Education as an Evolutionary Phenomenon: Huxley,Waddington, and the Foundational Importance of Ethics

Interchange - This essay sheds light on the “father of epigenetics,” Conrad Hal Waddington’s (1905–1975) tacit critique of one of the most prominent biologists of the...     

Differential Third‐Grade Outcomes Associated With Attending Publicly Funded Preschool Programs for Low‐Income Latino Children

This study examined the third‐grade outcomes of 11,902 low‐income Latino children who experienced public school pre‐K or child care via subsidies (center‐based care) at age 4 in Miami‐Dade County, Florida. Regression and propensity score analyses revealed that children who experienced public school pre‐K earned higher scores on standardized assessments of math and reading in third grade and had higher grade point averages than those who attended center‐based care 4 years earlier. The sustained associations between public school pre‐K (vs. center‐based care) and third‐grade outcomes were mediated by children's kindergarten entry preacademic and social–behavioral skills, and among English‐language learners, English proficiency. Implications for investing in early childhood programs to assist with the school readiness of young Latino children in poverty are discussed.     

Children's judgments of disloyal and immoral peer behavior: subjective group dynamics in minimal intergroup contexts

The developmental model of subjective group dynamics hypothesizes that peer exclusion during middle childhood involves inferences about group dynamics. To test the generality of this prediction, children judged, within minimal groups, peers whose behavior was loyal versus disloyal (Study 1: n = 46, mean age = 113 months) or morally acceptable versus unacceptable (Study 2: n = 121, mean age = 90 months). As hypothesized, in Study 1, children used their understanding of loyalty norms as a basis for evaluating peers. In both studies, higher commitment to the in-group increased use of group-based criteria for judging peers. In Study 2, children employed moral- and group-based criteria independently for judging peers. Multiple classification skill was associated with lower intergroup bias and greater use of morality-based judgment.     

THE EXPANSION OF EDUCATION IN EASTERN EUROPE: A REGIONAL VIEW

The higher education systems in the countries of eastern and central Europe are still in a period of stagnation. A period of rapid growth is expected, similar to that of the 1960's in the western part of Europe, to begin around the turn of the millenium. Because of the similarities of its middle classes, Subregion A (territories with traditional state education) might adopt a massification scenario even in the face of financial restrictions. The higher education of Subregion D (territories with non‐state education) might follow an élitist scenario in the course of higher education development according to which the autonomy of institutions and the privatization of systems would become major political issues.     

Design implications from a usability study of GramStain-TutorTM

To examine interface issues in an educational software program, we recruited twenty-two users in health sciences departments for a usability study. Using the GramStain-Tutor™ (GST) CD-ROM, these users performed tasks in navigating the program and using various interactive features. Their actions and comments were recorded with a digital video recorder and an audio recorder. The main results of our study are: (a) the majority of the users did not use the multiple navigational options available in the program; (b) navigational patterns differed based on the training background and content knowledge of the users; (c) several visual cues critical to program use were not discovered by the majority of the users; and (d) icons representing specific functions were not intuitive from users' perspectives. We demonstrated how a usability study of a relatively small number of users can identify specific problems in interface design. We recommend these interface problems be addressed before conducting educational studies that examine how educational software programs affect student learning.     

Resource use and academic performance among first year psychology students

Multiple questionnaires completed over the semester by 514 students enrolled in a first year psychology course reveal that no single pattern of reliance on print, online, or in-person resources guarantees a high mark. Analyses of the reported and measured frequency of use of various resources correlated against students’, performance on both individual assessments and their final marks suggests that students employ a range of strategies in their use of class resources. They tend to rely on their textbooks, Web-based lecture notes, and online quizzes, but their final marks are more strongly determined by their university entrance scores than by their resource use strategy, their sex, or whether or not English is their first language. The data suggest that students adapt their learning strategies to the resources available, with an apparent emphasis on learning what will be assessed rather than exploring for understanding. Importantly, the results argue that investment in development of educational technologies – and students’, use of educational technologies – must be informed by empirical data concerning its impact on the efficiency and quality of learning.     

The effects of prior informal science and math experiences on undergraduate STEM identity

ABSTRACT

Background

Recent reports have noted a need for increasing both the recruitment and retention of young people into the STEM disciplines. While many studies have reported on the benefits of classroom reform in formal education environments, less is known about the role of informal education programs in young people’s academic aspirations, interest and competence in science and math domains.     

Issues in development of the test battery for Australian sign language morphology and syntax

In this article, we outline the initial stages in development of an assessment instrument for Australian Sign Language and explore issues involved in the development of such a test. We first briefly describe the instruments currently available for assessing grammatical skills in Australian Sign Language and discuss the need for a more objective measure. We then describe our adaptation of an existing American Sign Language test, the Test Battery for American Sign Language Morphology and Syntax. Finally, this article presents some of the data collected from a group of deaf native signers. These data are used to demonstrate the range of variability in key grammatical features of Australian Sign Language and to raise methodological issues associated with signed language test design.     

Back to Africa: Tracing Dyslexia Genes in East Africa

A sample of Swahili-speaking probands with reading difficulties was identified from a large representative sample of 1,500 school children in the rural areas of Tanzania. Families of these probands (n = 88) were invited to participate in the study. The proband and his/her siblings received a battery of reading-related tasks and performance on these tasks was recorded and treated as phenotypic data. Molecular-genetic analyses were carried out with 47 highly polymorphic markers spanning three previously identified regions of interest harboring susceptibility loci for reading difficulties: 2p, 6p, and 15q (DYX1–DYX3). The analyses revealed the involvement of these regions in the development of reading difficulties in Swahili. The linkage signals are especially pronounced for time (compared with error) indicators of reading difficulties. These findings are easily interpretable because in transparent languages such as Swahili deficits in reading are more related to the rate/speed of reading and reading-related processes than to the number of errors made. In short, the study incrementally advances the field by adding an understudied language and an understudied population to the variety of languages and populations in the field of molecular-genetic studies of reading difficulties.     

Dis-placing place-making: how African-American and immigrant youth realize their rights to the city

ABSTRACT

Notions of place-making assume that individuals and groups of people have legitimate ‘rights to the city.’ This paper unsettles these notions to incorporate the politically and legally tenuous relationships African-American and Immigrant youth have to their cities. We describe a community-based digital STEAM curriculum called Mobile City Science that invited youth to engage in place-making efforts using mobile and location-aware technologies. The design study relied on a contradiction that is fundamental to youth place-making in an era of white nationalism: for African-American and Immigrant youth to engage power structures in community development processes, they had to engage in a series of dis-placements that removed them from embodied experiences and in-location perceptions of their communities. Self-censoring, witnessing, historicizing, and re-veiwing were all examples of dis-placements youth enacted to speak truth to power with digital and mobile tools.