Asking queer(er) questions: epistemological and methodological implications for qualitative inquirers

This collection of distinct scholarly essays deliberatively turns to queer experience and theorizing as a resource for constructing vibrant qualitative research designs. Queer theory offers a breadth of epistemological and methodological possibilities for qualitative projects that are too frequently overlooked for many reasons. These reasons include frequently strict association of queer theory with queer research topics and researchers, as well as a concurrent reluctance to interrogate the representational needs of heterosexist culture served by the metaphor of the ‘closet.’ Queer theory also compels inquiry that takes up the unique circumstances of queer subjects. Locating educational inquiry within globally complex socio-historical dynamics and a post-Obergefell/post-2016 election U.S. context, this article poses multiple trajectories through which various scholars explore queer(er) qualitative inquiry in educational studies. These perspectives invite researchers to rethink qualitative inquiry designs through engagement with the queer, inclusive of research topics not initially perceived to be queer.     

Video-based training to improve perceptual-cognitive decision-making performance of Australian football umpires

Decision-making is a central component of the in-game performance of Australian football umpires; however, current umpire training focuses largely on physiological development with decision-making skills development conducted via explicit lecture-style meetings with limited practice devoted to making actual decisions. Therefore, this study investigated the efficacy of a video-based training programme, aimed to provide a greater amount of contextualised visual experiences without explicit instruction, to improve decision-making skills of umpires. Australian football umpires (n = 52) were recruited from metropolitan and regional Division 1 competitions. Participants were randomly assigned to an intervention or control group and classified according to previous umpire game experience (i.e., experienced; less experienced). The intervention group completed a 12-week video-based decision-making training programme, with decision-making performance assessed at pre-training, and 1-week retention and 3-week retention periods. The control group did not complete any video-based training. Results indicated a significant Group (intervention; Control) × Test interaction (F(1, 100) = 3.98; P = 0.02, partial ?² = 0.074), with follow-up pairwise comparisons indicating significant within-group differences over time for the intervention group. In addition, decision-making performance of the less experienced umpires in the intervention group significantly improved (F(2, 40) = 5.03, P = 0.01, partial ?² = 0.201). Thus, video-based training programmes may be a viable adjunct to current training programmes to hasten decision-making development, especially for less experienced umpires.     

Digital redesign of analog smith predictor for systems with long input time delays

The discretization of the analog Smith predictor by using the prediction-based state-matching digital redesign method for systems with various input time delays was recently investigated in the literature. This paper presents an alternative Chebyshev quadrature state-matching digital redesign method for discretization of the analog Smith predictor for systems with a long input time delay. In order to implement the digitally redesigned Smith predictor by utilizing the output-feedback of the plant, an ideal state reconstructor for the long input-delayed plant is established. The long dead time of interest is an integer plus a fractional input delay. An illustrative example is given to demonstrate the effective of the proposed approach.     

Interdisciplinary Training in Mathematical Biology through Team-based Undergraduate Research and Courses

Inspired by BIO2010 and leveraging institutional and external funding, Truman State University built an undergraduate program in mathematical biology with high-quality, faculty-mentored interdisciplinary research experiences at its core. These experiences taught faculty and students to bridge the epistemological gap between the mathematical and life sciences. Together they created the infrastructure that currently supports several interdisciplinary courses, an innovative minor degree, and long-term interdepartmental research collaborations. This article describes how the program was built with support from the National Science Foundation''s Interdisciplinary Training for Undergraduates in Biology and Mathematics program, and it shares lessons learned that will help other undergraduate institutions build their own program.     

Integration of information and scientific literacy: promoting literacy in undergraduates

The Association of College and Research Libraries recommends incorporating information literacy (IL) skills across university and college curricula, for the goal of developing information literate graduates. Congruent with this goal, the Departments of Biological Sciences and Information Science developed an integrated IL and scientific literacy (SL) exercise for use in a first-year biology course. Students were provided the opportunity to access, retrieve, analyze, and evaluate primary scientific literature. By the completion of this project, student responses improved concerning knowledge and relevance of IL and SL skills. This project exposes students to IL and SL early in their undergraduate experience, preparing them for future academic advancement.     

Use of saliva for assessment of stress and its effect on the immune system prior to gross anatomy practical examinations

The objective of this study was to determine the longitudinal effects of a series of stressful gross anatomy tests on the immune system. Thirty‐six freshman occupational therapy students completed a written stress evaluation survey, and saliva samples were obtained at baseline and prior to each of three timed‐practical gross anatomy tests. Cortisol, secretory IgA (sIgA), and IL‐12 concentrations were measured within the salivary samples by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. The total scores from the stress surveys were used as markers for environmental stress. Data were compiled for each student at baseline and prior to each examination and were compared by repeated‐measures MANOVA and Pearson's correlation test. Following normalization for protein concentration and flow rate, the concentrations of IL‐2, IL‐6, IL‐12, and sIgA progressively increased from baseline to the third test. Cortisol concentrations, following normalization for flow rate, were highest prior to the first test and became significantly reduced prior to second and third test. Prior to second and third test, salivary concentrations of IL‐6, IL‐2, IL‐12, and sIgA were significantly correlated (P < 0.05). In contrast, prior to third test, there was a negative correlation between salivary concentrations of cortisol and IL‐12 (P < 0.05). Progressive increases in salivary sIgA, IL‐6, IL‐2, and IL‐12 concentrations from the first to the third test coincident to decreased salivary cortisol suggest that the initial examination stressors precede significant effects on the immune system. These data suggest that there may be latent effects of examination stress on the immune system and that saliva can be used to predict these effects. Anat Sci Educ. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.     

Classifying Amharic webnews

We present work aimed at compiling an Amharic corpus from the Web and automatically categorizing the texts. Amharic is the second most spoken Semitic language in the World (after Arabic) and used for countrywide communication in Ethiopia. It is highly inflectional and quite dialectally diversified. We discuss the issues of compiling and annotating a corpus of Amharic news articles from the Web. This corpus was then used in three sets of text classification experiments. Working with a less-researched language highlights a number of practical issues that might otherwise receive less attention or go unnoticed. The purpose of the experiments has not primarily been to develop a cutting-edge text classification system for Amharic, but rather to put the spotlight on some of these issues. The first two sets of experiments investigated the use of Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs) for document classification. Testing on small datasets, we first looked at classifying unseen data into 10 predefined categories of news items, and then at clustering it around query content, when taking 16 queries as class labels. The second set of experiments investigated the effect of operations such as stemming and part-of-speech tagging on text classification performance. We compared three representations while constructing classification models based on bagging of decision trees for the 10 predefined news categories. The best accuracy was achieved using the full text as representation. A representation using only the nouns performed almost equally well, confirming the assumption that most of the information required for distinguishing between various categories actually is contained in the nouns, while stemming did not have much effect on the performance of the classifier.

Technology I, II, and III: criteria for understanding and improving the practice of instructional technology

In this paper we describe the criteria of Technology I, II, and III, which some instructional theorists have proposed to describe the differences between a formulaic and a reflective approach to solving educational problems. In a recent study, we applied these criteria to find evidence of a technological gravity that pulls practitioners away from reflective practices into a more reductive approach. We compared published reports of an innovative instructional theory, problem-based learning, to the goals of the theory as it was originally defined. We found three reasons for technological gravity, as well as three approaches some practitioners have used to avoid this gravity. We recommend that instructional technologists adopt our three approaches, as well as the criteria of Technology III, so they may better develop instruction of a quality consistent with the innovative instructional principles they claim, and that best characterizes the goals they have for their practice.

The component skills underlying reading fluency in adolescent readers: a latent variable analysis

This study investigated the component skills underlying reading fluency in a heterogeneous sample of 527 eighth grade students. Based on a hypothetical measurement model and successive testing of nested models, structural equation modeling revealed that naming speed, decoding, and language were uniquely associated with reading fluency. These findings suggest that the ability to access and retrieve phonological information from long-term storage is the most important factor in explaining individual differences in reading fluency among adolescent readers. The ability to process meaning and decode novel words was smaller but reliable contributors to reading fluency in adolescent readers.