Learning Visualization Strategies: A qualitative investigation

The following study investigates the range of strategies individuals develop to infer and interpret cross-sections of three-dimensional objects. We focus on the identification of mental representations and problem-solving processes made by 11 individuals with the goal of building training applications that integrate the strategies developed by the participants in our study. Our results suggest that although spatial transformation and perspective-taking techniques are useful for visualizing cross-section problems, these visual processes are augmented by analytical thinking. Further, our study shows that participants employ general analytic strategies for extended periods which evolve through practice into a set of progressively more expert strategies. Theoretical implications are discussed and five main findings are recommended for integration into the design of education software that facilitates visual learning and comprehension.     

Researching learning outcomes: building confidence in our conclusions

The ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme is expected to produce knowledge of high social scientific quality and practical pedagogic value. It faces, in a particularly acute form, the issue of how confidence in its conclusions can be built. This article begins with some conceptual clarification of the notion of a ‘warrant’ for research findings and distinguishes between warrants in social research and warrants for educational policy and practice. It then, in the specific context of research on learning outcomes, proposes an integrated model that recognizes the importance of, and relationships among, criteria associated with research design and empirical work, theoretical coherence, relationship with other research, and user affirmation. It concludes by emphasizing the need for continuing debate about, and development of, the roles and relationships of ‘researchers’ and ‘users’.     

Editorial

In earlier papers, we considered some of the pedagogy and assessment practices enacted by physical education (PE) teachers, when attempting to translate a centrally prescribed rationale into meaningful performance-led teaching within an integrated curriculum—Higher Still Physical Education (HSPE) in Scotland. One recurring theme from the data collected was anecdotal assertions from teachers that students were disadvantaged from achieving high levels of authentic attainment by written assessment instruments. Accordingly, students completed oral assessments, which were subsequently transcribed and marked to the same criteria as their written examination answers. However, results indicated that students were not disadvantaged as claimed. On the contrary, results highlighted that to various extents weaknesses in content knowledge were partially concealed through holistic written assessment. More optimistically, findings indicated that oral interviews could provide a constructive atmosphere for ongoing assessment, as well as providing informative feedback for teachers to utilize as part of their reflections on practice. Evidence from Senior Level Physical Education (SLPE) in Australia highlights the importance of language in dialogue and discussion within integrated teaching, learning and assessment environments. Consequently, a wider review of the functions such awards might play in students' school experiences prior to higher education appears merited.     

A bibliometric analysis of academic publication and NIH funding

Academic productivity and research funding have been hot topics in biomedical research. While publications and their citations are popular indicators of academic productivity, there has been no rigorous way to quantify co-authors’ relative contributions. This has seriously compromised quantitative studies on the relationship between academic productivity and research funding. Here we apply an axiomatic approach and associated bibliometric measures to revisit a recent study by Ginther et al. (Ginther et al., 2011a, Ginther et al., 2011b) in which the probability of receiving a U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 award was analyzed with respect to the applicant's race/ethnicity. Our results provide new insight and suggest that there is no significant racial bias in the NIH review process, in contrast to the conclusion from the study by D. K. Ginther et al. Our axiomatic approach has a potential to be widely used for scientific assessment and management.     

Attitudes about publishing and normal science advancement

The objective of this work was to examine the relationship between attitudes about publishing across disciplines and the scientific impact of authors. We conducted a web survey of 1066 authors randomly selected from four disciplines in the Web of Knowledge: economics, anthropology, water resources and biochemistry (approximately 250 from each discipline). Authors were asked questions about publishing norms within their discipline. The h-index of authors was subsequently calculated from data available from the Web of Knowledge. Authors in biochemistry had on average twice the h-index of those in economics, anthropology and water resources. Biochemists had higher expectations about the number of articles published for hire and promotion, more strongly valued interdisciplinary publishing, felt the cutting edge of their science was clearer, and had more defined patterns of author credit assignment than the other disciplines. Anthropologists exhibited a lower relationship between h-index and the number of years since their first publication. We conclude that attitudinal differences between disciplines may lead to differences in the recognition of scientific findings and the therefore the establishment of normal science.     

The Overlap of Child and Adult Writing Vocabularies

Many mechanistic rules of thumb for evaluating the goodness of fit of structural equation models (SEM) emphasize model parsimony; all other things being equal, a simpler, more parsimonious model with fewer estimated parameters is better than a more complex model Although this is usually good advice, in the present article a heuristic counterexample is demonstrated in which parsimony as typically operationalized in indices of fit may be undesirable. Specifically, in simplex models of longitudinal data, the failure to include correlated uniquenesses relating the same indicators administered on different occasions will typically lead to systematically inflated estimates of stability. Although simplex models with correlated uniquenesses are substantially less parsimonious and may be unacceptable according to mechanistic decision rules that penalize model complexity, it can be argued a priori that these additional parameter estimates should be included. Simulated data . are used to support this claim and to evaluate the behavior of a variety of fit indices and decision rules. The results demonstrate the validity of Bollen and Long’s (1993) conclusion that “test statistics and fit indices are very beneficial, but they are no replacement for sound judgment and substantive expertise” (p. 8).     

Bias among Professionals Who Erroneously Declare Students Eligible for Special Services

A computer simulation program was developed for the purpose of studying the processes diagnostic personnel in the schools engage in when making psychoeducational decisions about students. Initially, the program collected demographic data on 159 participants and assessed their knowledge base in assessment. Bogus referral information for one of sixteen “cases” was then provided and subjects were instructed that they were to make eligibility and classification decisions for the child. They were told that scores and other information (e.g., observations) were available to them on a variety of tests from among seven domains. Although the referral data indicated the student might be evidencing academic or behavior problems, all assessment data indicated a normal or average performance. Fiftytwo percent of the subjects (i.e., 83) declared the “average” child eligible for special education services; their classification decisions were further analyzed. Decisions about the 16 different children were found to be more a function of referral information than child performance data. The outcomes are discussed with regard to implications for the practice of psychoeducational assessment.     

The Development of Productive Thinking Skills in Fifth-Grade Children

A controlled experiment was conducted in forty-four fifth-grade classrooms to investigate the extent to which creativity and problem-solving skills of children could be nurtured through a series of self-instructional programmed lessons. Also studied was the relationship of such skills to (1) learner characteristics (IQ and sex) and (2) classroom “environment” as it may have facilitated creative thinking. Significant differences were found favoring the experimental group (which received the programmed lessons). Improvement in productive thinking skills was found for both boys and girls of both higher and lower IQ. Greater gains were found in classrooms providing relatively little support and encouragement for productive thinking. Also the performance of girls on the productive thinking measures exceeded that of boys and there was a strong positive relationship to IQ.