Collection Analysis When the Budget Decreases

This article begins with a discussion of the rationale behind an in-depth analysis of specific areas of a law library collection and a synopsis of selected past efforts and possible reasons for such an analysis. The majority of the article details the exact steps in the analysis process, as performed by the librarians at the William A. Wise Law Library at the University of Colorado Law School. The main purpose of the Wise Library's analysis was to identify materials that could most easily be cancelled if budget cuts warranted such actions. Finally, collection development considerations that may arise when deciding if and when to cut specific materials and alternative strategies that may be employed are discussed.     

Web 2.0 Support for Residents' and Fellows' Patient Care and Educational Needs

This article discusses librarian support of medical education programs and patient care with blogs and wikis. Pedagogical background for using Web 2.0 tools in educational settings is explored and example applications given. A survey of health sciences libraries usage of blogs and wikis was conducted in 2009–2010. Using the results from the survey plus five years of experience using blogs and wikis at the University of Washington Health Sciences Library, best practices were compiled and are presented for guidance in establishing new blogs and wikis.     

Making inquiry-based science learning visible: the influence of CVS and cognitive skills on content knowledge learning in guided inquiry

ABSTRACT

Many science curricula and standards emphasise that students should learn both scientific knowledge and the skills associated with the construction of this knowledge. One way to achieve this goal is to use inquiry-learning activities that embed the use of science process skills. We investigated the influence of scientific reasoning skills (i.e. conceptual and procedural knowledge of the control-of-variables strategy) on students’ conceptual learning gains in physics during an inquiry-learning activity. Eighth graders (n?=?189) answered research questions about variables that influence the force of electromagnets and the brightness of light bulbs by designing, running, and interpreting experiments. We measured knowledge of electricity and electromagnets, scientific reasoning skills, and cognitive skills (analogical reasoning and reading ability). Using structural equation modelling we found no direct effects of cognitive skills on students’ content knowledge learning gains; however, there were direct effects of scientific reasoning skills on content knowledge learning gains. Our results show that cognitive skills are not sufficient; students require specific scientific reasoning skills to learn science content from inquiry activities. Furthermore, our findings illustrate that what students learn during guided inquiry activities becomes visible when we examine both the skills used during inquiry learning and the process of knowledge construction. The implications of these findings for science teaching and research are discussed.     

Essential Criteria to Characterize Constructivist Teaching: Derived from a review of the literature and applied to five constructivist‐teaching method articles

Constructivism is an important theory of learning that is used to guide the development of new teaching methods, particularly in science education. However, because it is a theory of learning and not of teaching, constructivism is often either misused or misunderstood. Here we describe the four essential features of constructivism: eliciting prior knowledge, creating cognitive dissonance, application of new knowledge with feedback, and reflection on learning. We then use the criteria we developed to evaluate five representative published articles that claim to describe and test constructivist teaching methods. Of these five articles, we demonstrate that three do not adhere to the constructivist criteria, whereas two provide strong examples of how constructivism can be employed as a teaching method. We suggest that application of the four essential criteria will be a useful tool for all professional educators who plan to implement or evaluate constructivist teaching methods.     

Comparative Power of Student T Test and Mann-Whitney U Test for Unequal Sample Sizes and Variances

A computer program generated power functions of the Student t test and Mann-Whitney U test under violation of the parametric assumption of homogeneity of variance for equal and unequal sample sizes. In addition to depression and elevation of nominal significance levels of the t test observed by Hsu and by Scheffé, the entire power functions of both the t test and the U test were depressed or elevated. When the smaller sample was associated with a smaller variance, the U test was more powerful in detecting differences over the entire range of possible differences between population means. When sample sizes were equal, or when the smaller sample had the larger variance, the t test was more powerful over this entire range. These results show that replacement of the t test by a nonparametric alternative under violation of homogeneity of variance does not necessarily maximize correct decisions.     

Coefficient Alpha,Test Reliability,and Heterogeneity of Score Distributions

From concepts which refer only to observed scores and which allow the parameters of score distribution over repeated measurements on a given person to differ from person to person, necessary and sufficient conditions under which coefficient alpha equals test reliability are derived. The result clarifies the relation this quantity to the Kuder-Richardson formula 20, to the KR 21, to the Spearman-Brown formula, and to Lord item sampling model.     

Test Reliability and Parameters of Observed Score Distributions

A method of determining the reliability coefficient of a test from a formulation which does not employ the concepts of true score and error score, together with assumptions about the process which generates variability in scores, is described. Several well-known reliability formulas as well as some new results are derived from models which hypothesize different sources of variability in scores.     

Young children category learning: a training study

From an integrative approach, this work focuses on the role of conceptual mechanisms, such as comparison and conceptual-based inference, and sociopragmatic support in young children's taxonomic categorization. “Experiment 1” assessed whether 3-, 4-, and 6-year-old children succeed in detecting taxonomic relations on their own. A clear developmental trend was found: 6-year-olds succeeded, whereas 4- and 3-year-olds relied primarily on perceptually based categories. “Experiment 2” assessed if 3-year-olds are able to change their perceptual response into a taxonomic categorization as a function of the co-occurrence of contingent category information and feedback in an interactive process with an adult (experimenter). A pretest–posttest training study compared 3-year-olds' performance in four conditions: comparison, conceptual-based, information-only, and feedback-only. A perceptual–totaxonomic shift was found only in the comparison and conceptual-based training groups. Children who only received either category information or corrective feedback did not make such a shift. The results show that social interaction with supportive adults is a mechanism that drives conceptual understanding in early childhood.     

Neighborhoods,Social Support,and African American Adolescents' Mental Health Outcomes: A Multilevel Path Analysis

This study explored how neighborhood characteristics may relate to African American adolescents' internalizing symptoms via adolescents' social support and perceptions of neighborhood cohesion. Participants included 571 urban, African American adolescents (52% female; M age = 17.8). A multilevel path analysis testing both direct and indirect effects of neighborhood characteristics on adolescents' mental health outcomes was conducted. Higher neighborhood poverty and unemployment rates predicted greater internalizing symptoms via lower cumulative social support and perceptions of neighborhood cohesion. In contrast, higher concentrations of African American and residentially stable residents in one's neighborhood related to fewer internalizing symptoms among adolescent residents via greater cumulative social support and perceptions of neighborhood cohesion. Implications of these findings are discussed.