Developing observational skills and knowledge of anatomical relationships in an art and anatomy workshop using plastinated specimens

One of the strong trends in medical education today is the integration of the humanities into the basic medical curriculum. The anatomy program is an obvious choice for using the humanities to develop professionalism and ethical values. They can also be used to develop close observational skills. Many medical schools have developed formal art observation training in conjunction with nearby art museums to enhance the visual diagnostic skills of their medical students. We report here on an art and anatomy workshop that paired medical and art students who did drawing exercises from plastinated anatomical specimens and the animated face to hone observational skills. Each member of the pair brought a different perspective and expertise to the work that allowed each to be a mentor to the other. The workshop had three sessions: the first involved drawings of plastinated specimens that allowed an intimate experience with authentic human material; the second involved drawings of the human face; and the third included examination of anatomical texts of important anatomist-artists, a lecture on contemporary artists whose work involves anatomy, and a film demonstrating the facial muscles. We propose workshops such as these will help students increase their ability to detect details. This will assist the medical student in developing diagnostic skills for identifying disease and the art student in using the human body as subject. We further propose that these programs will help students develop humanistic sensitivities and provide an outlet for expression of the emotional aspects of dealing with disease and mortality.     

High School Students Debate the Use of Embryonic Stem Cells: The influence of context on decision‐making

The present study analyzes decision‐making and argumentation by high school students in a debate situation on a socioscientific issue, the use of embryonic stem cells in research and therapy. We tested the influence on the debates of two different contexts. Adolescent students at the high school level in the same grade (mean age 16.4 years) from rural and urban zones of Provence, France, participated in three debate sessions. During the first session, the students listed the background questions they wanted to ask the expert(s). They were also required to identify one or two major issues that would serve as an outline for the future debate. They then discussed these with the expert(s) during the second session and took note of the answers. During this session, the control groups met with a neuroscientist whereas the experimental ‘contextualized’ group met with the same neuroscientist together with a representative of an association of patients suffering from a neurodegenerative disease. Analysis of the students’ arguments and decision‐making revealed that contextualization introduced dynamism in the students’ exchanges: they paid more attention to their peers’ arguments and were more motivated to argue their own opinion. However, this type of contextualization may contribute to reinforcing ideology in scientific progress.     

Principles for Designing Web Searching Instruction

Web searching is a timely topic which importance is recognized by researchers, educators and instructional designers. This paper aims to guide these practitioners in developing instructional materials for learning to search the Web. It does so by articulating ten design principles that attend to the content and presentation of Web searching instruction. These principles convey a mixture of insights gleaned from instructional theory, empirical research, and many hours of classroom experience. Together, these design recommendations elucidate the key characteristics of effective Web searching instruction, explaining not only what the instructional materials look like, but also why they look the way they do.     

How accurate are teacher and parent judgements of lower secondary school children’s test anxiety?

This study examined teacher and mother judgement accuracy of children’s worries and emotionality in the school subjects of German and mathematics. The participants were 59 German language and 58 mathematics teachers, 572 mothers and their children at the end of Grade 6. The analyses for the total sample revealed weak-to-moderate correlations between adult’s and children’s perception of test anxiety. Moreover, we found that teachers overestimated children’s emotionality as well as children’s worry, whereas mothers underestimated children’s worry and overestimated children’s emotionality in both subjects. However, when looking at the highly test-anxious children, we found quite low correlations and an underestimation of children’s worry and emotionality in both school subjects. Thus, it seems important to provide teachers and parents with information about test anxiety and possibly training to improve their judgement accuracy because of moderating effects of test anxiety on achievement.     

Validating and Optimizing the Effects of Model Progression in Simulation-Based Inquiry Learning

Model progression denotes the organization of the inquiry learning process in successive phases of increasing complexity. This study investigated the effectiveness of model progression in general, and explored the added value of either broadening or narrowing students?? possibilities to change model progression phases. Results showed that high-school students in the ??standard?? model progression condition (n?=?19), who could enter subsequent phases at will, outperformed students from a control condition (n?=?30) without model progression. The unrestricted condition (n?=?22) had the additional option of returning to previous phases, whereas the restricted condition (n?=?20) disallowed such downward progressions as well as upward progressions in case insufficient knowledge was acquired. Both variants were found to be more effective in terms of performance than the ??standard?? form of model progression. However, as performance in all three model progression conditions was still rather weak, additional support is needed for students to reach full understanding of the learning content.     

Finding Out How They Find It Out: An empirical analysis of inquiry learners’ need for support

Inquiry learning environments increasingly incorporate modelling facilities for students to articulate their research hypotheses and (acquired) domain knowledge. This study compared performance success and scientific reasoning of university students with high prior knowledge (n = 11), students from senior high‐school (n = 10), and junior high‐school (n = 10) with intermediate and low prior knowledge, respectively, in order to reveal domain novices’ need for support in such environments. Results indicated that the scientific reasoning of both groups of high‐school students was comparable to that of the experts. As high‐school students achieved significantly lower performance success scores, their expert‐like behaviour was rather ineffective; qualitative analyses substantiated this conclusion. Based on these findings, implications for supporting domain novices in inquiry learning environments are advanced.     

Sexuality issues in adolescents with a chronic neurological condition

Substantial progress in the medical treatment of individuals with spina bifida (SB) has increased the numbers who survive into adolescence and adulthood. However, sexual health in this population has not received much attention. This study explored the knowledge (SB Sexuality Knowledge Scale), worries (SB Worries Scale), romantic appeal (from Harter's Self-Perception Scale), and access to sexuality information of a sample of 60 adolescents from a midwestern state. Study participants reported having sexual feelings like their peers, and they knew they could contract sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) if they were sexually active. However, only a moderate percentage was aware that women with SB are fertile, that adolescent women with SB should take a multivitamin with folic acid, and that latex-free condoms should be used by most adolescents with SB. They did not worry about their ability to make friends; however, these adolescents reported low levels of perceived romantic appeal and they worried about sexuality issues. These sexuality issues were not correlated to measures of SB neurological severity. Although over 50% reported having discussed sexuality with a health professional, 29% reported no one discussed sexuality and SB with them. Data from this study can affect the way health care providers and educators conduct sexuality education in health care and school settings.     

Validation of the Test of energy concepts and values for high school

The Test of Energy Concepts and Values (TECV) was developed to assess knowledge about and attitudes towards energy for grades 9–12. The TECV, a modification of the Energy Knowledge and Attitude Test,

1 See: National Assessment of Educational Progress. Energy knowledge and attitudes: a national assessment of energy awareness among young adults. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States, 1978.

consisted of 35 knowledge and 39 attitude items. The reliability for the attitude and knowledge sections was 0.70 and 0.76, respectively. Factor analysis was done for the attitude and knowledge sections separately. Item comparison showed that TECV students responses were very similar to the young adults response to the National Assessment instrument.     

A Comparison of Student Persistence and Performance in Online and Classroom Business Statistics Experiences

As universities extend their distance education offerings to reach more time‐ and place‐bound students, the degree to which online students are successful, as compared to their classroom counterparts, is of interest to accreditation review boards and others charged with assessment. Teaching faculty use information about the effectiveness of their instruction to evaluate and improve the learning experience. By comparing persistence and performance measures from the author's five semesters of online and traditional sections of a required undergraduate business statistics course, this paper provides evidence that while there are significant differences in persistence between the two cases, accomplishment of the learning objectives, as measured by the final grade in the course for those students who persist, is independent of the mode of instruction.     

Do two heads search better than one? Effects of student collaboration on web search behaviour and search outcomes

This study compared Pairs of students with Single students in web search tasks. The underlying hypothesis was that peer‐to‐peer collaboration encourages students to articulate their thoughts, which in turn has a facilitative effect on the regulation of the search process as well as search outcomes. Both hypotheses were supported by the results. Pairs located the target information more often and in less time than Singles did. Pairs also employed a richer repertoire of search strategies and were more proficient in monitoring and evaluating their search behaviour. Implications of these findings for practice and further research are discussed.