Measuring Teaching Effectiveness: Correspondence Between Students’ Evaluations of Teaching and Different Measures of Student Learning

Relating students?? evaluations of teaching (SETs) to student learning as an approach to validate SETs has produced inconsistent results. The present study tested the hypothesis that the strength of association of SETs and student learning varies with the criteria used to indicate student learning. A multisection validity approach was employed to investigate the association of SETs and two different criteria of student learning, a multiple-choice test and a practical examination. Participants were N?=?883 medical students, enrolled in k?=?32 sections of the same course. As expected, results showed a strong positive association between SETs and the practical examination but no significant correlation between SETs and multiple-choice test scores. Furthermore, students?? subjective perception of learning significantly correlated with the practical examination score whereas no relation was found for subjective learning and the multiple choice test. It is discussed whether these results might be due to different measures of student learning varying in the degree to which they reflect teaching effectiveness.     

Development of raw acceleration cut-points for wrist and hip accelerometers to assess sedentary behaviour and physical activity in 5–7-year-old children

ABSTRACT

This study validated sedentary behaviour (SB), moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and vigorous physical activity (VPA) accelerometer cut-points in 5–7-year-old children. Participants (n = 49, 55% girls) wore an ActiGraph GT9X accelerometer, recording data at 100 Hz downloaded in 1 s epochs, on both wrists and the right hip during a standardised protocol and recess. Cut-points were generated using ROC analysis with direct observation as a criterion. Subsequently, cut-points were optimised using Confidence intervals equivalency analysis and then cross-validated in a cross-validation group. SB cut-points were 36 mg (Sensitivity (Sn) = 79.8%, Specificity (Sp) = 56.8%) for non-dominant wrist, 39 mg (Sn = 75.4%, Sp = 70.2%) for dominant wrist and 20 mg (Sn = 78%, Sp = 50.1%) for hip. MVPA cut-points were 189 mg (Sn = 82.6%, Sp = 78%) for non-dominant wrist, 181 mg (Sn = 79.1%, Sp = 76%) for dominant wrist and 95 mg (Sn = 79.3%, Sp = 75.6%) for hip. VPA cut-points were 536 mg (Sn = 75.1%, Sp = 68.7%) for non-dominant wrist, 534 mg (Sn = 67.6%, Sp = 95.6%) for dominant wrist and 325 mg (Sn = 78.2%, Sp = 96.1%) for hip. All placements demonstrated adequate levels of accuracy for SB and PA assessment.     

Differently structured advance organizers lead to different initial schemata and learning outcomes

Does the specific structure of advance organizers influence learning outcomes? In the first experiment, 48 psychology students were randomly assigned to three differently structured advance organizers: a well-structured, a well-structured and key-concept emphasizing, and a less structured advance organizer. These were followed by a sorting task, a text study phase, and a posttest. The results indicated that differently structured advance organizers lead to different proto-schemata before and different learning outcomes after the text study phase. The second experiment replicated and extended these findings with 53 mathematics students. As in experiment 1, three differently structured advance organizers were used; but to rule out alternative explanations, the sorting task between the advance organizer and the text study phase was omitted. The results showed strong beneficial effects of well-structured advance organizers on near and far transfer tasks. Taken together, both experiments support the claim that the structure of advance organizers has an effect on preliminary schemata and learning outcomes. On a general level, the results indicate that advance organizers can support the generation of proto-schemata and thus can be more than the activation of “existing” concepts in long-term memory. With regard to education, this implies that educators should not only think about whether prior domain-specific knowledge is present, but also about how to scaffold the generation of proto-schemata at the beginning of instruction.     

Children learning to read later catch up to children reading earlier

Two studies from English-speaking samples investigated the methodologically difficult question of whether the later reading achievement of children learning to read earlier or later differs. Children (n = 287) from predominantly state-funded schools were selected and they differed in whether the reading instruction age (RIA) was either five or seven years. Study 1 covered the first six years of school following three cohorts across a two-year design. Analyses accounted for receptive vocabulary, reported parental income and education, school-community affluence, classroom instruction, home literacy environment, reading self-concept, and age. The earlier RIA group had initially superior letter naming, non-word, word, and passage reading but this difference in reading skill disappeared by age 11. In Study 2, the decoding, fluency, and reading comprehension performance of 83 additional middle school-age children was compared. The two groups exhibited similar reading fluency, but the later RIA had generally greater reading comprehension. Given that the design was non-experimental, we urge further research to better understand developmental patterns and influences arising from different RIAs.     

The effect of school inspections on school improvement

This study uses a school-level longitudinal control-group design to examine how teachers and principals of inspected versus uninspected schools perceive school improvement at their schools. During the phasing in of school inspections in the states of Berlin and Brandenburg (Germany), both inspected and uninspected schools were surveyed with respect to school improvement activities over a 1-year period. The main finding is that principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of school quality were highly stable, irrespective of the introduction of school inspections. The results show school inspections had a comparatively low impact on the aspects of school quality measured here.     

Retrieval-based learning in special education

Retrieval-based learning has been investigated in various populations. The present study examined retrieval-based learning in a sample of students at a special-needs school with educational tracks for learning and mental development. In addition, a comparison group of students at a regular school was examined. Learning conditions were manipulated within participants. In a first session, participants either received restudy cycles only, or they received alternating test and restudy cycles. A second session then comprised the opposite form of practice. In both sessions, a final test assessed memory after a short distractor phase. This procedure was the same in two experiments but with different kinds of item material. For both kinds (images and image-word pairs), a testing effect occurred, that is higher recall of tested items. These results show that lower cognitive ability or lack of experience with regularly being tested in school do not prevent students from benefiting from retrieval-based learning.     

Academic Libraries and Autism Spectrum Disorder: What Do We Know?

This paper examines the rising rates of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children in the United States (1 in 59), and explores the role academic libraries can play in helping college students with ASD. A literature review of how different types of libraries (school, public, academic) support students with ASD indicates research in this area in general is lacking. Findings point to lack of adequate training and awareness for librarians and staff, resources, services and spaces are universal challenges. Several initiatives that academic libraries and librarians may consider in helping students with ASD are identified and described.     

Digital records as relational objects–Yuk Hui’s concept of digital objects applied to archival science

The writings of Yuk Hui, bringing together both technical and philosophical insights, present a new way of dealing with the digital. The aim of this article is to assess the use of Hui’s theories on digital objects as a critical reframing, looking at the concept of digital records in particular. Two types of ontology are needed in order to understand digital objects according to Hui: (1) ontologies which relates to the technical language and hierarchies of knowledge representation, like metadata; (2) Ontology, which is a question of being-in-the-tradition of Heidegger’s phenomenology, the understanding of what it is to be in the world. Both are needed to account for the nature of the digital object. Further, digital objects are produced and constituted through their relations, which can be divided into discursive (technical and logical) and existential (the understanding of being-in-the-world) relations. Different conceptions of digital records are discussed, in order to find commonalities and possibilities in relation to Hui’s theory. The digital record as a process of becoming, information as affordance, and temporality are related to and structured through the application of Hui’s perspective. The article ends with the contribution of a possible redefinition of digital records: a digital record is constituted and concretised as material by discursive and existential relations that taken together function as a persistent representation. Hui’s theory is suggested as a set of coordinates for further thinking and a method for critical reading of digital records.

     

Long-term microfluidic glucose and lactate monitoring in hepatic cell culture

Monitoring cellular bioenergetic pathways provides the basis for a detailed understanding of the physiological state of a cell culture. Therefore, it is widely used as a tool amongst others in the field of in vitro toxicology. The resulting metabolic information allows for performing in vitro toxicology assays for assessing drug-induced toxicity. In this study, we demonstrate the value of a microsystem for the fully automated detection of drug-induced changes in cellular viability by continuous monitoring of the metabolic activity over several days. To this end, glucose consumption and lactate secretion of a hepatic tumor cell line were continuously measured using microfluidically addressed electrochemical sensors. Adapting enzyme-based electrochemical flat-plate sensors, originally designed for human whole-blood samples, to their use with cell culture medium supersedes the common manual and laborious colorimetric assays and off-line operated external measurement systems. The cells were exposed to different concentrations of the mitochondrial inhibitor rotenone and the cellular response was analyzed by detecting changes in the rates of the glucose and lactate metabolism. Thus, the system provides real-time information on drug-induced liver injury in vitro.     

Biomechanische Grundlagen des Startsprungs im Schwimmen

Starting block performance in swimming is of crucial importance in the individual competitions for the shorter swimming distances as well as for the relay events. The significance of this swim start performance will increase with the introduction of a new starting block with a longer and slightly steeper surface in conjunction with a push-off support for the feet and laterally adjustable handles. As grab starts and track starts were equally observed in international swimming competitions there are good reasons to assume that only the latter will remain the dominant starting technique. This report aims to summarize existing knowledge on the biomechanics of the swim start performed on a traditional starting block as a new starting block is introduced and new starting techniques are going to be developed. Following some introductory remarks on the assessment of the swim start performance, results will be discussed on the merit of different take-off techniques, on the entry behaviour, and on the force development profiles on the starting block. In conclusion, a tendency in favour of the rear-weighted track start was found in conjunction with a flat entry. In addition, it could be shown that an angular momentum around the transverse body axis combined with a dolphin kick (and a previously hyperextended hip joint) may provide hydrodynamic conditions to enter the water with a rather steep centre of mass trajectory. Finally, existing biomechanical knowledge will be presented on the relay start as well as on a possible change in the starting technique using the new block.