An educational philosophy of technical writing

This article discusses John Dewey's transactional epistemology and Louise Rosenblatt's transactional view of reading and writing as they apply to teaching technical writing. A mental merger of the private and public aspects of both knowledge and communication, transaction is a meaning‐making process, variable and unique, although similar situations lead to similar transactions. Because English classrooms do not encourage transaction, they are not the best places to teach technical writing. However, four maxims bring the spirit of transaction to our teaching.     

Using scenarios to design complex technology-enhanced learning environments

Science Created by You (SCY) learning environments are computer-based environments in which students learn about science topics in the context of addressing a socio-scientific problem. Along their way to a solution for this problem students produce many types of intermediate products or learning objects. SCY learning environments center the entire learning process around creating, sharing, discussing, and re-using these learning objects. This instructional approach requires dedicated instructional designs, which are supplied in the form of what are called pedagogical scenarios. A SCY pedagogical scenario presents the learning process as an organized assembly of elementary learning processes, each associated with a specific learning object and a tool for creating this learning object. Designing a SCY learning environment is basically a two-step procedure: the first step is to select one of the available scenarios, and the second step is to define the domain content. The SCY technical infrastructure then handles the instantiation of the scenario as a SCY computer-based learning environment. In this article we describe the SCY pedagogical design scenarios and report on our experiences in designing four different SCY learning environments.     

Enhanced expectancies improve movement efficiency in runners

We followed up on recent findings demonstrating that enhancing performers' expectancies can improve their performance. Specifically, we examined whether providing experienced runners with positive feedback regarding their movement efficiency would increase running efficiency. Two groups of experienced runners ran on a treadmill at 75% of their maximum oxygen consumption (VO(2max)) for 10 min. One group (enhanced expectancy) was provided with (fabricated) feedback about the efficiency of their running style every 2 min. A control group was not given feedback. Oxygen consumption decreased in the enhanced expectancy group across measurement times (every 2 min for 10 min), but remained the same in the control group. In addition, performance perceptions changed only in the enhanced expectancy group, indicating a perception of greater ease of running and reduced fatigue when assessed after compared with before running. Finally, positive affect increased from a pre- to a post-test in the enhanced expectancy group, in contrast to the control group. Our findings show that enhanced expectancies can have a positive effect on movement efficiency and running experience. They add to the accumulating evidence for the social-cognitive-affective-motor nature of motor performance.     

Men's and women's childhood sexual abuse and victimization in adult partner relationships: A study of risk factors

Objectives(1) Document the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), childhood physical assault, psychological, physical and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) in a nationally representative sample. (2) Assess the predictive value of CSA and other characteristics of the respondents and their current partners as potential risk factors for IPV. (3) Assess factors predicting IPV in adulthood in a subsample of women reporting CSA.MethodsThe role of CSA as a risk factor for adult IPV was examined using data from the 1999 Canadian General Social Survey. A national stratified sample of 9170 women and 7823 men with current or previous partners were interviewed by telephone by Statistics Canada. Multiple logistic regressions were used.ResultsCSA consistently predicted IPV for women and men, although this relationship was weaker for men. Age, current marital status and limitations due to physical or mental condition or chronic illness were also predictors of IPV for men and women. For women reporting CSA, age (being younger) or being in a more recent relationship and being limited due to either physical, mental conditions or chronic illness were predictive of adult victimization.ConclusionsThese findings indicate that CSA is associated with a greater risk of IPV beyond sociodemographic risk factors.Practice implicationsTo prevent IPV in women already at risk because of CSA, education about protective strategies seems important, particularly for women with physical or mental limitations, in the beginning stages of intimate relationships or for women with partners who drink excessively.     

Effects of different forms of tutor action in a conditional reasoning task: An experimental approach to the tutorial dialogue

This study investigated how different forms of tutor action influenced novice students’ performance on the Wason selection task, and how the students perceived the situation. In the control condition, the tutor provided supportive feedback which was minimal in terms of content (CG), in contrast to help in the form of directives (IM) or questions (QM). Based on the findings of studies of tutorial dialogue in the literature, we expected to observe: lower performance for CG (H1) and better performance with QM than IM (H2), a less positive perception of the tutor’s assistance for CG (H3), and that the tutees would differentiate between the IM and QM conditions (H4). These hypotheses were confirmed, with the exception of H2, IM and QM producing similar performances.     

Statistical learning of past participle inflections in French

The purpose of this research was to understand better how morphemic units are encoded and auto-organised in memory and how they are accessed during writing. We hypothesised that the activation of morphemic units would not depend on rule-based learning during primary school but would be determined by frequency-based learning, which is a process that automatically encodes whole orthographic forms encountered during reading. To evaluate gradual changes in the impacts of each process, the ability to inflect a verb was investigated in a spelling-to-dictation task utilising simple sentences that included past participle inflections in three participant populations: 2nd to 5th primary-school graders, 6th and 8th secondary-school students with varying print linguistic abilities and young adults. Two frequency indicators were manipulated: past participle inflection frequency (the frequency of a particular suffix irrespective of the word root) was used to index the use of a rule-based procedure, and orthographic-form frequency was used to index the use of a frequency-based procedure. The results revealed the following: (a) the younger spellers mainly used a frequency-based procedure that produced many spelling errors that were mostly due to the selection of the most frequent orthographic forms in their orthographic lexicon; (b) the rule-based procedure is notably late and led to fewer errors only at the 5th grade in primary school; and (c) the frequency-based procedure is still operating in the less skilled spellers of grades six and eight. The results are discussed in light of statistical learning, which seems to jeopardise the use of an efficient grammatical processing by younger children and less skilled spellers.     

Scaffolding a Complex Task of Experimental Design in Chemistry with a Computer Environment

When solving a scientific problem through experimentation, students may have the responsibility to design the experiment. When students work in a conventional condition, with paper and pencil, the designed procedures stay at a very general level. There is a need for additional scaffolds to help the students perform this complex task. We propose a computer environment (copex-chimie) with embedded scaffolds in order to help students to design an experimental procedure. A pre-structuring of the procedure where the students have to choose the actions of their procedure among pre-defined actions and specify the parameters forces the students to face the complexity of the design. However, this is not sufficient for them to succeed; they look for some feedback to improve their procedure and finally abandon their task. In another condition, the students were provided with individualized feedbacks on the errors detected in their procedures by an artificial tutor. These feedbacks proved to be necessary to accompany the students throughout their experimental design without being discouraged. With this kind of scaffold, students worked longer and succeeded better to the task than all the other students.