Generating multiple solutions for a problem: A comparison of the responses of U.S. and Japanese students

A task involving simple mathematics, yet complex in its call for the generation of multiple solution methods, was administered to about 150 U.S. students, most of whom were in fourth grade. Written responses were examined for correctness, evidence of strategy use and mode of explanation. Results for the U.S. sample were also compared to those obtained from about 200 Japanese fourth-grade students. Students in both countries (a) produced multiple solutions and explanations of their solutions, (b) exhibited almost identical patterns and frequency of strategy use across response occasions, and (c) used the same kinds of explanations, with a majority of the responses involving solution explanations that combined both visual and verbal/symbolic features. Nevertheless, Japanese students tended to produce explanations involving more sophisticated mathematical ideas (multiplication rather than addition) and formalisms (mathematical expressions rather than verbal explanations) than did U.S. students.     

Effect of Twinning on Chinese and English Vocabulary Knowledge

Vocabulary knowledge was tested in a native (Cantonese-Chinese) and foreign (English) language in 150 twins and 150 singletons aged 6–11 years, matched on age, gender, grade level, nonverbal intelligence, parents’ education, family income, and number of siblings and household members. The singletons clearly outperformed the twins on the native vocabulary, but this “twinning effect” was much less noticeable for the foreign vocabulary. The effect on English vocabulary was further reduced after exposure to English at home was controlled. Given that these participants learned most of their English in school rather than home, the present findings support the notion that the twinning effect is associated with increased competition for family interaction in twins compared with singletons.     

Release monitoring of single cells on a microfluidic device coupled with fluorescence microscopy and electrochemistry

A method for monitoring the biological exocytotic phenomena on a microfluidic system was proposed. A microfluidic device coupled with functionalities of fluorescence imaging and amperometric detection has been developed to enable the real-time monitoring of the exocytotic events. Exocytotic release of single SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells was studied. By staining the cells located on integrated microelectrodes with naphthalene-2,3-dicarboxaldehyde, punctuate fluorescence consistent with localization of neurotransmitters stored in vesicles was obtained. The stimulated exocytotic release was successfully observed at the surface of SH-SY5Y cells without refitting the commercial inverted fluorescence microscope. Spatially and temporally resolved exocytotic events from single cells on a microfluidic device were visualized in real time using fluorescence microscopy and were amperometrically recorded by the electrochemical system simultaneously. This coupled technique is simple and is hoped to provide new insights into the mechanisms responsible for the kinetics of exocytosis.     

Social axioms and achievement across cultures: The influence of reward for application and fate control

The present research examined the relationships between two social axiom dimensions, reward for application and fate control, with various achievement-related indexes across a wide range of cultures. Results showed that there was no relationship between reward for application and academic achievement or economic competitiveness, but reward for application was positively related to effort exertion and favorable attitudinal reactions to striving. In contrast, fate control was positively related to academic achievement and economic competitiveness, but not to effort exertion and attitudes toward striving. A number of speculations are provided to account for these intriguing findings.     

Resourcefulness: a protective factor buffer against the academic stress of school‐aged children

The objectives of this study were twofold: to examine the interaction of academic stress and student resourcefulness on subject grades and to identify the factors of parental support that contribute to student resourcefulness. The participants of this cross‐sectional study were 695 fifth and sixth graders from four major districts in Shanghai. Student resourcefulness was observed to moderate academic stress and subject grades. Moreover, perceived paternal emotional support and maternal informational support contributed significantly to student resourcefulness. The implications of this study for parent education are discussed.     

Possible factors influencing Asian students' degree of participation in peer-facilitated online discussion forums: a case study

This study investigated possible factors that might influence the degree of student participation in asynchronous online discussion forums. Degree of participation refers to the number of messages posted by the students. Data were collected from 41 forums, students' reflection logs, and students' interviews. Of these 41 forums, the top third forums (n = 14) in terms of the highest frequency of participant postings were identified. Fourteen less frequent forums were randomly chosen from the remaining forums. We also assessed the quality of the discussions found in both the more frequent and less frequent groups by examining the levels of knowledge construction exhibited in the online postings. We found that that the quality of contributions in the more frequent group was greater than those found in the less frequent group in terms of higher knowledge construction levels. Quantitative analyses showed that the duration of the discussion could not account for the difference between the two groups. Instead, the more and less frequent forums differed in terms of group size, as well as the frequency of two habits of mind displayed by the student facilitators: (a) is aware of own thinking, and (b) is accurate and seeks accuracy. Qualitative analyses of the reflection logs and interviews suggested several other important factors that could also influence students' decision to participate: (a) familiarity with the facilitator, (b) mutual obligation to help each other, (c) knowledge about the topic, and (d) availability of time. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Education and competitive economy: how do cultural dimensions fit in?

Globalization has changed the way people behave in different aspects of life. One of the significant differences is that people are now competing with everyone around the world, not just people within or near their own regions. A good way of remaining competitive is to provide quality education that can help students meet the needs of the competitive economy. However, not all nations are responding in the same way. Using a quantitative approach, this explorative study seeks to discover if, and how, cultural dimensions fit into the process of meeting the demands of the competitive economy by means of education across regions. Forty-three regions with different ratings on the Power Distance Index (PDI), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), and the Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) are included in this study. The results show that UAI, PDI and IDV are significant factors relating to this issue.     

The timing and critical incident of epistemic beliefs change in Hong Kong college students: an exploratory study

Research on epistemic beliefs (beliefs about what knowledge is and what knowing is) has advanced and there is now a burgeoning interest in examining this construct in the Chinese cultural context. However, issues related to understanding epistemic beliefs change remain under-explored. The present study used a qualitative approach to explore Chinese college students’ timing and critical incidents of epistemic beliefs change. Eight college students from Hong Kong participated in interviews and three key themes emerged from their responses. First, students identified college transition as a major source of epistemic perturbation. Second, they attributed epistemic beliefs change mostly to educational encounters. These encounters were characterized by a curriculum with multiple perspectives, being taught by teachers who could provide cognitive scaffolding for epistemic belief resolution, and assessment processes that allowed the latitude to demonstrate multiple perspectives. Furthermore, these characteristics of assessment (mainly regarding examinations) also emerged as a strand of culturally nuanced findings. Students explicitly regarded assessment influencing their epistemic beliefs and described how they differentiated their incongruent “professed” and “practised” epistemic beliefs so as to fit the rules of the public examination. The findings have yielded cultural implications and suggest the need to understand epistemic beliefs transcending the naive-sophisticated dichotomy.     

Theoretical and experimental studies of heat transfer with moving phase-change interface in freezing and thawing of porous potting soil

Soil in a cold region is subject to frequent freezing and thawing cycles. Soil frozen for a prolonged period may cause adverse freeze damage to the plants due to cell dehydration or root cell rupture. It is important to understand the detailed heat transfer behaviors of the freezing and thawing processes to prevent freeze damage, and to devise proper mitigation measures for effective pot planting in cold regions. A theoretical model was developed to analyze the transient moving phase-change interface heat transfer in the freezing and thawing of porous potting soil. The theoretical derivation is based on the assumption that the soil freezes completely at a single temperature. Microscopic poromechanic effects on heat transfer behavior were ignored. The spatial domain of the problem was simplified to a 1 D spherical coordinate system with variation in the radial direction. Green＇s function was applied to solve for the time-dependent body temperature. Experiments were conducted for validation of the theoretical model Reasonable agreement between the theoretical predictions and experimental measurements was obtained. The theoretical model developed can be easily used to determine the sensitivity of various parameters in the freezing/thawing processes, e.g., thermal properties of soil, ambient temperature, and planting pot size.     

Inducing self-rotation of cells with natural and artificial melanin in a linearly polarized alternating current electric field

The phenomenon of self-rotation observed in naturally and artificially pigmented cells under an applied linearly polarized alternating current (non-rotating) electrical field has been investigated. The repeatable and controllable rotation speeds of the cells were quantified and their dependence on dielectrophoretic parameters such as frequency, voltage, and waveform was studied. Moreover, the rotation behavior of the pigmented cells with different melanin content was compared to quantify the correlation between self-rotation and the presence of melanin. Most importantly, macrophages, which did not originally rotate in the applied non-rotating electric field, began to exhibit self-rotation that was very similar to that of the pigmented cells, after ingesting foreign particles (e.g., synthetic melanin or latex beads). We envision the discovery presented in this paper will enable the development of a rapid, non-intrusive, and automated process to obtain the electrical conductivities and permittivities of cellular membrane and cytoplasm in the near future.