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.     

The Actor–Partner Interdependence Model for Longitudinal Dyadic Data: An Implementation in the SEM Framework

In dyadic research, the actor–partner interdependence model (APIM) is widely used to model the effect of a predictor measured across dyad members on one’s own and one’s partner outcome. When such dyadic data are measured repeatedly over time, both the non-independence within couples and the non-independence over time need to be accounted for. In this paper, we present a longitudinal extension of the APIM, the L-APIM, that allows for both stable and time-varying sources of non-independence. Its implementation is readily available in multilevel software, such as proc mixed in SAS, but is lacking in the structural equation modeling (SEM) framework. We tackle the computational challenges associated with its SEM-implementation and propose a user-friendly free application for the L-APIM, which can be found at http://fgisteli.shinyapps.io/Shiny_LDD. As an illustration, we explore the actor and partner effects of positive relationship feelings on next day’s intimacy using 3-week diary data of 66 heterosexual couples.     

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.     

Drawing Pedagogies in Higher Education: the Learning Impact of a Collaborative Cross‐disciplinary Drawing Course

Drawing is taught in higher education across art and design but also, increasingly, in medical education, with a variety of aims and approaches. It is argued that there is a need, in both these disciplinary domains, to make more explicit the underpinning pedagogical approach to drawing and the impact that different approaches have on learning. The research described in this article focuses on an optional drawing course for undergraduate craft students and medical students. The course is run by the College of Arts and Humanities at a UK university and has a thematic focus on the human body. This qualitative case study sets out, in the context of selected theory about the teaching and learning of drawing, to explore what the learning impact of a particular collaborative model of teaching drawing was on a cross‐disciplinary student group. Findings included, with reference to Riley's framework of drawing pedagogies, that a range of philosophical and pedagogical ideas about drawing were blended from the teaching perspective in a way that enabled students from distinct disciplinary backgrounds to engage and learn. A shift was observed in students’ perceptions of drawing, with both sets of students questioning previously held assumptions about the use and value of drawing within their learning. Life drawing and anatomy laboratory drawing, in particular, provoked deep and challenging reflections about different cultural conceptions of the human body and the practice of collaborative drawing, with dialogic reflection, enabling insights to be developed into different disciplinary epistemologies.     

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。