Using combinations of video,audio and print to teach French at a distance: A case study of the formative evaluation cycle

The materials, procedures and findings of an evaluation of initial approaches to the use of audio visual media in a course teaching the French language to distance learners are reported as a case study of a formative evaluation. The study illustrates the design-research-revision stages of the formative evaluation cycle. Innovative features of the course were the pivotal role played by audiovisual (videocassette and audiocassette) media in providing resource material for teaching and learning, the use of short sequences for intensive study and the high degree of integration between the audiovisual media and the print. Key teaching design features of the draft audiovisual and print packages were identified and evaluated in terms of students’ reactions to them. Central issues of teaching design are discussed in relation to revisions made to the course materials in the light of the evaluation.     

STEM Performance and Supply: Assessing the Evidence for Education Policy

The relationship between education policy and workforce policy has long been uneasy. It is widely believed in many quarters of American society that the U.S. education system is in decline and, what’s more, that it bears significant responsibility for a wide range of social ills, including stagnant wages, increasing inequality, high unemployment, and overall economic lethargy. However, as analyzed in this paper, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the U.S. education system has produced ample supplies of students to respond to STEM labor market demand. The “pipeline” of STEM-potential students is similarly strong and expanding.

     

Steady forced vibrations of single mass systems with symmetrical as well as iinsymmetrical non-linear restoring elements

Part of the theory and all the experiments reported on in this paper were condensed into a four-page discussion or addendum to Professor Den Hartog's original paper on “Amplitudes of Non-Harmonic Vibrations” at the time of its presentation at the June Meeting of the A.S.M.E. in Chicago, 1933. Upon the instigation of Professor Den Hartog and the Editor of the Journal of the Franklin Institute, the original discussion has been brought into the present form.     

A new family of old Hirsch index variants

The Hirsch index h and the g index proposed by Egghe as well as the f index and the t index proposed by Tol are shown to be special cases of a family of Hirsch index variants, based on the generalized mean with exponent p. Inequalities between the different indices are derived from the generalized mean inequality. The graphical determination of the indices is shown for one example.     

A case study of the modified g index: Counting multi-author publications fractionally

The citation records of 26 physicists are analyzed in order to determine the modified g index g_m which takes multiple coauthorship into account by fractionalized counting of the publications. The results are compared with the original g index as well as with the h index and the respective modified h index h_m. Although the correlations between these indices are relatively strong, the arrangement of the datasets is significantly different in detail depending on whether they are put into order according to the values of either the original or the modified indices.     

Social justice and curriculum renewal for Samoan students: an Australian case study

This paper examines the construction of ‘socially just’ curriculum renewal initiatives for Samoan students in a low socio-economic secondary school. Basil Bernstein's concept of recontextualization is used to investigate the implementation of Queensland's Social Justice Strategy at the school level. Interview data provided by the school's first two ‘social justice coordinators’ is analysed, focussing on the categorizations of students and discourses operative within the reform initiatives. Shifts in what counted as socially just curriculum for Samoan students are documented. The focus is on the varying strength of the boundaries of cultural categories (i.e. ‘Samoan’) and on tensions over the emphasis on the cultural knowledge of community representatives and the professional knowledge of school educators. The findings make explicit implications for the distribution of discursive resources to the Samoan students and, hence, life chances in a world in which English is a tool needed by young Australians irrespective of their cultural background.     

Static to Dynamic: Professional Identity as Inventory,Invention, and Performance in Classrooms and Workplaces

Although self-assessment is an important genre in both the academy and the workplace, it is often static. The resulting fixed identities are problematic in a creative economy that requires fluidity. Drawing on the work of Carruthers and Goffman, among others, we argue that memory and meditation, encompassing inventory and invention and coupled with rhetorical performance, constitute dynamic self-assessment.     

A high resolution laser scanning model of the Roman theater in Pinara,Turkey – comparison to previous measurements and search for the causes of damage

The archaeological site Pinara, southwest Turkey, which includes several remarkable objects of cultural heritage, has been the focus of several previous archaeoseismic studies. One of these examined the setting of the Roman theater in the east of Pinara by a lidar survey. A gross inclination of the stone rows of the auditorium of 0.81° towards N 314°E was interpreted as a consequence of recent coseismic tectonic movements. A new survey of the theater with a terrestrial phase laser scanner is the basis for a model with 15 times higher resolution and 28 times more data points. Parallel to the fieldwork in this study, the process and accuracy of the leveling of the 3D point clouds produced by the scanner was tested in a series of experiments. Based on the orientation of the blocks forming the seats of the theater, we suggest six sections with changing average inclination of the seats and a fault line separating a northern and a southern section. While the previously found overall inclination of the auditorium is confirmed by the new model and the dip direction agrees, the inclination is 0.58° compared to previously determined 0.81°. The almost perfect increase of inclination with the height of the first 10 entire seating rows and the nearly constant inclination from row 11 onward, makes systematic measurement errors during the construction a possible cause. This is an alternative scenario to the interpretation of a coseismic displacement of the conglomerate block on which the theater was built.     

Characteristics of respondents who respond differently to positively and negatively worded items on rating scales

Although evidence prevails that including positively and negatively worded items within the same scale can lead to differential response patterns, little is known about factors that predict how different these responses will be. Thus, three datasets were analysed to investigate the characteristics of respondents whose responses between positively and negatively worded items are most different. The three studies yielded two major findings: (i) responses to the positively worded items yielded statistically significantly higher means than did responses to the negatively worded items, and (ii) several characteristics were identified pertaining to those who tend to have the largest absolute discrepancies in responses between the two sets of items.