The ‘dissertation marathon’ in doctoral distance education

Participation in “communities of practice” is often depicted as a central feature of various theoretical understandings of the social nature of learning. How are such communities of practice to be enacted in distance education, which, by definition, implies spatial detachment? This article reflects on the dimensions of communities of practice experienced by four students undertaking doctoral studies by distance education, working in different countries than the one in which the institution of their studies is based, and at four different phases of their doctoral program. In each writer’s experience, community of practice involvement was identified as critical in program completion, yet the source of the learning community was in each case outside of institutional provision.     

Professional development for online university teaching

Almost every higher education institution is challenged to develop increasing numbers of staff to teach online or blended modes of learning. The process needs to be rapid, cost-effective and lead directly to practical outcomes. From our experience, we had little time, opportunity or the need to start from scratch, and we chose to adopt and adapt a course that was based on a well-rehearsed and respected pedagogical model. We offer our experience to date as a case study with some extracted principles for others to explore and follow. We discuss the value of contextualization, incremental innovation, and mentoring of online convenors. This article will be of interest to those seeking to provide effective professional development routes for large numbers of staff.     

Coordinating principles and examples through analogy and self-explanation

Research on expertise suggests that a critical aspect of expert understanding is knowledge of the relations between domain principles and problem features. We investigated two instructional pathways hypothesized to facilitate students’ learning of these relations when studying worked examples. The first path is through self-explaining how worked examples instantiate domain principles and the second is through analogical comparison of worked examples. We compared both of these pathways to a third instructional path where students read worked examples and solved practice problems. Students in an introductory physics class were randomly assigned to one of three worked example conditions (reading, self-explanation, or analogy) when learning about rotational kinematics and then completed a set of problem solving and conceptual tests that measured near, intermediate, and far transfer. Students in the reading and self-explanation groups performed better than the analogy group on near transfer problems solved during the learning activities. However, this problem solving advantage was short lived as all three groups performed similarly on two intermediate transfer problems given at test. On the far transfer test, the self-explanation and analogy groups performed better than the reading group. These results are consistent with the idea that self-explanation and analogical comparison can facilitate conceptual learning without decrements to problem solving skills relative to a more traditional type of instruction in a classroom setting.     

Memory Self-Efficacy,Aging, and Memory Performance: The Roles of Effort and Persistence

The relative importance of mental effort, as indicated by strategy use, and persistence as potential mediators of the memory self-efficacy (MSE)/memory performance relationship was investigated within a sample of 26 adults aged 65 years and older. It was found that persistence but not strategy use was predictive of performance on a free-recall task. Age-related declines were found in persistence, performance, and MSE but not in strategy use. Counter to expectation, neither strategy use nor persistence was significantly related to a global measure of MSE. These results highlight the importance in MSE research of distinguishing mental effort and persistence, of task-specific measures of MSE, and of considering age-related changes within the elderly population. Implications for MSE intervention programs are briefly discussed.     

Role of peers in student academic achievement in exogenously formed university groups

We estimate the influence of classmates’ ability characteristics on student achievement in exogenously formed university student groups. The study uses administrative data on undergraduate students at a large selective university in Russia. The presence of high-ability classmates has a significant positive effect on individual grades in key economics and mathematics courses as well as on overall academic performance. While a simple linear-in-means model reveals moderate peer effects, non-linear specifications give strong evidence that students at the top of the ability distribution derive the greatest benefit from high-ability classmates. Less able students are not affected by peers and have no significant influence on peers’ outcomes.     

Demand-pull, technology-push, and government-led incentives for non-incremental technical change

Rising expectations about future demand for new technologies increase the incentives for investments in innovation by enlarging payoffs to successful innovations. How well does this notion of “demand-pull” apply to non-incremental technological change when demand is largely attributable to actions by governments? In this case, inventors of the most important inventions did not respond positively to strong demand-pull policies; filing of highly cited patents declined precipitously just as demand for wind power created a multi-billion dollar market. Three explanations for this apparent inconsistency with the demand-pull hypothesis played a role: (1) the rapid convergence on a single dominant design limited the market opportunity for non-incremental technical improvements; (2) even though the policies implemented were stringent enough to stimulate demand, uncertainty in their longevity dampened the incentives for inventions that were likely to take several years to pay off; and (3) alternative explanations, such as declining R&D funding and weakening presidential engagement on energy, appear to have been important.     

An early review of stroboscopic visual training: insights,challenges and accomplishments to guide future studies

ABSTRACT

Stroboscopic visual training (SVT) is a form of training in which an individual practices a task under intermittent visual conditions with the intention of enhancing subsequent performance under normal visual conditions. Training with stroboscopic devices is theorized to improve important visual, perceptual, and cognitive skills, which in turn transfers to enhanced sporting performance. Indeed, while there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence suggesting benefits of strobe training, empirical evidence is rarer and less conclusive. This lack of clarity is due, in part, to the challenging methodological issues faced when conducting experimental vision training studies in applied contexts. The present paper is an early review of the research to date with a focus on the key methodological decisions, such as the training and testing protocols employed, participant samples and control groups used, and practical considerations that enable such training in applied settings. Whilst still at an early stage, the existing studies point to SVT enhancing some aspects of foveal visual sensitivity and visual motor control, with notable benefits for some athletic tasks. Such improvements could have implications not just in sport, but in domains such as rehabilitation, education, and motor vehicle safety.