Subjective,individual and aggregate references in educational research

Subjective, individual, and aggregate references in educational research are distinguished. A particular method may center around a particular type of reference. Uses and misuses are described. Compatible relationships are indicated. The overall process is seen within a general principle of uncertainty reduction.     

Evaluating Students’ Performance in Responding to Art: The Development and Validation of an Art Criticism Assessment Rubric

This article reports on the development and validation of a rubric for assessing students’ written responses to artworks. Since the implementation of the Hong Kong New Senior Secondary Curriculum in 2009, art educators have seen responding to artworks as increasingly important. In this context, the Art Criticism Assessment Rubric (ACAR) was developed. On the basis of Feldman's and Geahigan's theories of art criticism, eight evaluation criteria were identified. The inter‐rater reliability (IRR) of the ACAR was examined. A preliminary IRR test was conducted and an excellent intra‐class correlation coefficient (ICC) value of .91 was obtained. For the main study, six independent raters, who were divided into three groups of two, were trained and invited to rate 87 art criticism essays written by students from eight secondary schools. Most dimensions of the ACAR achieved good ICC values. The results show that the ACAR is an acceptable rubric for providing a reliable assessment of students’ written responses to artworks. However, two dimensions, Originality and Balanced Views and Application of Aesthetic and Contextual Knowledge, obtained poor ICC values. This may be owing to the lack of consensus on the definition of originality and the raters' unfamiliarity with the concept of aesthetic knowledge. The researchers suggest that dimension‐specific samples rated from high to low scores should be provided in raters’ training.     

凸体的包含测度(II)

In this paper, several inequalities for inclusion measures of convex bodies were obtained. The inclusion measure was proved to have concavity by considering the property of relative inner parallel body.     

Development of Training Materials for Community Based Rehabilitation Workers in Guyana

Parents of children with disabilities are not getting enough help for their education, care and training. The prevailing model of rehabilitation based on institutional care, would absorb more than the total health and education budgets of most developing countries if serious attempts were made to meet the needs of all disabled persons through this approach. Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) has therefore been suggested as an alternative approach to service delivery. For CBR to be a viable service provision a new concept needs to be developed of staff and training. This paper presents an outline of materials that have been developed in Guyana to meet the training needs of a new cadre of worker in the rehabilitation field.     

Ohm’s law, Kirchoff’s law and the Drunkard’s walk

We change gears in this second part of the article and discuss one of the oldest problems in probability theory, viz. the simple random walk. The recurrence and transience of the random walk in different dimensions is later derived using the material from the first part.     

Associations of Warmth and Control of Filipina Domestic Helpers and Mothers to Hong Kong Kindergarten Children's Social Competence

Research Findings: Across 63 Hong Kong families, both Filipina domestic helpers and mothers separately rated their own caregiving style (warmth and control) and kindergarten children's social competence. Results indicated that Filipina helpers rated themselves as higher in warmth than mothers did. In addition, self-rated warmth of both caregivers, and Filipina domestic helpers' self-perceived control were correlated with children's social competence. With ratings of warmth and control from both Filipina helpers and mothers included in separate regression equations, mothers' warmth was a strong unique correlate of all measures of children's social competence. However, Filipinas' warmth was uniquely associated with children's responsibility only, whereas their control was uniquely associated with children's assertion and responsibility. Practice or Policy: Results extend previous research on the importance of nonparental caregivers for children's social development in a new cultural context.     

Using centrality of concept maps as a measure of problem space states in computer-supported collaborative problem solving

Problem solving likely involves at least two broad stages, problem space representation and then problem solution (Newell and Simon, Human problem solving, 1972). The metric centrality that Freeman (Social Networks 1:215–239, 1978) implemented in social network analysis is offered here as a potential measure of both. This development research study applied centrality measures to reanalyze existing concept maps from a recent investigation (Engelmann and Hesse, Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning 5:299–319, 2010). Participants (N = 120) were randomly assigned to interdependent (i.e. hidden profiles) or non-interdependent conditions to work online in triads using CmapTools software to create a concept map in order to solve a problem scenario. The centrality values of these group-created concept maps agreed with the common relations count analysis used in that investigation and allowed for additional comparisons as well as analysis by multidimensional scaling. Specifically, the interdependent triad maps resembled the fully explicated problem space, while the non-interdependent triad maps mainly resembled the problem solution. The results demonstrate that centrality is a useful measure of knowledge structure contained in these team concept map artifacts that allows researchers to infer problem representation start and goal state transitions during problem solving.     

Manifestations of Quality Learning in Computer-Mediated University Courses

A prototype computer-mediated communication system was assessed for its capability to stimulate intellectual activity through mandating peer comments in graduate and undergraduate computer science classes. Measured against Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, about half the total comments in two classes exhibited no evidence of classifiable intellectual activity. Of the remaining half, a positive correlation was found between number of characters and level of cognition exhibited by a comment, though exceptions were found at every level. A significant but weak relationship was also shown between cognitive level of comments and level of classes. The results suggest modifications to the computer-mediated communication system so that students more effectively engage in peer–peer assessment.     

Comparing Simple and Advanced Video Tools as Supports for Complex Collaborative Design Processes

Working with digital video technologies, particularly advanced video tools with editing capabilities, offers new prospects for meaningful learning through design. However, it is also possible that the additional complexity of such tools does not advance learning. We compared in an experiment the design processes and learning outcomes of 24 collaborating participant pairs (dyads) using 2 contrasting types of video tools for history learning. The advanced video tool WebDIVER supported segmenting, editing, and annotating capabilities. In the contrasting condition, students used a simple video playback tool with a word processor to perform the same design task. Results indicated that the advanced video editing tool was more effective in relation to (a) fostering student understanding of the topic and acquisition of cognitive skills, (b) the quality of student design products, and (c) the efficiency of dyad interactions. The implication of our experimental findings for constructivist design-based learning is that mediating functions of video tools may be used as cognitive and social supports, for example when students learn by solving design tasks in school.