Exploring the Relationship Between High School Students’ Physics-Related Personal Epistemologies and Self-regulated Learning in Turkey

This article reports on an empirical exploration of the relations and strengths among Turkish grades 9–11 students’ (n = 209) personal epistemologies (justification of knowledge, certainty of knowledge, source of knowledge, development of knowledge), self-regulated learning (extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, rehearsal, elaboration, organization, critical thinking, metacognitive self-regulation), and achievement in physics (course grades). Established instruments were used to collect data on these students’ beliefs about knowledge and components of self-regulated learning (SRL) such as goal orientations (extrinsic and intrinsic motivation) and learning strategies, critical thinking, and metacognitive regulation. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that students’ personal epistemologies directly influenced their motivation (extrinsic and intrinsic goal orientations), rehearsal and organization strategies, and metacognitive self-regulation to learn physics. Furthermore, students’ personal epistemologies indirectly (mediated through motivation beliefs) influenced rehearsal, elaboration and organization strategies, critical thinking, and metacognitive self-regulation to learn physics. Students’ ideas about knowledge and knowing about the source and development of knowledge significantly contributed to students’ self-regulatory skills and physics course grade. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

Interocular transfer in pigeons of color discrimination but not motor response training

Adult pigeons with one eye covered were trained to peck a response key using grain as a reinforcer. In subsequent tests, with the trained eye covered and the control eye open, the birds failed to peck the key. The subjects were then divided into two groups for a second experiment. The first group was trained on a single-key, peck/no-peck color discrimination task with the original control eye covered. When tested for interocular transfer of discrimination performance, these birds failed to respond at all. They were then trained to peck a blank response key with the training eye covered and the control eye open. Control-eye tests after this motor response training resulted in excellent transfer of color discrimination performance. The second group of subjects was trained to peck a blank key with first one eye covered and then the other, before monocular discrimination training was begun. These birds showed excellent transfer of discrimination performance during control-eye tests. These results show that, at least in the operant paradigm, motor response training does not transfer interocularly and this lack of transfer may interfere with transfer of discrimination performance.     

The Adoption of Microcomputers for Instruction: Implications for Emerging Instructional Media Implementation

Using the five-stage innovation decision-making process established by Rogers, it was determined that the overwhelming majority of Pennsylvania business education teachers have adopted microcomputer technology and use it to deliver instruction on a routine basis. In addition, it was determined that three factors demonstrated a significant relationship with adoption behavior, even though they had a low ability to predict such behavior. However, it appears that three other factors, i.e., attitude towards microcomputers, the characteristics of microcomputers, and a critical threshold mark for the adoption of microcomputers, may also have influenced the decision of Pennsylvania business education teachers to adopt microcomputers in their classroom. These findings suggest that, perhaps, in the adoption of a new instructional method, what really matters are individual's attitude towards the new method, the characteristics of the new method, and the critical threshold mark for adopting the specific method.     

“年龄”的表达方式

1.表示“整岁”,直接用基数词或year,age。例如“他20岁”可表示为:He is twenty.He is twenty years old.He is a twenty-year-old man.He is aged twenty.He is at age twenty.He is at the age of twenty.He is twenty years of age.2.表示“在某人几十多岁”,用“in one’s 基数词复数形式”,例如:他70多岁。He is in his seventies.(从70岁到79岁之间)她50多岁。She is in her fifties.(从50岁到59岁之间)另外,还可以借助early,middle,late来表达得更明确一些,例如:女孩今年二十二三岁。The girl is in her earlytwenties.他今年十…     

The impact of adverse childhood experiences on an urban pediatric population

Objective

The goal of this study was to investigate the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in youth in a low-income, urban community.

Study design

Data from a retrospective chart review of 701 subjects from the Bayview Child Health Center in San Francisco are presented. Medical chart documentation of ACEs as defined in previous studies were coded and each ACE criterion endorsed by a traumatic event received a score of 1 (range = 0-9). This study reports on the prevalence of various ACE categories in this population, as well as the association between ACE score and two pediatric problems: learning/behavior problems and body mass index (BMI) ≥ 85% (i.e., overweight or obese).

Results

The majority of subjects (67.2%, N = 471) had experienced 1 or more categories of adverse childhood experiences (ACE ≥ 1) and 12.0% (N = 84) had experienced 4 or more ACEs (ACE ≥ 4). Increased ACE scores correlated with increased risk of learning/behavior problems and obesity.

Conclusions

There was a significant prevalence of endorsed ACE categories in this urban population. Exposure to 4 or greater ACE categories was associated with increased risk for learning/behavior problems, as well as obesity.

Practice implications

Results from this study demonstrate the need both for screening of ACEs among youth in urban areas and for developing effective primary prevention and intervention models.     

Student perception of teaching effectiveness: development and validation of the Evaluation of Teaching Competencies Scale (ETCS)

A major criticism of student evaluations of teaching is that they do not reflect student perspectives. Using critical incidents job analysis, students identified nine teaching effectiveness competencies: communication, availability, creativity, individual consideration, social awareness, feedback, professionalism, conscientiousness and problem‐solving. The behaviourally anchored Evaluation of Teaching Competencies Scale is a highly reliable (alpha = .94), unidimensional measure that correlated strongly with an instructor‐related composite of the Students’ Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ, r = .72), but not to a SEEQ composite related to instructor assigned work (r = .04, N = 195). The results are discussed in the context of other measures of teaching effectiveness and transformational leadership theory.     

Research Goes Digital: Some Methods,Frameworks, and Issues

Traditionally, librarians take a role in connecting researchers with resources. With the advent of the digital age, the nature of research is expanding; there are more, and different, sources of data, ways of collecting data, and methods of analyzing and interacting with data. If librarians are to remain relevant and able to serve their patrons, then they must engage in research as guides or even as partners in the research process. To do this, it is critical that librarians gain an understanding of the nature of research in the digital age and of the frameworks, methodologies, and issues related to digital research. The purpose of this article is to contribute to literature on digital research as it relates to librarianship.     

History of Sport in Brazil and in South America: Visibility for New Looks

Abstract

This article details my views about sport history in Brazil and South America. I suggest that there is a long path to tread and more efforts to perfect our initiatives are necessary. Nevertheless, I think that we already have interesting contributions to perspectives on the history of sport. To make them known, we need to extend, from both sides, our communication efforts. To this end, it seems necessary to me that we, South American and Ibero-American historians, become closer and more integrated with each another. Perhaps this will be a contribution to the renewal of a world history of sport tradition.     

Cross‐time attitudes,concept formation,and achievement in college freshman physics

The relationships among science and engineering attitude, physics conceptual understanding, and physics achievement were explored for a population of college freshman engineering students over two semesters. Gender and SAT‐Quantitative measures were included as exogenous variables in a longitudinal path analysis. Attitude was theorized to predict achievement contemporaneously and at the next time point, while conceptual understanding was theorized to predict physics achievement contemporaneously and at the next time point. Each at one time was theorized to predict scores at the next time. A sample of 200 freshman engineering students participating in an integrated curriculum were assessed in September, December, and April (with a loss of 64 students) with the Force Concepts Inventory (FCI), Mechanics Baseline Test (MBT), and a locally developed attitude measure. The observed model indicated that the FCI predicted attitude at time 1 with no other paths between them, that FCI at time 1 predicted MBT at time 1 and time 2, FCI at time 2 predicted MBT at time 3, and MBT at time 1 predicted FCI at time 2. Gender and SAT‐Quantitative scores were predictive only of FCI and MBT at time 1. Results supported an interactive model of conceptual understanding and achievement, with attitude largely irrelevant to the process for this population. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 1112–1120, 2000