Physiological reactivity to fear moderates the relation between parenting distress with conduct and prosocial behaviors

This study investigated whether the associations between parental distress with conduct problems (CPs) and prosocial behaviors (PBs) are moderated by children's skin conductance (SC) and heart rate (HR) reactivity to fear. Participants were 147 Greek-Cypriot children (M_age = 7.30, 44.2% girls), selected from a larger screening sample (data were collected from 2015 to 2018). Longitudinal associations suggested that children with high HR reactivity to fear were more likely to display PB, whereas those with low SC reactivity were more likely to engage in CP behaviors. In contrast, interaction effects suggested that children high on SC reactivity to fear were more susceptible to the effects of parental distress, as indicated by their higher vulnerability to engage in CP (cross-sectionally) behaviors and their lower scores on PB (cross-sectionally and longitudinally).     

Effects of experimenting with physical and virtual manipulatives on students' conceptual understanding in heat and temperature

This study aimed to investigate the comparative value of experimenting with physical manipulatives (PM) in a sequential combination with virtual manipulatives (VM), with the use of PM preceding the use of VM, and of experimenting with PM alone, with respect to changes in students' conceptual understanding in the domain of heat and temperature. A pre–post‐comparison study design was used which involved 62 undergraduate students that attended an introductory course in physics. The participants were randomly assigned to one experimental and one control group. Both groups used the same inquiry‐oriented curriculum materials. Participants in the control group used PM to conduct the experiments, whereas, participants in the experimental group used first PM and then VM. VM differed from PM in that it could provide the possibility of faster manipulation, whereas, it retained any other features and interactions of the study's subject domain identical to the PM condition. Conceptual tests were administered to assess students' understanding before, during, and after the study's treatments. Results indicated that experimenting with the combination of PM and VM enhanced students' conceptual understanding more than experimenting with PM alone. The use of VM was identified as the cause of this differentiation. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 1021–1035, 2008     

Implementing the Internet for business: A global marketing opportunity

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it discusses the use of the Internet and the World Wide Web for marketing and compares Internet and World Wide Web Marketing with traditional media Marketing. Then it discusses the impacts of Internet and World Wide Web marketing, how large they are, and how marketing and organizations are going to respond to these, which leads to the need for new business strategies. A presentation on how the Internet is currently being used in business serves as the anchor for the above discussion.     

Types of reasoning in 3D geometry thinking and their relation with spatial ability

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse the structure of 3D geometry thinking by identifying different types of reasoning and to examine their relation with spatial ability. To achieve this goal, two tests were administered to students in grades 5 to 9. The results of the study showed that 3D geometry thinking could be described by four distinct types of reasoning which refer to the representation of 3D objects, spatial structuring, conceptualisation of mathematical properties and measurement. The analysis of the study also showed that 3D geometry types of reasoning and spatial abilities should be modelled as different constructs. Finally, it was concluded that students’ spatial abilities, which consist of spatial visualisation, spatial orientation and spatial relations factors, are a strong predictive factor of the four types of reasoning in 3D geometry thinking.     

An interdisciplinary collaboration between computer engineering and mathematics/bilingual education to develop a curriculum for underrepresented middle school students

There is a strong need in the United States to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups who pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Drawing from sociocultural theory, we present approaches to establishing collaborations between computer engineering and mathematics/bilingual education faculty to address this need. We describe our work through the Advancing Out-of-School Learning in Mathematics and Engineering project by illustrating how an integrated curriculum that is based on mathematics with applications in image and video processing can be designed and how it can be implemented with middle school students from underrepresented groups.