Stimulating Scientific Reasoning with Drawing-Based Modeling

We investigate the way students’ reasoning about evolution can be supported by drawing-based modeling. We modified the drawing-based modeling tool SimSketch to allow for modeling evolutionary processes. In three iterations of development and testing, students in lower secondary education worked on creating an evolutionary model. After each iteration, the user interface and instructions were adjusted based on students’ remarks and the teacher’s observations. Students’ conversations were analyzed on reasoning complexity as a measurement of efficacy of the modeling tool and the instructions. These findings were also used to compose a set of recommendations for teachers and curriculum designers for using and constructing models in the classroom. Our findings suggest that to stimulate scientific reasoning in students working with a drawing-based modeling, tool instruction about the tool and the domain should be integrated. In creating models, a sufficient level of scaffolding is necessary. Without appropriate scaffolds, students are not able to create the model. With scaffolding that is too high, students may show reasoning that incorrectly assigns external causes to behavior in the model.     

Sensorimotor Control of Speech and Children’s Reading Ability

Studies of the role of phonological representations in learning to read have almost exclusively focused on speech perception. In the current study, we examined links between sensorimotor control of speech, reading, and reading-related abilities. We studied two languages, English and Dutch, which vary in the regularity of their spelling-to-sound mappings. There were 236 American and Dutch children, 4 to 8 years old, who performed an altered auditory feedback task in which the first formant of the /?/ vowel was altered. A stronger response to altered feedback for literate relative to preliterate children was observed, and this was particularly the case for the Dutch children. Moreover, the magnitude of the responses was related to precursors of reading in preliterate children and to reading skill in literate children. We propose that these findings could be related to changes in children’s speech production skills that facilitate the integration of orthographic and phonemic information.     

Adipose tissue lipolytic inhibition enhances the glucoregulatory properties of exercise in type 2 diabetes patients

Aims: Exercise combined with adipose tissue lipolytic inhibition augments intramuscular lipid and glycogen use in type 2 diabetes patients. The present study investigates the impact of adipose tissue lipolytic inhibition during exercise on subsequent postprandial glycemic control in type 2 diabetes patients.

Methods: Fourteen male type 2 diabetes patients (age 65?±?2 years, HbA_1c 6.7?±?0.1% (50?±?2?mmol/mol)) participated in a double-blind placebo-controlled randomized cross-over study in which subjects performed endurance-type exercise after being administered 250?mg of a nicotinic acid analogue (acipimox; ACP) or a placebo (PLA). A control experiment was included in which no exercise was performed (CON).

Results: Sixty minutes of endurance-type exercise (at 45% W_peak) did not significantly lower circulating plasma glucose and insulin excursions in PLA when compared with CON (P?=?.300). Acipimox administration strongly reduced circulating plasma FFA concentrations during exercise (P?i.e. postprandial) in ACP when compared with either CON (P?=?.041 and P?=?.002, respectively) or PLA (P?=?.009 and P?=?.001, respectively).

Conclusions: Collectively, exercise with adipose tissue lipolytic inhibition reduces postprandial blood glucose and insulin excursions and, as such, further improves glycemic control in male type 2 diabetes patients.     

Goalkeeping in the soccer penalty kick

The goalkeeper’s difficulty in the soccer penalty kick originates from the extreme spatiotemporal constraints of the situation. The present review claims that the current understanding is biased toward attributing a goalkeeper’s success in saving a penalty kick to perceptual–cognitive skill. To investigate the goalkeeper’s skill, researchers have often adopted video tasks. In doing so, they studied perceptual skill in isolation from action. We use affordance-based control theory to propose an alternative understanding and research methodology. We argue that goalkeepers in the penalty kick situation should regulate their actions in ways that sustain the perception of stoppability. To capture this, we outline the building blocks for a required lateral velocity model, in which the goalkeepers’ required actions are scaled to their maximum capabilities. In doing so, we provide new directions for research.     

From dignity to security protocols: a scientometric analysis of digital ethics

Our lives are increasingly intertwined with the digital realm, and with new technology, new ethical problems emerge. The academic field that addresses these problems—which we tentatively call ‘digital ethics’—can be an important intellectual resource for policy making and regulation. This is why it is important to understand how the new ethical challenges of a digital society are being met by academic research. We have undertaken a scientometric analysis to arrive at a better understanding of the nature, scope and dynamics of the field of digital ethics. Our approach in this paper shows how the field of digital ethics is distributed over various academic disciplines. By first having experts select a collection of keywords central to digital ethics, we have generated a dataset of articles discussing these issues. This approach allows us to generate a scientometric visualisation of the field of digital ethics, without being constrained by any preconceived definitions of academic disciplines. We have first of all found that the number of publications pertaining to digital ethics is exponentially increasing. We furthermore established that whereas one may expect digital ethics to be a species of ethics, we in fact found that the various questions pertaining to digital ethics are predominantly being discussed in computer science, law and biomedical science. It is in these fields, more than in the independent field of ethics, that ethical discourse is being developed around concrete and often technical issues. Moreover, it appears that some important ethical values are very prominent in one field (e.g., autonomy in medical science), while being almost absent in others. We conclude that to get a thorough understanding of, and grip on, all the hard ethical questions of a digital society, ethicists, policy makers and legal scholars will need to familiarize themselves with the concrete and practical work that is being done across a range of different scientific fields to deal with these questions.     

Writing with peer response using different types of genre knowledge: Effects on linguistic features and revisions of sixth-grade writers

Effects of peer response using instruction in genre knowledge on the writing of 140 sixth-grade students are investigated. In one condition students were taught specific genre knowledge involving functions of linguistic indicators of time and place. In another condition students were taught more general aspects of communicative writing. Both conditions were compared with a baseline control, receiving regular writing education. Students were randomly assigned within classrooms to each of the three conditions. The use of indicators of time and place was positively related to writing quality. Furthermore, strong effects of the specific genre knowledge condition on the use of these linguistic features in writing and revision were found. Findings indicate that instruction in specific genre knowledge is a valuable addition to writing with peer response.     

Les Effets de Coopération et de Feedback par les Compagnons de Classe sur la Performance Orthographique

European Journal of Psychology of Education -