Integrating Reform‐Oriented Math Instruction in Special Education Settings

This mixed‐methods study assessed the effects of Enhanced Anchored Instruction (EAI) on the math performance of adolescents with learning disabilities in math (MLD). A quasi‐experimental pretest–posttest control group design with switching replications was used to measure students' computation and problem‐solving skills on EAI compared to control conditions. Scores on the curriculum‐aligned and standardized measures showed improved problem‐solving skills but results were mixed for computation. To augment the numerical data, a qualitative inquiry captured day‐to‐day classroom activities. The findings showed that problem‐based curricula such as EAI have the potential for helping students with MLD develop deeper understandings of math concepts but that considerable effort is required to structure and teach these concepts in ways students with MLD understand.     

Perceived control and instruction in the college classroom: Some implications for student achievement

Recent research suggests that loss of control by students interferes with the quality of instruction in the college classroom. The present study examined how four types of feedback affected perceived control and student achievement in different instruction settings. College students wrote an aptitude test which provided either contingent, low noncontingent failure, high noncontingent failure, or no-performance feedback. The amount of feedback was varied by modifying the length of the test: short, medium, long. The students then observed a videotaped lecture, presented by a low or high expressive instructor, and completed a postlecture achievement test. High noncontingent failure feedback reduced students' perceived control over their performance and created an external attribution profile. For expressive instruction, achievement deteriorated in accordance with the severity of students' uncontrollability. Implications are discussed regarding loss of control and effective instruction.Parts of this work were presented at the American Psychological Association annual meeting, Los Angeles, August 1981.     

Keeping Our Research Up to Date: Is the Election Cycle Too Fast for Scholarship=

This research scrutinizes 5 background assumptions frequently overlooked by scholars working within the third-person framework. These include: the kind of media influence (general vs. specific) referenced by respondents, the use of general versus specific "other" groups, neglect of likely second-person effects, distinguishing the problem as portrayed from the problem itself, and the potential range of behavioral effects. The study probed the influence of racial cues contained in a news story on estimates of the story's influence on self and others. Participants (n = 152) were presented with a news article conveying information that prostitutes were operating in a local neighborhood and local residents were upset. The study varied 2 experimental factors: the race of the prostitutes (White vs. African American) and the racial composition of the neighborhood residents (minority vs. White). Several important findings emerged from the study. First, manipulated elements of story content had a direct effect on estimates of the portrayal's influence on others. Second, the range of effects attributed to the media included specific factors such as thinking, feeling, problem importance, and harmful impact of the content. In addition to considering media censorship as a possible corrective measure, the study explored the influence of first-, second-, and third-person effects on a broader range of suggested actions, including increased criminal penalties and interpersonal discussion. Third-person "perceptual" effects were found throughout the data; however, they had little discernable effect on intended behaviors. Second-person effects significantly predicted proposed remedial actions and opinion expression. Discussion centers on the prospect of reorienting the third-person framework toward an expanded view of media effects and closer integration with other approaches to mass communication.     

Bond graph based sensitivity and uncertainty analysis modelling for micro-scale multiphysics robust engineering design

Components within micro-scale engineering systems are often at the limits of commercial miniaturization and this can cause unexpected behavior and variation in performance. As such, modelling and analysis of system robustness plays an important role in product development. Here, schematic bond graphs are used as a front end in a sensitivity analysis based strategy for modelling robustness in multi-physics micro-scale engineering systems. As an example, the analysis is applied to a behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aid.By using bond graphs to model power flow through components within different physical domains of the hearing aid, a set of differential equations to describe the system dynamics is collated. Based on these equations, sensitivity analysis calculations are used to approximately model the nature and the sources of output uncertainty during system operation. These calculations represent a robustness evaluation of the current hearing aid design and offer a means of identifying potential for improved designs of multiphysics systems by way of key parameter identification.     

Who donates their body to science? An international,multicenter, prospective study

The altruistic act of body donation provides a precious resource for both teaching and researching human anatomy. However, relatively little is known about individuals who donate their bodies to science (donors), and in particular whether donors in different geographical locations share similar characteristics. A multicenter prospective survey of donors registering during 2010 in three different geographical locations, New Zealand, Ireland, and the Republic of South Africa, was conducted to identify donor characteristics. The 28-question survey included sections on body donation program awareness, reasons for donating, giving tendency, education, ethnicity, relationship status, occupation, religion, and political preference. Two hundred surveys (81%) were returned [New Zealand 123 (85% response rate), Republic of South Africa 41 (67%), and Ireland 36 (92%)]. Results indicate that donors share certain characteristics including reason for donating (80% cited a desire to aid medical science as the main reason for wishing to donate their body); family structure (most donors are or have been in long-term partnerships and ≥ 85% have siblings); and a higher proportion with no religious affiliation compared to their reference population. Some variations between locations were noted including donor age, the mode of program awareness, occupation, relationship status, political preference, organ donor status and with whom donors had discussed their decision to donate. This information could be important for assisting the identification of potential body donors in new and established bequest programs.     

‘We’re not trying to turn them into middle-class Guardian readers’: constructing the offender in the probation ‘classroom’

Over the past 10 years, cognitive-behavioural programmes have come to be seen as a standard form of rehabilitation for offenders in the United Kingdom. However, the majority of research has tended to evaluate the programmes purely within the evidence-based context of the ‘What Works’ criminal justice agenda. By placing the programmes within their social and political context, this article suggests that they function as neo-liberal regimes of governance that aim to ‘responsibilise’ offenders. Through an analysis of interviews with probation practitioners, the article explores how ‘othering’ discourses relating to offenders intersected with gendered, classed and ‘raced’ social identities. Consequently, young white, working-class masculinities were constructed within this educational environment as impulsive, irresponsible and ‘cognitively deficient’. Thus, the article calls for a discursive shift away from cognitive-behavioural rehabilitation techniques and towards more genuinely inclusive, socially just, and holistic educational programmes for probationers.