A Blueprint for Early Care and Education Quality Improvement Initiatives: Final Report

As Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) continue to launch and mature across states, questions emerge from stakeholders about how to design and implement effective quality improvement (QI) initiatives that accompany a QRIS. Funders, policymakers and program developers with limited resources are looking to invest in activities that will be most successful in supporting early care and education (ECE) program quality improvement and ultimately improving outcomes for young children. The purpose of this report is to address questions about effective QI initiatives by proposing a blueprint of quality improvement practices and design considerations generated from a synthesis of the existing research literature and input from national experts in ECE quality improvement

The effects of computerized instruction in intermediate algebra

This study was designed to measure the effects of a reform oriented computer assisted instructional environment R-CAI on community college students\u27 procedural skill acquisition and conceptual understanDing Also examined were the effects of a computerized instructional environment on students\u27 attitudes toward mathematics; The R-CAI involved the use of Prentice Hall\u27s Interactive Mathematics with lessons created to provide opportunities for students to learn within real world contexts. Using these activities, students collected information, analyzed data and applied mathematical concepts; After controlling for initial differences, it was concluded that students taught by the R-CAI environment significantly outperformed students taught by the Traditional Algebra (TA) instructional environment on the Conceptual Tests demonstrating their ability to apply the mathematics within a context. Additionally, the focus on applied mathematical concepts yielded equivalent results on the Procedural Skill Test, hence, procedural skill was not sacrificed for the conceptual understanding gain. The R-CAI students still maintained the same level of procedural skill while surpassing the Traditional Algebra students in conceptual understanding; Lastly, students\u27 attitudes toward mathematics were measured at the beginning and end of the semester. Statistically, the students in the R-CAI environment reported a significant increase in mathematical confidence and a significant decrease in mathematical anxiety at the end of the semester as compared to their initial attitudes toward mathematics. The students in the TA environment yielded no significant difference in attitude toward mathematics

Integrated technologies instructional method to enhance bilingual undergraduate engineering students

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonMathematics permeates almost every aspect of human life and it is a skill much needed by the increasingly complex technological world. It is necessary that this essential skill must be properly developed among students to prepare them for future academic and professional careers. An assessment of the research-based instructional strategies blending with old traditional methods with the modern technological development is a must. Due to the complexity of mathematics learning and the varied learning styles of learners, an integration of appropriate multiple instructional strategies into mathematics education will positively impact mathematical achievement of students. The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of the use of Integrated Technologies Instructional Method (ITIM) as a supplement to the traditional lecture method on mathematics achievement of the Integral Calculus students at the College of Engineering, University of Ha'il, Saudi Arabia. The ITIM includes the four instructional strategies such as the use of the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, the collaborative learning, the bilingual support and the study support. Different types of academic supports have been used to examine their effects on students achievement in mathematics. Mathematics, the bedrock of science and engineering, is considered a very important indicator of a student's academic success in professional higher education. Undergraduate engineering students' low achievement in the first year mathematics is an issue demands much attention. The study was undertaken to address students' weak background in mathematics and particularly their high failure rates in this particular course. A total of 218 undergraduate engineering students, comprising of both the experimental and the control groups, were involved in this experimental design study. The control group was taught by the traditional lecture method whereas the experimental group was exposed to the ITIM as a supplement to the traditional lecture method. Apart from the effects of the use of ITIM, students' performance in the previous courses (covariates) such as mathematics, computer, and the English language were compared with their final grades of the Integral Calculus course. The final grades of students were taken as the dependent variable and the ITIM and students' scores in the previous courses as the independent variables. It has been noticed from the literature review that the application of only one instructional strategy does not address the needs of the diverse learning styles of students. A mixed mode method, quantitative and qualitative, was used to collect and analyse data. The quantitative data instruments included students' final exam grades and the student questionnaires. Interviews with students were used as qualitative tools of data collection. An independent t-test, ANOVA, univariate analysis and the stepwise multiple regression analysis were performed to determine the overall statistical significance. The study concluded that there was a statistically significant difference in the performance of the experimental group of students' in terms of their end-of-course grades compared to that of the control group. The regression model revealed significance of covariates on the dependent variable. However, no significant relationship was found between the mathematics achievement and attitudes towards the use of ITIM. The study was an attempt to demonstrate the suitability of the instructional strategies on the bilingual Arab undergraduate engineering students; however, they can probably be applicable to other bilingual students

Implementation of standard testbeds for numerical relativity

We discuss results that have been obtained from the implementation of the initial round of testbeds for numerical relativity which was proposed in the first paper of the Apples with Apples Alliance. We present benchmark results for various codes which provide templates for analyzing the testbeds and to draw conclusions about various features of the codes. This allows us to sharpen the initial test specifications, design a new test and add theoretical insight.Comment: Corrected versio

How complex is professional academic writing? A corpus-based analysis of research articles in 'hard' and 'soft' disciplines

This study focuses on the analysis of linguistic complexity in professional academic writing in light of the empirical evidence provided by a 1,597,000-word corpus of ‘hard’ (life and physical sciences) and ‘soft’ (arts and social) scientific research articles published in leading peer-review journals. Specifically, this investigation aims both to describe the complexity features of texts written by professional authors and to test the hypothesis that linguistic complexity varies across disciplines. Since previous studies have revealed that automatic complexity indices do not sufficiently succeed in providing a comprehensive description of complexity of texts, in this paper complexity has been measured in two ways: quantitatively through the indexes provided by Lu’s (2010) L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyser, and through the more qualitative analysis of a selection of metrics associated with clausal and phrasal complexity in seminal studies. The data show, first, that syntactic complexity indices (basically, strategies of coordination and subordination) are statistically relevant to the characterisation of specifically the soft-science disciplines; second, that there is a continuum across subdisciplines within the broad distinction of soft versus hard genres; and, third, that the soft genre demonstrates a more stable productivity of clausal-complexity strategies, while phrasal-complexity features are more pervasive in the hard-science subcorpus.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. PID2020-117541GB-I00Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431C 2021/5

Human-machine communication for educational systems design

This book contains the papers presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on the Basics of man-machine communication for the design of educational systems, held August 16-26, 1993, in Eindhoven, The Netherland