Mentoring Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Mathematics Research Students: Junior Faculty Experiences

Abstract

To be successful, junior faculty must properly manage their time in the face of expanding responsibilities. One such responsibility is supervising undergraduate research projects. Student research projects (either single or multi-student) can be undertaken as a full-time summer experience, or as a part-time academic year commitment. With many potential undergraduate research formats, and with different types of students, junior faculty may find challenges in forming their research group, establishing a structure that promotes student productivity, picking an appropriate project, or in effectively mentoring their students. This article draws from the authors’ experiences to help junior faculty navigate these complexities so that all parties reap the benefits of undergraduate research in interdisciplinary mathematical disciplines.     

Transition from high school to higher education and work in Korea, from the competency-based education perspective

We examined how much Korean high school education helps students to build up the competencies needed for their college education and the world of work. We surveyed 227 high school graduates. They particularly emphasized communication skills, a cooperative attitude, computer skills, making friends and maintaining friendships, adaptability, self-directed learning and creative problem solving skills for their future life. However, they think high school education generally does not help students to build up the needed skills. In fact, they want more extracurricular activities, laboratory classes, practical training, career guidance, and diverse pedagogies than are currently given.     

‘Forgotten’ democracy,student activism,and higher education in Myanmar: past,present, and future

Asia Pacific Education Review - This paper is a historical examination of higher education in contemporary Myanmar, and its relationship to the students, the most important and visible actor in...     

殷商金文中复合族氏金文的内涵初探

殷商时期青铜器金文大部分都是1—4个字。1字或3字的部分是单一族氏金文,对于这一部分许多学者取得了相当多的研究成果,但是对于2字或4字部分的研究却是非常不足的。我们认为2字金文部分中大部分具有氏族间结合的意义,作为复合族氏金文,其内涵如下：第一,氏族间巩固的结合关系。氏族与氏族间关系紧密有形成新氏族的可能性。第二,氏族间单纯的结合关系。这可认为是为了纪念氏族间发生的某种事件,从而在青铜器上铸刻记下来。我们认为这种结合关系无法实现新氏族的形成。第三,相关联的氏族间的结合。氏族间的结合关系有一定规律,这样的相关联的氏族间有实现结合的可能性。     

A Mixture IRTree Model for Extreme Response Style: Accounting for Response Process Uncertainty

This paper presents a mixture item response tree (IRTree) model for extreme response style. Unlike traditional applications of single IRTree models, a mixture approach provides a way of representing the mixture of respondents following different underlying response processes (between individuals), as well as the uncertainty present at the individual level (within an individual). Simulation analyses reveal the potential of the mixture approach in identifying subgroups of respondents exhibiting response behavior reflective of different underlying response processes. Application to real data from the Students Like Learning Mathematics (SLM) scale of Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 demonstrates the superior comparative fit of the mixture representation, as well as the consequences of applying the mixture on the estimation of content and response style traits. We argue that methodology applied to investigate response styles should attend to the inherent uncertainty of response style influence due to the likely influence of both response styles and the content trait on the selection of extreme response categories.     

Testing Measurement Invariance Across Unobserved Groups: The Role of Covariates in Factor Mixture Modeling

Factor mixture modeling (FMM) has been increasingly used to investigate unobserved population heterogeneity. This study examined the issue of covariate effects with FMM in the context of measurement invariance testing. Specifically, the impact of excluding and misspecifying covariate effects on measurement invariance testing and class enumeration was investigated via Monte Carlo simulations. Data were generated based on FMM models with (1) a zero covariate effect, (2) a covariate effect on the latent class variable, and (3) covariate effects on both the latent class variable and the factor. For each population model, different analysis models that excluded or misspecified covariate effects were fitted. Results highlighted the importance of including proper covariates in measurement invariance testing and evidenced the utility of a model comparison approach in searching for the correct specification of covariate effects and the level of measurement invariance. This approach was demonstrated using an empirical data set. Implications for methodological and applied research are discussed.     

Effect of sport education on students’ perceived physical literacy,motivation, and physical activity levels in university required physical education: a cluster-randomized trial

Higher Education - Originating from the field of physical education, physical literacy is an individual disposition that accentuates the importance of lifelong physical activity. Sport education is...     

Healthcare career intervention with youth in a predominantly Latinx rural community: a pilot study of a creative approach

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - The present study discusses a pilot intervention for youth in a predominantly Latinx rural community in the U.S. The intervention...     

Critical Literacy Practices Within Problem-Based Learning Projects in Science

Interchange - Digital technologies are part of many children’s everyday lives. They use them for entertainment, information seeking and connecting with friends on social media. These shifts...     

XMage: An image retrieval method based on partial similarity

XMage is introduced in this paper as a method for partial similarity searching in image databases. Region-based image retrieval is a method of retrieving partially similar images. It has been proposed as a way to accurately process queries in an image database. In region-based image retrieval, region matching is indispensable for computing the partial similarity between two images because the query processing is based upon regions instead of the entire image. A naive method of region matching is a sequential comparison between regions, which causes severe overhead and deteriorates the performance of query processing. In this paper, a new image contents representation, called Condensed eXtended Histogram (CXHistogram), is presented in conjunction with a well-defined distance function CXSim() on the CX-Histogram. The CXSim() is a new image-to-image similarity measure to compute the partial similarity between two images. It achieves the effect of comparing regions of two images by simply comparing the two images. The CXSim() reduces query space by pruning irrelevant images, and it is used as a filtering function before sequential scanning. Extensive experiments were performed on real image data to evaluate XMage. It provides a significant pruning of irrelevant images with no false dismissals. As a consequence, it achieves up to 5.9-fold speed-up in search over the R*-tree search followed by sequential scanning.