A long-term experiment to investigate the relationships between high school students’ perceptions of mobile learning and peer interaction and higher-order thinking tendencies

In this study, a one-year program was conducted to investigate the relationships between students’ perceptions of mobile learning and their tendencies of peer interaction and higher-order thinking in issue-based mobile learning activities. To achieve the research objective, a survey consisting of eight scales, namely, usability, continuity, adaptive content, collaboration, communication, problem-solving, critical thinking and creativity, was developed. A total of 658 students from 38 high schools in Taiwan filled in the questionnaire after experiencing issue-based mobile learning activities. From the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, it was found that the questionnaire had high reliability and validity. The structural equation model further revealed that the provision of adaptive content in the mobile learning had positive impacts on the students’ tendency to interact with peers (i.e., collaboration and communication), which further affected their tendency to engage in higher-order thinking (i.e., problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity). The findings of this study provide a good reference for researchers and school teachers who intend to promote mobile learning in school settings.     

Between two Advisors: Interconnecting Academic and Workplace Settings in an Emerging Field

This article examines a new training design for continuing professional development that aims to support the learning of the novel knowledge and skills needed in emerging professional fields by interconnecting academic and workplace settings. The training design is based on using two advisors, one from working life and the other from an academic context. The article examined whether participants’ personal orientation to adaptive expertise predicts the success of a guidance process. The interconnection of workplace and academic contexts was expected to occur through guidance practices. In addition, the features underlying the most successful guidance relationships were analysed. Data were collected by conducting repeated semi-structured interviews with 18 course participants, eight academic advisors and eight workplace advisors in the context of a 1-year energy efficiency training programme. The results indicated that a trainee’s personal orientation towards adaptive expertise is a significant component in successful guidance processes. An interconnection of workplace and academic knowledge and practices was hardly found in the guidance provided by each participant’s academic and workplace advisors. The feature underlying the most successful guidance relationships are related at the personal, dyad and context levels. An excellent match between the expert profiles of the learner and the advisor appears to be especially critical for successful guidance and powerful knowledge exchange in emerging fields. However, finding matching advisors is often challenging. Many problems are presumably solved if these ‘right persons’ can be found and if the trainees are themselves oriented to utilise the novel resources provided to them by the advisors.     

我国远程网络教育存在的问题与展望

随着计算机技术和现代教育理论的发展,我国远程网络教育被提上日程,并逐步发展。我国远程网络教育发展起步较晚,但却对中国教育事业的发展具有深远而巨大的意义。目前,我国远程网络教育在发展过程中存在不少问题与不足,本文首先归纳分析了我国远程网络教育的发展现状,进而提出其中存在的问题与不足,在此基础上试图对我国远程网络教育的发展前景进行科学预期与展望。     

Students’ Development of Representational Competence Through the Sense of Touch

Electromagnetism is an umbrella encapsulating several different concepts like electric current, electric fields and forces, and magnetic fields and forces, among other topics. However, a number of studies in the past have highlighted the poor conceptual understanding of electromagnetism concepts by students even after instruction. This study aims to identify novel forms of “hands-on” instruction that can result in representational competence and conceptual gain. Specifically, this study aimed to identify if the use of visuohaptic simulations can have an effect on student representations of electromagnetic-related concepts. The guiding questions is How do visuohaptic simulations influence undergraduate students’ representations of electric forces? Participants included nine undergraduate students from science, technology, or engineering backgrounds who participated in a think-aloud procedure while interacting with a visuohaptic simulation. The think-aloud procedure was divided in three stages, a prediction stage, a minimally visual haptic stage, and a visually enhanced haptic stage. The results of this study suggest that students’ accurately characterized and represented the forces felt around a particle, line, and ring charges either in the prediction stage, a minimally visual haptic stage or the visually enhanced haptic stage. Also, some students accurately depicted the three-dimensional nature of the field for each configuration in the two stages that included a tactile mode, where the point charge was the most challenging one.     

How fast can we read in the mind? Developmental trajectories of silent reading fluency

The silent reading fluency is not an observable behaviour and, therefore, its evaluation is perceived as more challenging and less reliable than oral reading fluency. The present research is aimed to measure the silent reading speed in a sample of proficient students, assessed by an original silent reading fluency task, based on behavioural indicators of the silent reading speed. A total of 325 high school and university skilled students (age range 14–23 years) have been assessed using 3 tasks aimed to evaluate the oral reading speed (lists of words, lists of pseudowords and narrative text) and one task aimed to measure the silent reading speed. The average silent reading speed in our sample was around 12.5 syll/sec, almost double than the oral reading speed rate. The silent reading speed had an increase from 9.13 to 12.38 syll/sec from the first year of high school (ninth grade) to the fifth year of University. Conversely, the oral reading speed remained substantially unchanged for the entire academic course. Our results showed that the reading fluency in silent mode tends to increase up to the last years of University and it may be considered the most rapid and efficient reading mode. This study highlights the importance of including both silent and oral reading modes in the assessment of the older students and young adults, since silent reading is the main reading mode for proficient readers.     

李清照漫议

李清照是中国古代最负盛名的女词人,其生活、创作经历以"靖康之难"为分水岭,分为前、后两个时期.她的词能将个性化的抒情和完美的意境结合在一起,自成一家,被后人誉为"易安体"、"婉约正宗".     

集群式计算机系统在生物信息学中的应用

1　Introduction　SMP (symmetricmulti processing)andMPP (mas sivelyparallelprocessing)arethetwotypesofstruc tureofparallelcomputing .　Symmetricmulti processingsystemshavemultipleCPUsattachedtothesamebusandsharingRAM .Massivelyparallelprocessingisthecooperated pro cessingofaprogrambymultipleprocessorsthatworkondifferentpartsoftheprogram ,witheachprocessorusingitsownoperatingsystemandmemory .ThechoicebetweenSMPandMPPdependsonthenatureoftheproblembeingsolved .Iftheproblemcanbeeasilypartit…     

Optimal restructuring strategies under various dynamic factors

Corporate restructuring was identified as a new industrial force that has great impact on economic values and that therefore has become central in daily financial decision making. This article investigates the optimal restructuring strategies under different dynamic factors and their numerous impacts on firm value. The concept of quasi-leverage is introduced and valuation models are built for corporate debt and equity under imperfect market conditions. The model＇s input variables include the quasi-leverage and other firm-specific parameters, the output variables include multiple corporate security values. The restructuring cost is formulated in the form of exponential function, which allows us to observe the sensitivity of the variation in security values. The unified model and its analytical solution developed in this research allow us to examine the continuous changes of security values by dynamically changing the coupon rates, riskless interest rate, bankruptcy cost, quasi-leverage, personal tax rate, corporate taxes rate, transaction cost, firm risk, etc., so that the solutions provide useful guidance for financing and restructuring decisions.     

近十年英国高等教育研究论文选题特点——以2001-2010年《高等教育季刊》论文为样本

从研究领域与研究层次两个维度对英国《高等教育季刊》近10年所载210篇高等教育研究论文的选题进行分析,发现英国高教研究论文选题呈现五大特点:在选题方向上宽窄结合、在选题层次上宏观与微观相结合、在选题性质上理论与实践相结合、在选题类型上新老结合、在选题范围上国际与国内相结合。     

幼儿气质特点与其父母婚姻质量的关系研究

本研究以沈阳市某幼儿园的120名3～5岁幼儿为被试,采用《3～9岁儿童气质家长评定问卷》和《Olson婚姻质量问卷》对幼儿的气质特点及其父母的婚姻质量进行评定,重点探讨幼儿气质特点与其父母婚姻质量之间的关系。研究发现:(1)父母婚姻质量与幼儿气质中的情绪性维度显著相关。(2)幼儿气质中的专注性和活动性维度与父母婚姻质量的部分因子显著相关。(3)幼儿气质中的情绪性维度对父母婚姻质量有预测作用。