Impact of the design of U.S. history textbooks on content acquisition and academic engagement of special education students: an experimental investigation

We used randomized controlled trials to compare the impact of the designs of 2 United States history textbooks on the content acquisition and behavior of 8th-grade students identified for special education services or identified as low achieving. We also investigated whether teachers differed in their use of instructional activities and questioning strategies based on the type of text used. Our findings suggest that students learned more history content, were more actively engaged, and answered more questions correctly when using the experimental textbook. Teachers used different activities depending on which textbook they used, but did not differ in types of questions asked.     

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.     

From Christian Gentleman to Bewildered Seeker: The Transformation of American Higher Education

In this carefully documented essay, Russell K. Nieli outlines the major transformation in American higher education that began at the end of the nineteenth century. Today’s research- and vocation-driven private universities began as Christian institutions founded by zealous evangelizers, while public colleges embraced a watered-down version of the earnest and forward-thinking Protestant gentleman’s worldview, which saw no conflict between theological and secular knowledge. Science and religion remained friendly until the advent of the industrial revolution brought the model of the German research university to the attention of American academic reformers. Unity of knowledge was eventually supplanted by a secular, elective system. While the great “multiversity” had arrived, critics mourned the loss of educational coherence and abandonment of the civilizing mission to which moral and classical training were essential. In the 1920’s, the Great Books approach was reborn, despite the seemingly unstoppable march of progress, science, and the subdiscipline. Vietnam-era upheavals led to the American academy’s transformation into a politically correct mutlicultural smorgasboard seasoned to please the modern student palate. When today’s students demand to be entertained and scholars continue to narrowly train, is there still room on the plate for the best that has been said, thought, and written about the human experience?

How persistent and general is the contextual interference effect?

The persistence and generality of the contextual interference (CI) effect was tested using a rapid sequential aiming task. Participants (N=48) practiced three movement patterns for three blocks of 18 trials under a blocked (BL) or random (RA) schedule. Movement patterns were displayed and KR provided throughout practice and testing. A 24-hr delayed knowledge of results (KR) retention test included three blocks of 18 trials, followed by a transfer test of a single new movement pattern. In contradiction of the CI effect, RA practice provided an advantage for RA retention only, not BL retention. Furthermore, group differences at transfer were not persistent. Hence, RA practice does not necessarily provide enhanced, context-free learning, but it is essential training for task switching. Overall the findings reveal limited persistence and generality of the CI effect.     

‘Do you need a kayak to learn outside?’: a literature review into learning outside the classroom

This paper presents a review of research focusing on ‘Learning Outside the Classroom’ (LOtC). We provide a distillation of international research in this field that identifies how future investigations could be focused and move the discipline forward. As a consequence of the breadth of our study, we feel our findings will have applications in educational settings across the globe. What we discover is a significant bias towards types of learning that largely cannot be measured, and that only a minority of published research in our review pays the level of attention to theoretical and philosophical foundations found in most other educational research.     

The Big Deal — ten years on

This paper describes the highlights of an exploratory deep log analysis of journal usage on OhioLINK, conducted as part of the MaxData project. OhioLINK, the original ‘Big Deal’, provides a single digital platform of nearly 6,000 full‐text journals for more than 600,000 people in Ohio and the investigation aimed to assess it after approximately 10 years. The data was generated from an SPSS analysis of the raw (unprocessed) server logs for June 2004 to December 2004. Approximately 1,215,000 items were viewed on campus in October 2004 and 1,894,000 items viewed off campus between June and December 2004. There are a number of usage analyses including: demand and activity; number and name of journal; date of publication; subject/discipline of journal and method of searching/navigating.     

Conservation from conception: Commissioning an installation by Cai Guo-Qiang

Over a period of six years, the Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art and Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang developed and realized the major art installation Heritage (2013). The artwork comprises 99 life-sized imitation animals congregating at a waterhole and covers 1104 m² of floor space. This paper reviews aspects of the commission, construction, and completion of Heritage – a very large-scale, technically complex contemporary installation. From commission to acquisition, the project was a highly collaborative undertaking and is an interesting example of unconventional conservation. This paper, written from curatorial and conservation perspectives, describes this cooperative endeavour.     

Effects of strength and endurance exercise order on endocrine responses to concurrent training

The present study examined the effect of strength and endurance training order on the endocrine milieu associated with strength development and performance during concurrent training. A randomised, between-groups design was employed with 30 recreationally resistance-trained males completing one of four acute experimental training protocols; strength training (ST), strength followed by endurance training (ST-END), endurance followed by strength training (END-ST) or no training (CON). Blood samples were taken before each respective exercise protocol, immediately upon cessation of exercise, and 1?h post cessation of exercise. Blood samples were subsequently analysed for total testosterone, cortisol and lactate concentrations. Ability to maintain 80% 1RM during strength training was better in ST and ST-END than END-ST (both p?<?.05). Immediately following the respective exercise protocols all training interventions elicited significant increases in testosterone (p?<?.05). ST and END-ST resulted in greater increases in cortisol than ST-END (both p?<?.05). The testosterone:cortisol ratio was similar following the respective exercise protocols. Blood lactate concentrations post-training were greater following END-ST and ST than ST-END (both p?<?.05). Conducting endurance exercise prior to strength training resulted in impaired strength training performance. Blood cortisol and lactate concentrations were greater when endurance training was conducted prior to strength training than vice versa. As such, it may be suggested that conducting endurance prior to strength training may result in acute unfavourable responses to strength training when strength training is conducted with high loads.