Effects of number of CS-US pairings on the strength of conditioned frustration in rats

Following 45 placements to a wet-mash reward, groups of rats received 0, 10, 20, or 40 frustration-conditioning trials during which primary frustration was paired with the apparatus cues plus a distinctive CS. Other groups received 0, 10, or 20 pairings of primary frustration and apparatus cues alone. In the CS condition, learning of a hurdle-jumping response which terminated the CS was nonmonotonically related to the number of frustration-conditioning trials on the first of 2 test days. Performance increased with the number of conditioning trials up to 20, then decreased following 40 such trials. Among groups which did not receive the CS during conditioning or testing, only subjects in the zero-pairing condition showed evidence of learning. The results were interpreted as supporting the conclusion that conditioned frustration had acquired aversive motivational properties since its effectiveness was found to vary systematically with the number of conditioning trials. It was further concluded that the superiority of hurdle-jumping performance by CS groups relative to NCS groups was the result of both a higher level of frustrative motivation and greater frustration reduction following the response for the former groups.     

Revisiting Debates on Oracy: Classroom Talk – Moving Towards a Democratic Pedagogy?

This article uses documentary evidence to review debates on spoken language and learning in the UK over recent decades. It argues that two different models of talk have been at stake: one that wishes to ‘correct’ children’s spoken language and another than encourages children to use talk to learn and represent their worlds. The article suggests that the latter, more democratic, approach is now under attack, but that the teacher can still choose to use learning talk in the classroom.     

Another Nail in the Coffin for Learning Styles? Disparities among Undergraduate Anatomy Students’ Study Strategies,Class Performance,and Reported VARK Learning Styles

The concept and existence of learning styles has been fraught with controversy, and recent studies have thrown their existence into doubt. Yet, many students still hold to the conventional wisdom that learning styles are legitimate, and may adapt their outside of class study strategies to match these learning styles. Thus, this study aims to assess if undergraduate anatomy students are more likely to utilize study strategies that align with their hypothetical learning styles (using the VARK analysis from Fleming and Mills, 1992 , Improve Acad. 11:137–155) and, if so, does this alignment correlate with their outcome in an anatomy course. Relatedly, this study examines whether students’ VARK learning styles are correlated with course outcomes regardless of the students’ study strategies, and whether any study strategies are correlated with course outcomes, regardless of student-specific VARK results. A total of 426 anatomy students from the 2015 and 2016 Fall semesters completed a study strategies survey and an online VARK questionnaire. Results demonstrated that most students did not report study strategies that correlated with their VARK assessment, and that student performance in anatomy was not correlated with their score in any VARK categories. Rather, some specific study strategies (irrespective of VARK results), such as use of the virtual microscope, were found to be positively correlated with final class grade. However, the alignment of these study strategies with VARK results had no correlation with anatomy course outcomes. Thus, this research provides further evidence that the conventional wisdom about learning styles should be rejected by educators and students alike. Anat Sci Educ. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.     

Infant speech recognition in multisyllabic contexts

In 2 infant speech recognition experiments using trisyllabic sequences, the amount of redundancy within nontarget, context syllables was manipulated. Infants 6 1/2 months old were trained to discriminate the syllables [ba] versus [du] in contexts that were either redundant (e.g., [ko ba ko] or [ti ba ti]) or mixed (e.g., [ko ba ti] or [ti ba ko]) A visually reinforced head-turning procedure was employed. In Experiment 1, context was manipulated between subjects, but in Experiment 2 each subject received all 4 contexts (2 redundant, 2 mixed). Infants consistently recognized the familiar target in all contexts, but did so more successfully in redundant than in mixed trisyllablic contexts. These results suggest that amount of speech redundancy may be an important factor in infants' perceptual capabilities.     

The Awful Truth:1 a microhistory of teacher stress at Westwood High

This paper is drawn from a recent microhistory of teacher stress, a genealogical inquiry that reveals the debilitating effects of a ‘game of truth’ called ‘economic rationalism’ on South Australian teachers during the last two decades of the twentieth century. It explores the everyday stresses of teaching through extracts from the teachers' oral history narratives, contemporary articles from the mass media and relevant policy statements from the period. Informed by the theories of Foucault, Weber, and the Annales,2 The Annales movement (founded in 1929 with a journal of that name), heralded the writing of a new kind of history with problem‐orientated analysis, a history that embraced a whole new range of human activities and dealt with ideas, feelings and mentalities. View all notes it juxtaposes particular historical discourses about ‘stress’ with ‘regimes of knowledge’ that were circulating in the world of education.     

Implementing concept-based learning in a large undergraduate classroom

An experiment explicitly introducing learning strategies to a large, first-year undergraduate cell biology course was undertaken to see whether awareness and use of strategies had a measurable impact on student performance. The construction of concept maps was selected as the strategy to be introduced because of an inherent coherence with a course structured by concepts. Data were collected over three different semesters of an introductory cell biology course, all teaching similar course material with the same professor and all evaluated using similar examinations. The first group, used as a control, did not construct concept maps, the second group constructed individual concept maps, and the third group first constructed individual maps then validated their maps in small teams to provide peer feedback about the individual maps. Assessment of the experiment involved student performance on the final exam, anonymous polls of student perceptions, failure rate, and retention of information at the start of the following year. The main conclusion drawn is that concept maps without feedback have no significant effect on student performance, whereas concept maps with feedback produced a measurable increase in student problem-solving performance and a decrease in failure rates.     

Dialogic argumentation as a bridge to argumentative thinking and writing / La argumentación dialógica como puente para el pensamiento y la escritura argumentativa

Abstract

Argumentation has been claimed to be ‘the more general human process of which more specific forms of reasoning are a part’. The educational context in which argument is most often practised and assessed is individual expository writing — a skill that teachers routinely report as their most challenging to teach and one in which students typically perform poorly. It becomes increasingly important with advancing grade and by the post-secondary level is crucial to academic success. We describe the dialogic method we have developed to foster young adolescents’ argument skills. Its essence is to engage students in rich and extended dialogues with one another on significant topics. We review evidence that the method, implemented in extended form over two or more years, produces positive outcomes in argumentative discourse, in individual writing and in meta-level understandings of argumentative discourse and evaluations of argument. In this study, we elaborate on these results and on the promise and challenges the method poses.     

College cheating: Immaturity,lack of commitment,and the neutralizing attitude

Through the use of a 49-item questionnaire administered to 380 university students, we investigated student cheating on exams, quizzes, and homework assignments. More than half the students reported cheating during the academic year on at least one of the above. The purpose of this paper was to uncover fundamental factors underlying cheating behavior. Through the use of correlational and factor analysis, three primary factors were identified: student immaturity, lack of commitment to academics, and neutralization. We offer interpretations of these factors and suggestions for testing these and other factors in future research.     

Improving Campus Climate to Support Faculty Diversity and Retention: A Pilot Program for New Faculty

We report on a series of pilot programs that we developed and carried out to support the success and satisfaction of new faculty, particularly faculty of color. We hope that others committed to retaining and supporting underrepresented faculty can apply our learning from this pilot project, as a whole or in part.Fred P. Piercy, Ph.D. (University of Florida), M.Ed. (University of South Carolina), B.A. (Wake Forest University) is the Department Head of the Department of Human Development at Virginia Tech. His professional interests include family therapy education, HIV social science research and prevention, and family intervention for adolescent drug abusers. Valerie Giddings, Ph.D., M.S. (Virginia Tech), B.S. (Bennett College) is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Lifelong Learning at Winston-Salem State University. Her professional interests include anthropometry and apparel fit, cultural aesthetics for apparel, and diversity issues in higher education. Katherine R. Allen, Ph.D., M.A. (Syracuse University), B.S. (University of Connecticut) is a Professor in Human Development at Virginia Tech. Her interests include family diversity over the life course, adult sibling ties in transition, and persistence of women and minorities in IT majors. Benjamin Dixon, Ed.D. (University of Massachusetts), M.A.T. (Harvard University), B.Mus.Ed. (Howard University) is the Vice President for Multicultural Affairs at Virginia Tech. His interests include diversity, multicultural education, ethical pluralism, and equity and inclusion issues related to organizational management and development. Peggy S. Meszaros, Ph.D. (University of Maryland), M.S. (University of Kentucky), B.S. (Austin Peay State University) is the William E. Lavery Professor of Human Development and the Director of the Center for Information Technology Impacts on Children, Youth, and Families at Virginia Tech. Her interests include positive youth development, leadership issues, female career transitions, and mother/daughter communication. Karen Joest, Ph.D. (Virginia Tech), M.S. (Chaminade University), B.S. (Indiana State University) is an Assistant Professor of Child and Family Studies at the State University of New York, College at Oneonta. Her interests include adolescents exposed to domestic violence, use of qualitative research, and use of technology and feminist pedagogy     

History of abuse and neglect in patients with schizophrenia who have a history of violence

Objective

To determine the prevalence of five forms of abuse/neglect during childhood and adolescence in a group of schizophrenic patients with a history of violence.

Methods

Twenty-eight patients hospitalized in a highly secured psychiatric unit were included. Abuse and neglect during patients’ growth were evaluated with the childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ). History of substance abuse (consumption of cannabis, and/or alcohol, and/or heroin, and/or cocaine during the year that preceded the hospitalization), incarceration, and death of a close parent were also collected.

Results

We found that 46.4% of patients experienced at least 1 form of abuse and/or neglect during childhood and 21.4% of them had experienced more than 2 forms of abuse and/or neglect. The 2 most frequent forms of neglect and abuse were physical abuse (39.3%) and emotional neglect (17.9%). History of substance abuse was found for cannabis (57.1%), alcohol (57.1%), and cocaine and/or heroin (35.7%). We found that 42.8% of patients had 1 close relative who had died during their growth and that 41.6% of these deaths were violent.

Conclusion

It appears important to systematically search for and assess a history of abuse and neglect during growth in schizophrenic patients with a history of violence, in order to offer specific treatments for this group of patients.