Role of Computers in Educating Young Children: U.S. and Japanese Teachers’ Perspectives

This study was conducted with kindergarten teachers in the United States and Japan with respect to their beliefs about the role of computers in educating young children. Overall findings indicated significant differences in responses of teachers in the two countries. Generally, U.S. teachers had a more positive attitude toward computers in educating young children, while the Japanese teachers had more concerns. The teachers’ own sense of competence with computers was not related to their beliefs about computers and young children in either country. Respondents from both countries identified a lack of resources and clear guidelines for integrating computers in the classroom as challenges. These findings highlighted the need for training of early childhood teachers in integrating and using computers in the classroom.     

Automated scoring in context: Rapid assessment for placed students

This study investigated the use of automated essay scoring (AES) to identify at-risk students enrolled in a first-year university writing course. An application of AES, the Criterion^® Online Writing Evaluation Service was evaluated through a methodology focusing on construct modelling, response processes, disaggregation, extrapolation, generalization, and consequence. Based on the results of our two-year study with students (N = 1,482) at a public technological research university in the United States, we found that Criterion offered a defined writing construct congruent with established models, achieved acceptance among students and instructors, showed no statistically significant differences between ethnicity groups of sufficient sample size, correlated at acceptable levels with other writing measures, performed in a stable fashion, and enabled instructors to identify at-risk students to increase their course success.     

Indian and English Children's Understanding of the Distinction between Real and Apparent Emotion

24 preschool and 24 school-entry children in Bombay, India, and 24 preschool and 24 school-entry children in Oxford, England, were tested on their ability to distinguish between real and apparent emotion in response to stories involving child-adult and child-child interactions. Younger Indian girls did better than younger English girls, and the data reveal effects due to age, culture, gender, and story type which suggest a more social model of the understanding of emotion than has been proposed by other researchers using this methodology.     

Head-on collision of two balls revisited

We present a dramatic demonstration which is also a simple, and an extremely low-cost experiment of head-on collision of two balls in a vertical direction. The advantages of this phenomenon in the vertical direction are clarified. Some simple estimates are made. A thorough analysis of this simple topic is then made, which includes various special and limiting cases, conditions of collision, change of reference frame, etc.     

Evolutionary biology today

“For a biologist”, wrote Sir Peter Medawar, “the alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to think at all”. Yet, at the end of an education in biology in most Indian universities, this is not quite the view of evolutionary biology that one is left with. Evolution is presented summarily, almost as a footnote, rather than as a vital branch of biology providing the conceptual foundation for our modern views about the living world. In this issue ofResonance, we remember Stephen Jay Gould, who wrote extensively and eloquently about evolution for a general audience. It seems fitting, then, to also briefly discuss why evolutionary biology is important, not only conceptually but also in terms of practical applications. In this first part of a series of articles on modern evolutionary biology, we examine why the idea of evolution is so important in our intellectual history, and also take a look at the domain of evolutionary biology as a discipline. Amitabh Joshi studies and teaches evolutionary genetics and population ecology at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore. His current research interests are in life-history, evolution, the evolutionary genetics of biological clocks, the evolution of ecological specialization dynamics. He also enjoys music (especially traditional qawali in Braj, Farsi, Punjabi and Urdu), history, philosophy, and reading and writing poetry in Urdu, Hindi and English.     

Female Motivation in the Patriarchal School: an analysis of primary textbooks and school organisation in Nepal,and some strategies for change

Nepal is currently the focus of much attention in the form of aid and advice from the international community, and policy documents and proposals recognise the importance of education opportunities for girls and women as one of the cornerstones for successful development. Our concern was that in spite of policy intentions few real strategies exist with regard to the implementation of policy. Our research focused on the textbooks and school organisation patterns currently in use in Nepalese primary schools as this focus has not to date been addressed in Nepal. In suggesting short‐ and long‐term strategies as a response to the research findings, we hope that these suggestions may make a small contribution to educational research in Nepal.