Development and Application of a Three‐Tier Diagnostic Test to Assess Secondary Students’ Understanding of Waves

This study focused on the development and application of a three‐tier multiple‐choice diagnostic test (or three‐tier test) on the nature and propagation of waves. A question in a three‐tier test comprises the content tier, which measures content knowledge; the reason tier, which measures explanatory knowledge; and the confidence tier, which measures the strength of conceptual understanding of the respondents. This paper presents results based on the responses of 243 Grade 10 students after they were formally instructed on the topic. The vast majority of the respondents showed an inadequate grasp of concepts about waves. Eleven alternative conceptions (ACs), which were expressed with confidence by more than 10% of the students, were identified; four of these ACs were expressed with high confidence.     

民族学生汉语教学中情景教学与课外活动结合模式的探索与实践

提高民族学生的汉语水平,重在提高汉语运用能力。本文针对教学过程中民族学生汉语文学习语用能力差的特点,介绍了几种情景教学和课外活动的教学方法,旨在加强学生的语用训练,使学生进一步了解汉语的社会文化规范,提高他们在特定语境中准确表情达意的能力。     

Using Johnson's Transformation With Approximate Test Statistics for the Simple Regression Slope Homogeneity

The authors used Johnson's transformation with approximate test statistics to test the homogeneity of simple linear regression slopes when both x_ij and x_ij may have nonnormal distributions and there is Type I heteroscedasticity, Type II heteroscedasticity, or complete heteroscedasticity. The test statistic t was first transformed by Johnson's method for each group to correct the nonnormality and to correct the heteroscedasticity; also an approximate test, such as the Welch test or the DeShon-Alexander test, was applied to test the homogeneity of the regression slopes. Computer simulations showed that the proposed technique can control Type I error rate under various circumstances. Finally, the authors provide an example to demonstrate the calculation.     

Organization of Concepts Relevant to Emotions and their Regulation During Test Taking

The purpose of this study was to assess aspects of college students' organization of concepts related to emotions and their regulation during test taking. The authors also evaluated whether students who report having problems with test anxiety hold a different conceptual organization about test taking compared with students who do not report having such problems. Concepts relevant to emotions and their regulation during test taking were sampled from the emotion and emotional regulation literature. Participants rated how similar these concepts were during test taking. These ratings were then submitted to multidimensional scaling analyses (MDS). The resulting arrangement of concepts provides insight into the underlying organizational conceptions held by low, moderate, and high test-anxious participants. Students' organizational schemes surrounded 2 dimensions: (a) task-focus and (b) pleasantness. High test-anxious participants had differing conceptual organizations about test taking than moderate and low test-anxious participants with regard to pleasantness. In addition, the high test-anxious participants saw task-focused processes such as reading directions during test taking as more highly related to unpleasant emotions like anxiety than moderate and low test-anxious participants.     

The Interactive Effects of Personal Achievement Goals and Performance Feedback in an Undergraduate Science Class

The authors explored whether manipulating feedback influenced cognition, motivation, and achievement in an undergraduate chemistry course. They measured students’ (N = 250) achievement goals, test anxiety, self-efficacy, and metacognitive strategy use at the beginning and end of the semester. After completing the first set of questionnaires, students were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: (a) control, (b) mastery feedback, (c) performance-approach feedback, and (d) combined mastery/performance-approach feedback. In each condition, students received a raw performance score for each weekly quiz they completed online and, for the treatment conditions, additional feedback reflective of that specific feedback condition. Results provide evidence for the multiple goals perspective (specialized pattern) wherein performance-oriented feedback was beneficial for some outcomes, whereas mastery feedback was beneficial for other outcomes.     

I Can't Make Heads Or Tails Out Of What You Are Saying,So Let's Just Agree To Be Fair

Assuming a coin is fair is common place in introductory statistical education. This article offers three approaches to test if a coin is fair. The approaches lend themselves to straightforward simulation studies that can enrich student understanding of joint probability and sample size requirements. Simulation studies comparing the relative merits of the three, or potential other, approaches are an example of problem‐based learning.     

Test anxiety in mathematics among early undergraduate students in a British university in Malaysia

The level of test anxiety in mathematics subjects among early undergraduate students at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus is studied in this article. The sample consists of 206 students taking several mathematics modules who completed the questionnaires on test anxiety just before they entered the venue for midterm examinations. The sample data include the differences in the context of academic levels, gender groups and nationality backgrounds. The level of test anxiety in mathematics is measured using seven Likert questionnaire statements adapted from the Test Anxiety Inventory describing one's emotional feeling before the start of an examination. In general, the result shows that the students who had a lower score expectation were more anxious than those who had a higher score expectation, but that they obtained a better score than the expected score. In the context of academic levels, gender groups and nationality backgrounds, there were no significant correlations between the level of test anxiety and the students’ academic performance. The effect size of the correlation values ranged from extremely small to moderate.     

A Teacher Who Left His Mark

Abstract

Discussion of the nature of critical thinking and the ways in which it can be enhanced has increased in recent years among social work educators, and yet little is known about the impact of MSW education on the critical thinking of students. This paper examines the nature of critical thinking, presents an adult cognitive developmental model, the Reflective Judgment Model (King &; Kitchener, 1994), which holds promise for enlarging social work's understanding of critical thinking and examines approaches to teaching which enhance critical thinking. The Reflective Judgment Model focuses on the development of assumptions about knowledge and the process of knowing as development occurs through adulthood. Specific implications for creating classroom and field learning environments are detailed, including characteristics of effective teachers and of effective assignments.     

合作学习模式培养阅读兴趣促进非英语专业大学生应对新四级

在英语教师贯彻执行《大学英语课程要求》的前提下,结合2005年推行的大学英语四级改革办法。阐述如何改变教学方法,转变教学观念,改变教学思路,并通过实践和研究,探索应对快速阅读及仔细阅读的技能和技巧,摸索出促进我校学生快速适应新四级考试的教学方法。