Optimizing Conditions for Learning: Situating Refutations in Epistemic Cognition

A refutation text is designed to promote conceptual change by explicitly acknowledging commonly held misconceptions about a topic, directly refuting them, and providing an accurate explanation. In this study, we determined the impact of different types of refutation texts on adolescent readers’ conceptual change learning in science. Specifically, we manipulated the way the correct conception was justified and explained following work in epistemic cognition. Three different types of justification were compared to a control condition: justification by authority, justification by multiple sources, and justification by personal opinion. The findings showed that learning effects were optimized when the correct conceptions were presented in terms of a corroborated consensus among multiple sources.     

Structural Models for Binary Repeated Measures: Linking Modern Longitudinal Structural Equation Models to Conventional Categorical Data Analysis for Matched Pairs

The current widespread availability of software packages with estimation features for testing structural equation models with binary indicators makes it possible to investigate many hypotheses about differences in proportions over time that are typically only tested with conventional categorical data analyses for matched pairs or repeated measures, such as McNemar’s chi-square. The connection between these conventional tests and simple longitudinal structural equation models is described. The equivalence of several conventional analyses and structural equation models reveals some foundational concepts underlying common longitudinal modeling strategies and brings to light a number of possible modeling extensions that will allow investigators to pursue more complex research questions involving multiple repeated proportion contrasts, mixed between-subjects × within-subjects interactions, and comparisons of estimated membership proportions using latent class factors with multiple indicators. Several models are illustrated, and the implications for using structural equation models for comparing binary repeated measures or matched pairs are discussed.     

Thermodynamical Arguments Against Evolution

The argument that the second law of thermodynamics contradicts the theory of evolution has recently been revived by anti-evolutionists. In its basic form, the argument asserts that whereas evolution implies that there has been an increase in biological complexity over time, the second law, a fundamental principle of physics, shows this to be impossible. Scientists have responded primarily by noting that the second law does not rule out increases in complexity in open systems, and since the Earth receives energy from the Sun, it is an open system. This reply is correct as far as it goes, and it adequately rebuts the most crude versions of the second law argument. However, it is insufficient against more sophisticated versions, and it leaves many relevant aspects of thermodynamics unexplained. We shall consider the history of the argument, explain the nuances various anti-evolution writers have brought to it, and offer thorough explanations for why the argument is fallacious. We shall emphasize in particular that the second law is best viewed as a mathematical statement. Since anti-evolutionists never make use of the mathematical structure of thermodynamics, invocations of the second law never contribute anything substantive to their discourse.     

Strings attached? Linking Historically Black Colleges and Universities public revenue sources with efficiency

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), a set of US higher education institutions historically tasked with educating African–American students, receive both state and federal funding. However, state governments often assert operational control through the political process, potentially influencing how key resources are used. Do these different sources of publicness have competing effects on efficiency? Using a 5-year panel of financial and organisational data of HBCUs, this study explores the relative effect of each of these revenue sources on efficiency. The study finds that the efficiency of HBCUs is negatively impacted by higher proportions of state revenue, and that higher proportions of federal revenue have a positive effect on efficiency. This suggests that state governments should consider their political roles in assessing the performance of HBCUs, and that HBCUs might look to lessons from other organisations for methods to reduce the impact of state external control.     

The role of signifier differences,associations, and combinations in creative digital video composing: making meaning with gestures,objects, actions,and speech

This article presents an analysis of a digital video created by a student (age 13) in a classroom setting. Since sign functioning is a key focus in theories of meaning making as it occurs through language and through other modes, my analysis focuses on the relations between signifiers as they are inscribed in her video. This analysis explores new ways to use a theory of signification as a lens for considering, interpreting, and conceptualizing student video creations. My analysis focuses on how the focal student’s video is constituted by signifiers (gestural, actional, object, and spoken) that are arranged into chains of signifiers. These signifiers come into relation, combination, and association with one another across varying degrees of difference and similarity, both delimiting and opening up their possible meaning potentials. This analysis provides a heuristic that offers a signifier-based method of interpreting student-created digital videos, conceptualizing them as composed of signifiers drawn from across modes. This study also offers ways to recognize how creative or novel uses of the medium involve complex semiotic association and dissociation processes occurring in multiple modes.     

Emotion regulation tendencies,achievement emotions,and physiological arousal in a medical diagnostic reasoning simulation

Instructional Science - Despite the importance of emotion regulation in education there is a paucity of research examining it in authentic educational contexts. Moreover, emotion measurement...     

A test of personal and social utility values and the appeal of a career in teaching

An effective education system depends upon attracting college students into the teaching profession, but most of the research on what motivates individuals to pursue teaching merely surveys individuals who have already entered a teacher education program. This study employs an experimental design to test the effects of exposure to randomly assigned lists of reasons to teach reflecting personal utility values or social utility values on the appeal of the career to a sample of college students. Results indicate that both personal and social utility values are relevant to the appeal of a career in teaching and to a similar degree. Gender differences in this relationship were negligible.     

Towards a view of originary theory in instructional design

Educational technology research and development - In this paper we offer a call for the development and utilization of originary theory in instructional design. Originary theory, which is generated...     

Learning from programmed instruction: Examining implications for modern instructional technology

This article reports a theoretical examination of several parallels between contemporary instructional technology (as manifest in one of its most current manifestations, online learning) and one of its direct predecessors, programmed instruction. We place particular focus on the unterlying assumptions of the two movements. Our analysis suggests that four assumptions that contributed to the historical demise of programmed instruction—(a) ontological determinisms, (b) materialism (c) social efficiency, and (d) technological determinism—also underlie contemporary instructional technology theory and practice and threaten its long-term viability as an educational resource. Based on this examination, we offer several recommendations for practicing instructional technologists and make a call for innovative assumptions and make a call for innovative assumptions and theories not widely visible in the field of instructional technology.