PERSUASION FROM BELOW?

Guided by the belief that anonymity inevitably breeds the kind of uncivil discourse that hurts their readers, many news organizations have chosen to ban anonymous comments sections on their websites in recent years. Unfortunately, little empirical research has been conducted to assess whether exposure to anonymous comments actually does influence people's attitudes. In this paper, we address this oversight by asking: do anonymous comments posted on a newspaper website shape how internet users feel about the media? Using an online experiment to systematically manipulate exposure to anonymous comments attached to a “hard news” report, we find strong evidence that exposure to non-attributed posts—regardless of their tone—leads internet users to feel more negatively towards specific news organizations and the media in general.     

A family affair: Library opportunities to connect with parents and families

Parents are important aspects of our students' academic lives, and as such, should be acknowledged and considered as allies and potential partners with libraries. This article presents ideas for many ways in which libraries can engage with parents and families, while also exploring the benefits of such efforts. The broad areas in which these efforts fall include 1) overall student success, 2) connecting with other student-supporting and student-reaching entities on campus, and 3) supporting the critical efforts of student recruitment and retention. In this article, examples of different parent engagement opportunities are also discussed, including involvement in campus events, engaging with parent associations, considerations of legacy engagement, and collaboration with other campus units. The results of these parent-library initiatives and connections can help accomplish a variety of things including supporting student academic success, ensuring that the library is involved in other university student outreach efforts, contributing to development and fundraising activities and finally, supporting the recruitment and retention of students.     

Designing effective interventions for children at‐risk for antisocial behavior: An integrated model of components necessary for making valid inferences

Children demonstrating antisocial behavior patterns are at‐risk for a host of negative outcomes including school failure, peer and teacher rejection, academic difficulties, and future delinquency. These children are undoubtedly in need of effective and appropriate interventions to address problem areas in both behavioral and academic domains. To ensure that academic and sociobehavioral interventions will be more successful, three main components: (a) social validity, (b) treatment integrity, and (c) generalization and maintenance must be addressed when designing the interventions. The purpose of this article is to (a) describe the pertinent characteristics (e.g., definition, application, and assessment issues) of each of these components as they relate to school‐based interventions, and (b) introduce an integrated model that illustrates the interrelatedness of these essential intervention components. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Preservice Secondary Education Majors and Visual-Spatial Perception: An Important Cognitive Aptitude in the Teaching of Science and Mathematics

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

A comparison of pregnant women presenting for alcohol and other drug treatment by CPS status

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to describe the demographic, substance use, and treatment variables of alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatment seeking pregnant women. This study also compared women on these variables based on Child Protective Service (CPS) status. METHOD: Secondary data of all pregnant women with at least one child entering all publicly funded AOD treatment programs (N=678), in a southwest county, over a 3-year period were analyzed to examine the differences between pregnant women also involved with CPS and those not involved with CPS. RESULTS: Pregnant women reporting CPS involvement were similar to non-CPS women on demographic variables but differed on drug use and treatment variables. CPS women were more likely to report marijuana use as their primary problem drug, be mandated to treatment, attend day treatment and be released from treatment unsatisfactorily compared to the non-CPS pregnant women. Those without CPS involvement were more likely to report cocaine or crack as their primary drug, attend outpatient treatment and be found to have a satisfactory release from treatment compared to those with CPS involvement. Results from the multiple logistic regression analysis found that the significant predictors of CPS involvement were mandated status and unsatisfactory treatment release. CONCLUSIONS: Differences in treatment outcomes may be based on AOD agencies' difficulty in working with mandated clients and/or with the multiple demands placed by CPS on clients as part of their treatment plans. Further research is needed to determine reasons for CPS clients' high failure rates in AOD treatment.     

Opportunities-to-Learn at Home: Profiles of Students With and Without Reaching Science Proficiency

This study examines the relationship between opportunity-to-learn (OTL) at home and students’ attainment of science proficiency. The data set used was the 2006 PISA science US national sample. Data mining was used to create patterns of association between home OTL variables and student attainment of science proficiency. It was found that students who failed to reach science proficiency are characterized by having fewer than 100 books at home; these students are also found to take out-of-school individual or group lessons with their teachers or with other teachers. On the other hands, students who reached science proficiency are characterized by having more than 100 books at home, not taking any out-of-school lessons, and having a highest parent level of graduate education. In addition to the above common characteristics, other home characteristics (e.g. computer and internet at home and language spoke at home) are also identified in profiles of students who have reached science proficiency. We explain the above findings in terms of current social-cultural theories. We finally discuss implications of the above findings for future studies and for improving science education policy and practice.     

Teachers’ Roles,Students’ Personalities,Inquiry Learning Outcomes,and Practices of Science and Engineering:The Development and Validation of the McGill Attainment Value for Inquiry Engagement Survey in STEM Disciplines

Inquiry engagement is a newly defined construct that represents the participation in carrying out practices of science and engineering to achieve learning outcomes and is influenced by learners’ personalities and teachers’ roles. Expectancy value theory posits that attainment values are important components of task values that, in turn, directly influence students’ achievement-related choices and performance. The current paper developed and validated the McGill Attainment Value for Inquiry Engagement Survey (MAVIES) with undergraduate students in STEM disciplines. The MAVIES is a 67-item, learner-focused survey that addresses four components that are theoretically important for engaging in scientific inquiry: (a) teachers’ roles, (b) students’ personalities, (c) inquiry learning outcomes, and (d) practices of science and engineering. Evidence for internal consistency and construct, content, and criterion validity was obtained from 85 undergraduates who had experience with scientific inquiry in diverse STEM fields. Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed factors that were consistent with role theory, Big Five personality traits, revised Bloom’s learning outcomes, and the Next Generation Science Standards. The MAVIES instrument is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring undergraduate students’ attainment values for scientific inquiry engagement in STEM disciplines.     

Classroom-based science research at the introductory level: changes in career choices and attitude

Our study, focused on classroom-based research at the introductory level and using the Phage Genomics course as the model, shows evidence that first-year students doing research learn the process of science as well as how scientists practice science. A preliminary but notable outcome of our work, which is based on a small sample, is the change in student interest in considering different career choices such as graduate education and science in general. This is particularly notable, as previous research has described research internships as clarifying or confirming rather than changing undergraduates' decisions to pursue graduate education. We hypothesize that our results differ from previous studies of the impact of engaging in research because the students in our study are still in the early stages of their undergraduate careers. Our work builds upon the classroom-based research movement and should be viewed as encouraging to the Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education movement advocated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Foundation, and other undergraduate education stakeholders.     

Relative Effectiveness of Reading Intervention Programs for Adults with Low Literacy

To compare the efficacy of instructional programs for adult learners with basic reading skills below the seventh grade level, 300 adults were randomly assigned to one of three supplementary tutoring programs designed to strengthen decoding and fluency skills, and gains were examined for the 148 adult students who completed the program. The three intervention programs were based on or adapted from instructional programs that have been shown to benefit children with reading levels similar to those of the adult sample. Each program varied in its relative emphasis on basic decoding versus reading fluency instruction. A repeated measures MANOVA confirmed small to moderate reading gains from pre- to post-testing across a battery of targeted reading measures, but no significant relative differences across interventions. An additional 152 participants who failed to complete the intervention differed initially from those who persisted. Implications for future research and adult literacy instruction are discussed.     

学习支持服务的新模式(英文)

远程教育项目实施的关键因素之一就是学习支持服务。传统的学生支持服务观念将其界定为除课程材料制作和传送之外帮助学生学习取得进展的一切活动(Simpson,2000)或者课程制作之外的所有过程(Sharma,2000;Keegan,1996)。随着在线学习的发展及其在远程教育中所处的主导地位,有必要反思学习支持,且不同于传统或第一代远程教育中的学习支持。网络技术促进了知识的社会创建/建构和对用户生成内容的共享,二者均将学习者看作是知识创建/建构的积极参与者。本文分析了开放与远程数字化学习情境下学习支持服务的关注点,并重点关注在线学习者的挫败感、在线讨论中的沉默文化、基于共同体的学习支持,以及教师在整个学习支持服务提供中的角色。文章主要基于菲律宾开放大学十多年来实施开放与远程数字化学习的经验,并就学习支持系统应具备的属性提出了建议。