Instructional Interventions Across the Inquiry Process

ABSTRACT

Information literacy aims to develop in students the necessary skills, knowledge, and dispositions to use information to solve problems, make decisions, and generate new knowledge. The literature is replete with examples of guiding students in accessing and evaluating information sources. Less prevalent is processing information—the heart of the inquiry. Analysis, inference, and synthesis are critical thinking skills that take information literacy beyond a bibliographic task. In this liberal arts college setting, librarians team with consultants in quantitative reasoning, writing, and presentation technologies to deliver an information literacy program that supports not only the search, but also the analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and presentation of findings and insights.     

Health Sciences Patron Preference for Library Spaces: A Multisite Observational Study

Health sciences libraries are often challenged to make decisions regarding physical space allocation without quantitative data to support specific user preferences. This multisite, longitudinal study sought to answer the following questions related to academic health sciences libraries: (1) Which library spaces are popular with health sciences patrons? (2) How does time of day and allocated seating space affect patron choices? (3) What similarities and differences occur in space usage across four different health sciences libraries? Results suggest health sciences libraries must develop a nuanced understanding of their patrons’ preferences to best serve patrons’ needs regarding space allocation. Libraries can benefit from these types of methodological studies that target specific populations, supporting more informed space allocation decision making.     

How Unequal Is the United States? Adolescents’ Images of Social Stratification

This study highlights the use of pictorial images to understand adolescents’ views on social stratification. A continuum of five visual images of social stratification were presented to a diverse sample of five hundred ninety-eight 8th–12th graders (14–18 years old). Adolescents selected which image best represented the United States (today, in 20 years, how it ought to be). Images ranged from inequitable to egalitarian. Results supported reference group and possible selves theories. Adolescents in higher status families chose a more egalitarian image for how the United States is today and how it ought to be. African Americans considered the United States today more unequal. Differences in adolescents’ commitment to an egalitarian ideal depended on their reactions to inequality and their beliefs about government responsiveness, bolstering the measure's validity.     

BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT IN PRESCHOOL CLASSROOMS: INSIGHTS REVEALED THROUGH SYSTEMATIC OBSERVATION AND INTERVIEW

This mixed methods study examined behavior management strategies used by preschool teachers to address student noncompliance in the classroom. Specifically, the study aimed to (1) examine the methods that preschool teachers are currently using to respond to noncompliant behavior in their classrooms, (2) measure the frequency with which each strategy is used or attempted, and (3) examine the reasons that teachers have chosen to use particular strategies. Observations and teacher interviews were conducted in five classrooms across two preschools located in a Midwest state. Results revealed that teachers use a variety of strategies to address noncompliance, many of which were also preventative in nature and designed to increase students’ self‐regulation. In addition, behavior management techniques that are currently recommended by research (e.g., guided compliance and proximity praise) were generally practiced by teachers in the participating schools. However, students were reinforced for appropriate behavior following noncompliance less than one‐third of the time. These results suggest that teachers are using a broad range of recommended strategies, but the results also serve as a reminder of the importance of providing positive reinforcement for appropriate behavior following an episode of noncompliance. Additional implications for school practitioners and future research are provided.     

Learning analytics application to examine validity and generalizability of game-based assessment for spatial reasoning

Game-based assessment (GBA), a specific application of games for learning, has been recognized as an alternative form of assessment. While there is a substantive body of literature that supports the educational benefits of GBA, limited work investigates the validity and generalizability of such systems. In this paper, we describe applications of learning analytics methods to provide evidence for psychometric qualities of a digital GBA called Shadowspect, particularly to what extent Shadowspect is a robust assessment tool for middle school students' spatial reasoning skills. Our findings indicate that Shadowspect is a valid assessment for spatial reasoning skills, and it has comparable precision for both male and female students. In addition, students' enjoyment of the game is positively related to their overall competency as measured by the game regardless of the level of their existing spatial reasoning skills.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic:

• Digital games can be a powerful context to support and assess student learning.
• Games as assessments need to meet certain psychometric qualities such as validity and generalizability.
• Learning analytics provide useful ways to establish assessment models for educational games, as well as to investigate their psychometric qualities.

What this paper adds:

• How a digital game can be coupled with learning analytics practices to assess spatial reasoning skills.
• How to evaluate psychometric qualities of game-based assessment using learning analytics techniques.
• Investigation of validity and generalizability of game-based assessment for spatial reasoning skills and the interplay of the game-based assessment with enjoyment.

Implications for practice and/or policy:

• Game-based assessments that incorporate learning analytics can be used as an alternative to pencil-and-paper tests to measure cognitive skills such as spatial reasoning.
• More training and assessment of spatial reasoning embedded in games can motivate students who might not be on the STEM tracks, thus broadening participation in STEM.
• Game-based learning and assessment researchers should consider possible factors that affect how certain populations of students enjoy educational games, so it does not further marginalize specific student populations.

     

Contextualizing privacy with wearable data in higher education

This conceptual study uses dynamic systems theory (DST) and phenomenology as lenses to examine data privacy implications surrounding wearable devices that incorporate stakeholder, contextual and technical factors. Wearable devices can impact people's behaviour and sense of self, and DST and phenomenology provide complementary approaches for emphasizing the subjective experiences of individuals that occur with the use of wearable data. Privacy is approached through phenomenology as an individual's lived bodily experience and DST emphasizes the self-regulation and feedback loops of individuals and their uses of wearable data. The data collection, analysis and communication of wearable data to support learning systems alongside privacy implications for each are examined. The IoT, cloud computing, metadata and algorithms are discussed as they relate to wearable data, pointing out privacy risks and strategies to minimize harm.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Data privacy is a complex topic and is approached through different perspectives, influencing the degree of an individual's data autonomy.
• Wearable technology is increasing in the consumer market and offers great potential to learning environments.

What this paper adds

• Extends extant literature on dynamic systems theory and phenomenology, contributing these perspectives to educational research in the context of student data privacy and wearable technologies.
• Provides a framework to understand the complex and contingent ways that privacy can be understood in the collection, analysis, and communication of wearable data to support learning.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• Higher education faculty and educational policymakers should consider various interactions in systems and among systems of how wearable data collection may be analysed, communicated and stored, potentially exposing students to privacy harms.
• Multiple actors in learning systems must engage in continuous and evolving feedback loops around data security, consent, ownership and control to determine who has access to student data, how it is used and for what purposes.
• The EU's General Data Protection and Regulation offers one of the most comprehensive frameworks for higher education institutions and faculty around the world to follow for protecting student data privacy.