Effects of instructional objectives on learning and retention

A synthesis is presented of the various rationales which predict the facilitative influence of instructional objectives on learning and retention. Facets which are particularly relevant to the analysis of instructional objectives in learning situations include the dimensional character of attending behavior, the optimal degree of specificity to be incorporated in specifying instructional outcomes, effects of the placement or position of objectives during instruction, and a discussion of investigations concerned with an incidental or unspecified learning criterion. The conclusion is that, on each of these issues, various instructional conditions determine the efficacy of utilizing objectives to promote learning and retention.     

Is outdoor education a discipline? Insights,gaps and future directions

This article critically explores ‘if’ and ‘how’ outdoor education (OE) is a discipline. This exploration stems from our experiences that OE is often undervalued, and from the belief that if OE is considered a discipline, then it would have greater acceptance, enhanced academic standing, importance, resourcing and prestige. Our analysis is rooted in a six-component discipline model which provides a framework for examining OE in relation to commonly understood attributes of stand-alone disciplines. In this article, we examine the final three components of the model. First, we explore the reference disciplines, such as education, psychology and sociology, which inform the OE field. Second, we examine the principles and practices of risk and reflection to chart how OE’s principles and practices have evolved over time. Finally, we report on the structures that support the OE field, such as academic programmes, journals, textbooks and curriculum. We draw on a range of historical and contemporary evidence to provocate on if and how OE is a discipline. We conclude the article with a discussion of the implications of these analyses juxtaposed alongside a discipline model and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for OE in the context of being a discipline.     

The role of experimenter-odor cues in the performance of object-memory tasks by rats

Two experiments assessed whether odors left on stimulus objects by experimenters who handle them might confound the interpretation of ostensibly visually guided object-memory tasks for rats. In Experiment 1, rats were able to discriminate the relative recency with which an experimenter touched two otherwise identical objects (intertouch interval = 4 sec), presumably on the basis of an odorintensity discrimination. However, after the rats mastered the odor discrimination with no delay between when the second of the two stimulus objects was last touched by the experimenter and when the rats were permitted to attempt the discrimination, their performance dropped to chance levels when this delay was increased to 15 sec. In Experiment 2, rats were trained in two slightly different ways to perform a delayed-nonmatching-to-sample (DNMS) task, one that involved systematic differences in the temporal order in which the experimenter handled the sample and novel stimulus objects and one that did not. There were no significant differences in the rate at which rats mastered the DNMS task with these two procedures, and the performance of rats that were trained according to the former procedure was unaffected when they were switched to the latter procedure. Moreover, rats required considerably fewer trials to master the DNMS task than the rats in Experiment 1 required to master the odor discrimination. These findings demonstrate that, under certain circumstances, rats can discriminate the relative recency with which two objects are handled by an experimenter, but that this ability contributes little to their performance of conventional object-based DNMS tasks.     

The influence of cognitive reasoning level,cognitive restructuring ability,disembedding ability,working memory capacity,and prior knowledge on students' performance on balancing equations by inspection

Eighty-three (83) high school chemistry students were administered tests of cognitive reasoning level, cognitive restructuring ability, disembedding ability, working memory capacity, and prior knowledge before a learning segment on balancing chemical equations by inspection. After a four-day instructional segment utilizing direct teaching methodology, participants were given a posttest on balancing equations. Initial regression analysis indicated that a multicollinearity problem existed. Factor analysis and correlational data indicated that the reasoning, restructuring, and disembedding variables could be collapsed and redefined as a single restructuring variable. A hierarchial regression analysis was then performed, and the following conclusions were derived: (1) when prior knowledge alone is considered, students' understanding of chemical formulas significantly (p < 0.05) influences overall equation balancing performance; (2) when prior knowledge, restructuring, and working memory are considered, only restructuring ability significantly (p < 0.05) influences overall performance; (3) working memory capacity does not significantly (p < 0.05) influence overall performance but does on certain posttest items; (4) prior knowledge and restructuring ability also significantly (p < 0.05) influence performance on certain posttest items. Discussion includes the rationale for identifying the collapsed variable as restructuring and the absence of working memory capacity as a significant influence on overall performance.     

过自己的生活

我热爱语言，欣赏人们通过改变声调轻松交流的能力。我经常看名言警句，品味其中的不同内涵，含义的不同归因于强调内容的不同以及用不同方式读同一组词。我之所以非常看重用作本文标题的这句话，有很多原因，说这句话的时候，无论强调哪个词，整个句子都非常重要。     

Preparation programs leading to licensure in broad‐field social studies at state regional colleges and universities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the status of preparation programs leading to licensure in broad‐field social studies, grades 7–12, at state regional colleges and universities and the relationship of these programs of study to National Council of Social Studies (NCSS) Standards, state licensure requirements, degree programs of study at state supported major research institutions, and major reports on educational reform. The research found that of the 30 institutions studied only 21 offered degree programs leading to licensure in broad‐field social studies. All 21 institutions exceeded state minimum requirements and although the mean semester hour requirements in general education, professional education, and specialty studies components minimally exceeded the NCSS recommended standards and were similar to those at major research institutions, there was an absence of assurance by institutions that students possessed a depth of understanding in the disciplines within the major. Likewise, degree programs have been minimally affected by the recommendations of the major educational reform reports.     

FOUCAULT-TEACHING-THEOLOGY

Abstract Religious education takes place within a postmodern culturalintellectual milieu exemplified in part by the work of Michel Foucault, which disrupts common modern concepts of knowledge and power. For Foucault, power is not only repressive but also productive, insofar as every system of knowledge depends on social arrangements of power for the production and maintenance of that knowledge. Such an understanding of the power-knowledge relation has at least three implications for religious education: rethinking pedagogical power relations, rendering practicable a Foucaultian destabilization of reason, and reconceptualizing liberation theological pedagogies.     

The formalization of the university: rules, roots, and routes

This article examines changes in the formal organization of two universities and two schools within these universities, the University of Oslo and Stanford University. We focus on role differentiation, rule formation, and resource seeking structures and describe organizational developments along these dimensions. We find that both these universities travel similar routes involving greater role differentiation, rule formation, and resource seeking activities. Both universities more explicitly function as organizational actors influenced by a global environment that favors the more socially embedded and the more managed university. However, we also find persistent differences in how these universities respond to the global environment, differences that reflect the different historical roots of different universities. A tradition of professorial self-governance at the University of Oslo, for example, fosters greater resistance to the managed university ideal. The latter emerges earlier and develops to a greater degree at Stanford University. We conclude that university routes are influenced both by common (now globalized) rules of the game and by their different organizational roots. We use ideas from the neo-institutional and path dependency perspectives to make sense of both growing commonalities and persistent differences.