The Struggle to Pass Algebra: Online vs. Face-to-Face Credit Recovery for At-Risk Urban Students

Students who fail algebra are significantly less likely to graduate on time, and algebra failure rates are consistently high in urban districts. Identifying effective credit recovery strategies is critical for getting students back on track. Online courses are now widely used for credit recovery, yet there is no rigorous evidence about the relative efficacy of online versus face-to-face credit recovery courses. To address this gap, this study randomly assigned 1,224 ninth graders who failed algebra in 17 Chicago public high schools to take an online or face-to-face algebra credit recovery course. Compared to students in face-to-face credit recovery, students in online credit recovery reported that the course was more difficult, were less likely to recover credit, and scored lower on an algebra posttest. There were no statistically significant differences by condition on any outcomes measured during the second year of high school (standardized mathematics test and algebra subtest scores, likelihood of passing subsequent math classes, cumulative math credits, or on-track rates). The benefits and challenges of online learning for credit recovery are discussed in light of the findings to date.     

Inflation of comparator stimuli following CS training

Water-deprived rats served in seven conditioned lick suppression experiments designed to assess the effects on responding to a target CS of a series of unsignaled USs given in the training context following completion of CS training. Such treatment has been hypothesized to increase (inflate) the associative strength of the background cues from training (putatively, the CS’s comparator stimuli), thereby reducing responding to excitatory CSs and increasing the inhibitory potential of inhibitory CSs. Although posttraining extinction (deflation) of the CS’s comparator stimuli usually decreases inhibitory potential and increases excitatory potential of the target CS, posttraining inflation of the comparator stimuli had no effect on either excitatory responding to the target CS or summation test performance indicative of conditioned inhibition. This outcome was consistently obtained across a number of training, inflation, and test conditions selected to maximize sensitivity to any possible effects of comparator inflation. Implications of these null results for the comparator hypothesis of conditionedresponse generationare discussed.     

Determination of football pitch locations from video footage and official pitch markings

The ability to determine a specific location on a football (soccer) pitch from television footage would provide a cost-effective method of obtaining competition-specific information on many professional and international teams. This study presents the accuracy and reliability of a new method of calculating ball location from simulated television coverage and known pitch markings. The coordinates of 99 markers of known location on a football pitch were digitized from video. An intersection point was determined from the equations of two lines that form pitch markings and the relationship from this point to other known pitch coordinates was calculated using a curve-fitting based method. Average error between known and reconstructed measures was 0.21 m for pitch width and 0.11 m for pitch length from a view simulating television coverage. Inter- and intra-rater reliability analyses showed researchers could consistently reconstruct pitch locations to within less than half a metre. The accuracy and reliability of this method will be sufficient for most practical uses in an applied sport environment, although the level of accuracy required will depend on the specific application. This method could be applied to other sports to determine specific locations on a pitch or court or to improve current competition analysis systems.     

Landing ground reaction forces in figure skaters and non-skaters

Abstract

Researchers and clinicians have suggested that overuse injuries to the lower back and lower extremities of figure skaters may be associated with the repeated high impact forces sustained during jump landings. Our primary aim was to compare the vertical ground reaction forces (GRFs) in freestyle figure skaters (n = 26) and non-skaters (n = 18) for the same barefoot single leg landing on a force plate from a 20 cm platform. Compared with non-skaters, skaters exhibited a significantly greater normalised peak GRF (3.50 ± 0.47 × body weight for skaters vs. 3.13 ± 0.45 × body weight for non-skaters), significantly shorter time to peak GRF (81.21 ± 14.01 ms for skaters vs. 93.81 ± 16.49 ms for non-skaters), and significantly longer time to stabilisation (TTS) of the GRF (2.38 ± 0.07 s for skaters vs. 2.22 ± 0.07 s for non-skaters). Skaters also confined their centre of pressure (CoP) to a significantly smaller mediolateral (M–L) (25%) and anterior–posterior (A–P) (40%) range during the landing phase, with the position of the CoP located in the mid to forefoot region. The narrower and more forward position of the CoP in skaters may at least partially explain the greater peak GRF, shorter time to peak, and longer TTS. Training and/or equipment modification serve as potential targets to decrease peak GRF by distributing it over a longer time period. More comprehensive studies including electromyography and motion capture are needed to fully characterise the unique figure skater landing strategy.     

The quest to cultivate an ecocritical awareness in educational technology scholarship: A question of disciplinary focus in the age of environmental crisis

Although many academic disciplines are now experiencing a process of “greening” as scholars seek to cultivate an ecocritical awareness within disciplinary scholarship, Neil Selwyn notes that such ecocritical concerns rarely feature in the field of educational technology. In this paper, I bring Selwyn's call for ecocritical awareness in the field of educational technology into conversation with emerging scholarly discussions in the fields of ecojustice ethics, ecojustice education, and information and communications technology sustainability. In so doing, I expand the existing conversation about the environmental impact of educational technology consumption to argue that the process of cultivating an ecocritical awareness in the field of educational technology requires refining the discipline's focus to include the full lifespan of educational technology devices and the global inequities that feature during the production and disposal of these devices.

Practitioner Notes

What is already known about this topic

• Despite substantive scholarship recognizing the environmental impact of the globalized digital technology supply chain, the field of educational technology has minimally considered the ecojustice implications of the material nature of educational technology devices when examining the environmental impact of these devices.

What this paper adds

• In this paper, I argue that the reason why the field of educational technology has overlooked the environmental impact of device production and disposal is because of its almost exclusive focus on device use. I argue that cultivating an ecocritical awareness in the field of educational technology requires the discipline to expand its focus beyond device use in two ways: (a) to include device production and disposal and (b) to consider the global injustices that occur in these parts of the digital technology life cycle. As such, I build upon Selwyn and others to argue for the cultivation of ecojustice concerns in emerging conversations about ethics in the field of educational technology.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• The process of cultivating ecocritical awareness within the field of educational technology requires expanding the scope and focus of the discipline beyond device use to include device production and disposal. The planned obsolescence behind these devices maximizes the environmental harm at these stages and the global injustices associated with them. Educators and educational leaders seeking to employ educational technology in ethical and environmentally sustainable ways must consider these implications from the global digital technology supply chain.

     

‘Cracks’ in the scholarly communications system: Insights from a longitudinal international study of early career researchers

• 170 early career researchers interviewed three times over 2 years, have uniquely contributed towards a stress test of scholarly communications and cracks have been identified.
• The perfect storm created by the convergence of millennial values and the pandemic appears to have fast-forwarded the cracking process, perhaps, for the good.
• The cracks in question are: (1) peer review; (2) reputational assessment; (3) unethical/questionable practices; (4) collaboration; (5) networking.