Stimulus intensity affects pigeons’ timing behavior: Implications for an internal clock model

Five pigeons were trained to discriminate between 2- and 10-sec illuminations of a white light; choice of a red pecking key was correct and rewarded after presentation of the short stimulus, whereas choice of a green key was correct and rewarded after presentation of the long stimulus. On half the trials, the light was bright; on the others, it was dim. Durations of 4, 6, and 8 sec of both dim and bright light were also presented; choices on these trials were not rewarded. The probability of the pigeons’ choosing the short alternative decreased in a graded manner as duration of both bright and dim light increased from 2, to 4, to 6, to 8, and to 10 sec. However, the pigeons were more likely to choose the short alternative with longer durations of the dim light than the bright light, a result that implies that the perceived duration of a dim light was shorter than that of a bright light of equal length. One interpretation of this effect is that stimulus intensity affects the rate of the pacemaker in an internal clock mechanism subserving timing of event duration.     

Experimental university classes and “the best that has been thought”

In the latest in a series of articles on experimental courses at Kent State University, the authors study how students perceive such classes in terms of a liberal arts cultural education versus a values oriented education. The results determine that subject matter interest was the prime motivation for students to enroll in experimental classes. The results also suggest an openness and variety of student interest that seems unaware of a liberal arts core of the best that has been thought.     

The diffusion of educational technology in Indonesia: a multi-faceted approach

Indonesia, like many developing countries, has problems of increasing numbers of students, shortage of qualified teachers, limited resources and strong support for traditional schooling. Educational technology has been introduced to help alleviate some of the problems and has been relatively successful over the past 15 years. A planned effort to use educational technology in appropriate ways began in the mid-1970s and is still growing. Such success does not come easily. The lessons learned from this effort are explicitly stated in four categories: (1) cultural affairs (2) personnel and training (3) organisation and management and (4) leadership. Each 'lesson' is stated as a principle or guideline. Conclusions emphasise the importance of leadership, commitment, local control, long-range planning and the presence of a communications satellite.     

Assessment activities at large,research universities

Assessment and outcomes measurement is receiving considerable attention in higher education nationwide. But what are colleges and universities doing and calling assessment? To answer these and other questions, a telephone survey was conducted with a sample of large, research universities. Responses to the survey are presented and discussed in this paper. Results indicated limited university involvement in activities commonly associated with the current assessment “movement,” i.e., measures of added value or student progress and growth. Instead, much of the reported activities are “traditional” testing and evaluation activities such as placement testing and student evaluation of instruction. In sum, assessmentis evaluation at large, research universities.     

Professors' and students' conceptualizations of the learning task in introductory physics courses

What are students expected to learn in physics courses? Eight expert physics teachers and researchers, two from the University of Western Ontario in Canada, Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, Stanford University in the United States of America, and Monash University in Australia, described their perceptions of learning in their courses. Students from the courses were then interviewed for their perceptions of learning in physics courses. In their courses, professors focused on the development of intellectual skills, assuming that students had a specific physics vocabulary. Students, however, were aware of their own limitations and suggested that professors should take nothing for granted. Students considered that to be a good teacher, a professor should know the perspective of the students and should start at the students' level. The results suggested that the intellectual challenge of learning physics merits early explanation.     

Flavor- vs. tone-cued shock avoidance

In a direct comparison, flavor-cued rats learned to avoid shock in a two-way shuttlebox as well as, or better than, tone-cued rats. These results stand in contrast to the prevalent view that rats encounter difficulty in forming flavor-shock, but not tone-shock, associations. In attempting to account for this contrast, we note that experiments revealing cue-modality specificity employ an aversion paradigm and record ingestive behavior. It is argued that both the paradigm and the dependent variable are inappropriate for assessing shock-avoidance learning, and that cue-modality specificity in such a setting reflects paradigm and response choice rather than a general characteristic of rats.