ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Simultaneous Stimulus Preexposure Enhances Human Tactile Perceptual Learning
Author: Rodríguez, Gabriel
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Experimental Psychology,Perceptual Motor Learning,Perceptual Development,Tactual Perception,Stimuli,Foreign Countries,College Students

An experiment with human participants established a novel procedure to assess perceptual learning with tactile stimuli. Participants received unsupervised exposure to two sandpaper surfaces differing in roughness (A and B). The ability of the participants to discriminate between the stimuli was subsequently assessed on a same/different test. It was found that prior exposure to the stimuli led to more accurate judgements on the different-trials. Furthermore, simultaneous exposure to the stimuli enhanced this accuracy more than sequential exposure (A, B, A, B…). These findings extend recent results from visual studies to the tactile modality, confirming that simultaneous exposure produces a marked perceptual learning effect.
Proportion Congruent Effects in the Absence of Sequential Congruent Effects
Author: Torres-Quesada, Maryem
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Congruence (Psychology),Executive Function,Interference (Learning),Conflict,Undergraduate Students,Perception Tests,Reaction Time,Statistical Analysis

A debated question in the cognitive control field is whether cognitive control is best conceptualized as a collection of distinct control mechanisms or a single general purpose mechanism. In an attempt to answer this question, previous studies have dissociated two well-known effects related to cognitive control: sequential congruence and proportion congruent effects. In the present experiment, we pursued a similar goal by using a different strategy: to test whether proportion congruent effects can be present in conditions where sequential congruence effects are absent. We used a paradigm in which two conflict types are randomly intermixed (Simon and Spatial Stroop) and the proportion of congruency is manipulated for one conflict type and kept neutral for the other conflict type. Our results showed that in conflict type alternation trials, where sequential congruence effects were absent, proportion congruent effects were still present. It can be concluded that, at least under certain circumstances, sequential congruence and proportion congruent effects can be independent of each other and specific to the conflict type.
The Effect of Colour and Size on Attentional Bias to Alcohol-Related Pictures
Author: Harrison, Neil R.
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Color,Attention,Addictive Behavior,Alcohol Abuse,Reaction Time,Cues,Visual Stimuli,Pictorial Stimuli,Adults,Bias,Experimental Psychology

Attentional bias plays an important role in the development and maintenance of alcohol addiction, and has often been measured with a visual probe task, where reaction times are compared for probes replacing either a substance-related cue or a neutral cue. Systematic low-level differences between image classes are a potential cause of low internal reliability of the probe task (Ataya et al., 2012). Moreover, it is unclear whether automatic attentional capture by low-level properties such as size and colour in the non-substance related image could reduce attentional bias to the alcohol-related cue. Here, alcohol-related attentional bias was assessed in moderate social drinkers by measuring reaction times to targets that replaced either an alcohol-related or a non-alcohol related (i.e., neutral) picture. All alcohol-related images were greyscale, and the neutral stimulus could be either greyscale (&quot;control&quot;), in colour (&quot;colour&quot;), or greyscale and 25% larger in size (&quot;25% larger size&quot;). We found attentional bias towards the alcohol-related stimuli in the control and 25% larger size conditions, but not in the colour condition. The magnitude of attentional bias was significantly reduced in the colour condition compared to the control and 25% larger size conditions. These findings indicate that salient low-level features in the non-substance related cue, in particular colour, can reduce the effect of alcohol-related content on the allocation of alcohol drinkers&apos; attention. Further, the results highlight the need for image pairs in visual probe tasks to be closely matched on basic perceptual dimensions.
Combat Sports Bloggers, Mad Scientist Poets, and Comic Scriptwriters: Engaging Boys in Writing on Their Own Terms
Author: Loeper, Rachel
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: After School Programs,Writing Strategies,Writing Skills,Writing Instruction,Writing Processes,Writing Workshops,Learner Engagement,Disadvantaged,Learning Strategies,Community Programs,Males,Middle School Students,Role Models,Interviews

As the program director of a community writing center that serves children and youth ages 5-18, Rachel Loeper sees it all, from 15-year-old spoken word poets to six-year-olds whose first &quot;books&quot; are strung together with yarn. In all of her roles--administrator, teacher, volunteer trainer--she values engaging the most reluctant of young writers. Therefore she began to focus on a few middle school boys who frequented the center, Mighty Writers in South Philadelphia. All were students of color; eight of the 10 were considered to be &quot;at risk&quot; in school because they received free or reduced-priced lunch. They were noisy, rambunctious, and disruptive to other writers. They tended to rush through their prewriting and were careless in their drafting. Revision was a struggle and proofreading barely a thought. Loeper wanted to discover strategies to better engage these boys and others like them in writing in out-of-school time (OST) programs. She wanted these boys to experience what Csikszentmihalyi (1975) calls &quot;flow&quot;: the feeling of being fully absorbed in a challenging but enjoyable task. In her research, Loeper found that, before flow can occur, students must be given the opportunity to take small, incremental steps toward engaging in the writing process with the support of adults and peers. They must go through the writing process in safety, with encouragement and real critical feedback from people they know. The onus then is on educators, mentors, parents, and other adults to create engaging and collaborative opportunities through which boys can experience the writing process. In this article, Loeper describes how her inquiry into the experience of 10 boys in Mighty Writers workshops helped her identify some key indicators of engagement that can move boys toward the flow experience.
How to Build a Robot: Collaborating to Strengthen STEM Programming in a Citywide System
Author: Groome, Meghan
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: STEM Education,After School Programs,Robotics,Science Course Improvement Projects,Youth Programs,Partnerships in Education,Program Development,Mentors,Middle School Students

You have to stick with it. It takes time, patience, trial and error, failure, and persistence. It is almost never perfect or finished, but, with a good team, you can build something that works. These are the lessons youth learn when building a robot, as many do in the out-of-school time (OST) programs supported by the initiative described in this article. Similarly, implementing high-quality, sustainable programming in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) across the largest publicly funded OST system in the country took time, teamwork, and persistence. In this article, the authors describe how the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) and the New York Academy of Sciences collaborated to develop a replicable program model for increasing the capacity of OST organizations to provide STEM learning opportunities. The process of developing this model and the lessons they learned provide a roadmap for other OST systems looking to enhance program capacity.
Beating the Language Barrier in Science Education: In-Service Educators' Coping with Slow Learners in Mauritius
Author: Cyparsade, Mohun
Date: 2013-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Science Instruction,Earth Science,Learning Processes,Role Playing,Information Technology,Teaching Methods,Observation,Focus Groups,Interviews,Barriers,Language of Instruction,Native Language,Second Language Learning,Creoles,Writing (Composition),Hands on Science,Oral Language,National Curriculum,French,English (Second Language),Astronomy,Learning Motivation,Learning Problems,Pretests Posttests,Computer Software

This study describes how in-service teachers in the pre-vocational sector in Mauritius adopted specific strategies to overcome the language barrier in the learning of science (Van Driel, Verloop &amp; de Vos, 1998). Students of form III were taught few basic ideas related to &quot;Earth &amp; Space&quot; through the use of role play and ICT. The concepts chosen for this study were &quot;occurrence of day and night&quot;, &quot;relative positions and motions of the Earth, the Moon and the Sun&quot; and &quot;main constituents of our solar system&quot;. Classroom observations, focus group discussions with students, interviews with educators and post-test for students show that role play and ICT can potentially overcome the language barrier in the learning of science at pre-vocational level. Findings reveal that reading and writing should be kept to a minimum while use of Mother Tongue (Kreol language) and hands-on activities with oral interactions must be encouraged during lessons conducted in pre-vocational schools.
Risk Communication about Nuclear Power in Korea: One-Year Descriptive Analysis on Twitter
Author: Kim, Minkee
Date: 2013-09-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Science and Society,Nuclear Energy,Risk,Communication (Thought Transfer),Social Networks,Telecommunications,Advertising,Attitudes

Over the last three decades, public understanding of science (PUS) has been one of the foremost research topics in the Korean society where numerous social scientific conflicts have taken place. As a lead channel of risk communication, Twitter has been studied in experimental research designs or among target user groups, leaving the measurement of overall PUS still unknown. Hence, this study aimed to examine every message collected during the one-year research period by a Twitter backup system installed on an online server, regarding the two key words: &quot;nuclear power&quot; and &quot;nuclear power plants.&quot; The results indicate that 20% of the entire posts contained promotional advertisements distributed by five state institutes related to nuclear power. Excluding these advertisements, there were 397,827 messages posted by 87,966 users forming a skewed distribution in the cumulative chart--a sled-shape model. Top 5% of the entire users posted half of the entire messages, while top 0.2% users entitled as active speakers posted 10% of the entire messages. As only 11% messages among the active users held balanced attitudes, it is likely that most of messages posted by the supporting state institutes and the opposing individuals would gain less credibility than they were intended, according to the theory of bidirectional risk communication.
Observational Investigation of Student Problem Solving: The Role and Importance of Habits
Author: Gulacar, Ozcan
Date: 2013-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Problem Solving,College Students,Chemistry,Science Instruction,College Science,Predictor Variables,Correlation,Science Tests,Protocol Analysis,Learning Strategies,Undergraduate Study,Student Characteristics,Stoichiometry,Mixed Methods Research,Observation,Academic Achievement,Comparative Analysis,Study Habits

The problem-solving strategies of students enrolled in general chemistry courses have been the subject of numerous research investigations. In most cases, the investigators were interested in the specific areas or concepts that posed the greatest difficulty to a student's success in achieving the correct answer. However, the investigation reported here is based on a study of student problem-solving habits that have been classified by the authors as minor variables: what is the first step that the students complete, how fluent is their work, do they check their work at the end of the process? While these minor variables do not directly evaluate a student's knowledge of chemistry, the results indicate a clear correlation between those students who are &quot;successful&quot; and those students who are &quot;unsuccessful&quot; on a written exam. The data were obtained via observation during think-aloud sessions held in a Midwestern university in the United States of America. The aim of this study is to give educators an understanding of the strategies used by the students as well as provide instructors with visual cues regarding a student's success in problem solving. These problem-solving habits may not directly affect the student's ultimate solution of a single problem, but can indirectly influence their overall performance in either a positive or negative manner.
An Examination of Preservice Primary Teachers' Written Arguments in an Open Inquiry Laboratory Task
Author: McDonald, Christine V.
Date: 2013-09-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Preservice Teachers,Elementary School Teachers,Persuasive Discourse,Chemistry,Inquiry,Active Learning,Science Laboratories,Science Instruction,Content Area Writing,Cognitive Processes,Epistemology,Performance Factors

This study assessed the quality of preservice primary teachers' written arguments in an open inquiry laboratory task. An analysis of the features of the laboratory task was also undertaken to ascertain the characteristics of the task that facilitated or constrained the development of participants' written arguments. Australian preservice primary teachers (n = 12) took part in a chemistry content course incorporating an inquiry oriented learning environment, explicit argumentation instruction, and numerous opportunities to engage in argumentation. Data sources included group written artefacts from an open inquiry laboratory task, and results indicated that two of the three groups failed to produce quality arguments in the written task. Data analysis indicates that a myriad of factors may have mediated groups' argument quality in the laboratory task including the adequacy of individual participants' background science conceptual knowledge, a lack of argumentation scaffolds in the task, the non-provision of alternative data, viewing the data as self-evident, a reliance on traditional reporting genres, and the non-inclusion of critical discussions. The laboratory task included a number of cognitive and epistemological features which were not aligned with authentic scientific inquiry including limited opportunities for extensive data transformation, complex theory-data coordination, utilisation of complex methods, multiple types of reasoning, generalisation of results to other contexts, and engaging in the review of &quot;expert research&quot;. Implications of these findings highlight the importance of scrutinising the inquiry tasks learners engage with, in the chemistry laboratory context, to ensure they promote authentic scientific reasoning.
Implementation of Aquaponics in Education: An Assessment of Challenges and Solutions
Author: Hart, Emily R.
Date: 2013-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Agriculture,Water,Interdisciplinary Approach,Science Education,Qualitative Research,Semi Structured Interviews,Hands on Science,Barriers,School Community Relationship,Science Interests,Expertise,College Faculty,Elementary School Teachers,Secondary School Teachers

Aquaponics is the combination of aquaculture and hydroponic technology to grow fish and plants together. While aquaponics can play a role in food security, it may also be a potential educational tool because of its interdisciplinary nature and required technological skills. With aquaponics, students could conduct activities involving chemistry, physics, biology and sustainability to solidify their understanding of scientific theories. The interdisciplinary nature of aquaponics may make it an appealing tool for science education, yet that same aspect may also make an aquaponics system challenging to implement and manage. Given this paradox, this exploratory research assessed challenges and solutions facing aquaponics in education with a focus on implementation. In-depth interview data were collected through phone interviews with educators (N = 10) who currently, or had in the past five years, used an aquaponics system in educational settings in North America. Participants reported two challenges: technical difficulties as a result of the nature of aquaponics and restrictions as a result of school settings. Solutions given by participants were physical aquaponics system modifications and the development of community connections and support, passion for aquaponics and expertise. These findings will help educators manage their expectations for aquaponics while establishing objectives for their individual settings.
Legitimate Peripheral Participation of Pre-Service Science Teachers: Collaborative Reflections in an Online Community of Practice, Twitter
Author: Kim, Minkee
Date: 2013-09-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Preservice Teachers,Communities of Practice,Social Networks,Telecommunications,Student Participation,Measurement,Participant Characteristics,Citations (References),Preservice Teacher Education

As a key to decide a success or risk of a community of practice, legitimacy of a participant has been conceptually discussed in abundant theoretical literature. Achieving legitimacy is interpreted as gaining credibility from peers, enlarging divisions of labor in a social environment, collecting reinforcement from colleague teachers in the progress model of collaborative reflection, increasing social recognition, and demonstrating leadership. However, there has not been a feasible, empirical measurement of legitimacy, other than measuring a time variable of a novice participant. Hence, this study examined a community of practice developed for a course of school internship. During the 14-week course, the author assisted to implement a community of practice on the social network service--Twitter, working with 28 pre-service teachers and 2 instructors. Findings show that counting citations is a valid measurement of socially-recognized legitimacy identified in branch-shape conversations. Thus, numbers of posted messages and received citations are efficient and valid measurements to categorize the participants into &quot;contributors,&quot; &quot;advisors,&quot; &quot;audiences,&quot; and &quot;silent participants.&quot; Further research questions are discussed in terms of promoting silent participants into contributors along with enhancement of the current method that employs relative z-scores.
Turkish Pre-Service Elementary Science Teachers' Scientific Literacy Level and Attitudes toward Science
Author: Cavas, Pinar Huyuguzel
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Scientific Literacy,Scientific Attitudes,Preservice Teachers,Elementary School Science,Knowledge Level,Predictor Variables,Scientific Principles,Gender Differences,Parent Background,Cohort Analysis,Correlation,Interest Inventories,Science Tests

In order to educate elementary students scientifically literate as expected in the science curricula in many countries around the world, science teachers need to be equipped with the diverse aspects of scientific literacy. This study investigates whether pre-service elementary science teachers at universities in Turkey have a satisfactory level of scientific literacy, and how the level of scientific literacy is affected by different variables, such as attitude toward science, gender, year in university, and education level of parents. The domains of scientific literacy for this study are scientific content knowledge (SCK), nature of science (NOS), and the nature of technology (NOT). The data were collected with the Test of Basic Scientific Literacy (TBSL) and the Scientific Attitude Inventory (SAI-II). The sample consisted of 667 first-year and 405 fourth year pre-service teachers from 10 education faculties in all regional areas in Turkey. The results indicated that pre-service teachers have adequate levels of scientific literacy regardless their gender and year in university. The comparisons illustrated that female students score higher than males, and 4th year students score higher than 1st year students in the TBSL.
How Do High School Science Textbooks in Korea, Japan, and the U.S. Explain Bioaccumulation-Related Concepts?
Author: Kim, Heung-Tae
Date: 2013-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Secondary School Science,High Schools,Textbooks,Scientific Concepts,Textbook Content,Biology,Cross Cultural Studies,Metallurgy,Pollution,Food,Toxicology,Biochemistry,Content Analysis

Although bioaccumulation-related concepts are important scientific knowledge, a study on whether high school textbooks include appropriate explanations has not been conducted. The present study investigated science and biology textbooks from Korea, Japan, and the U.S., focusing on how bioaccumulation-related concepts were defined, what types of bioaccumulative substances were discussed, and the properties of these substances. The textbooks of these countries tended to focus on biomagnification. While the textbooks from Japan and the U.S. present synthetic organic compounds as examples of bioaccumulative substances, metallic substances were used as examples in all Korean textbooks. However, the discussion about the properties of bioaccumulative substances was brief in the textbooks. Moreover, the bioaccumulative properties of metals and organic compounds were not distinguished. The limited explanations in the textbooks might cause students to have misconceptions about the processes of bioaccumulation and bioaccumulative substances, and negative perceptions toward essential trace metals.
Narratives of Place: Provisional Teachers' Experiences in Science
Author: Sexton, Steven S.
Date: 2013-09-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Beginning Teachers,Preservice Teacher Education,Science Education,Science Instruction,Elementary School Teachers,Elementary School Science,Personal Narratives,Teaching Experience,Barriers

Over the past decade, there has been a significant reduction for New Zealand initial teacher education student teachers to experience education through a science context. This paper presents the stories of two graduates from a large New Zealand university and their journeys into the classroom. Richard graduated with a Bachelor of Teaching (Primary Education) and Joy with a Graduate Diploma in Teaching (Primary). Using narratives of place, these two provisionally registered (beginning) teachers discuss why they took science in their initial teacher education programmes and how they are teaching science. Specifically, Richard and Joy discuss what obstacles they faced and how they are overcoming them. Through their narratives, they raise questions, issues and concerns about their practice of teaching that would be beneficial for school leaders not only in education through science but also in the wider primary educational sector.