More Powerful Tests of Simple Interaction Contrasts in the Two-Way Factorial Design

For the two-way factorial design in analysis of variance, the current article explicates and compares three methods for controlling the Type I error rate for all possible simple interaction contrasts following a statistically significant interaction, including a proposed modification to the Bonferroni procedure that increases the power of statistical tests for deconstructing interaction effects when they are of primary substantive interest. Results indicate the general superiority of the modified Bonferroni procedure over Scheffé and Roy-type procedures, where the Bonferroni and Scheffé procedures have been modified to accommodate the logical implications of a false omnibus interaction null hypothesis. An applied example is provided and considerations for applied researchers are offered.     

Student and Teacher Perspectives in Computer-Mediated Learning Environments in Teacher Education

Rapid advances in technology, particularly with the Internet, have led to the availability of numerous tools to support teaching and learning. This study involved the use of an Internet application, Connecting Communities of Learners (CCL), in courses for prospective teachers. Unlike earlier studies involving the use of the CCL, the context of this study related to full-time graduate students who used the CCL to augment weekly face-to-face instruction. An interpretive study was undertaken to ascertain student and teacher perceptions of the learning environments associated with the use of the CCL. Through the use of the CCL, students were able to be autonomous in regard to their own learning, co-participate with their peers and the instructor, and establish and maintain a community of learners in which participants could interact with others as co-teachers and co-learners. The CCL was perceived as a useful tool for building learning environments in which all participants can contribute written texts as evidence of what is known and as objects from which others can learn. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The microworld of Phoenix Quest: social and cognitive considerations

The present paper explores social and cognitive considerations in the context of a computer-game microworld or learning culture environment. Forty-one boys and 57 girls, aged 8 to 12 years (Grades 4, 5, and 6) were observed playing a computer game called Phoenix Quest. This computer game, featuring an adolescent female protagonist, is an interactive, mystery-adventure with embedded language and mathematics activities. The issues discussed include (a) the development of a computer game learning culture or microworld, (b) interdependence in the process of learning social skills, (c) computer game-playing strategies, (d) gender differences in computer-game play, and (e) mathematics concepts explored in the Phoenix Quest environment. These findings not only contribute to the understanding of how students create and shape a microworld around a computer game like Phoenix Quest, but also indicate some of the inherent teaching and learning limitations of educational software when the guidance of a teacher is absent.     

计算机交互中娱乐性问题的心理学研究

随着计算机技术的普及和广泛应用,计算机交互的娱乐性问题引起心理学家的关注,并形成特质论和状态论两种观点。基于这两种观点的研究,并重点讨论了最近 Woszczynski提出的交互作用模型。根据该模型,娱乐性是既包含特质影响也包含情境作用的人格因素,其中人格特质为潜在变量,情境作用为外源性变量,两者的结合共同调节着计算机交互中个体的行为。针对该模型存在的问题,今后有必要发展可用于分离特质和状态这两种不同心理成分的测量技术,并纳入到整合研究的范式中开展研究。     

Effect Analysis Using Nonlinear Structural Equation Mixture Modeling

In this article, we present an approach for comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of interventions based on nonlinear structural equation mixture models (NSEMM). We provide definitions of average and conditional effects and show how they can be computed. We extend the traditional moderated regression approach to include latent continous and discrete (mixture) variables as well as their higher order interactions, quadratic or more general nonlinear relationships. This new approach can be considered a combination of the recently proposed EffectLiteR approach and the NSEMM approach. A key advantage of this synthesis is that it gives applied researchers the opportunity to gain greater insight into the effectiveness of the intervention. For example, it makes it possible to consider structural equation models for situations where the treatment is noneffective for extreme values of a latent covariate but is effective for medium values, as we illustrate using an example from the educational sciences.     

Questions to assess learning as a communicative routine for inclusion

In the context of rapid policy transformation from segregation to inclusion in the education of children with special educational needs in Ireland, a study was conducted to investigate the interplay between policy and principles of inclusion, resource teachers' and class teachers' interpretations of this and the manner in which policy and principle is enacted in their practice. Based on nine resource teachers and nine class teachers each paired in a particular school, interviews to elicit teachers' interpretations combined with observations to document the detail of practice generated data from which nine case studies were crafted. Findings revealed that teachers' interpretations and constructions of inclusive practice are grounded in the central tenets of communicative routines, attunement and coherence‐fragmentation. As such, the pedagogical practices central to facilitating inclusion are as follows: teachers' use of questions to assess learning and mediated talk; transactional teaching–learning interactions contributing to transformational teaching‐learning episodes; and optimal interfacing of resource teachers and class teachers. This article, by Órla Ní Bhroin of St Patrick's College, Dublin City University, focuses on teachers' use of questioning to assess learning as a communicative routine for inclusion.     

一种新设计的技术媒介远程教学模式理论分析框架

本文尝试建立一种新设计的技术媒介远程教学模式理论分析框架。首先指出教育技术学和教育传播学对研究技术媒介的远程教学的理论指导意义。在分析比较人际面授教学与技术媒介教学的基础上,进一步将技术媒介教学划分成技术环境中的面授教学和技术媒介的远程教学两类,随后集中论述技术媒介的远程教学的各种模式：教学信息传输模式、远程教学交互模式、远程学习模式,以及远程教学与远程学习的时空分离模式。最后,提出并讨论新设计的技术媒介远程教学模式的理论分析框架。     

边界约束下旋量场及其相互作用的量子化

首先利用Fadeev-Jakiw方法对存在边界约束的旋量场进行量子化,计算电子-电子相互作用二级近似的散射矩阵,发现边界条件将引起波矢的重新分布。因而当旋量粒子存在相互作用时,作用引起的量子跃迁有的模式被限制了。     

Implementation fidelity of MyTeachingPartner literacy and language activities: Association with preschoolers’ language and literacy growth

There is surprisingly little empirical research examining issues of fidelity of implementation within the early childhood education literature. In the MyTeachingPartner project, 154 teachers were provided with materials to implement a supplemental classroom curriculum addressing six aspects of literacy and language development. The present study examines the degree of variability in three aspects of implementation fidelity – dosage, adherence, and quality of delivery – and whether these components of fidelity were associated with children's growth in language and literacy skills across the preschool year. Findings indicate that teachers reported using the curriculum fairly often (dosage) and that they were observed to generally follow curricular lesson plans (adherence). In contrast, the quality of delivery, defined as the use of evidence-based teacher–child interactions for teaching literacy and language, was much lower. Children in classrooms in which activities were observed to last for longer (dosage) and in which teachers exhibited higher quality of delivery of literacy lessons made significantly greater gains in early literacy skills across the preschool year. Also, teachers’ use of higher quality language interactions was associated with gains for children who did not speak English at home. Results have implications for teacher professional development and the supports provided to ensure that curricula are delivered most effectively.     

Dynamics of student interactions: an empirical study of orienteering lessons in physical education

Introduction: Many studies in physical education (PE) have sought to identify and categorize the modes of student interaction in order to gain greater insight into the nature of cooperative activity. More others recent studies have examined how modes of interaction evolve on the basis of the modes of collective activity that they generate. These studies have shown to describe and explain the interactions among individuals and the processes they generate, which then lead to the construction, deconstruction or reconstruction of different interaction modes. Although some studies have sought to describe the dynamics of student interactions, very few have quantified these dynamics. By doing so, however, researchers might gain a new perspective on student interaction modes that inspires new designs for teaching in PE, thereby having professional impact. The present study extends this research by investigating the dynamics of student interaction, with a focus on the emergence of interaction modes during orienteering lessons. For this purpose, the study was conducted within the methodological framework of course of action theory, which is an effective approach for examining activity in natural situations to provide insight into the experience of activity from the actors perspective.

Method: The study was conducted in two classes of seventh-grade students (about 12 years old) in which 16 students volunteered and were available for post-action interviews immediately after the lessons under study. These volunteers were placed in eight affinity-based dyads. The teachers planned orienteering lessons at similar levels of difficulty and duration but modified the lessons across a range of contextual features. Two categories of data were collected: (1) data from audiovisual recordings as the students searched for the checkpoints and (2) verbalization data during the post-action interviews with the students. The data were processed in two steps: one qualitative, the other quantitative. The qualitative step consisted of processing the data of the student experiences to characterize their interactions in the three different contexts. In the quantitative step, the data from the first step were graphically represented to depict the interaction dynamics within the student dyads.

Results and discussion: The qualitative analysis showed the emergence of three modes of student interaction shared across each learning context: co-construction, confrontation and delegation. The quantitative analysis revealed the percentages of the different modes of interaction and therefore characterized the interaction dynamics. Our results showed that the interaction dynamics within the dyads were both unique and similar in the task contexts in terms of both ratios of change and distribution. Results are discussed across two major points of interest: (1) the observation of the same interaction modes whatever the context yet with quite different dynamics and (2) proposals for PE teacher interventions.