whether they could improve upon it. People detected spelling mistakes on fewer than one in six trials after the reading check. They also returned many spellings to the original form, and were unable to improve upon them any more often than to change them to something equally bad or worse. The findings favour the view that normal individuals acquire a single orthographic representation from repeated exposures to a word during both reading and spelling. The representation may be adequate to permit successful reading but be insufficient for reproduction of the word-specific knowledge required for accurate spelling.     

Young children's comprehension and recall of computer screen displayed text

In this study 26 third grade and 36 fifth grade students, experienced in computer-assisted instruction, were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions: computer screen displayed text or traditional printed page text. According to assigned treatment condition, subjects either read a story from the computer screen or printed page booklet. There were no statistically significant differences between the two treatment conditions on measures of reading comprehension. On the attitude survey subjects reported greater interest in the story when reading from the computer, however, they reported that the story was more difficult when reading from the computer screen. The results of the study suggest that extended reading of prose materials on computer screens is feasible for children as young as eight years of age.     

Exploring factors related to preschool teachers’ self-efficacy

This study examined how teacher (teaching experience, perceptions of teacher collaboration and teacher influence) and classroom (children’s engagement) characteristics predicted teacher self-efficacy for 48 preschool teachers in the U.S. Results showed a significant interaction effect between teachers’ perceptions of collaboration and children’s engagement in predicting teachers’ reported self-efficacy. Specifically, a higher level of children’s engagement was associated with a higher level of teacher self-efficacy when teachers worked in preschool with high levels of staff collaboration. Teacher experience and influence in decision-making were not related to teacher self-efficacy. Implications for early childhood teacher education and professional development are discussed.     

International Demand For Spanish University Education: an analysis in the context of the European Higher Education Area

In the current context of globalisation it seems inevitable that the international openness of universities would also lead to efforts to attract foreign students. In the case of Spain, this is more necessary, insofar as the drop in population, the existence of other quality educational offerings, and the greater number of public and private universities have made students a target to compete for. Cutbacks in public funds have accentuated this trend. This article analyses the international demand at Spanish universities in order to determine whether there are significant differences because of the level of local competition faced by universities and public or private ownership. The Herfindhal index and analysis of variance are used to this end. Using data from the Statistics on University Students for the 2005‐2006 and 2011‐2012 academic years, we found that the creation of the European Higher Education Area partially affected international demand at Spanish universities. The overall international attractiveness of the Spanish university system improved considerably and universities have assumed an international view, regardless of the competition in their respective areas. Therefore, local competition is no longer a decisive factor to explain the international demand. In contrast, although public or private ownership does not determine the international attractiveness of universities, it does serve to explain their type of international demand.     

What do we know about innovation?

In this editorial article, we introduce this Special Issue of Research Policy in honour of the late Keith Pavitt, a pioneer in science and technology policy studies and a scholar of innovation. The papers in this Issue were drawn from a widely attended international conference held in Keith's honour in November 2003 and selected according to their contribution to themes central to the Pavitt tradition: the nature of technological knowledge, the management of research and development in the firm, systems of innovation and measurement of scientific and technological activities. There are a further two papers which describe not only Keith Pavitt's scholarly legacy to the fields of innovation studies and science and technology policy but also the important role he played in forging the growing community of scholarship in technology and innovation.     

Real-time processing of social media with SENTINEL: A syndromic surveillance system incorporating deep learning for health classification

Interest in real-time syndromic surveillance based on social media data has greatly increased in recent years. The ability to detect disease outbreaks earlier than traditional methods would be highly useful for public health officials. This paper describes a software system which is built upon recent developments in machine learning and data processing to achieve this goal. The system is built from reusable modules integrated into data processing pipelines that are easily deployable and configurable. It applies deep learning to the problem of classifying health-related tweets and is able to do so with high accuracy. It has the capability to detect illness outbreaks from Twitter data and then to build up and display information about these outbreaks, including relevant news articles, to provide situational awareness. It also provides nowcasting functionality of current disease levels from previous clinical data combined with Twitter data.The preliminary results are promising, with the system being able to detect outbreaks of influenza-like illness symptoms which could then be confirmed by existing official sources. The Nowcasting module shows that using social media data can improve prediction for multiple diseases over simply using traditional data sources.     

Understanding Inquiry Science Teaching in Context: A Case Study of an Elementary Teacher

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Parent role questionnaire: Psychometric qualities

The Parent Role Questionnaire (PRQ) is a recently developed instrument to study individual perceptions of the parent role. The PRQ was piloted, revised, and studied psychometrically. This study examines PRQ internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and validity. Results reveal that the instrument has relatively high internal consistency, moderate test-retest reliability, and high validity. The discussion includes implications for further research and study on parents, parenting, and the parent role.     

Reading ability and sensitivity to morphological relations

The morpho-phonological nature of English orthography is examined in this study of the relation between morphological sensitivity and decoding ability in the latter elementary grades. Children in grades three to six were required to distinguish derivationally-related word pairs (e.g., nature-natural) from foil pairs that are related in spelling but not in morphology (e.g., ear-earth). The materials included both transparently-related (i.e., the second word incorporated the pronunciation of the first, as in person-personal) and complexly-related word pairs (i.e., the second word involved some change in pronunciation, as in atom-atomic). Across two experiments, these items were presented in either oral or written form along with various tests of reading ability, intelligence and phonological awareness. The results indicate that children's recognition of derivational relationships improved with grade-level. As anticipated, there was also a significant association between sensitivity to derivational relatedness and decoding ability which remains significant even when the word pairs were orally presented and even when phonological awareness in taken into account. Both phonological awareness and sensitivity to morphological structure emerge as important factors in decoding skill in the later elementary grades.     

Predicting students' ratings of the importance of strategies to facilitate self‐directed distance learning in Taiwan

Distance students' ratings of the importance of strategies to facilitate self‐directed learning were evaluated. Students from an open university in Taiwan (449 current and 140 inactive) participated in this study. Current students scored significantly higher than inactive students on internal motivation, insight about self, and self‐directed learning readiness. A combination of high internal and external motivation and high self‐directed learning readiness predicted ratings of the importance of five sets of strategies for helping students become self‐directed learners. The study provides information to help distance learning professionals enhance the effectiveness of self‐directed learning and reduce the number of students who become inactive.