Inoculation to resist attacks

The present study tested inoculation theory in international context. Core inoculation concepts and variables were examine, especially focusing on relationships among inoculation treatments, issue involvement, perceived threat, resistance to counter-attitudinal attack, attitudinal confidence, and change of attitude.

A two-wave telephone survey of 206 randomly sampled citizens was conducted in Taiwan. The method of field experiment in a context of the formation of public opinion regarding Taiwan's political future was performed. Results from the panel data supported major hypotheses of this study. Inoculation strategies elevated people's resistance to attitude change. People who identified themselves with higher party identification were more resistant to counter-attitudinal political attacks. In addition, people who received an inoculation pretreatment, as compared to those who did not, grew more confident in their attitudes over time. A partial support data also indicated that higher involved participants tended to be more resistant to counter-attitudinal messages. This study has provided international evidence for the robust inoculation theory and related strategies.     

信心回归:破解难题给举办者一个良好的成长环境——举办者信心丧失是民办教育发展的最深层危机

广东民办学校经营成本高企,不少民办学校难以为继。而对产权和回报的诉求与目的上的歧视,严重地制约着民办学校举办者的积极性和不断投入的水平。要给民办教育举办者营造一个良好的成长环境,使民办教育投资重振信心,必须使民办教育投资权益回归《物权法》,以增加民办教育可持续发展的基本动力。     

谈中学历史教材中的诗歌教学及作用

诗歌这种文学形式,作为中华灿烂文化中的一朵奇葩,其历史渊远流长。现行中学历史教科书中引起了许多诗歌,因此,加强诗歌教学,教师必须自我充实。然后利用诗歌教学培养学生的道德情操和分析问题解决问题的能力。     

Early Childhood Teacher Education in Australia

The complexity of preparing personnel for early childhood services seems common to many countries of the world. Issues and problems include length of courses, pre‐requisites for entry to courses, core curriculum content, age range covered in courses, education and care elements and practicum requirements. This paper discusses early childhood teacher education provision in Australia and acknowledges that teacher educators in countries of the world have much to share and the discussion of solutions can only better the preparation of early childhood courses. A common theme is the need to raise the status and strengthen the early childhood profession by the provision of quality courses.     

Board effectiveness: Identifying and measuring trustee competencies

What characteristics define and describe effective boards of trustees in colleges and universities? Do effective boards differ in any systematic ways from ineffective ones? The present paper traces the development and testing of a conceptual framework of board competencies and analyzes alternative approaches to measurement. We focus on issues of theory development, on the use of a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, and on suggestions for further study of this crucial aspect of higher education.     

Higher and lower-order cognitive skills: The case of chemistry

A major driving force in the current effort to reform science education is the conviction that it is vital for our students to develop their higher-order cognitive skills capacity in order to function effectively in our modem, complex science and technology-based society. In line with this rationale, this study focuses on the use of examinations for studying student performance in chemistry examination on items that require higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS) or lower-order cognitive skills (LOCS). This usage of examinations is explored and demonstrated via “post-factum” data analysis of two case studies: the General Examination (in chemistry) and the Panhellenic Chemistry Competition administered natinally in Greece for secondary-school graduates in 1991. The main findings were: (a) students performed considerably lower on questions requiring HOCS than on those requiring LOCS; (b) performance on questions requiring HOCS may not correlate with that on questions requiring LOCS for which affective factors, LOCS-orientation in teaching and the extent of prior examination preparation may be responsible; and (c) examinations that contain intems of both types can be effectively used to identify HOCS- and LOCS- students within various contexts of chemistry teaching. Based on the above and previous related studies, the fostering of students' HOCS by appropriate teaching and assessment trategies is advocated.     

Senior secondary school assessment and standard-setting in Queensland,Australia: social context and paradigmatic change

ABSTRACT

This article draws on three assessment paradigms – psychometrics, outcomes-based and curriculum-based assessment – to discuss paradigmatic changes in senior school assessment and achievement standard-setting in Queensland, Australia, over the last 50 years. These include radical reforms in 1970 from university-controlled examinations to school-based assessments applying normative standard-setting, to subsequent reforms in 1978 introducing competence(curriculum)-based assessment and standards. From 2019, a new reform introduces a combination of school-based and external assessment with procedures for establishing standards still in progress.

Changes to Queensland assessment and standard-setting are discussed in terms of three preconditions for paradigm change – dissatisfaction, an alternative acceptable paradigm, and majority acceptance of change. Influence of paradigmatic origins of reformers is discussed. The amalgam of curriculum-based assessment and psychometric paradigms in the new Queensland system is considered in terms of theoretical compatibility and potential impact on the new standards.     

An alternate path to stoichiometric problem solving

Stoichiometric problem solving has always been a stumbling block for many students in introductory chemistry courses. Research has shown that it is quite common for students to rely on algorithms when doing stoichiometric calculations. In previous studies, students were confronted with simple stoichiometric problems that involved comparing molar masses with simple ratios to one another. It turned out that students very successfully used their own problem-solving strategies. It is typical of these strategies that students describe relations in their own words rather than applying mathematical calculations. In this paper, an alternate path to teaching introductory stoichiometry-based on the results of research-will be discussed. The recommendation given is to use problems of the kind mentioned above which can easily be solved by quick mental calculation.