Validation of the audience response system

Audience response systems (ARS) are gaining popularity in multiple areas of education. Although its usefulness has been well reported, no study has investigated the accuracy of the technology. The purpose of this study was to validate ARS by assessing three key aspects: signal transmission from the keypad to the receiver, capture of a proper response by the receiver and association of that response to the proper device. One hundred volunteers were assigned roles of responder or observer. Each responder was given a unique answer combination for a series of five questions. The data was assessed for accuracies and inaccuracies. Average correct response rate was 98% with a confidence interval (CI) ranging from 0.9527 to 0.9928 (CI = 0.95). The 2% incorrect response rate was attributable to failed signal transmission. These failed transmissions originated from different devices. As more institutions utilise ARS and as its use continues to expand into higher calibre arenas, validity of the system becomes of utmost importance. Given the relatively high confidence level of the system function, ARS is a valid and accurate method of response collecting, but one must certainly consider the possible ramifications of failed signal transmission.     

Technology in Support of Collaborative Learning

This paper reviews the research conducted in the last 20 years on the application of technology in support of collaborative learning in higher education. The review focuses primarily on studies that use Internet-based technologies and social interaction analysis. The review provides six sets of observations/recommendations regarding methodology, empirical evidence, and research gaps and issues that may help focus future research in this emerging field of study.

Peer group socialization of homophobic attitudes and behavior during adolescence

A social developmental framework was applied to test for the socialization of homophobic attitudes and behavior within adolescent peer groups (Grades 7-11; aged 12-17 years). Substantial similarity within and differences across groups were documented. Multilevel models identified a group socializing contextual effect, predicting homophobic attitudes and behavior of individuals within the group 8 months later, even after controlling for the predictive effect of individuals' own previously reported attitudes and behavior. Several group characteristics moderated the extent to which individuals' previously reported attitudes predicted later attitudes. Findings indicate the need to integrate the concurrent assessment of individual and social factors to inform the construction of more comprehensive models of how prejudiced attitudes and behaviors develop and are perpetuated.     

History as narrative: the nature and quality of historical understanding for students with LD

In this study, we examine the nature and quality of students' comprehension of history. Specifically, we explore whether cognitive-psychological theories developed to capture the comprehension of narrative text can be used to capture the comprehension of history. Participants were 36 students with learning disabilities who had taken part in an earlier study designed to investigate the effects of an interactive instructional intervention in history. The results of the original study supported the effectiveness of the intervention in terms of amount recalled. The results of the present study reveal that historical understanding can be characterized as the construction of meaning through the creation of a causal network of events. The study of history within a causal network framework has implications for understanding the nature and quality of students' learning of history, and for potentially identifying sources of failure in learning.     

A conceptual framework to understand student volunteerism

Tertiary Education and Management - This paper develops a conceptual framework to understand the value of an increasing number of university study programmes that send students to the global south...     

Three-Dimensional Printing of Archived Human Fetal Material for Teaching Purposes

The practical aspect of human developmental biology education is often limited to the observation and use of animal models to illustrate developmental anatomy. This is due in part to the difficulty of accessing human embryonic and fetal specimens, and the sensitivity inherent to presenting these specimens as teaching materials. This report presents a new approach using three-dimensional (3D) printed replicas of actual human materials in practical classes, thus allowing for the inclusion of accurate examples of human developmental anatomy in the educational context. A series of 3D prints have been produced from digital data collected by computed tomography (CT) imaging of an archived series of preserved human embryonic and fetal specimens. The final versions of 3D prints have been generated in a range of single or multiple materials to illustrate the progression of human development, including the development of internal anatomy. Furthermore, multiple copies of each replica have been printed for large group teaching. In addition to the educational benefit of examining accurate 3D replicas, this approach lessens the potential for adverse student reaction (due to cultural background or personal experience) to observing actual human embryonic/fetal anatomical specimens, and reduces the potential of damage or loss of original specimens. This approach, in combination with ongoing improvements in the management and analysis of digital data and advances in scanning technology, has enormous potential to allow embryology students access to both local and international collections of human gestational material. Anat Sci Educ 00: 000–000. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.     

Summarization based on bi-directional citation analysis

Automatic document summarization using citations is based on summarizing what others explicitly say about the document, by extracting a summary from text around the citations (citances). While this technique works quite well for summarizing the impact of scientific articles, other genres of documents as well as other types of summaries require different approaches. In this paper, we introduce a new family of methods that we developed for legal documents summarization to generate catchphrases for legal cases (where catchphrases are a form of legal summary). Our methods use both incoming and outgoing citations, and we show how citances can be combined with other elements of cited and citing documents, including the full text of the target document, and catchphrases of cited and citing cases. On a legal summarization corpus, our methods outperform competitive baselines. The combination of full text sentences and catchphrases from cited and citing cases is particularly successful. We also apply and evaluate the methods on scientific paper summarization, where they perform at the level of state-of-the-art techniques. Our family of citation-based summarization methods is powerful and flexible enough to target successfully a range of different domains and summarization tasks.     

A Complexity Approach Toward Mind–Brain–Education (MBE); Challenges and Opportunities in Educational Intervention and Research

In the context of an educational or clinical intervention, we often ask questions such as “How does this intervention influence the task behavior of autistic children?” or “How does working memory influence inhibition of immediate responses?” What do we mean by the word influence here? In this article, we introduce the framework of complex dynamic systems (CDS) to disentangle the meaning of words such as influence, and to discuss the issue of education and intervention as something that takes place in the form of complex, real‐time, situated processes. What are the applied implications of such a CDS framework? Can we use it to improve education? Five general principles—process laws—are introduced, which can be used to guide the way we formulate research questions and methods, and the way we use the results of such research. In addition, we briefly discuss a project in progress, in which we ourselves attempt to apply the process laws that govern educational activities. Finally, we report about a discussion about the usability of the process laws, both in educational research and in the classroom, as was held during our workshop at the Mind, Brain, and Education Conference, November 2014.     

Increasing Persistence in Undergraduate Science Majors: A Model for Institutional Support of Underrepresented Students

The 6-yr degree-completion rate of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors at U.S. colleges and universities is less than 40%. Persistence among women and underrepresented minorities (URMs), including African-American, Latino/a, Native American, and Pacific Islander students, is even more troubling, as these students leave STEM majors at significantly higher rates than their non-URM peers. This study utilizes a matched comparison group design to examine the academic achievement and persistence of students enrolled in the Program for Excellence in Education and Research in the Sciences (PEERS), an academic support program at the University of California, Los Angeles, for first- and second-year science majors from underrepresented backgrounds. Results indicate that PEERS students, on average, earned higher grades in most “gatekeeper” chemistry and math courses, had a higher cumulative grade point average, completed more science courses, and persisted in a science major at significantly higher rates than the comparison group. With its holistic approach focused on academics, counseling, creating a supportive community, and exposure to research, the PEERS program serves as an excellent model for universities interested in and committed to improving persistence of underrepresented science majors and closing the achievement gap.