The Buddhist Institute at Phnom Penh,the International Council of Women,and the Rome International Institute for Educational Cinematography: intersections of internationalism and imperialism, 1931–1934

This article explores the intersection of aspects of imperialism and internationalism in discussion of cinematography at the League of Nations, at the International Council of Women (ICW), and as they played out in the imperial, national and local flows around educational cinematography in the work of Suzanne Karpelès at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It focuses on the 1931 ICW cinematograph conference organised by Laura Dreyfus-Barney at the League’s Rome International Institute for Educational Cinematography (IIEC) and on the IIEC’s 1934 cinematography congress, when Dreyfus-Barney fed Karpelès’ ideas about educational film into the congress. The article looks at the notion of rapprochement (of nations) within internationalism as this became articulated at both the League and the ICW with notions about mentalities within imperialism. It also traces the intersection of rapprochement and mentalities in Karpelès’ promotion of educational cinematography from her base in Phnom Penh. The article concludes that various elements around the cinematic at the League, the ICW and at Phnom Penh illustrate articulations of internationalism in the domains of nationalism and imperialism as well as articulations of the national and imperial in the domain of the international.     

Bias hypotheses under scrutiny: investigating the validity of student assessment of university teaching by means of external observer ratings

To advance the discussion on the validity of student evaluations of university teaching, student ratings of two teaching dimensions – student involvement and rapport – were compared with corresponding observer ratings. Seven potential bias variables were tested with regard to their impact on the students’ teaching assessment: three teacher characteristics (first impression, enthusiasm, humour) and four student characteristics (prior interest, expected grades, study experience, class attendance). Bias was defined as an impediment of the students’ assessment of teaching on course level. By means of bivariate correlations with course averages and two-level latent moderated structural equations, data of 1,716 students in 80 courses were analysed. Results showed that all three teacher characteristics were genuinely connected to rapport, and even explained variance of the student-rated variable when controlling for observer-rated rapport. The assessment of student involvement was not modified by the teacher characteristics except for teacher enthusiasm, which affected the student evaluation when controlling for observed involvement and, moreover, moderated the relation between the observed and the student-rated variable. For the examined student characteristics, no biasing effects were found – neither on rapport nor on student involvement.     

Teaching Basic Science and Clinical Medicine at a distance: An Evaluation of Satellite Communication

The evaluation plan arid preliminary results are reported for the ATS‐6 Satellite interactive telecommunication program for teaching at sites remote from an established medical school. The technical aspects of the system were seen as quite adequate and did not appear to substantially inhibit interaction. In the Fairbanks broadcasts analyzed, the average number of interactions ranged from 1.49 to 2.60 per minute. Ninety percent of the interaction flowed across the Satellite during Omak transmissions. Participants tended to initiate communication when they were on camera rather than when viewing their counterparts. Omak participants directed a higher percentage of the communication in student/resident programs (70%) than in faculty continuing education programs (59%). Interaction analysis indicated the categories of giving opinion, information, and suggestion were most frequent. Asking for opinion and suggestion occurred infrequently. The most frequent emotional expression was offering solidarity (e.g., reassurance), while there were exceedingly few expressions of disagreement, tension and antagonism. User acceptance of the system was determined to be very high. Participants with frequent exposure to the Satellite modality tended to have positive reaction. A significant difference in knowledge gain is reported in one of two basic science areas taught via Satellite as compared to regular instruction.     

The basis of feeling-of-knowing judgments in patients with schizophrenia

We examined the basis of feeling-of-knowing judgments (FOK) in patients with schizophrenia. Such patients typically have impaired memory and awareness, but not metamemory-accuracy deficits. The magnitude of FOKs are lower for patients with schizophrenia than for healthy participants, but judgments equally predict memory performance. In healthy participants, FOK is based on accessible information, including retrieval of partial-target (e.g., retrieving the first letter) and contextual information (e.g., related facts). In Experiment 1, we examined if accessible information predicts FOKs for episodic memory in patients with schizophrenia. Patients and healthy controls learned names paired with drawings of imaginary animals. The results showed that patients’ FOK increased with the retrieval of partial-target and contextual information. In Experiment 2, using semantic-memory general-information questions, accessible partial-target information predicted FOKs in patients with schizophrenia. The accessibility model of FOK applies to patients with schizophrenia, and it is important to determine what occurs in other memory-impaired populations.     

Children''s Use of Anatomically Detailed Dolls to Recount an Event

The use of anatomically detailed dolls in child sexual abuse investigations has raised several controversial issues related to important theoretical questions in developmental psychology. The present study was designed to examine some of these issues in a methodologically sound experiment. 80 3- and 5-year-old children experienced a social interaction with a male confederate and were later tested under 1 of 4 recall conditions: reenactment with anatomically detailed dolls, reenactment with regular dolls, free recall with visual cues, or free recall without visual cues. The children were also asked a variety of specific and misleading questions, some of them dealing with acts associated with abuse ("He took your clothes off, didn't he?"). Both anatomically detailed and regular dolls along with other props aided 5-year-olds more than 3-year-olds in recounting the event. To use increased rather than decreased age differences. Anatomically detailed dolls did not foster false reports of abuse. Overall, 3-year-olds were more suggestible than 5-year-olds. The findings have implications for children's testimony in child abuse cases and for psychological theories concerning the effects of stimulus support on children's memory.     

The marginal costs of instruction

This is a study of the costs of instruction in a large public research university. It departs from other work on instructional costs in its attempt to draw inferences about the economic costs of incremental or marginal enrollments. Focusing on graduate education, we examine how the costs directly facing faculty differ from those incurred by the institution's administration and legislature as reflected in the budgetary rewards for instruction. These cost differences provide the wherewithal for a university to carry out basic research and other important functions that lack a paying clientele. The study also explores the roles of economic costs in the institution's pricing of graduate education.     

Emotional Intelligence and Education: A critical review

In recent years there has been an increased interest in the role of emotional intelligence in both the academic success of students and their emotional adjustment in school. However, promotion of emotional intelligence in schools has proven a controversial pursuit, challenging as it does traditional “rationalist” views of education. Furthermore, research findings in this area have been inconsistent at best. In this article we discuss the following key questions relating to this important debate. What do we mean by emotional “intelligence”? What impact would improved emotional intelligence have on learners’ emotional health and well‐being, academic achievement, and other adaptive outcomes? Can emotional intelligence be taught? It is felt that these are the key issues for consideration in developing policy, practice, and further research in this area.     

Accuracy of activPAL Self-Attachment Methods

This study examined the accuracy of self-attachment of the activPAL activity monitor. A convenience sample of 50 participants self-attached the monitor after being presented with written material only (WMO) and then written and video (WV) instructions; and completed a questionnaire regarding the acceptability of the instructional methods. Participants positioned the monitor lower than the instructed position on the thigh (WMO ?5.15 ± 2.75 cm, WV ?4.16 ± 2.15 cm; p = .008 difference) and approximately 2 cm laterally from the thigh midline (WMO 1.90 ± 0.92 cm; WV 2.08 ± 1.24 cm). The orientation of the device was positioned correctly along the midline (within < 1° of vertical). Acceptability was high for both instructional methods although preference was shown for the WV instruction. In conclusion, participants consistently self-attached the activPAL close to the intended placement with either instructional method. The addition of video instruction produced a slightly more accurate attachment and was preferred by the participants.     

Virtual Reality Simulation: Effects on Academic Performance Within Two Domains of Writing in Science

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role textbooks can play on writing complexity and lexical density as a proxy for critical thinking and ultimately learning, in relation to argumentative and summative writing when integrated with a virtual reality experience. In this study, differences in writing complexity and lexical density scores were measured across four different pedagogical modalities: VR alone, VR followed by textbook readings, textbook readings followed by VR, and textbook readings alone. Adult students, recruited from non-science-based higher education programs, responded to two prompts related to content found in the VR environments and discussed in the textbooks. The authors hypothesized that exposure to a virtual marine environment prior to responding to the writing prompts would enhance both argumentative and summative writing products, when compared to participants who only had access to the textbook experiences. Participants who were exposed to the VR environment then a textbook demonstrated significantly greater writing complexity and lexical density scores than those who had access to VR alone, or access to the text alone.