Developmental changes in ideas about lying

Videotaped stories depicting deliberate lies and unintentionally untrue statements were presented to 200 subjects evenly divided into the following age groups: 5, 8, 9, and 11 years and adult. Definitions of lying were seen to change gradually over this age range. Adults were more lenient than children in their moral evaluations of all the statements. All age groups rated a guess that did no harm as better than one that caused trouble, and they all judged selfishly motivated lies to be worse than both unintended falsehoods and "jocose" lies that aimed to please the listener. 11-year-olds tended to justify the prohibition against lying in terms of trust and fairness, whereas younger children cited authority's punitive sanctions.     

A Longitudinal Study of Children’s Developing Knowledge and Reasoning in Science

The growth in science understanding and reasoning of 12 children is being traced through their primary school years. The paper reports findings concerning children’s growing understandings of evaporation, and their changing responses to exploration activities, that show the complexity and coherence of learning pathways. Children’s responses to identical explorations of flight, separated by two years, are used to explore the interactions between conceptual knowledge and scientific reasoning, and the manner in which they change over this time. The paper discusses the particular insights afforded by a longitudinal study design, and some attendant methodological issues.     

Assumptions and practices in using digital technologies to teach writing in middle‐level classrooms across Canada

Interviews with 216 Grades 4–8 teachers and observations in 21 classrooms show that computers are widely used to teach writing across Canada. Restricted access to computers plays a role in the frequency and types of interactions that students and teachers have with computers in writing classes. Equally influential are assumptions about writing development and effective teaching practice. Many participating teachers believe that spell checkers hamper students’ spelling development. They view computers as tools to extend and support their teaching of mini‐lessons.     

A qualitative assessment of human cadavers embalmed by Thiel's method used in laparoscopic training for renal resection

Human cadaveric tissue is the fundamental substrate for basic anatomic and surgical skills training. A qualitative assessment of the use of human cadavers preserved by Thiel's method for a British Association of Urological Surgeons-approved, advanced laparoscopic renal resection skills training course is described in the present study. Four trainees and four experienced laparoscopic surgeons participated in the course. All participants completed a five-point Likert scale satisfaction questionnaire after their training sessions. The quality of cadaveric tissue and the training session were assessed with particular emphasis placed on the ease of patient positioning, the ease of trocar placement, the preservation of tissue planes, the ease of renal pedicle dissection, and the quality of tissue preservation. All of the participants highly rated the quality of the cadaveric tissue embalmed by Thiel's method (mean scores for quality on the five-point Likert scale were 4.5 and 4.3 by the trainees and experienced laparoscopic surgeons, respectively). All of the steps of laparoscopic renal resection were rated 4.0 or more on the Likert scale by both trainees and faculty members. The initial response rates for using a human cadaver embalmed by Thiel's method as a training tool for laparoscopic nephrectomy showed encouraging results. The performance of a laparoscopic nephrectomy on a human cadaver embalmed by Thiel's method bears close resemblance to real laparoscopic nephrectomy procedures, and thus demonstrates added advantages to the previously reported models.     

Communication,Communication, Communication! Growth through Laboratory Instructing

This study examined gains undergraduate students made in their communication and collaboration skills when they served as peer teachers, i.e., laboratory instructors (LIs), for a General Psychology laboratory. Self-ratings of communication and collaboration skills were completed before and after teaching the laboratory. When compared to before the teaching experience, the students rated their skills significantly higher in written expression, oral expression, and participation skills. They also rated themselves significantly higher in written comprehension and expression skills than did a comparison group of non-LIs. Results from interviews also revealed beliefs that their communication and collaboration skills had substantially increased.     

Decision type,structure, and process evaluation: A contingency model

Governance proposals for higher education in the United States are often promulgated on the basis of some utopian goal or on the assumption that a given proposal is the panacea for multifaceted problems or that it is equally applicable to diverse institutional settings. This paper, rather than promulgating a single proposal, takes a more analytic approach and develops a contingency model for identifying appropriate decision-making structures. First, emergent conditions in American higher education's external environment, in the internal social environment of its colleges and universities, and in the development of higher education management systems are analyzed to establish some long-range criteria for evaluating decision-making effectiveness. Second, a typology of institutional decisions categorized as policy, managerial, and operating decisions is presented. An analysis of the nature and content of each major type of decision suggests divergent patterns of formal and informal decision-making structures and patterns, and differing content and functions for the supporting management information technology which might be appropriate to each of the decision types or categories. Finally, the analysis relates the contingency notions of decision structure and type to the criteria for evaluating the decision-making process and suggests how they are compatible or might be modified to be more compatible. The model is a general conceptual one which the author suggests can be used on either an institution-wide basis or with particular subunits of a college or university.

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Types de decision, structures et evaluation des processus: un modele de contingence

Résumé Les projets officiels pour l'enseignement supérieur sont souvent formulés aux Etats-Unis par référence à un objectif idéal ou en supposant qu'un projet déterminé est susceptible de représenter la solution universelle de problèmes multidimensionnels et qu'il est également réalisable dans les différents contextes institutionnels. L'article ne vise pas à présenter un projet particulier; il se place au point de vue analytique et présente un modèle à éventualités multiples capable de déterminer les structures les plus appropriées à la prise de décision. En premier lieu, les caractéristiques nouvelles du milieu social dans lequel fonctionne aux Etats-Unis l'enseignement supérieur, les caractéristiques du milieu interne constitué par les collèges et les universités et les caractéristiques des systèmes de gestion pour l'Université sont soumises à l'examen afin de déterminer une large gamme de critères capables de s'appliquer à l'évaluation de l'efficacité des décisions. En second lieu, on présente une typologie des décisions institutionnelles dont les catégories sont celles de la détermination d'une politique, de la gestion et de l'application. L'analyse de la nature et du contenu de chacun des principaux types de décisions conduit à concevoir des structures et des formes différentes pour les prises de décision, tant explicites que diffuses, ainsi que des caractéristiques et des fonctions différentes pour la technologie de l'information sur laquelle repose la gestion, cela par référence aux différentes catégories de décision. En dernier lieu, l'analyse met en relations les notions variables de structure et de type de décision avec les critères retenus pour évaluer le processus de la prise de décision et examine jusqu'à quel point ils sont compatibles ou pourraient être modifiés afin de devenir plus compatibles. Le modèle présenté est un modèle théorique très général dont l'auteur suggère qu'il pourrait être utilisé tant pour une institution de large envergure que pour les sous-ensembles d'un collège ou d'une université.

     

Teachers' schemata for classroom events: The mental scaffolding of teachers' thinking during classroom instruction

Researchers have shown that experts and novices differ in their recall, representation, and analyses of problem situations. This study investigated whether such differences existed between novice and experienced high school teachers in their recall and analyses of problem events during interactive teaching. Experienced and inexperienced teachers (n = 10 in each group) completed cognitive ability tests and were interviewed after viewing three videotaped vignettes of interactive teaching. In contrast to novices, experienced teachers both recalled more classroom events and relied more on procedural knowledge and principles in analyzing classroom events. These differences may indicate that experienced teachers have better developed knowledge structures of “schemata” for classroom teaching than do novice teachers.     

The 16–19 age group: Curriculum and examinations in Europe

European education systems are faced with the necessity to re-think curriculum and examinations for the 16–19 age group as a result of the raising of the school leaving age in many countries and the increasing numbers of those voluntarily staying on at school. The paper critically reviews methods of pupil assessment at the beginning, during and at the end of the second cycle of secondary education. It notes a trend towards more global assessment based on a mixture of external and internal, periodic and terminal, subjective and objective tests. It discusses these findings in the light of the restricted number of university places available and the demand for “open entry” and suggests that a reform of higher education itself might contribute to a better fit between social demand and opportunities for higher education.